Full disclosure: We've been seeing the gold iPhone rumors for weeks now, but have largely been brushing them aside. Fake Apple rumors are as easy to come by as tangled EarPod cords this close to a new product launch, and this one in particular seemed too outlandish, too... tacky. But gold iPhone reports have reached that saturation point where they can't be ignored anymore. Especially considering how much sense it all makes.

Gold Pieces

Patient Zero for the gold iPhone rumor appears to be an obscure Japanese parts shop called Moumantai, which posted images of a purported gold iPhone 5S nano-SIM tray

The leak was easy enough to dismiss; Apple parts are frequently aped by third parties, and this was back in April, well before the iPhone rumor mill started up in earnest. And, again, a gold iPhone seemed like too extreme a departure.

It was easy to dismiss, and so people dismissed it, just as they dismissed a June report from sometimes-reliable (they were the first to say the iPad mini would be called that) Japanese blog Macotakara that a gold iPhone was en route. Then again, it seems like Macotakara may have just been going off of a BGR report that showed the same leaked gold nano-SIM tray as before.

See? Not much to go on. Until August came around.

On August 8th, a third-party parts supplier called Luna Commerce published the following images of components apparently built for a "champagne"-colored iPhone:

Again, third-party suppliers are notoriously unreliable; these could be knock-off parts in anticipation of a gold iPhone, or just a publicity grab.

Component leaks, the ones that turn out to be accurate, have a momentum to them. They trickle, then they flood. Right now, with the gold iPhone, we're somewhere in between. But parts are just part of the equation.

Where your ears really start to perk up on Apple rumors are when people with excellent Apple track records start weighing in. That's worth more than any number of easily faked parts. And this past week, that chatter has escalated to the point where you can't ignore it anymore. Rene Ritchie of iMore-who was more on top of last year's iPhone and iPad mini release than anybody-suggested last week that he'd heard that a gold iPhone was coming from various sources. MG Siegler, whom it should be noted currently works for competitor Google Ventures, has described the gold iPhone as a certainty.

There's not enough to go on here that says a gold iPhone will definitely appear on Sept. 10th alongside the budget iPhone 5c. But when you take it in combination of Apple's past-and future-it starts to make perfect sense.

All That Doesn't Glitter

There's a sense that a gold iPhone would be too extreme a departure for Apple, a company that's held fast to its black and white iDichotomy for as long as anyone can remember. That's false. In fact, an injection of color is precisely what Apple would do at a time like this.

When the iPhone 5 was released, the overwhelming criticism was that it was boring. And it's true, it was. But it was boring in a way that worked distinctly to Apple's advantage. It was a departure from the iPhone 4/4S, but in a way that it was still very recognizably an iPhone. That's important when you're selling a smartphone as status symbol.

If the iPhone 5 was boring, the iPhone 5S will put you in a coma. By all accounts-and by pure logic, given Apple's obsession with supply chain efficiencies-it will look exactly the same as the iPhone 5. It will probably add a fingerprint scanner, a feature not immediately visible and not likely to be used by most of Apple's customers. Otherwise, it will by outward appearances be the exact same phone.

That's a problem, if you're Apple, and not one solved by an infusion of the cheaper, colorful iPhone 5c. An iPhone 5S in a new color, though? That's a clear and present way to show that you've got the best, the latest, the most expensive. In an age when smartphones are increasingly commoditized, a new iPhone is one of the few ways to stand out in a crowd. Apple knows this. Or at least, desperately hopes that it's still true.

It happened with the iPod touch. It happened with the iPod. It happened with desktop Macs. And it'll happen with the iPhone.

But Why Gold?

S A new color, sure. That makes perfect sense. But gold? Surely Apple has better taste than that. Right? Perhaps not surprisingly, wrong.

Let's start with precedent. We think of Apple as having an aesthetic beyond reproach, but they're more than capable of the rare misfire. A company that's capable of unleashing this iMac on the world is capable of anything:

Even beyond that, though, Apple's dallied very specifically with gold before. If you blinked you might have missed it, but for a brief period the original iPod mini was offered in a color much like the one we might expect to see from the gold iPhone.

