There was much speculation as to what Apple’s two-pronged assault on the smartphone market would mean for last year’s iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s, but while the long-term futures of these two handsets is uncertain, the Cupertino company seems happy to retail both alongside the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus for the time being. Naturally, each has been dropped in price, and as well as being able to grab the iPhone 5s on contract for just $99 now, folks can also avail the iPhone 5c free of charge on a two-year package.

We have had more than enough reasons to believe that the new iPhone 6 will come next month; specifically, on September 9th in a media event. All the evidence right now points in that direction, and if we were to take any hint from what Walmart has done today, it’s all but confirmed. The retail giant has announced temporary price cuts to both the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c models, offering the former at $79 and the iPhone 5c for an astounding, not to mention highly lucrative, $0.97.

Critics of Apple have suggested that the iPhone range has only seen incremental upgrades over the past few years, and given the lack of NFC, the late showing of LTE and the 4-inch display of the current flagship, they do have a point. But while the continued processor / graphics bumps and camera upgrades don’t seem a world apart from release to release, the leap in overall performance is quite noticeable when you skip a generation or two. Case in point, the new release of the graphically-intensive Modern Combat 5, which, as you’ll see below, is quite a different animal on an iPhone 4S versus the current but not high-end iPhone 5c.

Samsung’s flagship release for 2014, the Galaxy S5, launched in a blaze of glory back in April, with many quick to pour praise on the great camera and display features. But while the device’s early sales figures made for happy reading for all connected with Samsung, the UK numbers tell a story in which the iPhone 5c – Apple’s so-called “entry-level” model of iPhone – managed to outsell the all-new GS5, with both the 5c and the Cupertino’s flagship 5s each shifting more units for the Galaxy S5 for the month of May.

With Apple widely expected to unveil a new iPhone line-up in the coming months, it’s somewhat inevitable that the price-drops on the current-gen models will ensue, and Walmart has kicked things off by offering the flagship iPhone 5s (16GB) for a cut-price $99. The price, which takes into consideration the signing of a two-year contract, is the cheapest you’ll find at this moment in time for a subsidized iPhone 5s, and with the iPhone 5c also dropping to $29 on a 24-month package, both of Apple’s most recent handsets can be snapped up at a discounted rate.

With the iPhone 6 just around the corner – well, almost – people could be forgiven for forgetting that the current iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c are still very much available to buy. Even though the pair are now coming up on their one year anniversary, the iPhone 5s in particular can still hold its own in the current smartphone market, and if you can’t wait for its successor you could do much worse than pick one up. If you’ve got an old iPhone to trade in too, now’s the time to get yourself down to an Apple Store.

The tech community had collectively declared the iPhone 5c as being a flop, but given the increased attention that Apple seems to be paying to its lower-end, polycarbonate-clad handset, the reality of the situation appears to be quite the opposite. A short while back, the Cupertino company began rolling out an even cheaper, 8GB version of its smartphone line-up’s second-in-command, and today, the handset has begun retailing in a further six nations.

The iPhone 5c has been cited by many as a failure, but while the device is assumed not to have sold in as high a number as Apple might have liked, recent predictions from analysts based upon official financial info made available by the Cupertino suggests that the device has actually fared rather well. Even though Apple hasn’t offered a breakdown of iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c sales, preferring to release figures under the general, ‘iPhone’ umbrella, analysts have done their homework and found that over the holiday period of 2013, the iPhone 5c outsold many of the market’s flagship handsets.

Back in January, an interesting infographic emerged comparing the actual amount of storage space our smartphones offer versus the quoted capacity, and it showed that Samsung’s Galaxy S4 was the biggest culprit for filling devices up with bloatware. Conversely, the iPhone 5c offered the most storage for a 16GB device, and the release just yesterday of a new 8GB iPhone 5c has thrown up the fascinating statistic that in terms of actual storage, the 16GB Galaxy S4 is a mere 3.7GB ahead of Apple’s new 8GB iPhone 5c.

Amid a swirl of rumors over the past couple of days suggesting that Apple would be adding a cheaper, 8GB variant of the iPhone 5c to its smartphone roster, the company has now confirmed this to be the case, with the handset launching today in select markets.

The colorful iPhone 5c is widely regarded as a flop, and the fact that Apple remains tight-lipped about sales of its polycarbonate-clad handset speaks volumes. But while many are tipping it for the axe later on this year by the time the iPhone 6 comes around, there may still be life left in the handset yet, with leaked documents from O2 Germany appearing to suggest that an 8GB model is in the offing; and at a cheaper price point.

We hear of many unfortunate incidents where people come to harm or property is damaged when tech products spontaneously combust, but very rarely does it happen to Apple gadgets. Unfortunately, one 14-year-old girl discovered that the perceived safety and quality assurance that comes with the bitten-apple logo isn’t an exact science, as the loud pop of her pocketed iPhone 5c, followed by smoke billowing from her trousers, dramatically proved. Luckily, the student was unharmed.