What's so amazing about the new iPhones?

As you've probably heard about, the iPhone6 and iPhone6 Plus has recently been unveiled. The iPhone6 being the smaller of the lot. Apple are really trying to raise the bar this year -  the phone shapes have been curved all the way around the phone this time, much like the original iPhone to the iPhone3GS, anyone remember that?. 

Whats New?

Firstly we have iOS8 coming out with the new release. This will include the use of your wallet on your phone. When you go into the close apps centre your favourites and recents on your call history will be shown and available to call from there. Apparently apps will be a lot easier to make and monitor as a developer. So if anyone reading this is an app developer, maybe you want to think of some ideas? ;) 
 Messages will be more intuitive, like having the ability to share something via video to the other person while your seeing it, (although Skype and face-time already do that) You can also now send voice messages!(like Whatsapp) If you don't like that idea then there's always the idea of actually just calling them.
There are also a lot more Whatsapp features included in messages now like group names, leaving chats when you feel like, group admins and also kicking people when you feel like it. Not physically though, then you'll lose all your friends ;(
I think apple have realised that Samsungs choice of the word choice auto-correct is actually quite good because that's what they're using now. 

Although Samsungs recent move to adding predictive auto-correct is a little bit of a pain.











Fleksy is a type of keyboard...
The Camera has been physically updated...




Phone difference

The main difference between the two new phones are the  screen size and the price that's basically it.

Release date

Pre-orders start on the 12th of October and you can find them in your store on the 19th 

Facebook planning to share the nearby friends feature with advertisers!

Photo from "thenextweb.com"

Facebook is pitching the tool as a valuable new feature for users. It sends occasional notifications informing them how often friends, who've also agreed to be seen, are in the locale.

It will also follow users on their travels, allowing friends to pitch in with suggestions or recommendations wherever they roam around the world.

Knowing the end goal may be (or always was?) geared towards targeted advertisements may see some users change their views on the feature.

Will you be switching on Nearby Friends when it hits your smartphone?


P.S
Sorry for the white highlight - I wrote this on word first and it won't go away 

Apple's "transparent" phone

First off, yes this is real(not that picture, the iPhone 6), Apple are producing a new "transparent" phone. It's been said that this will help while texting while walking or when you're on the move while on facebook or twitter or instagram!;) 

There no need to be a rocket scientist to understand how this works. The back facing camera will give a video feed as to what's in front of you and display in the background of the screen. This doesn't mean you won't be bumping into strangers while on the move:). If you have an android device I have heard that there a certain apps already that allow the same feature of the iPhone 6, so you won't be missing out :D

Even though it’s far away, there are still gentle trickles of information coming through every couple of days. It’s building up a pretty interesting picture and means there will be a good prediction of what Apple will be launching later in the year. One thing that we definitely know of is that it will have a bigger screen as the Samsung S4 mini and the S4 and S5 are alot bigger that Apple's current 5S. 

Kuo has published a product roadmap and note to investors based on reasearch into the Asian supply network, revealing the Apple iPhone 6 will be launched late in the third quarter of 2014 as a 4.7-inch model with an "all-new" design. This means bigger screens! This handset will have a 1334x750 pixel resolution at 326 pixels-per-inch (ppi), according to the report. Meanwhile, a larger 5.5-inch variant will arrive in late Q4 with a full HD 1080p resolution at 401ppi. Both devices will feature Apple's A8 processor with 1GB of RAM meaning the phone will be fast and the display tech will give better pictures coulour and faster operations (LTPS LCD). Touch ID Home keys will also be installed so they will be keeping the finger scanner on the new phone along with optical image stabilisation (OIS) for the camera hardware.

So far this can give a good prediction of what can be expected of the iPhone 6, or one of its rumoured names, the iPhone air. 


I hope you enjoyed this or found it useful.

Stick around because I'm going to be posting more. 

If you want to you can leave a comment or like this post!You can also comment on anything you want me to have a look at or review or talk about in detail or in general and I'll do my best to do whatever you wanted me to do.



Bye!

A Kettle With an Initiative!

 

The iKettle may have a terribly cliched name, but it makes up for that unoriginality with loads of novel functionality that might just be enough to justify its £99 price tag. Maybe. After all, how many kettles do you know that politely ask if you’d like a piping hot cup of tea when you get home at night?

