Photo: Witer / Flickr

Now that the iPad 2 has been unveiled and released, the tech world’s eyes are focused on Apple’s next big thing – the iPhone 5. While details have, uncharacteristically, been slow to come, an alleged case mock-up suggests that the form factor of the handset will not be very different from that of the iPhone 4.

Prototypes

The images were originally posted by Hardmac, an Apple blog, with the report saying that the cases ‘would be prototypes of the iPhone 5 cases, based on the mock-ups… provided by Apple.’

The evidence is by no means concrete, and Hardmac’s sources cannot actually verify the designs are really mock-ups provided to them by Apple, but they remain confident in saying that these are the future iPhone 5 cases.

Virtually unchanged

If this is so, based on the button placement, SIM slot, the camera’s flash and case shape, the iPhone 5 case is indicative that the new handset will be unchanged from the current one on the market.

Makes sense, really

It would be difficult for the iPhone 5 case to indicate this, but one would imagine that Apple wants to make their handset even thinner and even lighter than the current one on market. The basic form factor of the iPhone is universally accepted and recognisable, so it would make little sense to diverge from it.

Apple and press

Apple, being the great comeback kid that it is, and achieving what it has with its iPod, iPad and iPhone, never struggles for press. In many ways this puts other manufacturers competing with the company at a disadvantage, but in other ways, it reinforces the value in being perceived as the number one company in your space. Over the coming months, stories of the iPhone 5 case will have all but disappeared from memory as a veritable flood of Apple news starts arriving.

Photo: ThiagoMartins / Flickr

We know the iPhone 5 is on the way, and it will likely land in June. What is not commonly known (yet) is how much power is under the hood, it’s capabilities, how it will look and any other new information. If a recent report is to be believed, Apple is dead-set on keeping their smartphone on the bleeding edge of tech.

It’s going to look different

Engadget, citing ‘extremely accurate’ sources, says that the iPhone 5 will drop in June – as should be expected since this is when they tend to arrive. On arrival, however, the handset will be redesigned for the third time in three years, after being virtually unchanged through its first three iterations.

It’s going to be quick

In addition to being redesigned, the iPhone 5 will be really quick. It will supposedly run on Apple’s new A5 CPU, which is built on ARM’s Cortex A9 architecture. This would be a multi-core processor, significantly boosting the speed the device runs at.

It’s going to suck for Intel

The final change is the telecommunications chips the handset is built on will shift from the Infineon one used in the iPhone 4 to one built by Qualcomm.

This could be down to the antennagate drama that plagued the launch of the last Apple smartphone, but reports suggest this is down to Qualcomm building a dual CDMA and GSM chip, meaning Apple won’t have to ship different phones for different network types, the way they’re doing with the Verizon smartphone and the regular GSM smartphone.

No chance of early sightings, though

The last interesting point about the iPhone 5 rumours is that senior execs in the company are playing with the next Apple smartphone already, but on campus only. This means the big gaffe that happened last year where the 4^th generation Apple smartphone was ‘left unattended in a bar’ will not be happening again in 2011.

Does this sound good to you, Apple smartphone fans? Or do you think the company needs to do even more to convince you to pick up the next iteration of their smartphone?

Photo: AZso / Flickr

Epic Games, the folks behind Xbox 360 smash hit Gears of War and PC classic Unreal Tournament, can now add another platform where it rules the roost, Apple’s iOS platform. The development house’s internal studio, Chair, has delivered in Infinity Blade what many are already calling the greatest iOS game ever made. And this is a mere 24 hours after its release.

It looks ridiculous

What’s immediately noticeable about this Punch Out meets Demon’s Souls hack and slash title is how it looks. In one word: beautiful. Graphically it is light years ahead of anything released for iOS devices, and comparable to most top class handheld console games. No amount of praise and lavish can give you a true sense of how spectacular this title looks, particularly on the retina display found on an iPhone 4.

Straight to the top

In the build up to the release of Infinity Blade, many people wondered if it could both live up to the hype and sell well. As of writing, it has unseated Angry Birds to become the number one game on the US app store, which is a pretty good indicator of how it’s fairing on other app stores around the world.

Furthermore, at £3.59, it costs six times more than most chart topping apps, which could be the first piece of evidence that users are prepared to purchase expensive apps in high volumes if the perceived value is very high. Also being the highest grossing application on the store, Infinity Blade has proven that people definitely consider it valuable.

