Supposed iPhone 6 frame leaks: it’s ultra-thin and not very Apple-like

The notoriously unreliable Digitimes last month called for a larger size iPhone in May and today Chinese website Huanqiu reiterated that an iPhablet would arrive in time for the next Galaxy S smartphone confirmed for May 2014.

The next iPhone – let’s call it the iPhone 6 for the convenience sake - is generally thought tocome in two sizes, one 4.7-inch and the larger one with a phablet-grade screen measuring a whopping 5.7 inches diagonally.

And now, images of an alleged frame have appeared online to suggest a notably thinner appearance compared to the current-generation iPhone 5s. Could this part be genuine? My two cents are right below…

A pair of photographs seen top of post were posted by Chinese leaker website C Tech.

Not much to be gleaned from the low-resolution shots other than the visibly thinner frame versus the current-generation Apple handset.

Bear in mind that in the run-up to the official iPhone 5s announcement C Tech leaked a number of parts which later proved authentic. As for this part, maybe it’s an early trial production part though it doesn’t look genuine to me.

It could be also an aftermarket component, a hoax or simply one of the parts belonging to an iPhone prototype that never materialized.

For starters, what’s up with the edges having an old style roundedness to them? To me, this looks like a mid-plate, a design Apple long abandoned in favor of Unibody construction.

For additional analysis, read Eric Slivka’s take over at MacRumors.

With that off our backs, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that upcoming gadgets will be thinner than the ones they replace, courtesy of manufacturing technology advances and the ever-shrinking components.

Much of the next iPhone’s supposed thinness should be the work of its presumably larger form-factor making additional room for components such as the wireless and memory chips, the main processor, the cameras and the battery.

The media is of course quick to spell doom for Apple unless it jumps on the phablet bus. Take, for example, a recent write-up by Gareth Beavis over at TechRadar:

I don’t mean to sound alarmist, but 2014 could well be the year that Apple makes its biggest mistake in recent history.

No, I’m not talking about the iWatch – I still think that could actually be rather good – no, Apple has to, HAS TO, bring out a large screen version of the iPhone or it’s going to really struggle to stay relevant in a rapidly changing world.

Countering his notion is Ben Bajarin who reminds us Apple hasn’t become so successful by skating where the puck is. “Apple has customers not competition,” he explains:

Folks claim that because Apple’s competition is doing something that Apple should also or they will lose. Yet what I love about Apple’s strategy is that it is never around what the competition is doing. Apple marches to beat of their own drum.

Apple has customers not competition. The decisions they make as a company are not based around what their competition is doing but around what is best for their customers. Like it or not, this is their strategy.

Sounds just about right to me, which isn’t saying that an Apple phablet of sorts isn’t being cooked up in Jony Ive’s kitchen as we speak.

In fact, when you take into account what Tim Cook & Co. have done last year with the iPad Air and the iPad mini with Retina display, it’s becoming clear that 2014 could very well be the year of two form-factor iPhones, both based on exactly the same internals and design, the only difference being the screen size and price.

Make sense?

Does Apple really HAVE TO bring out a larger screen iPhone in 2014 or else…?

This is Facebook’s upcoming Reader feature

With so much great content being posted online on a daily basis and so little precious time to spare (talk about information overload), we as a technological society have grown dependent on various apps to scrap news articles and store them in pure text form for later reading. And boy are these services plentiful!

Not only do you get clutter-free content, but also can pull your saved articles from the cloud whenever and wherever a few minutes need killing – all in one app and without having to manage and bookmark the URLs.

I used to be a big believer in Marco Arment’sInstapaper read-later app for the iPhone and iPad ($3.99 on the App Store). However, Marco’s lack of vision, slow pace of development and just his general attitude on Twitter prompted me to make a switch to Pocket (formerly Read It Later) months ago.

Honestly, I never looked back since. Pocket comes free and provides tons of capabilities packaged into such a clean and elegant reading experience that’s consistent and available across my iPhones, iPads and and Macs.

These services also cut down on time-sucks that are social networks because people spend less time actually reading news articles on Facebook and increasingly save the stories to Instapapers and Pockets of this world. Zuck & Co. have taken notice of the trend and have been testing a read-later Facebook feature for months, a new rumor has it…

Mike Isaac shared the top-right screenshot in his AllThingsD post, writing that the social networking giant is testing a feature that would allow users to save links shared inside Facebook to a list for later reading.

