iPhone 7 and 7 Plus: Everything you need to know

At long last, the iPhone 7 is here. At the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, Apple continued its traditional naming structure with the introduction of the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus. We’ve been playing around with the upcoming iOS 10 operating system in beta for the better part of two months, and the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus will ship with the new OS (read more about iOS 10 here), but we were excited to learn more about the actual phones.
Here’s everything you need to know about the new iPhones, and trust us, there’s a lot of interesting changes.

Waterproof design and durability

The iPhone 7 and the 7 Plus aren’t part of Apple’s major update cycle — you’ll have to wait for next year’s model for that, and of course rumors are already abound — but they do have some awesome new abilities.
Both the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are (finally!) water- and dust-resistant (IP67), meaning you’re free to get them wet without worry. That means you’ll be able to take either of them underwater for about 30 minutes, up to 1 meter deep.

Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/apple-iphone-7-news-2-2/#ixzz4KGTz6Bsy

Apple iPhone 7 review

Curved wraparound screen? Nope. Wireless charging? Not yet. Are you bothered that the new iPhone looks the same as last year's iPhone? If you are, I understand the feeling. The iPhone 7 doesn't feel like the "whole new thing." Does that bother you? Maybe. But is it better? Yeah, it is. Except for one small 3.5-millimeter thing.
The iPhone 7, as you may have heard (you've certainly heard), has no headphone jack and it looks almost identical to the 2014 iPhone 6 and 2015 iPhone 6S. But there are still compelling reasons to consider an iPhone 7, even if you own last year's model.

• The iPhone 7 is now fully water-resistant (it can take a shallow dunking).
• The camera takes notably better photos, especially in low light, and adds the optical image stabilization feature previously restricted to the 5.5-inch Plus model.
• The battery lasts longer -- probably a couple of hours or more a day, under normal usage. (We'll update this review after we test the battery in our lab.)
• Continue reading..........
  

Apple’s New Marketing Plan: Screw the Police

What does it say about the state of Americans’ relationship with their own government that its largest tech company can use the ability to conceal private information from authorities as a selling point?
Apple isn’t really focusing on marketing its latest mobile operating system that way (they’re more about bragging about how they don't sell info about your personal habits to advertisers), but they aren't shy about pointing out their resistance to rolling over and accepting government data demands. Observant tech journalists have noticed something big in their latest privacy notes. Apple has changed its encryption so that the company itself cannot access the data on its users’ phones and iPads without the passcode. Thus, if police or the feds come to Apple with warrants to grab potentially useful private data off a device, they couldn’t comply even if they wanted to. Ars Technica explains:

If law enforcement came to Apple with a seized device and a valid warrant, it was able to access a substantial portion of the data already on an iPad or iPhone. But under the latest version of iOS, even that will be impossible.
"On devices running iOS 8, your personal data such as photos, messages (including attachments), email, contacts, call history, iTunes content, notes, and reminders is placed under the protection of your passcode," the company wrote on its website Wednesday evening. "Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data. So it's not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8."

To be clear, though, this is not perfect protection. The Washington Post notes
that this won’t protect data stored elsewhere, like on cloud services. So as certain naked celebrities have recently learned, if there’s stuff on your phones or iPads you don’t want other people getting their hands on, maybe don’t send it up to the cloud.

Millions of Android Phones Could Be Affected by the Heartbleed Bug. Check to See if Yours Is One of Them

Disturbing news: The now-infamous Heartbleed security flaw might reach further than your favorite websites. It could affect your mobile device, too.

According to an announcement by Google, smartphones and tablets running a specific version of Android were affected by the widespread web security bug, which could potentially spill your sensitive login information (like passwords).

The company assured Android owners in a blog post April 9 that most versions are not affected by the flaw. However, as Bloomberg notes, Google added that a version called 4.1.1 Jelly Bean is a “limited exception.”

That version of Android was released in 2012 and is likely to be running on older Android smartphones. According to the most recent statistics released by Google, about 34 percent of Android devices use a version of the 4.1 Jelly Bean software. Though the company said that fewer than 10 percent of devices in use are vulnerable, a Google spokesperson confirmed to Bloomberg that millions of devices still run 4.1.1 Jelly Bean. 

So how can you check to see if your device is affected? You’ll need to go to the Settings menu of your phone and find your way to the About Phone section. There you’ll be able to learn what version of Android you’re running and see if any updates are available.

There’s also a free Android app available that will tell you if your device is vulnerable to the bug.

Whether there is an immediate update to patch this bug is still unclear. Google’s blog post says that “patching information for Android 4.1.1 is being distributed to Android partners.” A Verizon spokesperson told Bloomberg that the company was aware of the “security vulnerability referred to as ‘Heartbleed,’ ” and that the company was “working with our device manufacturers to test and deploy patches to any affected device on our network running Android 4.1.1.”

We’ve reached out to Google for comment. In the meantime, fingers crossed that you’re not affected.

