Friday, 21 November 2014

Two Months Later, There's Still a Wait to Buy the iPhone 6

iPhone day, that time of the year when Apple fans must wait in line to get their hands on the newest product, is turning into iPhone season. get cheap dissertation Writing Service uk. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus came out on Sept. 19 in the U.S. and seven other countries, and there are still lines at Apple Stores filled with people who want to buy them.

Buy iphone6
The line during the sales launch for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus at the Apple Inc
 "Two months after the product release, it's still not widely available," Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray, said on Bloomberg West. "The supply has been tight, but the reason is the demand seems to be better than what people had thought."

Piper Jaffray routinely measures the inventory on hand at Apple Stores after a new iPhone comes out. Typically, two months after launch, the stores have at least one of every configuration of the new iPhone, Munster said. Today, Apple has just 60 percent of the various models of iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

Don't expect to get around the wait by shopping online. uk dissertation writing services. Apple's website says you'll have to wait at least a week for the company to fill an order for a midrange iPhone 6, not including shipping time. A top-of-the-line iPhone 6 Plus is estimated to take three to four weeks. (Those new iPads that Apple released a month after the iPhone 6 are in stock.)

Munster said the extended demand for new iPhones could produce better-than-usual results next quarter, and that might make investors rethink when they should get off the Apple wave next year.

Post  Credit: BloomBerg

Friday, 14 November 2014

DoJ Uses Phony Cell Towers Mounted on Planes to Track Mobile Phones

In a report published Wednesday evening, the Wall Street Journal outlined an alleged Department of Justice project that uses fake cellphone towers mounted on small planes to surveil thousands of cellphones across the entire population of the United States. assignment writing services.

Some actual cellphone towers
Some actual cellphone towers


Almost 48 hours later, the DOJ still hasn't commented or responded on the validity of the article. It would neither confirm nor deny information to the Journal before publication, and has repeatedly refused to comment since.

The Journal reports that the DoJ uses the system to search for suspects “including fugitives and drug dealers,” but collects data from innocent bystanders in the process as well. dissertation writing services online. And the Journal notes that even smartphones protected by standard encryption, like the iPhone 6, are still vulnerable. The project is apparently run by the Technical Operations Group of the U.S. Marshals.

Essentially the program outfits Cessna airplanes with devices sometimes called “dirtboxes” that act like cellphone towers. The phony transmitters trick phones into seamlessly picking up their signal and revealing unique registration data. Sources told the Journal that data collected in a given area is processed right away to identify people on the ground, and is then “let go” if the system doesn't find anyone of interest, but it's unclear what exactly that means.

Forcing phones to briefly join this stealth network has some problematic implications. OK, a lot of problematic implications. OK, the whole thing sounds insane. The Journal describes:

The device can briefly interrupt calls on certain phones. Authorities have tried to minimize the potential for harm, including modifying the software to ensure the fake tower doesn’t interrupt anyone calling 911 for emergency help, one person familiar with the matter said.

The program cuts out phone companies as an intermediary in searching for suspects. Rather than asking a company for cell-tower information to help locate a suspect, which law enforcement has criticized as slow and inaccurate, the government can now get that information itself. People familiar with the program say they do get court orders to search for phones, but it isn’t clear if those orders describe the methods used because the orders are sealed.
As Wired points out, the devices used as phony cell towers seem like they may be IMSI catchers, otherwise known as stingrays, that have been used by law enforcement and intelligence-gathering agencies for years to spy on cellphones.

And Dave Maass, a researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has found evidence of other agencies using dirtboxes.

Since the DoJ hasn't commented yet, it’s not entirely clear what the goal of the program is or how it has been implemented ... if it exists ... which it seems like it does because the DOJ isn’t flat out denying it. But the Journal report is fairly comprehensive, and seems to reveal yet another way that government agencies are surveilling Americans.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University.

Post Credit: Slate

Apple iPhone 6 Preference Shown In New Sales Data

Market researching company Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) has released the results of a buyers’ survey on Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus adoption rates, which they have been cataloging since the launch of the new generation models on September 19, 2014.

Apple iPhone 6
The data shows that the majority of iPhone transactions came from current iPhone owners – which made up over 80% of the current generation buyers. dissertation writing services UK. While comparing this year’s iPhone launch to the 2013 launch, the CIRP report shows that there were fewer people upgrading from basic mobile phones, BlackBerrys, and other types of mobile devices. The high adoption rates amongst current iPhone owners is still good news for Apple, which has cultivated brand loyalty amongst these new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus owners. Former Android users also made up a large chunk of those buyers, however their representation was slightly lower at this launch than after last year’s iPhone launch.