“The functionality is quite similar to the popular apps Pocket and Instapaper,” Isaac’s post notes.

The feature, which was pointed out to AllThingsD by the technology blog MyTechSkool, comes in the form of a small iBook-like bookmark button attached to stories shared in the News Feed. Click the button, and the link will be set aside in a “saved” menu inside a user’s Facebook apps menu.

A Facebook spokesperson refused to comment on the story, issuing its standard boilerplate saying “We’re constantly testing new features, but we have nothing further to share at this time”.

Darrell Etherington of TechCrunch has more on the implementation:

When you see a link shared by your network in your newsfeed, you can click a small bookmark icon on the right side to save it to a list of saved links available from your apps menu. The feature is currently visible only to a small selection of Facebook users, as is common when the company rolls out new features.

Whether or not it gains wider release is up in the air, and while some features Facebook tests in this way do make it to the general population, many others do not.

The feature lacks offline access at the moment, Darrell noted.

Facebook has been making strides in this direction for some time now.

In March, Facebook unveiled a redesigned News Feed focused on photos. The move represented an effort to boost engagement and surface more of relevant content that Facebook’s users might have otherwise missed.

“We want to give everyone in the world the best personalized newspaper in the world,”Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said introducing the new News Feed.

Likening the revamped News Feed to a personalized newspaper drew ridicule from some pundits, but Zuck could easily have the last laugh – according to a June report by The Wall Street Journal, Facebook’s been working on its own newsreader-like feature, internally called Reader, in a bid to become a destination for both media content and discovery.

Isaac claims the internal screenie he shared represents the second iteration of a Reader feature, “though earlier efforts were less visible and not as easy to understand and use”.

I’m still trying to get my head around the idea of consuming news entirely on Facebook.

I mean, folks typically click on news article links shared on Twitter and Facebook, which opens the story in a new browser tab. I know some big media newspapers and tech sites now have their Facebook Timeline apps, but I just don’t see any benefit in “social reading”.

If I’m interested in a story, I’ll click your link and read the article in its original form and eventually comment on it. I just don’t see myself using Facebook Reader instead of Pocket or Instapaper.

Bloomberg: curved-screen jumbo-sized iPhones coming in 2014

We’ve been hearing a lot lately about jumbo-sized iPhones, but the iPhablet meme is so passé now. So how about a curved-screen iPhone? I’m not talking about a Galaxy Round type of device – according to a new Bloomberg report, a large-screen iPhone featuring a flat screen with the cover glass “that curves downward at the edges” is in the works.

This sounds a lot like the Lumia range as the high-end Nokia devices sport slightly curved screen edges. Note that this is the first time we’ve heard the curved-screen iPhone being mentioned by a major big media publication. The Bloomberg article also mentions two large-screen models planned for release in the second half of next year and a new pressure-sensitive screen technology. Jump past the fold for the full reveal…

Bloomberg has the scoop, via 9to5Mac.

Two models planned for release in the second half of next year will feature larger displays with glass that curves downward at the edges, said the person, declining to be identified as the details aren’t public.

The new iPhones will be Apple’s largest at screens of 4.7 and 5.5 inches, the person said, approaching in size the 5.7-inch Galaxy Note 3 that Samsung Electronics Co. debuted in September.

The benefits of curved-glass designs are somewhat negligible. Apart from the aesthetic advantage it gives to the device, the only other benefit might just be that it would feel better in your pocket.

Again, this doesn’t sound like the Galaxy Round at all (pictured below) so I’m guessing the Bloomberg article is actually referring to a screen design pioneered by Nokia’s Lumia range (pictured top of post: the Lumia 1320) which calls for a flat screen that has downwardly curved edges.

Additionally, Bloomberg asserts that Apple is developing sensors which can “distinguish heavy or light touches,” but cautions that the technology “may be incorporated into subsequent models”, according to people familiar with the matter.

Testing continues on the pressure-sensitive technology, which is unlikely to be ready for the next iPhone release and is instead planned for a later model, the person said.

In August 2012 Network World cited deposition by Apple’s designer Christopher Stringer who said one of the original iPhone prototypes included one sporting a shaped glass. Apple seriously considered building it, but eventually scrapped the design because it“cost a lot” to cut shaped glass:

 The technology at the time had a lot to do with it. The qualities of the glass at the time had a lot to do with it. These are models – I’m trying to remember a time frame – that were before gorilla glass and before a lot of the other factors.

