iPhone 5 4G to take its place with other pseudo-4G experiences

All the debate over whether the iPhone 5 will or should offer support for 4G networking misses the overriding point: 4G is a fraud. It doesn't exist. Not really. Whether it's Verizon with its barely-there 4G network, or AT&T whose 4G network exists only on paper, or T-Mobile and Sprint pushing pseudo-"4G" networks which are so much slower than what 4G is supposed to be that competing networks have adopted the "4G LTE" moniker as a way of distinguishing themselves from it, there is as of yet no legitimate 4G experience to be had. It's why Apple didn't add 4G to the iPhone 4 last year, and doesn't want to add it to the iPhone 5 4G this year either. Yet the march to 4G is well on its way, at least in the marketing departments of the carriers, which leaves Apple in the awkward position of not wanting to add mostly-useless 4G hardware to the iPhone5 due to the various ways in which it could be a net-negative for the overall experience. But Apple may have to give into 4G hype anyway, effectively offering a worse (for now) product in the name of staying in the game.

The challenge of delivering a 4G iPhone 5 starts with the issue of which "4G" variant Apple would start with. AT&T and Verizon are both betting on 4G LTE, and it's the best (fastest) flavor to date. But Verizon's 4G LTE network is mostly not yet built, and AT&T's network 4G LTE network doesn't exist. The latter is complicated by the fact that AT&T is in the process of acquiring T-Mobile and its nationwide pseudo-4G network, meaning that Apple could be looking at needing to support multiple kinds of 4G within the iPhone 5g. And that's before Sprint and its brand of pseudo-4G come into the equation, with Sprint being the only carrier Apple doesn't have to worry about. But even in attempting to play along with the Verizon and the AT&T-T-Mobile 4G experiences, Apple could end up with an inferior iPhone 5 product in the process.

Support for multiple types of wireless technology means more drain on battery life. The iPhone 5 is already looking at supporting AT&T's 3G GSM, Verizon's CDMA, and presumably, AT&T's aging EDGE since AT&T never did finish building its 3G network. On top of that, add support for 4G LTE plus maybe T-Mobile's brand of 4G, and along with wifi that's half a dozen different types of potential receivership going on. And unless Apple has figured out how to build a single antenna which can interact with all the various cellular networks, 4G support could mean more networking hardware packed into the iPhone 5. That either means it has to be thicker than Apple wanted, or other features (capacity? battery?) have to be reduced in order to make room. Suddenly, in the worst case scenario, you're looking at an iPhone 5 which, for the sake of supporting 4G for the relative handful who would actually be able to use it, would be a worse-off product for everyone else. But with the entire cellular marketplace from carriers to hardware vendors all pretending that 4G is for real at a time when it's still a little-understood pipedream, Apple will have a hard time remaining the only honest player with regard to 4G amidst an industry-wide fraudulent representation of what 4G is and isn't. In other words, a 4G-enabled iPhone 5 could bring with it more bad news than good, even though it would likely outsell a non-4G iPhone 5 by quite a large margin. Here's more on the iPhone 5 news.

Apple iPhone 5 Release Date – Is it Worth Waiting?

Rumours are circulating as to when the iPhone 5 release date will be. Is it worth waiting for the new iPhone which is rumoured to have HD gaming?

Originally we were expecting the iPhone 5 to be released some time in late June, early July. This would have been consistent with Apple's previous iPhone launches. However the recent release of the white iPhone 4 has led to suggestions that we may not see the iPhone, or iPhone 4GS as it also may be know, until September at the earliest. This is certainly a blow for those who were holding out for the iPhone5.

The question is, is it worth the wait? We can only know for sure when the iPhone 5 features are announced. It is looking very positive for us gamers. Our wish for Flash support is not expected to be granted, as Apple continues in their believe that Flash is a security risk. What we can certainly expect is a higher resolution screen, hopefully HD. The camera is also expected to be significantly improved once more, rendering the need for a separate camera for anyone other than a keen photographer needless. Rumours are that it may be as powerful as 8 MP. Yet what excites us the most is the new dual core processors that will introduced. They will allow significantly more CPU hungry games to be developed. This can only increase the quality of iPhone games further. Before we know it standalone consoles will be needless. We will be able to plug our iPhone into the TV and use it as a console. Well maybe we can dream….

What are you hoping for in the iPhone 5 news?