A reason to get an iOS device?

While Infinity Blade is expensive for an iOS game, it’s still a fraction of the cost of a Nintendo DS or Sony PSP game. This poses an interesting dilemma for both Sony and Nintendo if developers like Epic can churn out games this epic. For what it’s worth, though, if you considered an iOS device like an iPod Touch as a gaming device, this would undoubtedly be the killer app.

Photo: Apple

In a slip uncharacteristic of the vacuum tight secret affairs department Apple runs, it appears that the oft delayed white iPhone 4 will still see release, with a Spring 2011 date spotted on promotional material. This would finally put end to speculation around the ‘more challenging to manufacture than originally expected’ white Apple smartphone.

March to June release?

The folks over at 9to5 Mac spotted the telling promotional material, which hints at the ‘hard to manufacture’ handset launching in US Spring 2011 – between March and May. It’s actually bizarre, considering the black iPhone 4 will have been on market for more than half a year, with the white handset likely releasing a few months before the likely June release date of the iPhone 5.

Verizon Phone?

What might make sense is if the white iPhone 4 launched day-and-date with the widely expected Verizon handset. What makes the Verizon handset different from other iPhones currently on market is that the cellular technology used in it is CDMA, which differs from what Europe (and most of the world) uses – GSM.

Many analysts have argued this move will be a boon for Verizon, as well as represent a sales explosion for the already high-flying Apple smartphone.

Product release momentum?

Alternatively Apple could be using the March release date of the white iPhone 4 as a prelude to its product release onslaught. Assuming the company keeps its familiar release schedule, we would see a small launch for the white Apple smartphone perhaps in March. April will see the release of the highly anticipated iPad 2, and June will see the release of the iPhone 5. Rounding off the calendar year, September will be the iPod’s time to shine, with October/November being Mac time.

Though I doubt this was Apple’s intention initially, it would make for a nifty appetiser into the company’s usual release schedule.

Do you still want this?

However, on a very serious note, with the white Apple smartphone releasing so close to the iPhone 5, are there any of you actually holding out for it?

Photo: Nokia

‘When it rains it pours,’ so the saying goes, but this is a particular problem Finnish mobile giant Nokia could have done without. It has emerged this past week that the Nokia N8 has been suffering power problems that have rendered the device virtually useless for a subset of its users.

Unspecified number of affected customers

Speaking to Reuters, Niklas Savander, who is Nokia’s sales chief, said the Nokia N8 power issue, where the phone would turn off by itself and not come back on, was experienced by ‘a limited number of N8 users’. A spokesperson later said the problem arose in production, and has since been fixed, so it is likely to affect early adopters only, with Savander reaffirming that ‘the total number of affected users was “a small number.”’

Troubled history

The Nokia N8, which was supposed to mark the Finnish mobile phones giant’s comeback, has been troubled since inception. Though it was scheduled to reach consumers as far back as June, Nokia only began a staggered rollout in November. These problems were attributed to Symbian^3 development timelines slipping, only to later have the mobile OS slated for not being up to modern standards.

Commonplace

Before appropriating excessive blame to Nokia for this manufacturing fault, one needs to be mindful that these types of issues accompany many high profile smartphones. Apple, for example, has had various issues, including antennagate and glassgate, with its iPhone 4, as have a number of high profile Google Android handsets.

The only difference – and perhaps why the media is paying excessive attention to Nokia’s woes – is that the Finnish mobile phones giant is clawing its way back to recovery after years of dominance was interrupted by a sharp decline in profits. It’s a classic ‘fall of the giants tale’, and watching Nokia recover will make for a great business case study one day.

In short, if you were intending on purchasing a Nokia N8, hold off your purchase for a few weeks, until the bad batch has been cleared from market.

Photo: Yutaka Tsutano / Flickr

You would be hard-pressed to find any male under the age of 40 who did not, at some point, wish to be a Jedi, or an X-Wing pilot, or a TIE fighter. Playing the occasional make-believe Star Wars game is just what we did growing up. And now the iPhone’s true purpose has been revealed with the impending release of the augmented reality Star Wars: Falcon Attack.

How awesome is this?

The THQ Wireless published titled uses your iPhone’s camera, as well as its internal compass and accelerometer/gyroscope to overlay TIE fighters over your real world surrounding. You, commandeering the Millenium Falcon in first person using dual on-screen joysticks, are then tasked with protecting your city and gunning down the enemy.

