Over the past few years, more and more users have been ditching their old-style cell phones for smartphones, as demand for full-featured web browsers and email continues to grow. For the fifth year in a row, the iPhone continues to be the main beneficiary of this shift, with 51.2% of the market share in the last quarter of 2012.
Just when we thought that all of the special shopping events had come to a rather disappointing end, Apple has taken the initiative and surprised us yet-again by announcing their intention to hold a one day long event on January 25th. The event is in celebration of the Chinese New Year and as such will only be applicable to residents of certain countries within Asia, but it should allow those lucky residents to get their hands on some great fruity bargains.
The majority of the smartphone world keenly awaits the release of BlackBerry 10 and its associated devices. Perhaps not with the kind of excitement it once might have, it has to be said, but out of respect for the power the brand used to possess, it's hard to ignore the traction Research in Motion has managed to gain over the past year or so. To give us an idea of how far BlackBerry has come its quest to reestablish itself, one German site has compared the BlackBerry Z10 with the iPhone 5, and you may be surprised by the results. Details after the break.
Even though we aren't currently in the middle of an Apple product release schedule, history has shown us that it is pretty much impossible to escape the rumor mill that so often surrounds new hardware from the fruit company. Following on from earlier speculation about the potential existence of a new budget iPhone, the latest news coming from Asia is suggesting that Apple is not only planning on announcing the seventh-generation iPhone along with a budget handset, but also a larger 4.8-inch device.
Everyone loves an iPhone mockup, and we're no different. Say hello to the iPhone mini. Apple is never far from the news cycle. Usually it's around iPhone release time that we begin to really see rumors, with iPad launch time equally as busy. Round around now we would normally be hearing about what may or may not be in the next iPad, but the recently updated iPad 4 makes a refresh unlikely just yet. Instead, we're being inundated with iPhone mini rumors.
Of all the far-fetched rumors we've been fed of the purported "iPhone 5S" these past few weeks, this latest one really takes the biscuit. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities foresees the Apple's purchase of AuthenTec paying dividends with the seventh-gen smartphone, with the Cupertino finding a way of implementing some description of fingerprint sensor into the home button.
Another day, another Apple patent story, but this time there's no sign of Samsung, Motorola or Google. Surely that cannot be? Yes, yes it can, actually. Wonders never cease!
The continuing reports and speculation surrounding the possibility of Apple releasing a budget iPhone suggests that even a denial from Phil Schiller can't seem to derail the iPhone rumor train. It has been widely speculated in the last few days that Apple intends to appeal to emerging markets and territories like Latin America with the release of a budget iPhone during 2013, with the latest reports suggesting that the company could save money on a phone of this nature by manufacturing it with a plastic outer shell and only including metal parts where necessary.
Apple's decision to refresh its iPad range twice last year was met with a mixed response, and while some naturally welcomed the decision of Apple to introduce the iPad 4 a mere seven months following the emergence of the iPad 3, owners of the latter were naturally disgruntled. Alongside the iPad 4 came the iPad mini, and once again, the general response was mixed, with many pointing to the lack of a Retina display and high cost as fundamental flaws. Now, it has emerged that Apple plans to bring yet another upgrade as early as March, and while the larger iPad should be a little less, well, large, the mini is widely-presumed to be getting a Retina display.
Earlier this week, a report surfaced suggesting that Apple might be working on a lower-end, lower-cost iPhone in order to increase its share of a market that is becoming increasingly crowded with low-cost smartphones. In a rare one-to-one interview with a Chinese newspaper, Apple Marketing SVP Phil Schiller flat-out denied the rumor.