There are two useful takeaways from the gold iPod mini. The first is that it's not gold in the Scrooge McDuckian sense. It might more charitably be described as champagne. Which is still not to say it's particularly attractive, but hey.

The second takeaway is that the gold iPod mini was yanked from shelves earlier than its compatriots, and that the color never again appeared in an Apple product. In other words: No one bought it.

But a lot has changed since 2004, and the iPhone is not the iPod mini.

Assuming we're correct that Apple has decided that it needs to breathe new life into the iPhone line-but at minimal risk to itself-it turns out that gold is a perfectly natural choice from an efficiency standpoint. As iMore explains:

According to our own Ally Kazmucha, who's no stranger to the process, gold is among the easiest colors to anodize onto an iPhone. It involves simple chemical reaction, with the possible addition of dye depending on the exact color they want to produce.

So! A gold iPhone can be achieved without a tremendous amount of strain on Apple's supply chain. That's a start. But even more important might be that a gold iPhone would be targeting an entirely different set of buyers.

Wagons East

The fact is, if Apple's making a gold iPhone-which, again, is still in doubt!-it doesn't care if you buy one. Not unless you happen to live in the most populous country in the world. The gold iPhone, if it exists, is Apple's love letter to China.

Apple's had some success in China over the last several years, but its influence is waning. In July, the company reported (PDF) that its revenues from China had fallen 14 percent year over year, and nearly by half between Q2 and Q3 of this year. Why the drop? According to Simon Cousins, CEO of China-focused PR and communications company Illuminant, it's lost its cache.

"Most Chinese customers who would desire an iPhone already have one," explained Cousins, "and many have moved onto the Galaxy Note" and other phablet-type devices. Samsung has nearly 20 percent of China's smartphone market, while Apple is lingering at less than 5 percent. The biggest market in the world, and they're barely registering.

In fact, the success Apple has had in China has been almost in spite of itself; black and white are generally colors to avoid there as they seem overly funereal. Novelty matters nearly as much as status. The iPhone is many things, but it is no longer novel, and it is only black and white.

Gold, though? According to Cousins, "there's no other color you can choose."

That's because while many urban Chinese consumers might-as we may here-see a gold iPhone as tacky or nouveau riche, those people already have iPhones. Or have at least considered them. But, as Cousins told us, there's a huge untapped market for Apple that would find gold incredibly appealing:

"A ton of different colors have different meanings at different times of the year, but nothing trumps gold as a symbol of wealth and privilege. I would think that Apple's looking at first-time iPhone users... in rural or remote areas, in smaller cities."

For hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers who may not have considered an iPhone before, a gold iPhone 5S would offer a compelling combination of novelty and prestige. If the more affordable iPhone 5c doesn't get their attention, surely this would.

Waiting Game

So does a gold iPhone 5S make sense? Sure! At least, it doesn't make any less sense than other recent Apple rumors that have panned out. It seems like the right time to introduce a new color. Gold is practical both from a manufacturing and sales standpoint. And uglier things have come out of the Cupertino braintrust without too much fallout.

What's important to remember if the gold iPhone does appear is that it doesn't matter what you think of it. It's not for you. But it could be the door to making Apple dominant in one of the only parts of the world that's managed to spurn its advances so far.    

Apple has finally revealed its new iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C.

The first one is iPhone 5C which will replace the existing iPhone 5. The iPhone 5C gets most of the iPhone 5 tech but with new design and more color options.



The 5C comes in five colors- yellow, green, pink, blue and white, all will have black front. We have already seen these in leaked images before.




Coming to the hardware specs, the iPhone 5C uses same A6 processor as the iPhone 5, it comes with same 4 inch retina display.




Full Specs of iPhone -

Apple A6 processor
4″ Retina Display
8MP iSight Camera with BSI sensor, Hybrid IR filter and 5 element lens
Facetime HD camera
LTE, 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0
iOS 7

The price for iPhone 5C will be $99 for 16GB and $199 for 32GB version with a 2 year contract.

Google Nexus 7 2013 edition which was announced last month is now available in LTE version on Google Play Store in USA.

Till now the new Nexus 7 was available in 16GB and 32GB Wi-Fi variants for $229 and $269 from Play Store in the USA, now the 32GB LTE version is also available for $349.