Yes, you could theoretically protect Buckingham Palace and Big Ben from The Empire. And yes, if implemented correctly, this will be more awesome than should be legal!

The topsy-turvy world of George Lucas

While this augmented reality Star Wars game is no doubt super duper exciting, it reaffirms the old George Lucas trend of ‘giving the awesome prior to taking it’. It’s almost as if the man baits us Star Wars fans.

It was just the other day we were beside ourselves with rage at his retroactive 3D updating of his epic film franchise, and now, in awe, the inner geek in us is considering buying an iPhone for this one reason – the true purpose Steve Jobs developed this device for back in 2007.

See it for yourself

Don’t take our word for it. Check out the video footage of the augmented reality Star Wars: Falcon Attack for yourself to see why we’re as giddy as a child on Christmas Eve about the prospects. But, and this is a huge but, this is a George Lucas-owned property, and a Star Wars game, so don’t get too excited until you’ve actually played it. He’s been known to inexplicably put Aliens in your Indiana Jones; who knows what he’ll put in your Stars Wars: Falcon Attack.

Photo: Apple

2010 has been an unprecedented year in smartphone technology. It saw Apple solidify its smartphone stronghold, Google go from strength to strength, HTC ride the Google Android wave, Microsoft give its mobile OS platform ambitions a reboot, and older stalwarts like Nokia struggle to keep up. As the year winds down, however, we take a peak into the top three smartphones of the year so far. Why ‘so far’? Though we doubt anything will sneak in at the last minute, one can never be too safe, right?

iPhone 4

Antennagate aside, and glass gate aside, Apple showed its iPhone dominance reporting an unprecedented 14.1 million iPhones sold in the last quarter. Furthermore, though it doesn’t have the unit numbers comparable to other mobile phone manufacturers, it sure does horde the industry wide profit. With its retina display, gyroscope in lieu of the older accelerometer, a notable speed boost, and FaceTime, Apple reminded us why people love their iPhones so. What’s more, it’s really difficult to ignore 300,000 apps, especially when the mobile OS platform, iOS, is what powers the best selling tablet computer in the world, too.

HTC Desire

Photo: HTC

For our money, the HTC Desire was the first big deal smartphone to be released in 2010, and as testament to how high a bar the handset set, few mobile phones have come even close to it. This Android smartphone packed an impressive 5mp camera, with more power under the hood then mobile phones should be allowed to have. While we loved the HTC Magic and the HTC Hero before it, the HTC Desire showed that the Taiwanese mobile phone manufacturer really does have the desire to be the best in the world at this. Read our HTC Desire review to see why this is a no brainer in any 2010 best smartphones list.

Samsung Galaxy S

Photo: Samsung

The Samsung Galaxy S is the most recently released ‘let’s collectively gush at how awesome this phone is’ handset this year. While Samsung’s TouchWiz interface continues to be highly divisive, the overall build quality of this Android smartphone is, in many areas, peerless. Samsung borrowed many ideas from Apple in making their smartphone, but so what? Copy what works, and do your own thing as you attempt to make it better. And, one look at our Samsung Galaxy S review will confirm why we think it’s also a shoe-in on any 2010 best smartphones list.

The trend

For those keeping score, two of the three smartphones on this list are Google Android devices. If there were space for additional handsets, the brilliant Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini would likely waltz onto this list, making it three Google Android phones in our top four. It’s no wonder Android is growing like a weed. We are keeping a keen eye on the decidedly brilliant Windows Phone 7 mobile OS platform, though.

Do you agree with our 2010 best smartphones list, and if not, what would you remove and what would you substitute that with?

Photo: Apple

The iPhone 4 sure is a sales demon. No one in their right mind would deny that. But it has a knack for courting controversy, especially from an industrial engineering perspective – super strange for the celebrated industrial design that is Apple. Antennagate seems to have now become ‘glassgate’, with fears that iPhone cases may crack the glass back of your mobile phone.

Slide-on cases the problem

Ryan Block, co-founder of gdgt, suggests that slide-on cases are a hazard to the iPhone’s glass back, since they can trap material between the phone and the case. This trapping of materials then causes scratches on the case that can eventually become cracks on the iPhone’s glass back.

