iPhone

Today is the day the iPhone 4S officially goes on sale. At the announcement for the iPhone 4S you could sense a mild disappointment when everyone realized there wasn't going to be Jobs' trademarked, "one more thing." Aside from the lack of a redesigned case, larger screen, and 4G networking, the new iPhone has some amazing new features. The big question is how is this new iPhone going to do in the competitive smartphone market? This Gadgetology report looks at who is going to buy a smartphone and which phones they are considering.

More iPhone 4 Owners May Upgrade
You might think the iPhone 4S may make more sense as an upgrade for iPhone 3G/3GS owners whose contracts have already expired. However the study actually found almost as many iPhone 4 owners (42%) as iPhone 3G/3GS owners (44%) planning to buy an iPhone 4S. Android owners are less enthusiastic with 12% planning to buy one and surprisingly, BlackBerry owners (24%) were less interested in switching to an iPhone than we found in previous studies. It looks like Apple may be appealing more to its installed base in this version of the iPhone than attracting "defectors" from the other smartphone camps.Read more

iPhone 4S Features Dual-Core A5 Chip, All New Camera, Full 1080p HD Video Recording & Introduces Siri

October 4, 2011—Apple today announced iPhone 4S, the most amazing iPhone yet, packed with incredible new features including Apple’s dual-core A5 chip for blazing fast performance and stunning graphics; an all new camera with advanced optics; full 1080p HD resolution video recording; and Siri, an intelligent assistant that helps you get things done just by asking. With the launch of iPhone 4S also comes the launch of iOS 5, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system with over 200 new features; and iCloud, a breakthrough set of free cloud services that work with your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac or PC to automatically and wirelessly store your content in iCloud and push it to all your devices.

"iPhone 4S plus iOS 5 plus iCloud is a breakthrough combination that makes the iPhone 4S the best iPhone ever," said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "While our competitors try to imitate iPhone with a checklist of features, only iPhone can deliver these breakthrough innovations that work seamlessly together."

iPhone 4S comes with iOS 5, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system, which includes over 200 new features including Notification Center, an innovative way to easily view and manage notifications in one place without interruption and iMessage, a new messaging service that lets you easily send text messages, photos and videos between all iOS 5 users. iOS 5 will also be available as a free software update for iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS customers allowing them to experience these amazing new features.*Read more

Buying a new smartphone shouldn't be a major expense. In fact, it shouldn't be an expense at all. dealnews archives reveal that months after a phone's release, you can snag that same handset for free. But which smartphones hit $0 the fastest, and is it ever possible to get an iPhone for free?

dealnews tracked past deals on popular smartphones to predict how long before some of today's hottest models are handed out for free:

Sprint's HTC Evo

The Previous Model: In March of 2010, HTC's Evo 4G became the first 4G smartphone to debut on Sprint's network, and it was sold directly from Sprint for $199.99 (after a $100 mail-in rebate). Three months later we posted our first deal on the Evo 4G: $200 with free shipping and no rebate hassles. That following September, the smartphone dropped again to $180, and by Black Friday the phone had already slipped to $100. This June and July we finally saw the Evo 4G hit $0 with no rebates via Wirefly. Overall, it took eight months for the phone to reach 50% off and 16 months for it to hit $0.

The Current Model: HTC's latest iteration of the Evo — the Evo 3D 4G — debuted from Sprint on June 24 with a similar $199.99 price tag. This time, however, the deal didn't necessitate a mail-in rebate. And unlike the original Evo, we actually started seeing deals for the Evo 3D before its release. In fact, 16 days before the phone's official release, both Wirefly and Amazon Wireless offered pre-orders for $180 with free shipping.Read more

Kerplunk, There Goes Another Smartphone
Which is more common, accidentally dropping a phone in the toilet or being stung by a bee? If you answered a bee sting you'd be right but not by as much as you might have thought. Dropping a phone in water is just one of many ways consumers unexpectedly find themselves with non-functioning cell phones. The latest Gadgetology study from Retrevo looks at who is losing cell phone data and how they are protecting their cell phones from harm and finds that iPhone owners may be a safer group of phone owners.