The Nexus 7 2013 LTE model comes unlocked but includes a T-Mobile SIM card. It will be available from T-Mobile stores also from next month.

Nexus 7 2013 specs -

7″ Full HD IPS Display
Android 4.3 Jelly Bean OS
Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Quad-core Krait processor
2GB RAM
16/32GB storage
5MP rear camera with Full HD video recording
1.2MP front facing camera
optional 3G/4G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, Wireless charging
3950mAh battery    

The iPhone 5S is made of high-grade aluminum with chamfered edges and comes in three colors – Gold, Silver and Black.




It comes with faster Apple A7 processor which is first 64 bit chip to be used on a smartphone. The new iOS 7 uses 64 bit architecture including all Apple apps. The processor is said to be over twice as fast as A6 processor and Graphics are said to be up to 56x faster. The new GPU supports OpenGL ES 3.0 also.

Camera-

The 5S comes with a new iSight five-element Apple lens with f/2.2 aperture and 15% larger sensor. It uses 15micron pixel size for better image quality. While taking images, it takes multiple pictures and picks the sharpest of them.

The flash is dual-LED with two tones – cool white and warm amber, the camera combines both to balance the color tone when using flash.
The camera can also capture slow motion videos at 720p resolution and 120fps. It captures panorama pictures at up to 28MP resolution.

Touch ID -

As rumored, the iPhone 5S comes with a finger print reader and the feature is called Touch ID. The Touch ID sensor which is built into ring around home button senses at 500 ppi and even scans your sub-epidermal skin layers.



Touching the home button will unlock the phone, using the fingerprint scanner. The fingerprint is safe, not saved on Apple servers or available to other apps.

Pricing

The iPhone 5C will be priced at $199, $299 and $399 for the 16GB , 32GB and 64GB version respectively on a 2 year contract. It will go on pre-order on September 13th and on sale on September 20th in US, Australia, Canada, etc. Other countries will get it by December 2013.

5 Ways Smartphones Are Ruining Lives

Are you attached at the hop to your smartphone? Let’s check – you have a religious routine of checking your smartphones before going to sleep, even holding it sometimes only to wake up by its shrill alarm in the morning and check for new messages.
As much as you have grown to cultivate a dependence on the smartphone, it has also crept into your lives in a sense that renders it far more harmful than useful to an avid user. And for that, MensXP brings you five of the biggest reasons why this technological boon is turning out to be a bane for addictive users.

1. Sleep Deprivation

Image Credit: Shutterstock
It’s already past two in the morning and you are still midway into a conversation with your loved-one on WhatsApp. You are also listening to some music over the headphones to combat the sleep you are getting. You are not alone. Survey suggests more than 66% of people sleep with their smartphones and a majority of those are constantly awake or in a state of semi-awakened state due to the constant notifications on their phone. A rising risk, this has started to affect the user’s daily routine as well as proven to be harmful to a user in the long run.

2. Attention Deficit

Image Credit: Shutterstock
You just sent a message through your smartphone a while back, and you check to see the delivery report after five minutes. Ten minutes later you check again to see if that person has replied. You diligently do so over and over again until you aren’t satisfied. Smartphones and its connectivity has become a distracting trait for everyone, and the distractions have degenerated users in various ways. Besides being a constant nagging source, smartphones are known to diminish concentration levels among users who check it often.

3. Fatigue

Image Credit: Shutterstock
Smartphone addiction, now a legitimate term, has been observed among various teenagers who have unfortunately been bitten by the smartphone bug. Using the smartphones for a prolonged time is known to affect user’s vision leading to headaches, fatigue and Asthenopia. The use of smartphone consistently has proven to be a physically daunting task leading the user to an unnatural amount of stress on their brain and causing tiredness and exhaustion.

4. The Heads-Down Tribes

The people in Taiwan have coined the term ‘Heads-Down Tribe’ for the people who are constantly attached to their smartphones to check mails or messages. Roughly, every one in five people in South Korea suffer from smartphone addiction. Avid smartphone users have now shown a tendency to sprout neck pain, spinal discomfort and wrist pain due to a constant posture and position that they have adapted to use their smartphones. Similar to the wave of computer addiction seen in the ‘90s, the smartphones, too, have captivated people to an extent where they ignore their health, which leads to various complications.