“After the most recent launch, 12% of iPhone buyers reported having an Android phone, compared to 23% after the September 2013 launch,” explains the CIRP report.

CIRP zooms in on the buying trends on those former Android users who decided to purchase an iPhone model at some point during the month proceeding the 2014 launch date. cheap dissertation writing services UK. Amongst former Android owners, the iPhone 6 seems to win the popularity contest, grabbing 59% of buyers in this group, in comparison to the 26% of former Android owners who bought the iPhone 6 Plus. The report also shows a small demand for previous-generation iPhones in this consumer group – 9% purchased an iPhone 5S and 6% bought the 5C.

Mark Levin, the co-founded of CIRP weighed in on the former Android users’ buying patterns, identifying “Android owners, many of whom already had experience with phones with larger screen phones, were drawn to the 5.5 inch iPhone 6 Plus.”

The Tech Trader Daily blog describes how the iPhone 6 is outselling the iPhone 6 Plus “three to one,” calling out notes from UBS analysts Peter Christiansen and Steven Milunovich. Since the new generation models account for 91% of all iPhones purchased within the first month of the launch, analysts have upped their predictions for Apple’s stock. The popularity of the iPhone 6 Plus over the iPhone 6 model amongst general buyers echoes the trends pointed out in the CIRP analyses of former Android owners.

“Milunovich and Christiansen raised their target price on Apple to $125 earlier this week, on strong demand in China and continued brand loyalty,” describes Tech Trader Daily.

Today, Apple stock closed at $114.18, continuing to break its own peak thresholds.

Post Credit: Inquisitr

Saturday, 1 November 2014

Has Apple quietly fixed its iPhone 6 Plus ‘Bendgate’ problem?

iPhone 6 Plus
Has Apple quietly fixed its iPhone 6 Plus ‘Bendgate’ problem?
Ignoring the idiotic instances where people intentionally started bending iPhone 6 units in stores just to prove it can be done, Apple did have an iPhone 6 Bendgate problem, which genuinely affected some early buyers. Search cheap dissertation writing services on iPhone 6. Early reports have shown that the iPhone 6 Plus was more prone to bending than its smaller sibling, with some users explaining why the iPhone 6 Plus can bend in a certain way — apparently the area around the bottom volume button lacks the kind of reinforcement that can prevent bending. However, Apple might have fixed the issue, one Reddit user seems to indicate.


Redditor doctorkuddles says that he just purchased an 128GB iPhone 6 Plus that feels different than his wife’s early 16GB iPhone 6 Plus model.
“I can’t prove anything. I can only look at my iPhone 6 Plus I got yesterday, and the 6 Plus my wife got on September 20th,” he explains. “We have identical phones minus the GB size (I have 128GB, she has the 16GB) Both are space gray. I started looking at both phones closely.
“First difference I noticed is the smoothness on the week one phone compared to the week 6 (?) phone. Completely softer and smoother. The second difference I noted was when I started tapping (‘flicking’) the back and sides of both phones. Right where the previous ‘bends’ were in previous 6 Pluses (above and below the volume rocker), there is a night and day difference in sound,” he adds.
doctorkuddles further says he used a stethoscope to listen to the iPhone 6 Plus and found that his 128GB phone sounds “much more dull toned, indicating to me it’s more solid” whereas “her phone had a lot more percussion sound, indicating that area was previously hollow”
He then took it under a microscope, without dismantling it. He looked through the cracks of the volume buttons and spotted a “red colored object placed in the volume down button crank.”
Furthermore, he weighed and measured both devices and found out that while both devices are identical in size, the 128GB version is 21g heavier than the 16GB model.
“I just don’t see the memory being that much heavier,” he said.
No actual images or videos of any of these findings have been published, so it’s not clear whether doctorkuddles has actually discovered anything.
Interestingly, he contacted the teardown experts at iFixit on the matter, who purchased a brand new 128GB iPhone 6 Plus and weighed it.
“It weighs 173.5 grams, a whopping 0.8 grams more than the Day One unit,” iFixit’s mdjorie wrote on the same Reddit thread. “I don’t know what’s up with your new unit, OP, but our new unit definitely doesn’t weigh 21 grams more than the Day One device.”
 It’s not clear whether Apple made any internal design changes to its iPhones since the Bendgate issue was first reported, or whether it would be able to roll out changes so fast in case it did. But a previous report did reveal that Apple takes product launch-related issues and flaws very seriously and looks to fix problems as fast as possible following their discovery.
Post Credit: Yahoo News