Hasta La Gadget!

The rise in costs for fixing an iPhone are due to the rise in its components.

Like It , +1 , Tweet It , Pin It Original content from Ubergizmo.

Big companies such as Apple often have big legal problems, that is why they have big lawyers and legal experts on their payroll. A new class action lawsuit has been brought against Apple by a woman based in Florida called […]

Like It , +1 , Tweet It , Pin It Original content from Ubergizmo.

Surprisingly, the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S seem to account for nearly half of all of the iPhone sales in Q1 2013. According to new research data from the Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP), the older iPhones made sales that went neck-to-neck with Apple’s latest iPhone, the iPhone 5. The CIRP discovered that in Q1, 14% of consumers purchased an iPhone 4, 33% of consumers purchased an iPhone 4S, and 53% of consumers purchased an iPhone 5.

Analysts believe that its the low prices of the older generation of iPhones that is driving the high sales rates. With consumers being able to purchase the iPhone 4 for $0 on a new two-year contract, and an iPhone 4S for only $99 on a new two-year contract, they’re more prone to opt for those devices than the more expensive $200+ iPhone 5. But the wide adoption of older iPhones isn’t a bad thing for Apple.

According to AllThingsD, and their interview with CIRP co-founder Michael Levin, low cost iPhone 4/4S devices have been helping Apple drive up sales. According to CIRP, 29% of iPhone buyers were previously feature phone users before upgrading, and another 29% of iPhone buyers came from another mobile OS like Android or Blackberry. A majority of those people are apparently not opting for the iPhone 5, but instead for the iPhone 4 and 4S. Michael Levin says,

“There’s plenty of demand for low- and no-cost phones, which tend to flow toward basic phone owners. On average they don’t seem to jump from a cheap or free flip phone all the way to iPhone 5.”

Jumping back to sales in Q4 2012, iPhone 4/4S sales generated exactly 50% of all iPhone sales. Perhaps these statistics show that it would be a good move for Apple to build that budget iPhone it has been rumored to be working on. According to analysts, if Apple were to create a budget iPhone, it could grab nearly 75 million sales for the phone by 2014. If you’re debating on joining the iPhone crowd, check out our reviews for the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, and iPhone 5 to see which one will be enough to suit your needs.

[via All Things D]

CIRP: Older iPhone models accounted for nearly half of all iPhone sales in Q1 is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

We talked about the Smarter Stand for iPad over the summer last year, and the company behind the product ended up shattering their initial Kickstarter goal, reaching over $150,000 in contributions. However, they’re back again, but with a solution for iPhone users. The Smarter Stand for iPhone incorporates a stand and a headphone wrapper in one small package. The Kickstarter campaign ends this Wednesday, April 10, and they’ve already surpassed their original Kickstarter goal of $15,000. However, you can still get in on the action and pre-order one for yourself. However, we ended up getting some samples to try out and see if the Smarter Stand for iPhone lives up to the hype.

First off, this new Smarter Stand has a very unique design. It makes for a pretty good headphone wrapper by itself, but it also acts as a stand for your iPhone, allowing you to keep your headphones wrapped up while you have it propping up your smartphone. However, you’ll have to have your headphones plugged into your iPhone in order to use the Smarter Stand as a stand, since it uses the headphone jack as a fulcrum of sorts. The Smarter Stand has a convenient location to slide the headphone plug into, although it seems to only work best with the stock Apple earbuds (or EarPods, as they’re now calling them). The stand isn’t too friendly with other headphone plug designs, as you can see with my own pair of headphones in the gallery toward the bottom, but it at least still works, albeit not as great as using regular Apple earbuds.

However, what I really like about the Smarter Stand is how it allows for room to feed the headphone earpieces through the middle after you wrapped them up. It’s a small design facet, but it’s incredibly genius and really handy. The two forks at either end also make it really easy to wind up your headphones, although you have to be careful not to wind your headphones up too tightly or too loosely — too tightly can result in destroyed headphone cords, while wrapping too loosely can lead to unwanted unraveling.

As a stand itself, the Smarter Stand works pretty well. Again, you have to have your headphones plugged into your iPhone in for the stand to do its thing, but you can still have your headphones wrapped up if you want, and if you want to utilize your external speakers, you can simply unplug your headphones past that first notch to keep them plugged in, but not activated. Sadly, you can’t adjust the angle of the stand, but it sits at a nice 45-degrees (roughly), which we found to be optimal anyway.

