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Poll: what’s this square thing inside the iPhone 5 for?

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 25, 2016

A set of four new high-quality photographs have emerged, seemingly depicting the complete front assembly of Apple's next iPhone, due for unveiling at a San Francisco media event next Wednesday. These new images provide a detailed look at a square chip which leaked earlier and prompted pundits to speculate that it houses a Near-Field Communications (NFC) sensor, later debunked by the eagle-eyed experts over at AnandTech.

One of the theories has it that this thing is a fingerprint sensor, based on Apple's hasty $356 million acquisition of smart sensor maker AuthenTec. There are other possible answers to this mystery and I couldn't help myself collecting all the plausible possibilities in an amusing poll, included right below...

Samsung’s killing it, announces 20 million Galaxy S III sales in 100 days

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 16, 2018

Apple's biggest components supplier and the fiercest competitor in smartphones and tablets, South Korea-based Samsung, today announces that it has sold a whopping 20 million units of its flagship Galaxy S III handset, unveiled on May 3 and backed by a massive advertising campaign.

That's a marked achievement, even by Apple's standards, one that proves that Samsung's device has become the most serious contender to Apple's iPhone in just three months. Can Samsung sell 30 million units by year's end and, more importantly, will Apple with a little help of its next iPhone re-take the title of America's best-selling smartphone?

Bloomberg says no new Apple TV products in 2012

Cody Lee ∙ September 6, 2012

Despite the lack of evidence, some pundits still maintain that an Apple television set is coming. In fact, just last month analyst Peter Misek told investors that an Apple HDTV was already in production.

There's also been some recent chatter that the company's working with cable companies on a set-top box. But according to a new report, we won't be seeing any new TV products from Apple this year...

New photos of purported iPad mini shell surface

Cody Lee ∙ September 6, 2012

It's not known for sure whether Apple will unveil its smaller tablet during next week's event, or at a separate gig in October. But according to a long line of reports from credible sources, it's coming.

And as the anticipated launch inches closer, more and more claimed parts have begun to surface. Tonight, we've come across photos of what is believed to be a legitimate iPad mini shell...

Insiders say Amazon could unveil smartphone tomorrow

Cody Lee ∙ September 5, 2012

We're nearing the end of the two-week run of product announcements leading up to Apple's iPhone event. Last week, Samsung unveiled its Galaxy Note 2. And today, both Nokia and Motorola showed off new hardware.

Tomorrow, Amazon will play the final opening act with a media event in Los Angeles, where it's expected to unveil a handful of new Kindle tablets. But according to a new report, it may have a few surprises up its sleeves...

Android marches: 480M devices, 1.3M daily activations, 70,000 tablets per day

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 5, 2012

Google chairman Eric Schmidt shared some headline-grabbing updates related to the Android platform during today's unveiling of the refreshed Razr family by Motorola Mobility, now a Google division. Most notably, we learned that Google now counts a whopping 480 million Android devices in the wild.

That's a cool 80 million units improvement over a total of 400 million activations announced at Google I/O on June 27-28 of this year. Yes, Android smartphones and tablets collectively outsell all iOS devices combined. Afraid? Don't be, Google actually beat Apple on that metric back in June.

Daily activations surged from a million Android devices back in June to today's number of 1.3 million daily activations. No matter how you look at it, that's a very, very impressive figure, one proving there's no shelter from the Android carpet bombing. But what about tablets?

Casio announces new iPhone-compatible G-Shock watch

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

One of the latest accessory crazes to hit the mobile industry are smartwatches — wearable computers that share data with smartphones. There's the Pebble, the Meta Watch, and now Casio has one.

Casio announced a new addition to its G-Shock line today — arguably one of the most recognizable wristwatch lines in the world. It has built-in Bluetooth, and can talk directly to the iPhone...

New photos compare thickness of next-gen iPhone and iPhone 4

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

With just a week left to go until Apple unveils its new smartphone, the next-gen iPhone leaks are in full swing. Yesterday, we saw pictures of the handset's battery. And today, this.

A repair firm has just uploaded photos of a nearly fully assembled iPhone 5 laying next to an iPhone 4. And the shots give us a good idea of just how thin the device is going to be...

Adobe Photoshop Touch goes Retina, gets 12-megapixel canvas

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 18, 2018

Adobe today issued Photoshop Touch for iPad version 1.3, a major update that finally brings the much-needed Retina graphics to do away with fuzzy user interface elements on the third-generation iPad. Also new in Photoshop Touch 1.3 are two additional image effects called Shred and Colorize and a new pixel nudging mode for precise movements.

It now supports Apple's Photo Stream, an iCloud feature that keeps up to a thousand most recent photos in sync across your devices. Most importantly, Photoshop Touch 1.3 finally supports bigger canvas and up to twelve-megapixel images on the iPad 3 (ten-megapixel on the iPad 2).

As is the norm with software release, the app also sports various bug fixes and minor improvements, including a snappier interface and faster animations...

Deceptive advertising: Nokia admits to faking the PureView ad

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 7, 2016

Nokia has always been the smartphone imaging king so no wonder the ailing cell phone giant emphasized advanced camera capabilities as the headline feature of its new flagship Lumia 920 smartphone, launched earlier today.

PureView technology debuted last year on Nokia's Symbian-driven PureView 808 handset. It's based on a pixel oversampling technique which reduces an image taken at full resolution into a lower resolution variant in order to enable lossless zoom and improve light sensitivity and crispness.

Though the new Lumia 920 only has a 8,x-megapixel sensor versus a whopping 41-megapixel on the PureView 808, it still takes in five times more light than other camera phones and taps image signal processor for some cool image stabilization technology (the iPhone 4S also does that).

Unfortunately, Nokia has gone too far in promoting PureView's ability to stabilize shaky video, as proven by its latest commercial...

Motorola unveils new flagship handset: the Droid Razr HD

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

Motorola just wrapped up its "On Display" event in New York City, and as expected, it had some new hardware to show off. The company unveiled the Droid Razr HD, the Droid Razr Maxx HD, and the Droid Razr M.

With a subsidized price of $99, the Razr M is the cheaper of the three handsets. It has a 4.3-inch display and runs on Verizon's LTE network. Then there were the stars of the show: the Razr HD and Razr Maxx HD...

Google Drive iOS app to gain native editing capabilities

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 5, 2012

Google earlier today accidentally (or intentionally, perhaps?) published a post meant to accompany an upcoming update to its Drive cloud storage client for iOS and Android devices. The new version, which should go live in just a few days, brings with it the ability to edit documents right inside the app, making the app much more useful, especially to avid Google Docs users who keep their presentations, spreadsheets and documents in the Google cloud.

Previously, there was no way to natively edit your Google documents in-app. You can always edit your documents online via the Safari browser, but that experience is not satisfactory due to sluggishness and the clumsy interface that lacks full capabilities of its desktop counterpart.

The updated iOS client should also let you view Google presentations on the device. Full changelog, courtesy of the Google cache, is right after the break...