Antennagate’s last laugh

What is particularly funny – if you have a sly sense of humour, of course – is that this iPhone glassgate problem is indirectly caused by the iPhone antennagate. How so, you ask? Slide on cases were issued as part of the free case programme during the damage control surrounding the antenna case. Ha. This has since stopped, though, with Apple no longer selling slide-on cases in select stores. When Crave approached Griffin and Proporta to ask them why Apple no longer carried their slide-on cases in stores, Griffin chose not to comment, whilst Proporta has yet to reach them back for a response.

Problems aside, the beat goes on

Even with the iPhone antennagate, and now the potential iPhone glassgate, Apple has had no problem getting consumers to adopt their smartphone. Selling left, right and centre, the company acquired a license to print money off the back of the smartphones’ success – and massive profit margins – so much so that some think it will do $20 billion in revenue this quarter. Obscene numbers.

Back to the focus momentarily, what did you make of iPhone Antennagate and what do you make of iPhone glassgate? Should it just be ignored, or is this something to take seriously?

Photo: Apple

As the iPhone steamroll continues unabated, it appears Apple has a rabid fanbase in a country few American technology firms thrive in: China.

Big pre-order numbers, long lines

The iPhone 4 launch is a far cry from what analyst deemed disappointing, which is how they referring to last year’s iPhone 3GS launch in China. Last year saw virtually non-existent queues, and four days after launch to market, only 5,000 customers were snagged up. This time round, the reality is much different.

The latest Apple smartphone launched this month in China to overwhelming support and fanfare. How overwhelming? 200,000 pre-orders and 1,000 plus customers queuing up at Apple’s new Beijing store at the Joy City mall. Sure, considering China’s population has more than 1 billion people, one could argue that this is hardly a run-away success in the market, but that’s just the point. The potential upside for future sales of the iPhone 5 and so on are colossal.

Computerworld was on hand to interview those in line, with one excited fan, 26 year-old Sun Jian Kuan, describing the experience as akin to ‘…waiting in line to see a movie star’. The praise didn’t stop there, though. He added that ‘No phone can best the iPhone.’

Other successful launches elsewhere

Not only is the Apple smartphone capturing the hearts of mobile users in China, it also had several successful launches all around the world, in its slow, methodical rollout. The iPhone 4 is clearly a worldwide hit, with its South African launch seeing handsets being available on every major continent in the world. This is a far cry from the original iPhone and iPhone 3G days, when, if you wanted it in certain parts of the world, you had to settle for importing it.

Pricing

If you’re in China, you can pick up the 16GB iPhone 4 for 5,999 yuan (£565) and the 32gb iPhone 4 for 4,999 yuan (£471) out of contract. That’s a notable saving over last year’s model, a trend that seems to be leading to an increase adoption of Apple’s mobile phone and mobile OS worldwide.

If there was doubt before, there cannot be any now – the Apple smartphone is a worldwide phenomenon.

Photo: Apple

Remember Antennagate? Yeah, most people don’t either. Well, Apple introduced a free iPhone 4 case programme to attempt to mitigate the fallout. That programme comes to an end 30 September 30.

Problem even smaller than thought

Apple introduced a free case program in the wake of antennagate, so as to mitigate the fallout from the reception issues. Clearly the uptake for that wasn’t nearly that big, with Apple releasing a statement saying that they ‘now know that the iPhone 4 antenna attenuation issue is even smaller than we originally thought’, yet still adding that ‘a small percentage of iPhone 4 users need a case and we want to continue providing them a Bumper case for free’.

What does this mean for you? Apple will no longer have the free iPhone 4 case programme up on its website. So if indeed you have experience iPhone 4 reception problems and you’re prepared to make the effort, you can still get a free iPhone 4 case by contacting Apple directly. Yep, that means dialing a call centre – an effort most people couldn’t be bothered to make.

Buy the cases

However, if you haven’t already cashed in on your free iPhone 4 case – antenna issues or not – get on with it! The reality, however, is the tedium of going through that process puts people of, so much so that we would rather buy the case then have to go through all that effort. Furthermore, it’s not as if the absolute sexiest cases are available through Apple’s programme. Having looked high and low for a suitable case, I eventually settled on the Belkin Grip Vue. It’s notable because it negates the iPhone reception problem by having a grip along the outskirts of the device, while also allowing for clear viewing of the iPhone 4.