The Data Plan Dilemma Gets Uglier: Verizon To Drop Unlimited Plans Ahead of iPhone 5 Release

Data transfer is the lifeblood of smartphone usage — and the thing that sends mobile phone bills (and tempers) through the roof. New news of Verizon canceling its unlimited data plan ahead of the iPhone 5 release joins a recent report that AT&T is overcharging for data usage on the iPhone and iPad 2 review. When will the data gouging stop?

As the summer heats up, people might have more to stress about than the rising price of gasoline — a pair of news stories have surfaced this week concerning data plans on America's top mobile carries — AT&T and Verizon — and how iPhone users are systematically getting as gouged at the "data pump" as they are the gas pump.

The iPhone 5 News Blog posted an article earlier in the week about a class-action lawsuit filed against AT&T for purportedly overcharging all 20 million of their  iPhone and iPad users for "phantom" data transfers when the devices are not even in use, leading to bills that are anywhere from 7% to 300% higher than what they should be. Clearly, stories like this raise the level of concern on the part of prospective iPhone 5 customers, who fear that new features such as a cloud storage, NFC, and the 4G network (likely to debut in the iPhone 6), will only exacerbate data transfer usage. In our previous article, we postulated that the next shoe to drop on this developing story would focus on Verizon.

Well, the second shoe has dropped.

Tech media outlet ZDNET is reporting that, according to Verizon CEO Fran Shammo, their "unlimited data plans would be replaced by tiered service plans aimed at heavy users. Verizon's tiered data plans would likely mimic AT&T's own, which offer 250MB of data for $15 per month and 2GB for $25." This news comes ahead of the eventual release of the iPhone5 (or "iPhone 4s" as some have suggested it will be called), as well as several new Android phones that will have 4G LTE functionality. While consensus still remains that the next iPhone will now be a 4G smartphone, there are other possible features, such as cloud storage and NFC, which could lead to exponentially more data usage from iPhone users. It would seem that, in light of these possible new features, Verizon is positioning itself to gouge iPhone 5g users as they are potentially forced to swap data at much higher rates.

Data Plans: Moving In the Wrong Direction

Over the years, telecom-related plans have always moved from incremental billing to flat rate billing. Think about it: early Internet access on services like AOL were billed hourly, but eventually were forced to move to a flat rate billing model. The same has been true with long distance phone calls, with most land line voice plans replacing minute-by-minute billing with a flat rate.

Data plans, however, seem to be moving in the opposite direction.

With this news of Verizon abandoning unlimited data plans, smartphone users will be forced to scrutinize their own mobile Internet usage (particularly in our weak economy), much in the same way that mobile phone users have struggled to keep track of their "minutes" of phone usage. But as more and more mobile plans include either unlimited or high-level voice usage allowances, it is clear that carriers like Verizon and AT&T are looking for new ways to raise revenues, and hitting smartphone users up for data usage is clearly the new cash cow.

What the larger companies like Verizon and AT&T are failing to recognize is that they are giving price-leading mobile networks like Sprint the opportunity to undercut them on data plan pricing in the future. In the past, when Internet providers like AOL switched from hourly billing to flat rate pricing, it was a viable and necessary move, since more and more people were getting "online" every month; there were enough newcomers to the Internet experience to allow AOL to make more money with flat rate pricing, since it would attract more new customers.

But with an already established smartphone customer in place worldwide, carriers like Verizon would seemingly have more to lose by nixing their flat rate data plan, ostensibly losing that edge over their fiercest competitor, AT&T, and encouraging their own iPhone users to conserve and script on their data usage. And what if Sprint gets the iPhone 5? In spite of the fact that Sprint uses the slower CDMA technology, wouldn't the iPhone 5 paired with Sprint's Simply Everything plan look attractive compared to Verizon and AT&T nickel and diming iPhone 5 users on data?

Data plans are getting increasingly ugly for iPhone users, and it looks like the trend toward data gouging is only going to increase as the iPhone 5 looms closer.

Here's more on the iPhone 5 verizon

iPhone 5 Will Be Thinner and Smaller Says Orange CEO

Ah the continuing speculation over what the next generation iPhone will look like carries on today, this time in regards to the earlier rumour of Apple working on a smaller SIM card for their Apple gear and apparently whilst chatting in an interview the CEO of France Telecom/Orange made mention of the iPhone 5 being smaller and thinner.