5. Complete Dependency

Remember when your heart skipped a beat when you thought you misplaced your smartphone? Unfortunately, few people out there have grown to cultivate their dependency on the smartphone into an obsession. An addiction that is far too difficult to curb, smartphones have proven to adversely affect one’s health physically, mentally and psychologically. The stage of complete dependency has led people to believe they’re handicap due to the lack of a smartphone.

1. An underwater phone that's not hideous

Waterproof phones have existed for years, but they've typically been bulky things that look like they belong on a construction site and lack the apps and other features of the most popular smartphones. You can buy waterproof cases from companies like LifeProof, but they make your phone heavier and are expensive.

The water-resistant Samsung Galaxy S4 Active.

That's why I was excited when I heard about a water-resistant version of the Samsung Galaxy S4, the wildly popular smartphone that was recently rated as the top smartphone by Consumer Reports. It's dubbed the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active, and you would never know it's a water-resistant phone unless someone told you. It's just a little bit thicker than the standard Samsung Galaxy S4 and has a camera with fewer megapixels, but it's still got a stylish design and gorgeous 5-inch screen.

The instructions say you can take it in three feet of water for up to 30 minutes, as long as you cover up the power port and make sure the back cover is on snugly. I was dubious, so I made sure to back up my photos and videos in case something went wrong.

We've been trained our whole lives to be careful when using our phones around water, so wading into a swimming pool while holding the phone was a little nerve-wracking. After taking a few photos while standing in chest deep water, I switched on the underwater camera mode and took the plunge. I captured some great underwater shots, like the one in the photo gallery above.

Having a water-resistant phone also comes in handy if you want to walk around with your phone in your wet bathing suit.

Other adults looked at me curiously while I was using my smartphone in the water, but my 2-year-old son, Jack, didn't flinch. Hopefully, water-resistant phones will become standard before he's old enough to own one.

The HTC One has a souped-up "UltraPixel" camera.

2. Selfie mode

Let's talk about selfies for a minute. Love them or hate them, chances are you or someone you love has used a smartphone's front-facing camera to snap a self-portrait. But it's typically an awkward process. You have to extend your arm as far as you can while using one of your fingers to press the camera button. This often leads to blurry photos and photos where part of your face gets cut off.

The HTC One Android phone has a dead simple way to improve your selfies. After you switch to the front-facing camera and press the shutter button, a countdown timer starts automatically, allowing you to get into perfect position for your self-portrait. I'd guess that the vast majority of photos that are taken with a phone's front-facing camera are selfies, so all phones should have this countdown timer built into the camera. (It's worth noting that there are lots of camera apps that offer a countdown timer.)
The notification screen on an Android phone shows how its apps automatically update.
The notification screen on an Android phone shows how its apps automatically update.

3. Never update an app again

If you have an iPhone, chances are you have dozens of app updates waiting for you in the App Store. The pain of having to manually update iPhone apps even prompted Sen. John McCain to ask Apple CEO Tim Cook at a recent congressional hearing, "Why the hell do I have to keep updating the apps on my iPhone all the time, and why don't you fix that?"

Users of Android phones don't have that problem: Their apps update automatically. That should be the case on all smartphones. And there's good news for McCain and all of iPhone Nation; iOS7, the next version of Apple's mobile operating system, will include the option to have your apps update automatically.

A Windows phone from Nokia displays "Live Tiles" that update with real-time info.

4. Live tiles/widgets

Sometimes, when we look at our phones, we just want to quickly find a key piece of information, like the score of a football game, the temperature outside or the time a movie is playing. On an iPhone, to find this information, you have to launch an app or go into your notification center.

But both Android and Windows phones have a feature that saves you a step.

Android's widgets let you install little bits of automatically updating information on your phone's home screen: what's on your calendar for the day, sports scores, extended weather forecast or news headlines. "Live tiles" on Windows Phones look like app icons, but instead of just sitting there, they display live information without you having to open the app.

5. A safer way to use your phone while driving

As smartphones have added features like voice-guided navigation and streaming music services, they've become incredibly useful while in a car. But obviously, looking down at your phone while driving is not a good idea.

