Hasta La Gadget!

If you remember, Both Walmart and Best Buy competed in a discount war with Apple’s iPhone 5, where both retailers offered steep discounts on the new smartphone. Best Buy dropped the price down to $150 for the 16GB entry-level model, while Walmart dropped it to just $127. However, it turns out that Best Buy took quite a hit on profits that day, and the company is accusing Walmart of misleading customers with their iPhone 5 discount ad.

Essentially, Best Buy wasn’t too happy about Walmart’s steeper discount on the iPhone 5 because they don’t think that Walmart had enough iPhone 5 units to meet demand. Therefore, Best Buy was filling the stock at a discount that Walmart doesn’t have. Best Buy has reportedly claimed it lost about $65,000 in profit on the day Walmart advertised its iPhone 5 promotion, and the store says it was forced to match Walmart’s advertised price, even though they claim Walmart didn’t have enough iPhone 5 inventory in the first place.

However, Walmart claims that it did, in fact, have sufficient stock of the iPhone 5, quoting 98% availability at its stores carrying the device. Walmart had noted as the sale launched that it was working closely with Apple on the promotion and was securing significant numbers of units, but that the sale was first-come first-serve with no rain checks being offered.

Any way you look at it, it seems Best Buy was simply just upset that Walmart was undercutting them, and they felt like they needed a reliable excuse in order to effectively complain about the price difference. $65,000 in one day may not seem like a lot, and we don’t know what Best Buy’s sales goals were for the day, but that much of a loss in a single day is huge any way you look at it.

[via WSJ]

Best Buy complains about Walmart’s iPhone 5 discount ad, loses $65K in one day is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
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The iPhone 5 delivered a lot of new things vs. its predecessors, but it also marked Apple’s exit from the bumper game; unlike with the iPhone 4 and 4S, Apple didn’t make a slim band exterior case for this device to protect its delicate edges. Apple’s oversight makes for opportunity for others, however, and the AL13 aluminum iPhone bumper (which comes in both iPhone 4 and iPhone 5 variants) is a prime example of that opportunity which recently debuted on Kickstarter.

The AL13 is made of aerospace-grade aluminum, and machined with chamfered edges (that’s the same thing Apple bragged about with the iPhone 5′s new design, by the way) that adds less than 16 grams to your device’s weight. It comes in sliver, black, red and green (a limited edition color just for Kickstarter backers) and adds very little overall size or mass to the iPhone’s existing design. The inner ring of the aluminum bumper is coated in rubber, in order to both protect your iPhone’s finish and provide an added layer of shock protection to help with falls.

The team behind the AL13 is Designed by m, a new studio led by CEO and founder Lester Mapp. Mapp started out as an entrepreneur at 22, building car accessories in a business that moved from his own bedroom to a dedicated warehouse and office during its first three years. The shift into product design reflects a desire to become more engaged in the hardware creation end of the business, and the AL13 is the first project for his latest venture.

Based on the prototype, Mapp’s decision to change gears was a good one. But if you’ve followed the iPhone’s storied history and know anything about wireless signals, you may have wondered about what effect the AL13 would have on your device’s cellular connection. The team behind AL13 has thought of that too, and posted in a recent backer update that admittedly, the AL13 does incur some signal loss of between 5 and 10 percent, but that compared to the field of metal bumpers out there, they’re beating the average of 20 percent or more. They say they have yet to experience any dropped calls as a result of using the AL13, however, and at least they’re being upfront about the fact that it will have some effect.

In exchange for minor signal loss, the AL13 provides your device with that extra ounce of protection, and with good looks that actually compliment, rather than detract from, your iPhone’s design. It’s available to backers starting at the $45 pledge level (as of this writing, though those spots are limited) and will eventually retail for $80 when it ships, which Mapp and company expect should happen sometime in April 2013.

Rumor has it that Apple might soon replace its in-cell touch panel display in exchange for a better one for its next-generation iPhone. According to The China Times, Apple is eyeing on the display technology of Innolux. Innolux, officially called Chimei Innolux Corporation, is a Taiwanese TFT-LCD panel manufacturer that has long been a supplier for Apple. The Chinese publication reports that Innolux’s display technology, called “Touch On Display,” is currently being considered by Apple. The China Times says that Apple’s current in-cell technology has “interference problems” which causes touch sensitivity issues. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: iPhone 6 Tested By Apple?, Taiwan’s Unimicron could produce future Apple chipsets [Rumor],

The EX Hybrid Controller system isn’t the first compact wireless keyboard or gamepad designed to sidle up to the iPhone, but it might be the first that’s actually worth using. At just 2 millimeters thick they won’t fatten up your phone. And since the separate accessories attach via the magic of magnets, both can be attached in either landscape or portrait orientations. More »

iPhone5Mod today unveiled a new case accessory that gives the iPhone 5 a physical keyboard and video game controller all in a super-slim magnetic package. iPhone5Mod is a Chinese accessories retailer which was one of the earliest to supply a third-party Lightning dock/cable, and which also provided a modkit to make your iPhone 4 or 4S look like an iPhone 5 before Apple demanded it be pulled from sale, but this latest shouldn’t run afoul of Apple’s rules and regulations.

The EX Hybrid Controller for iPhone 5, as the device is called, features a snap-on case for the iPhone 5 that has a powerful magnet built-in. Two aluminum back surfaces then stack on top of that, providing both a Bluetooth 3.0 keyboard, and a game controller using the same connectivity, each at only 2mm thick. iPhone5Mod claims the keyboard is the thinnest and lightest ever made for the iPhone, and judging by its appearance in the video, that would indeed appear to be true.

The EX Hybrid lets you snap the iPhone to the keyboard or game controller using its magnets, and can be used in either portrait or landscape orientation. iPhone5Mod claims 40 hours of active use time for the EX Hybrid, with 160 hours of standby time, and only an hour required to reach a full charge. The case is also water and dust-proof (though it won’t protect your iPhone from either of these). When I contacted iPhone5Mod for compatibility, they said that the game controller’s d-pad functions would work with all games, and that the buttons work with any game that supports additional function keys.

Despite their extremely thin construction, iPhone5Mod also told me that the keys on both the keyboard and game pad are indeed buttons that physically click, and not just touch-sensitive surfaces. The only thing that has me a little apprehensive is that in the video, we don’t see the controller actually working with a game, but I’ve requested a device to try it out ourselves. If this thing works as advertised, it’s a steal at the $49.90 asking price.