In the end, if you need a simple and cheap stand that also doubles as a headphone wrapper, this is probably what you want. You can get one for as low $9 (plus $3 shipping to US), and it’s made out of flexible, but stiff thermoplastic polyurethane, so while it looks like a cheap accessory, it’ll hold up quite well. However, it only works well if you’re using Apple’s own headphones. You can use other brands, but the stand doesn’t quite work as nicely. It’ll at least work either way, but that’s definitely something to be aware of if you’re planning on backing the project.

The Smarter Stand is available for the iPhone 5 and the iPhone 4/4S, as well as all generations of the iPod Touch. As for Android version, the company says that each Android device would require its own exclusive design (which can get expensive), but they’re open to making Smarter Stands for certain Android models if the demand is up.

Smarter Stand for iPhone Review is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

After a successful launch of Real Racing 2 towards the end of 2010, the racing simulator kept gamers’ interest for over two years, and now a third installment is back. However, there are a few changes that make this threequel noteworthy. First of all, the game is now completely free to download, which sounds almost too good to be true, but developer Firemonkey and publisher Electronic Arts have decided to take the freemium route this time around. Plus, there are all new cars and tracks to race your way around. I ended up spending some time with the game, attempting to make my way up to elite status, and there a lot of things I liked about it, but there were also a lot of things that I didn’t like. Let’s break it down now.

Essentially in Real Racing 3, you buy cars and compete in events until you beat the game. There’s also “Driver Level,” in which you are awarded a certain amount of experience points after every race that go towards being an expert driver. I don’t really pay a lot of attention to that, since my only goal is raise as much money as I can so I can buy a new car and race in more events. You rely on “R$” currency and coins to get you through the game. The coins are there so that you can basically buy your way out of having to wait on various things, which I’ll describe here soon.

You might have heard about “Time-Shifted Multiplayer” before. It’s a new feature in Real Racing 3 where you play against real people in every event. Granted, you’re not all playing each other at the same time (hence the “Time-Shifted” name), but the other racers are essentially AI-controlled players that have completed in the event in the past. It’s similar to racing a ghost, but the ghost is AI-controlled and will respond to your movements in the race. It’s a pretty neat feature, and it’s more enjoyable this way knowing that you’re not just racing against the computer.

There are numerous types of races to choose from, including cup races, top-speed challenges, drag races, sprints, and eliminations. There also tons of new tracks and cars, including real tracks like the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Mount Panorama, as well as fake tracks that exist in real locations, such as Melbourne. As for controls, it’s nothing that we haven’t experienced before with Real Racing 2 — tilting your mobile device steers the car, and tapping on the screen is the brake. You can also change camera angles, which includes a cockpit view if you really want a realistic experience.

As for graphics, they’re not bad, but also not great. There’s absolutely zero anti-aliasing, which makes the game a pixelated nightmare, and scenery could be a bit better, especially in Mount Panorama, where you can get a good look out at the horizon. The mountains in the background look pretty horrible, and it makes you feel you traveled back in time to the late 90s. However, I can’t be too harsh on the graphics. For a mobile game on a smartphone, the game looks pretty incredible.

As for the freemium model in Real Racing 3, this is where things can get a bit controversial. Since the game is free, Firemonkey and EA rely on the in-app purchases of coins to make revenue. Whenever your car needs servicing or you upgrade parts, you have to wait a few minutes for them to complete, sometimes up to 10 minutes. Of course, you can speed the process up by spending a couple of coins, but once you’re all out, you have to buy more if you don’t want to wait for things to finish. Essentially, Firemonkey and EA are counting on your impatience in order to make money with this game, and my guess is that they’ll make a fortune.

You can buy more coins starting at $1.99 for 10 of them, and you can also buy more in-game currency for buying cars and upgrades starting at $1.99 for R$50,000. And considering that Real Racing 2 only cost $4.99, you can end up spending way more in Real Racing 3. However, if patience is your virtue, then you probably won’t have a problem with the game, but if you’re the type of person who wants upgrades now and wants your oil change and tire rotation right this second, prepare to spend a ton of money on the game.

Real Racing 3 for iOS Review is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.