The forthcoming Moto X phone can be operated by voice commands from across the room.

Voice-assistance features like the iPhone's Siri have made us a little safer by allowing us to speak commands to our phones, but they still require you to press a button to activate the microphone. Many new cars come with features that let you wirelessly connect your phone to your car so you can use the car's controls to make calls, listen to music or get directions. But setting up these features can be complex.

The new Moto X smartphone from Google -- the first phone Google designed since buying Motorola last year -- has two new features that let you continue using your smartphone in the car without sacrificing a ton of safety. I haven't been able to use the Moto X yet, but many early reviews highlight these two features as being incredibly useful.

The first is touchless control, which lets you speak voice commands to your phone without touching it. After you train the phone to recognize only your voice, it is always listening for your command, whether its screen is awake or sleeping. Without needing to touch the phone, you just say "OK Google Now" and you can make calls, get directions or do a Google search.

As many reviews have pointed out, however, there is a catch: If you protect your phone with a password, you can use touchless controls only to make a call. Other commands require you to unlock it with your hands. Hopefully, this is something Google will fix with a software update.

The other breakout feature is called "Assist," which automatically detects when you're in motion and switches to a "Driving" mode designed to make you safer in the car. It reads new text messages aloud, announces the name of new phone callers and asks whether you want to take the call.

Given all the patent lawsuits that are sweeping the phone industry, who knows whether all of these features will ever become standard on all phones. But all the competition is great for consumers. And a guy can certainly dream.

The Obama administration has ordered that a proposed ban on the sale and import of certain Apple products be scrapped. The order represents government intervention in a bitter patent row between the iPhone maker and rival Samsung.
In a letter to the US International Trade Commission (ITC), US trade representative Michael Froman said he had decided to disapprove the body's earlier ruling – which would have banned older iPads and iPhones due to patent infringement. As such, Apple would be free to continue to sell the items.
The letter stated that the decision was made after "extensive consultations" and was based on Froman's "review of the various policy considerations … as they relate to the effect on competitive conditions in the US economy and the effect on US consumers".
The move overturns a June decision by the ITC which found in favour of Samsung in an increasingly bitter spat between the two tech firms over patent rights. The trade body concluded that certain Apple products – including older iPhone and iPad models made to run on AT&T and T-Mobile USA networks – had infringed a Samsung patent relating to the ability of devices to transmit services simultaneously through 3G wireless technology. Apple complained that the trade ban imposed by the ITC was inappropriate.
Despite finding against the ban, the Obama administration signalled that Samsung could seek other redress. Froman wrote: "My decision to disapprove this determination does not mean that the patent owner in this case is not entitled to a remedy. On the contrary, the patent owner may continue to pursue its rights through the courts."
The two smartphone makers have lodged a series of legal complaints regarding alleged patent infringements in recent years. Last year, Apple was awarded more than $1bn in damages after Samsung was ruled to have copied critical features of its mobile products.

Can't decide between HTC One's native spin on Android and the Google Edition's vanilla build? Now you don't have to: MoDaCo.Switch is now officially available for public beta testing. True to its name, this custom firmware allows users to reboot the phone and switch into a different version of Android, making it easy to enjoy both Sense 5 and Google's stock AOSP Android build independently. It's more than a simple dual-boot, however, MoDaCo.Switch shares apps and data between both builds, which makes using them together a less jarring experience. The Beta still has some limitations of course; MMS and call log data isn't shared between ROMS and there seem to be some issues with fast boot. Still, if you're willing give it a spin, hop over to the adjacent source link to get started.

Nokia Lumia WP8 owners have it pretty good on Foursquare thanks to AR and other exclusive features -- but that doesn't mean lower-end device owners are being shirked. The app is now available on the Asha 501, something Nokia and Foursquare promised when it hit the S40 feature phone and its huge user base. Despite the Asha's lack of a GPS, owners of the sub-$100 device will get all of Foursquare's main features -- like check-ins, mayorships and badges -- since the app can use a network connection to figure out where you are. It'll likely arrive on other Asha devices soon as well, so if you're looking to rule your local haunt as mayor, better grab it fast.