Knock Off iPhone Charger Sends User To The Hospital ** Warning Graphic Images**

Minnesota - A Minnesota man's phone charger lands him a weeklong stay at the hospital. 
Tim Tyrell needed a new charger for his iPhone so he turned to eBay.
The popular retail site sells knockoff chargers for a fraction of the cost of an apple original.
Tyrell was reaching for his charging phone when a jolt tripped the circuit breaker, destroying the charger and exploding in his hands.
Tyrell recalls, "basically the charger turned black and it's where the USB cord connects to the outlet had a little mini explosion.  It kind of bruised the fingers inside where I plugged it in."
So far Tyrell has undergone three surgeries and has been in the hospital for more than a week.
To complicate things even further, he's a diabetic which slowed his recovery. 
Tyrell advice is to "just be careful.  I mean obviously I've been in here for a week and probably have to gone in for my fourth operation tomorrow. Just be careful."
Apple warns customers of the potential dangers that can arise from using counterfeit chargers and accessories.

Read more: http://www.myfoxtampabay.com
 

Leaked iPhone 6 Air Photos Appear To Show New Design In All Its Thin, Rounded Glory

You might not want to sleep through September this year. Rumor has it that's when the new iPhone 6 is set for release.
And, if the leaked images featured on French site Nowwhereelse.fr are to be believed, the gadget rumored to be called the iPhone Air is gonna be a real beaut. Take a look:

The photos show a thinner, rounder design that's almost reminiscent of the HTC One. Perhaps most notably, the phone's screen finally reaches the edges of its body. The pictures match up pretty well with a leaked image found on Mac Rumors, but considering the phone hasn't even been announced yet, our advice is to take all of this with a grain of salt.
It's hard to say what other changes will come with this latest model, or if these images are accurate, but another recent concept design from Sam Beckett, a British designer with an eerily good track record of predicting what the next iPhone will look like, also forecasts a thinner iPhone 6 with a 4.7-inch screen. (That's slightly larger than the 4-inch screen of previous models.)
However, this is seemingly contradictory to recent rumors from Business Insider and Barron's, which both reported talk of not one, but two new iPhones, one with a 4.7-inch screen and one with a 5.5-inch screen.
The only thing that's certain, Apple fans, is that rumors abound in the Land of the iPhones. Keep your eyes peeled for more information as the release date looms closer.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com

New mystery and controversy surrounds the iPhone 6

New mystery and controversy surround the iPhone 6

Evidence continues to mount that Apple’s next-generation iPhone 6 will include at least a few big “firsts.” It will supposedly be the first new iPhone to include a larger display that actually benefits users (as we noted when reviewing the iPhone 5, the handset’s taller 4-inch screen didn’t really offer much of an advantage to users over the iPhone 4′s 3.5-inch panel). It will also likely be the first device to feature Apple’s new A8 processor as well as several other new key components. Beyond that, it seems more and more likely that the iPhone 6 will be the first mass-market cell phone to feature a sapphire crystal display cover — but where is all that sapphire going to come from?

Apple’s move to a sapphire front panel isn’t confirmed by any means, but it certainly looks like that will be the case. Beyond Apple’s investment in sapphire maker GT Advanced, an executive from Gorilla Glass maker Corning basically had a fit trying to convince the world that sapphire is a horrible material to cover a smartphone screen. He definitely sounded like an exec who just lost a good amount of business.

We also recently saw a report suggesting that Apple has everything it needs to make more than 100 million sapphire iPhone screen covers. That seems like more than enough to take care of the iPhone 6 during its launch quarter — the company’s current quarterly iPhone sales record sits at 51 million — but a new report suggests Apple’s big GT Advanced bet doesn’t quite have the legs some industry watchers thought it would.

“US-based GT Advanced Technologies (GTAT) is setting up a factory in Arizona for exclusive supply of sapphire to Apple, with the factory to be able to meet only 9.0-16.6% of demand for sapphire used in screen covers of a new-generation iPhone in 2014,” Digitimes Research analyst Jessie Lin wrote in a report on Friday. “The estimation is based on GTAT’s forecast sales of US$188-348 million from sapphire material (not including sapphire crystal growing equipment and technology).”

The research notes that average production cost of a 4-inch sapphire wafer is $30, and the group used a 5-inch wafer size when calculating its estimates. The iPhone 6 is rumored to have a 4.7-inch display and will therefore need a sapphire panel larger than 4.7 inches to cover its face.

The group estimates that Apple will ship 70 million next-generation iPhone 6 handsets this year, so it says GT Advanced’s sapphire yield will cover 16.6% of them at most.

Of note, 9to5Mac thinks that Digitimes Research’s estimates are way off, and the cost of producing each sapphire wafer for the iPhone 6 actually sits at about $6.40.

More from BGR: 5 fantastic new iOS 7.1 features you have to try out right now

This article was originally published on BGR.com