The crux of the kettle’s capabilities is its ability to connect to your home’s Wi-Fi network. This puts it in contact with an accompanying mobile app on your smartphone that gives you complete control over all of the kettle’s functionality—including multiple temperature options for different hot beverages—from wherever you have access to your home’s wireless network.

Starting the kettle boiling before you get up and head to the kitchen is a wonderful feature, for sure. But it’s the iKettle’s ability to monitor its internal temperature and alert you when the water is ready that most coffee and tea fans will love—especially since it sends you notifications instead of an ear-piercing whistle. And last but not least, when you walk through the door at the end of the day and your smartphone rejoins your wireless network, the iKettle will even offer to start a fresh brew like your own personal butler. 

Iphone 5s + 5c review

There is one major change on the outside: the home button now sports a ring around it, marking the area for the Touch ID fingerprint sensor. Input your prints a few times on set up and it’ll remember them, logging you and only you in. Thankfully, it works flawlessly and quickly: if you lock your phone with a passcode, it’s a useful option to have for convenience’s sake rather than security (after all, it still defaults to a pin when you restart the phone) and it’ll save you minutes every day when you’re unlocking to check email or browse the web. And if you don’t lock your phone? It won’t change a thing.

Whether you’re security conscious or not though, you’ll benefit from the other improvements in the iPhone 5s. Between iOS 7 (which looks and feel fresh, though isn’t without its flaws) and the new A7 processor, it absolutely blazes along, booting up quicker and making lag a thing of the past: games look glorious and they’re only going to get better. Impressively, battery life seems to have been slightly improved despite the faster silicon. With push notifications on and email pumping away at most you can get a day’s use out of it.

The camera, too, is better than ever. The eight megapixel sensor grabs impressive shots in low light, and exemplary ones in daylight. Better still, the live filters in iOS 7 let you give your snaps an Instagram-ish finish before you've even hit the shutter button - you can see how they all look in real-time while you frame your shot. It’s no Nokia Lumia 1020 camera, but with its mesmerising slo-mo video filming mode, the iPhone 5s comes very close.


If you've got an iPhone 5, the 5s will throw few surprises your way. Very few. Too few: it’s identically sized, for one thing, so the screen remains as cramped as ever. While plenty of people prefer displays you can reach across with one finger or thumb, it would be nice for Apple to get with the program and offer a larger variant to take on the new breed of Android phablets. If you were hoping for refreshed hardware that feels new, forget about it: the iOS 7 update for your iPhone 5 gives you an almost identical experience.

That’s about the only issue with the product itself, mind: the iPhone remains a masterful example of mobile engineering. It’s just a pity the iPhone 5s costs so much (£549 for the SIM-free 16GB version, stretching up to an eye-watering £709 for the 64GB).

While  the iPhone 5c is so close in price to the 5s that you might as well just stretch the extra fiver a month, the fact remains that both are exorbitantly expensive, especially if you want 4G thrown in. If all you need is a web browser and the ability to play a few games and stream music, there are much cheaper options out there, especially if you’re prepared to venture into Android territory, or even Windows Phone. If you don’t lock your phone today, you don’t need to pay for Touch ID tomorrow.

Oh, also, the gold version is even more horrible in reality than the press images would have you believe: it’s a blingtastic atrocity that looks like a discarded prop from a 2001 rap music video. Avoid at all cost.




The Apple iPhone 5s is the phone people expected, if nothing else. It’s more powerful than ever, with a better battery life, all inside the same slick design. If you’re toting an iPhone 4 at the end of its contract and a truly fantastic camera matters to you above all else, it’s a no-brainer, but if you’re tired of glass and gun metal grey and want a new experience however, the colourful 5c might be the better option.

If you’ve got an iPhone 5 or even a 4S however, it’s not clear the new goodies inside the iPhone 5s outweigh the high price. Certainly, Touch ID on its own is not a killer feature, just a useful extra, and the software is almost identical otherwise, thanks to Apple’s post-sale support. Just don’t buy the gold 5s, whatever you do.

Which Phone Should You Get?

Apple has revealed two new versions of the iPhone at an event in California, United States.

The iPhone 5S introduces a fingerprint sensor that lets you unlock the phone without entering a password. But a hacking group have managed to workout a specific sequence of lock-screen buttons to bypass the fingerprint system, so my advice is, if you have one, keep the fingerprint system but put a password as well.

