iPhone 5s

It looks like there’s really a golden iPhone on the way

The next iPhone is definitely going to come in gold, according to a new report from TechCrunch this evening. The news follows several weeks of reports and purported part leaks suggesting that the iPhone 5S will be offered in the new color.

It's believed that Apple is adding the third color option, in addition to black and white, to its flagship handset line in an effort to differentiate the device from its predecessors. And don't worry, it's said to be more of a 'champagne,' than a gold...

Is this Apple’s gold-colored iPhone 5S rear shell?

We first heard whispers of the iPhone 5S possibly including a bunch of color choices back in January. In the weeks and months leading up to Apple's upcoming September 10 announcement, the colorized iPhone 5S rumors intensified. Yesterday, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo analyst wrote in a note to clients that he has reasons to believe one of the several color choices includes a brand new golden colorway.

A French blog has posted interesting looking pictures which the website claims depict a gold-colored iPhone 5S casing. I've included the image and a few additional details after the break...

Revered analyst calls for iPhone 5S with gold colorway,128GB option

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has sent out a note to investors this evening, updating his previous predictions for Apple's next smartphone. Kuo's track record with Apple product predictions is good, so what he says carries a fair amount of weight.

In the note, Kuo says he is expecting the iPhone 5S to feature the new A7 chip, 1GB of RAM, and a sapphire-covered Home button with a built-in fingerprint sensor—pretty standard stuff. But he also expects a gold colorway and a 128GB storage option...

Gartner makes it official: smartphones are outselling dumb phones

Smartphones - once the preserve for geeky first adopters - are now the norm. You notice the change on the street, on television and now with such traditional research firms as Gartner. Sales of smartphones in the second quarter reached 51.8 percent, compared to an astounding 21 percent decline in feature phones, or dumb phones as they're also called, according to the researcher. At the same time, the Asia/Pacific region marked the highest smartphone growth, reaching to 74 percent...

Another supposed iPhone 5S rear shell shows modified Home button design

Another day, another iPhone "leak". With less than four weeks until Apple's September 10 event, a growing number of purported parts can be seen cropping up all over Asia.

The latest is this genuine looking backplate that shows enough tweaks and modifications not to be easily dismisses as an early iPhone 5 prototype design.

The most interesting bit about it is a slight change in the Home button assembly. It could be just Apple improving reliability of the Home button, but with all the rumors pointing to the fingerprint sensor integrated into the Home button, one never knows...

Joint iPhone 5S, 5C launch could be the most successful in Apple’s history

If you're still scratching your head trying to figure out why high profile investor Carl Icahn just made a [rumored] $1 billion investment in Apple, consider this: the stock is down more than $200 from where it was a year ago, despite any major missteps, and the company is about to have another big fall.

How big? Well rumor has it that Apple is going to unveil two new handsets during its big media event next month. There's the iPhone 5S, the successor to the current iPhone, and the 'iPhone 5C,' an all-new low-cost model. And analysts believe that the two will make for Apple's biggest product launch ever...

Analyst: iPhone 5C may exclude Siri, but will boost margins and attract new sales

For some time, Wall Street investors and Apple watchers have stressed the iPhone maker must adjust to more modest profit margins, as well as a worldwide reality where cheap Android smartphones enable competitors to attract price-conscious consumers. Now comes a voice saying Apple could have it all: a cheap handset, fatter margins and a larger international audience.

By attracting the prepaid market, Apple's much-expected iPhone 5C will do all that by going after a huge pool of prepaid wireless customers that's four times larger than the current U.S. subscribers. Meanwhile, another analysts believes he knows the cheaper iPhone will exclude some features, such as Siri...

Analyst: iPhone 5S fingerprint sensor limited to user authentication, secure payments due in 2014

The upcoming iPhone 5S revision, likely slated for an announcement at Apple's upcoming September 10 media event, is widely expected to include the fingerprint scanning feature based on Apple's 2012 acquisition of smart sensor experts AuthenTec.

Now, there's been a lot of uncertainty as to what software features the smart sensor might support.

According to a research note issued late yesterday to clients, an analyst predicted the feature would be initially used to authenticate users in place of the iOS slide-to-unlock feature because rumored secure payments which are dependent on the smart sensor won't be ready in time for the iPhone 5S introduction...

Bloomberg weighs in on upcoming iPads and iPhones

With less than a month until Apple's September 10 iPhone event, Bloomberg has scanned the blogs and talked to its unnamed sources in an effort to dig up some previously unknown "facts" about Apple's upcoming iPhone and iPad refreshes.

Now, stop me if you've heard this before, but much of Bloomberg's reporting centers around a thinner and lighter iPad 5 with iPad mini style design.

Where it gets interesting, however, is a claim that Apple also plans to introduce a Retina iPad mini this year rather than in 2014...

Low fingerprint sensor yields may cause iPhone 5S availability issues

With Apple's September 10 media event now all but confirmed and the iPhone 5S fingerprint sensor rumors reaching fever pitch, the somewhat reliable Taiwanese trade publication DigiTimes warns the handset could be initially in scarce supply due to low yield rates of a brand new delicate component, the fingerprint sensor.

The report mentions that the world's largest independent semiconductor foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is building these tiny sensors Apple secured after buying the leader in this field, Israeli-based AuthenTec, a year ago. Due to the fingerprint sensor manufacturing challenges, Apple could only put 3-4 million iPhone 5S units on sale in the third quarter versus the original ten million units target...

Jim Dalrymple confirms Apple’s September 10 iPhone event

Boom, just like that an independent and unambiguous confirmation of Apple's rumored iPhone-focused media event, apparently due in less than a month, has now arrived.

You'll remember that two days ago AllThingsD was first to claim that Tim Cook & Co. will take the wraps off of a next-generation iPhone at a media event on September 10.

AllThingsD is a Wall Street Journal blog which rarely publishes unconfirmed rumors, but despite its aura of credibility it's always nice receiving an independent confirmation of a major rumor like this. Monday, The Loop's Jim Dalrymple has thrown its proverbial 'yep' behind the AllThingsD rumor, all but confirming the September 10 event...

Alleged iPhone 5S glass wedge part with dual-LED flash hole surfaces

Apple's upcoming iPhone 5 refresh, the iPhone 5S, is expected to further appease to iPhone photographers by increasing the back iSight camera resolution from eight megapixels on the current model all the way up to twelve megapixels.

Pixel count matters but there's more to photography than megapixels (hint: more powerful LED flash).

Apple is thought to be giving the iPhone 5S a dual-LED flash module, a first for the iPhone. The technology should allow for improved low-light shooting and more natural looking photographs, especially those taken under artificial light.

The French blog NowhereElse.fr on Monday published a photo showing what looks like a back iPhone part - the top glass strip to be precise, with a taller LED flash hole next to the iSight camera hole...