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While the government is busy crafting legislation to protect your privacy and prevent companies like Apple and Google from tracking your online activities, this recent Gadgetology study from Retrevo discovered there's a lot of snooping and tracking going on among people who know each other. If you've ever wondered what the likelihood is that someone is reading your emails or text messages or even tracking your comings and goings, you might be surprised to learn it's more common than ever, especially among spouses and parents and their children.

Easy access to someone's emails, text messages and call history on cell phones, laptops and other gadgets make it easy to invade someone's personal space. Everyone's personal information is, more times than not, left sitting on the kitchen counter, readily available to curious onlookers like spouses, partners, boyfriends, girlfriends, significant others, or who knows, even nosy friends and relatives. In this recent Retrevo Gadgetology study more than a third of respondents (33%) admitted to checking a boyfriend's or girlfriends email or call history on the sly. Slightly more married couples snoop on their spouses (37%) and an even larger number of parents spy on their kids (37%). The number of parents snooping is highest among parents of teenagers with 60% snooping on their kids and possibly for good reason as 14% of those parents reported finding something they were concerned about.Read more

As Verizon continues to roll out their 4G LTE network across the country at an accelerated rate and AT&T also picking up speed in their 4G deployment, it would seem that widespread 4G adoption is a foregone conclusion. Unfortunately, it looks like consumers may be so confused over 4G that they become hesitant to move to 4G, at least in the near term. In a recent Retrevo Gadgetology study, only a little less than a quarter of the respondents say they're going for 4G. With so many potential 4G customers expressing concerns about cost and performance, providers of 4G phones and services could be in for some disappointment.

A Third of iPhone Owners Mistakenly Think Their Phones Have 4G
Maybe the "4" in the iPhone 4 name gives iPhone owners (34%) the false impression that they already own a 4G phone but the fact is Apple doesn't offer a 4G phone at the moment. Coincidentally, a suspiciously large percentage of Android and BlackBerry owners may be suffering from the same delusion. BlackBerry owners (24%) are almost as confused as iPhone owners since RIM doesn't currently offer a 4G phone. At least some Android owners could be answering correctly as Android 4G phones like the HTC Evo 4G or Samsung Infuse 4G have been available for some time. If nothing else, this large number of misinformed phone owners serves to emphasize the fact that consumers are quite confused about 4G.Read more

A parent's job is never finished & especially when it comes to keeping up with the technology that children so easily seem to understand. If you're a parent today, chances are, you're well aware that your job has grown far beyond making sure homework is completed and everyone gets to school on time. Today's parents have Facebook, Twitter and a whole new world of social tools to consider when it comes to raising their children and even getting some well-deserved socializing in for themselves, and leading the way in most digital activities are iPhone owning parents, or "iParents" as we affectionately call them. In an effort to help parents understand what other parents are doing (and not doing) in the social space, consumer electronics shopping and review site Retrevo commissioned a Gadgetology study to look at the changing role of parents in this new age of technology.

iPhone Parents Collect More Facebook Friends
Have you ever wondered if a "magical device" like an iPhone has the power to make a parent more popular on Facebook? Apparently, it can't hurt. When compared with the general parent population, iPhone owning parents are more likely to be social on Facebook than the average parent. Retrevo found that 13% of iPhone owning parents had more than 500 Facebook friends as opposed to only 8% of all parents who had more than 500 Facebook friends.Read more

"All you have to do is follow three simple rules. One, never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected. Two, take it outside. Never start anything inside the bar unless it's absolutely necessary. And three, be nice." – Dalton, "Road House" (1989), Silver Pictures

If Steve Jobs had a Facebook page, he'd probably have more "likes" than, well…anyone.

He doesn't though, he prefers Twitter…yeah, right!

Some people even go beyond liking Steve. Remember the guy at Apple's WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) who blurted out, "Steve, we love you."?

Cupertino city council had a similar view when he presented Apple's super concept for the company's new campus.

Come on, the spaceship is cool.

It'll be great to see a building in the Valley that isn't just another tilt-up slab.Read more