The 5S has a new fingerprint sensor

The iPhone 5C is designed to be a 'cheaper' version and has a body made of colourful plastic, instead of metal and glass.

The cheaper iPhone could help Apple compete with less expensive handsets by companies like Samsung and Nokia.

Nokia's smartphones already come in a rainbow of colours

Apple hasn't been selling as many phones as other companies recently. More people are choosing Android smartphones that have similar features but cost less.

More than half of all smartphones sold so far this year were Android handsets - only about 28% were iPhones while 9% were BlackBerry smartphones.

But with a price tag of £469 the 'cheaper' iPhone 5C is still more than twice as expensive as the Google Nexus 4 - an Android smartphone with comparable features.

There is also the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini for people who think the S4 is too big but still want one.

Both these phones are more than adequate to compete with the rest of the phones in the market. The stats above they show how android has rocketed past all the other handsets in terms of sales and are more popular than ever. I will hopefully be doing a separate post about these two phones soon so stay tuned!

I hope you enjoyed this or found it useful.

Stick around because I'm going to be posting more! 

If you want to you can leave a comment or like this post!You can also comment on anything you want me to have a look at or review or talk about in detail or in general and I'll do my best to do whatever you wanted me to do.

Bye!

Click for less

Samsungs new Galaxy Mega!

A massive smartphone has been revealed by technology giant Samsung - with a whopping 6.3inch (16cm) screen!

Smartphone screens have been steadily getting bigger, but the new Galaxy Mega has the biggest screen of any Samsung smartphone so far.

The Galaxy Mega next to an apple and a blackberry
The Galaxy Mega is bigger than any existing apple or blackberry
In 2012, the iPhone received a bigger 4inch screen whilst the new BlackBerry Z30 is expected to have a 5inch screen.

Phones with a big screen are often called "phablets" - a cross between a phone and a tablet computer.

Gadget fans will have to wait to get their hands on the enormous phone as it's not available in the UK yet.

iPhone 5s finger scanner

Apple’s big-thinkers have patented a new twist on fingerprint recognition technology, which could see future devices doing away with custom fingerprint readers in favour of having the phone’s display able to scan their owners’ prints.
The patent, which is based around biometric technology designed by Authentec — a company bought by Apple in 2012 — suggests the new sensor tech is small and thin enough to be sandwiched in between a smartphone’s usual layers of display components, meaning holding your thumb on the screen of your next iPhone (or your iPhone after that), may be enough to unlock it.

HTC One Mini

It shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that the HTC One Mini is real. After all, we've been seeing it for months now, and wanting it to exist for even longer. But, unlike other manufacturers (HTC itself has been guilty of this in the past) who strip away most of the top-notch features for their smaller handsets, HTC made a conscious decision to retain as much of the grunt as possible, while keeping the price (and size) down.

That does however mean that instead of a 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor and 2GB of RAM, as seen in the full-sized 4.7-inch One, there’s just a 1.4GHz dual-core Snapdragon 400 with 1GB of RAM, which is disappointing news, but hey — could been worse? Internal storage is 16GB, and no, there’s no microSD card slot.

However, I can’t say I’m too bothered by the disappearing act of the NFC — anyone out there grumbling over that omission?

On the hardware side, the display is a 4.3-inch Super LCD screen with 720p resolution (in comparison to the One’s 1080p rez), and it measures up at 132 x 63.2 x 9.25mm, with a 122g weight. I had a brief play with a sample, and can confirm you get much the same hardware aesthetics as the One, save for the addition of a piano gloss bezel — either white or black, depending on which colour you plump for. I would’ve liked for the full look and feel of the One to be ported over, but understand HTC would’ve been looking at the bottom line where possible.

Unfortunately (and here’s where, again, the size issues came into play) the 2,300mAh battery of the One has been swapped over to a 1800mAh, which is the same capacity HTC used for last year’s One X. Funny how just a year on, we can desire so much more when it comes to batteries.

Otherwise, it’s very much the same as you’ve come to expect from HTC following its flagship One — dual front-facing speakers offer up the same BoomSound audio, and the very same Ultrapixel camera sensor is packed in.

While HTC didn't mention women or the younger users when referring to the One Mini, they did say that the colourful flip cases that will be available for this new model (see the gallery above for a view) will help draw in a new market for them, which they missed with the One. 