According to an article over on 9to5 Mac, Stephane Richard, CEO of Orange in an interview with AllthingsD, apparently stated that the next generation iPhone would be smaller and thinner, although the CEO didn't say the iPhone5, he actually referred to the device as the next iPhone.

But as the "next iPhone" is presumed to be the iPhone 5g or iPhone 4S that's being bandied about one can assume he was referring to the iPhone 5 apple, but he didn't say how much smaller and thinner the iOS smartphone would be.

Although this latest rumour does give credence to the possibility of a smaller SIM card, a rumour that came about because Apple wants to make future iPhones thinner and needs the space. Having said that, the only people who really know what Apple is up to is Apple so as usual this should be taken with a pinch of salt.

So what do our readers think, would you like the iPhone 5 to be smaller and thinner, or do you feel Apple shouldn't make the iPhone smaller when others are making their handsets larger?

Here's more on the iPhone 5 news

iPhone 5G Case Design Shows Redesigned Camera Flash

GadgetsDNA points to a new Chinese case design found on Alibaba that claims to be for the "iPhone 5G".
1.100% brand new high quality crystal case for iphone 5g .
2. Provides a comfortable grip, added protection against accidental drops .
3. Perfectly fits the iPhone 5 g, easy to insert and remove .
What's unusual about the case is that it seems to depict a very thin-bezel design as well as a distinct camera design. (It should be noted that their iPhone 4 "crystal" designs also have little in the way of bezels") The camera flash appears to be on the opposite side of the case rather than adjacent to the camera itself.

While there's been talk of these more dramatic changes, the most recent reports have claimed that the next iPhone will actually only contain minor cosmetic differences over the iPhone 4.

It's possible we could see these design elements in the future if not the next release, as the iPod Touch camera was found in case designs a full release cycle ahead of the ultimate release.

Update: It should be noted that their iPhone 4 "crystal" cases also share the same thin edge, so the camera design alone may be main difference in the new iPhone case design. This would fit with the "minor cosmetic differences" described in the previous report.

iPhone 5 Jailbreaking

One of the features that many never liked the IOS iPhone 5 Jailbreaking is the fact that Apple does not allow software upgrade without having to connect to iTunes. So, in fact, need to download the new firmware, connect to the computer and wait for the update.

According to the words of 9to5Mac however, with the introduction of iPhone 5 Jailbreak IOS 5.0 everything should be just a "bad" memory.
5.0 Obviously the same can not be introduced without wires, as unsupported by the current version of IOS, but all his successors should instead take off without having to require a link to your computer.

This seems iOS push beyond its famous closing time, which requires the transition from iTunes to many, if not almost all, functions. In short, taking place a kind of "androidizzazione" of IOS, which is an update that introduces features similar to those of the OS from Google, which allows devices to upgrade the mountain without the need for a PC / Mac.

Of course, this sounds very interesting, if not for the iPhone 5 Jailbreaking fact that updates introduced by Apple always have a sufficiently large weight. For as you have noticed, the firmware for different devices weigh average 500MB or more and make them available over the air "could lead to use of its 3G network really hard. It would be interesting to see what could be the move to Apple about it: If you decrease the size of the updates, or update, allows the cordless, but only in WiFi.

iPhone 5 Will Be Thinner and Smaller Says Orange CEO

Ah the continuing speculation over what the next generation iPhone will look like carries on today, this time in regards to the earlier rumour of Apple working on a smaller SIM card for their Apple gear and apparently whilst chatting in an interview the CEO of France Telecom/Orange made mention of the iPhone 5 being smaller and thinner.

According to an article over on 9to5 Mac, Stephane Richard, CEO of Orange in an interview with AllthingsD, apparently stated that the next generation iPhone would be smaller and thinner, although the CEO didn't say the iPhone5, he actually referred to the device as the next iPhone.

But as the "next iPhone" is presumed to be the iPhone 5g or iPhone 4S that's being bandied about one can assume he was referring to the iPhone 5 apple, but he didn't say how much smaller and thinner the iOS smartphone would be.

Although this latest rumour does give credence to the possibility of a smaller SIM card, a rumour that came about because Apple wants to make future iPhones thinner and needs the space. Having said that, the only people who really know what Apple is up to is Apple so as usual this should be taken with a pinch of salt.

So what do our readers think, would you like the iPhone 5 to be smaller and thinner, or do you feel Apple shouldn't make the iPhone smaller when others are making their handsets larger?

Here's more on the iPhone 5 news