The technology in shaping the glass, the cost relative to shaping the glass at the time, and some of the design features of this specific shape were not liked.

The not-so-reliable DigiTimes in September 2011 claimed Apple had invested in glass-cutting machines because “curved cover glass may be the next big thing in terms of handheld device designs”. Conveniently, Apple is now investing more than half a billion dollars in GT Advanced’s sophisticated furnaces to build sapphire cover glass for new products at an upcoming production facility in Mesa, Arizona.

Also worth pointing out: the New York Times in December 2011 wrote Apple had been experimenting with various curved designs, including “a curved-glass iPod that would wrap around the wrist”.

Bloomberg back in February reported that Apple was developing a curved-screen wearable device powered by iOS with fitness and health sensors.

Fittingly, Apple has a flexible battery technology supporting curved enclosures.

What do you make of this?

Is Apple going to abandon the four-inch form factor next year and instead adopt the rumored 4.7 and 5.5-inch iPhones as the new gold standard? Maybe they’ll keep the four-inch design while appealing to phablet lovers with larger, curved-screen iPhones?

Apple considered acquiring parts of BlackBerry?

Although tech titans Apple and Microsoft both sought to buy parts of BlackBerry, the board shied away from breaking up the company, according to a report Friday by Reuters. The ailing smartphone pioneer has determined that selling the company in pieces isn’t in its best interests, despite bids from Apple, Microsoft, Lenovo and others.

I’m not sure the board has necessarily made a wise choice. First and foremost, a full-blown instant comeback is literally impossible this late in the game. And while still profitable, BlackBerry is burning through its cash fast, unit sales are falling off the cliff, users are defecting to other platforms in droves and, worst of all, there are no cool new products on the horizon to be excited about.

And with the iOS-Android duopoly and Microsoft competing for the #3 slot, it’s indeed too late to turn BlackBerry’s fortunes around. Seems to me they should have just sold off parts of the company to become a competitive niche player, as one analyst suggested in August…

Cisco Systems and Google were also interested in buying parts of BlackBerry.

From the Reuters article:

The board rejected proposals from several technology companies for various BlackBerry assets on grounds that a break-up did not serve the interest of all stakeholders, which include employees, customers and suppliers in addition to shareholders, said the sources, who did not want to be identified as the discussions were confidential.

One of the sources said the board also took into consideration the current cost of the break-up. Winding down some of BlackBerry’s businesses would have created liabilities, including in its commitments with suppliers, and would have weighed on the monetization of the company’s intellectual property, the source said.

The report goes on to note that Microsoft and Apple had both expressed interest in BlackBerry’s intellectual property and patents. It’s worth remembering that BlackBerry, Apple and Microsoft in 2011 had teamed up with others to buy patents from bankrupt Canadian telecoms company Nortel.

In addition to BlackBerry’s patents, Apple may had been interested in the company’s secure messaging architecture, enterprise features and device management software. BlackBerry’s patent trove is valued at up to $3 billion and includes new patents that cover recent advances in cellular and communications technologies.

If you’ve been keeping tabs on tech news lately, you’re no doubt aware of the scale of BlackBerry’s woes. Over the past two years, the firm wrote off nearly $1 billion in unsold smartphones and let go 4,500 people, one of the largest layoffs ever for a Canadian company.

Worse, the BlackBerry 10 OS and the BlackBerry Z10 smartphone (below) crashed, prompting the company to discount the flagship all-touch shortly following its launch.

And in spite of its BBM messaging app for the iPhone (pictured above) and Android seeingten million downloads less than 24 hours into the launch, it’s facing an uphill battle against the likes of Viber, WhatsApp, Hangouts and Skype.

As BlackBerry’s woes deepen, the consumer electronics leader Apple was circling the waters, picking off some of BlackBerry’s engineers via a recruitment drive near the BlackBerry offices in Ontario, Financial Post reported last month.

While BlackBerry initially agreed to sell itself to Fairfax Financial Holdings for $4.7 billion, it scrapped those plans recently and fired CEO Thorsten Heins, replacing him with former Sybase chief John Chen as interim CEO. Plan B now calls for $1 billion in convertible notes issued to a group of investors, which includes FairFax.

The logic is that such a move would provide a much-needed short-term lifeline as the management plots the long-term course.

Heins was hired as BlackBerry’s boss following the not-so-graceful exit of its then co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie well after the company had begun its downward spiral.