Availability and pricing hasn't been confirmed yet for both the black and silver models, but I’ll update you when I hear more. In the meantime, cop a load of the “glamour red” edition of the HTC One, which is now available to buy, should you want to be a little more glamorous. Some people say it’s one of the
nicest paint-jobs they’ve seen in a long time.

Windows 8 LG Smartphone

Korean tech company LG Electronics are reportedly developing a Windows smartphone using the Windows Phone 8 OS

According to a report, LG currently has a Windows 8 smartphone in the research and development stage.

LG India's Manging Director Kwon Soon spoke with Light Reading India to say, "At home (S. Korea), we are actually working on our Windows Phone 8 OS powered smartphone."

The company has not decided on a launch for the device with Kwon stating that the company is currently checking out the opportunity for it in the market to decide whether they will sell it.

LG's next-gen Optimus G Android smartphone, the Optimus G2, is expected for to launch in Q3.

Kwon has said focus will remain on Google's Android OS, "Android is the major platform globally, given its acceptance and penetration. Although, we believe that Windows will pick up going ahead, as Microsoft is pumping efforts into it,"

Nokia currently has a Windows 8 smartphone range, Samsung offer Windows OS under its ATIV portfolio, and Huawei and ZTE both offer Windows smartphones globally with HTC offering the HTC 8S and HTC 8X.

Earlier this year, The Korea Time reported LG's plans to create a number of Windows 8 phones over the course of 2013.

BlackBerry Q5 review

With the BlackBerry Q5, the Canadian smartphone company is returning to its bread and butter: affordable, keyboard-equipped messaging phones for the masses. This time though, the Curve series successor packs the new BlackBerry 10 operating system and a touchscreen to boot: can it kick it with the low price Android and Nokia Windows Phones knocking around in 2013? Is it worth £20 per month?

                         PROS

Say what you will about the software, the BlackBerry Q5 packs something few rivals do these days: a physical keyboard. If you've been reared on QWERTYs and BBM, you'll be right at home here: though the isolated Curve-style keys are now in perfectly straight lines to make space for the larger screen above, they're just as easy to race along on as ever. Touchscreen keyboards have come on in leaps and bounds since the iPhone's debut in 2007, but if tactile buttons are what you're used to, the Q5 has you covered.

                  CONS

Speaking of the screen, the 3.1 inch display is crisp and clear, with roughly the same pixel per inch resolution as many other rivals with HD displays on the market. Its boxy aspect ratio means it's not ideal for watching films on, unless you've got a weird thing for letterboxing, but it's otherwise just fine for browsing the web and reading long articles. If only there were apps like Pocket to do that on BlackBerry 10.

The new OS does have its positives too however: courtesy of the 1.2GHz processor, it's zippy and easy to use, with intuitive gestures to swoop home and go back, plus access to the excellent universal inbox from anywhere in the OS - Apple could probably learn a few things from it if it really wants to fix Notification Center in iOS 7.

I hate to say it, but while the BlackBerry Q5 is being billed as the affordable way to join the BlackBerry 10 party, at £320 SIM-free, it's still not very cheap. You can get an app-packed Samsung Galaxy S3 for only £20 more these days, or a solid Android phone for as little as £50. For the money, it's just not very well built. The five megapixel camera is completely mundane, and the plastic feels creaky, and frankly, a little childish. It's a long way from the premium feel of the BlackBerry Q10 or a new Nokia, that's for sure.

Really though, the problems lie with the operating system. Dig beneath its friendly veneer and you'll find it's not that powerful, simply because it lacks the apps of Android and iOS - it's the problem Windows Phone suffers from, but multiplied. You have to watch out for the ones it does have too: you can download and run some Android apps on it, but they run like maple syrup down the side of a tree. Why put up with this when you could buy into an eco-system with more apps that work instead? It's a question BlackBerry is still struggling to answer.

               CONCLUSION

The BlackBerry Q5 is a reasonably well constructed smartphone with a productive keyboard and a sharp screen. That’s the issue though: it's only reasonably well made when you should expect excellence, and the problems with BlackBerry 10 remain, especially the dire lack of apps. That said, there are few options with a physical keyboard left these days, and BlackBerry’s fancier Q10 is eye-wateringly, wallet-empytingly expensive. Unless you really need those buttons though, the BlackBerry Q5 has little to offer