James Cull

A new iPhone market forecast by KGI Securities predicts "substantial shipments growth" starting in August and supports the flood of rumors about a new, lower-cost "iPhone 5C", which is widely speculated to be released sometime in September. The report by Ming-Chi Kuo, who has a solid track record when it comes to Apple rumors, highlights five key trends for the upcoming few months: - The...

Primate Labs has announced on its blog that it has released Geekbench 3 – the first major update to the popular benchmarking service since 2007. This third iteration of Geekbench features 15 completely new benchmark tests that are designed to mimic real-world processor tasks, such as image and signal processing, encryption, and physics simulation that aim to give a more accurate score of...

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple appears to be ramping up its hiring in China, with over 250 currently open positions posted on the company's website. Alongside the usual positions of retail specialists and store leaders (there are currently 8 Apple Stores in China in the major cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Shenzhen), Apple is hiring for a number of technical and...

A newly-published patent application from Apple (via AppleInsider) describes a method to allow users to "gift" media content purchased via iTunes and from their own libraries to other users through near-field communication (NFC), suggesting that the technology may eventually find a way onto iOS devices in the near future. The patent, which was filed back in March of this year and stretches over a ...

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today published an Apple patent application (via AppleInsider) covering an idea for flexible headphone connectors to avoid plug breakage and accidental equipment damage – a common complaint of many users. The patent application, which was first filed back in June 2011 and lists Albert Golko, an iPhone and iPad product development engineering manager at Apple,...

Reuters reports that recent talks between China Mobile and Apple have been progressing smoothly and that the two sides are positive about reaching an possible agreement, according to the company's chairman Xi Guohua. Mr Xi told Reuters that "both sides sounded keen" during recent talks, which have been ongoing since the start of 2011. Of the three Chinese carriers, China Mobile is the only one ...

The latest earnings report by Tencent, a Chinese Internet giant, has revealed that the cross-platform instant messaging service WeChat and its counterpart Weixin have hit a combined high of 235.8 million users monthly, an increase of 176.8% year-on-year. WeChat's usage figure is just shy of that of WhatsApp, which exceeded 300 million monthly users last month and is currently the world's most...

Following its announcement a couple of weeks ago, British carrier O2 has now detailed the costs of its 4G tariffs on its website, with airtime plans starting from £22 (around $34) monthly. The plans, which all include unlimited calling minutes and texts to any British network, include either 1 GB, 3 GB or 5 GB of data, with extra available to users who sign up before the end of October.Customers...

The Obama administration has vetoed a partial ban on the import and sale of some Apple products which was granted back in June in response to a ruling made by the USITC (United States International Trade Commission). The ban, which applied to AT&T models of the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS, and the 3G models of the iPad and the iPad 2, was granted after the USITC found that the aforementioned products ...

Ukraine-based developers Readdle are offering up to 70% discount off their iOS applications for both the iPhone and iPad as part of their sixth birthday celebrations. The team is behind some of the most popular productivity devices for iOS devices, including Documents, PDF Expert and Scanner Pro. The price drops are valid for the next 48 hours, after which all the applications will revert...

According to BlackBerryOS.com, the beta version of BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) has started rolling out in the Beta Zone for Android and iOS devices. The Beta Zone, which is similar to Apple's Developer Center, started sending out the invites to select registered users today, with more expected to follow in the coming days and weeks. BlackBerryOS.com has also leaked several screenshots of the...

O2 has become the second British carrier alongside EE to announce high-speed 4G services, which are due to be launched at the end of the month. The rollout, which will initially cover London, Leeds and Bradford, will start on August 29, with a further 10 cities due to be added by the end of the year. 4G price plans will start from around £26 ($39) a month and O2 is already offering several...

As revealed in dozens of new job postings on its website, Apple is once again looking to improve its much-criticized Maps application by increasing the size of its team dedicated to verifying mapping data. The postings are for "ground truth" local experts and regional managers in a number of different locations around the world, including several in the United States, Brazil, Japan, the United...

FileMaker Inc, a subsidiary of Apple, has announced in a statement that it will stop offering Bento, the consumer-friendly version of its popular Mac and iOS database software, in order to focus on its flagship FileMaker product line.FileMaker, Inc. is increasing its focus on FileMaker Product Line software. Thanks to the ease of creating iPad and iPhone solutions, our customers' use of FileMaker ...

The rumors about the new "plastic" iPhone (may be called the iPhone 5C, according to a recent leak) have been ramping up over the past couple of days, and now an enterprising case manufacturer has released a set of "iPhone 5C" cases on Amazon.com (via Nowhereelse.fr). The three cases, which are available in black, navy, and white, appear to be in line with low-cost iPhone dimensions that...

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has rejected claims by Apple that Samsung Electronics infringed on its "pinch-to-zoom" patent – one of the decisive claims in the ongoing litigations between the two tech giants. The patent, No. 7,844,915, was first filed back in November 2010 and described, "an environment with user interface software interacting with a software application". ...

A picture posted on the Chinese microblogging site Weibo appears to show the rear of an assembled low-cost iPhone, complete with the required legal notices from the FCC and other agencies. The image was noticed by Dutch Apple site iPhone5Skopen.com [Google Translate].The unit shown appears to be almost identical to the rear shell that was leaked a few days ago, though this is one of the first...

The next-generation iPhone will launch on September 6th, according to German Apple website iFun [Google Translate]. The site does not have a significant track record with this sort of prediction, however. Earlier this week, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said the low-cost iPhone and the iPad 5 would ship in early September with the iPhone 5S coming later because of production...

T-Mobile, the fourth-most popular carrier in the United States in terms of subscriber numbers, announced today that it is launching a new promotion whereby any new, eligible customers will not have pay a single cent in downpayment for a new phone when signing up to a T-Mobile USA plan. Customers can now receive new devices for free and spread the cost over the terms of their contract, which in...

A report from the China Times (cited on the Japanese website Mac Otakara) predicts an October launch for an updated MacBook Pro model featuring Intel's new Haswell processors, which are already present in the new MacBook Airs, released last month at Apple's annual WWDC event. The report cites sources in Apple's lengthy supply chain and suggests that the new models will remain the same price as...