Wanna Save Your iPhone Battery?

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This is not one of those "Turn off every useful feature of iOS" posts that grinds my gears. My goal is to deliver practical steps to truly solve your iOS battery woes.

One quick thing before we start — 99.9% of the time it is not actually iOS that is causing your battery to drain quickly. I guarantee you that if you erased your phone and there were no apps or email on it, it would last for ages. But, no one uses their device like that, nor should they. Hopefully with these steps you will be living in iOS battery bliss while still using all the apps and features you love.

I will be reformatting my iPhone 5 again and start fresh with iOS 7.1. A few weeks ago, I installed iOS 7 which did posses amazing battery life, but after I started installing a few of the hundreds of apps that I use, my battery would eventually only last half a day! I'm going to have to start deducing what's really going on.

via OverThought by Scotty Loveless

T-Mobile Unleashed Is NOT So Cheap

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At this time, my Early Termination Fees (ETFs) with AT&T are $155 for a line thats due in September of this year. Thats a prorated amount down from $350 in case you're wondering. Let me back up. If you've been following me on twitter, I've been fed up with AT&T's false advertising that sold me a few years ago for a service that CLEARLY said "Unlimited Data" for $30. I use FaceTime quite a bit,1 stream my baby monitor from hundreds of miles away, and sometimes just soak up youtube so yea, I'll easily go over 5GBs a month and trust me, hotel WiFi is horrific! I hate that they expect me to use it in place of a service that I pay for! So back to the story.

If I sell my Apple iPhone 5 64GB White to T-Mobile for $300 and they pay my ETF at $155, that's "$455" in my pocket. The only way they will "Unleash" you is if you trade in your phone, no exceptions. Then I have to buy a FULL priced mobile phone, desirably an iPhone 5s 64GB, for $799. That means, I still have to shell out $344 so that's not that bad of a deal right? That's actually incorrect. Let me explain. I'd be shelling out $499 for my new phone after the trade-in credit followed by a Mastercard Gift Card in the credit amount of $155 in approximately 8 weeks. So I'm out half a grand to "unleash."

tmobile unleash

If I can wait, and probably will, for just six more months, I can unlock my iPhone 5, sell it on the market for maybe $400 or more, then buy a full priced iPhone 6. So yes, I'm still out $399 but, here's where I could save. I could then bring it along with me to T-Mobile, and pay nothing leaving me with just the $70 Unlimited 4G Everything Plan plus a $10 SIM kit. When it comes down to it, I'll be out money obviously later in the year with me upgrading my phone but ideally, I'd rather T-Mobile just pay my ETF now and I bring my current iPhone 5 with me. That's what the deal should have been in the first place.

disclaimer: I signed a 2 year contract with AT&T for a subsidized iPhone 5 so ultimately, with the "Unleash" deal, you still end up paying full price for the device. I could save a bunch of money and purchase Google's Nexus 5 for $349 unlocked online instead but that's a whole other story of iOS vs. Android, etc. I'm not going to go there just yet.

And yes, it's pretty awesome that with the unlimited 4G Data you get an additional 2.5GB of tethering capability.

  1. I use FaceTime about 1-5 minutes almost every couple of hours for a total of 30-60 minutes a day. Sometimes, I'm on for 20 minutes in a row. ↩

Image Retention Pops up once again on Various new iPad mini's

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Marco Arment posted a follow-up article today in regards to his latest finding with his personal iPad mini. Over a year ago, image retention started popping up in multiple user experiences on the Retina MacBook Pros which led him to create a simple test image. This can "detect" whether or not you have a faulty LCD screen and once again it applies here to Apple's new iPad mini with Retina Display. It comes without mentioning that if you have a Retina MacBook Pro, you can look up your model ((The manufacturer that had the most hits for positive image retention came from LG while the Samsung variant produced far less instances.)) by running this simple command in the terminal window:

ioreg -lw0 | grep "EDID" | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6

credit: MacRumors user: kpdillon

With the new iPad minis selling out this week and other LTE versions shipping out next, you should give this test a shot immediately when taking delivery. And if you're able, exchange the product if you demonstrate image retention. As Marco also mentions, because of the short supply, the chances of an exchange can be hindered but if you plan on keeping your iPad mini for years to come, I'd highly recommend trying as best to squash the problem before it's too late.

On a good note, not all screens are presenting this issue as he also goes on the mention that the new iPhone 5s and iPad Air do NOT exhibit this symptom.

Here's his direct link to the screen test.

iPhone 5s for $99

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With the latest discounts applying to Apple's iPhone 5c at Walmart and Best Buy, Sprint is rounding up customers near and far by aggressively selling the iPhone 5s for $99 with a 2 year contract + new line activation.  I've also confirmed that this applies to current customers off of contract.  It's the cheapest price that I've seen around the web so if you've been thinking about switching to the $80 unlimited everything plan, now's your chance to get a brand new phone.Sprint iPhone 5s

Looking for an iPhone 5s in Store?

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I just check not a few seconds ago and you can pick up in store / reserve your Apple iPhone 5s available at North County Fair and Fashion Valley in the 32GB Space Gray for AT&T!  The White 64GB AT&T is also available at NCF.  Are you upgrading? update: all three Space Gray models in the 32GB variant are available from all three carriers AT&T, Sprint or Verizon.  It is unknown why the unlocked / T-Mobile / contract-free version is listed as unavailable at the moment when using Apple's online reservation system.  Still no Golds available in any form or fashion.

update 2 @ 12:22am 24 Sept: looks like Apple has just stopped the "Personal Pickup" option on their website for the iPhone 5s but the iPhone 5c option is still available.

update 3 @ 15:56 27 Sept via 9to5mac:

Apple will restore the Personal Pickup option for the iPhone 5s as soon as this upcoming Monday, September 30th.

Personal Pickup iPhone 5s

 

An "Easy" Way to Break Through Apple's TouchID

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Someone who really wants to first steal your phone, then go through the following ordeal really needs the information that you protected. Also, still better than a four-digit pin. Of course, we are currently seeing other reasons to not use TouchID as some areas of jurisdictions can force you give up your fingerprint when you are arrested. Here's some advice, don't do anything stupid.

Apple 5s TouchID

First, the fingerprint of the enroled user is photographed with 2400 dpi resolution. The resulting image is then cleaned up, inverted and laser printed with 1200 dpi onto transparent sheet with a thick toner setting. Finally, pink latex milk or white woodglue is smeared into the pattern created by the toner onto the transparent sheet. After it cures, the thin latex sheet is lifted from the sheet, breathed on to make it a tiny bit moist and then placed onto the sensor to unlock the phone. This process has been used with minor refinements and variations against the vast majority of fingerprint sensors on the market.

via Chaos Computer Club

Who Knew Touching Matters?

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Final proof on responsiveness. This doesn't event include Apple newest iPhone 5s loaded with the new A7 processor.

In its first TouchMarks benchmark test, the iPhone 5 responded to touches at an average time of 55 milliseconds, compared to 85 milliseconds for the iPhone 4. The closest Android device was the Samsung Galaxy S4 at 114 milliseconds.

via VentureBeat via Agawi Touchmarks