Hasta La Gadget!

When you’ve created a product that you’ll be presenting a CES 2014 that’s as simple as the Griffin case we’re having a peek at today, it’s not entirely easy to … Continue reading

Late last month a move that was rumored for eons was finally announced by Apple. The company reached an agreement with China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile carrier with more than 750 million subscribers, to sell its smartphones to its customers. Analysts expect Apple to sell over 20 million iPhones on China Mobile alone in 2014, and while that remains to be seen, a rival of the carrier has just sweetened the deal for customers looking for a new iPhone. China Telecom has cut contract prices of the iPhone 5s up to 15 percent ahead of its launch on China Mobile, scheduled for January 17th.

China Telecom is also offering customers gift packages and price reductions that total nearly 800 yuan or roughly $130. This is deducted from the 16GB iPhone 5s list price which stands at 5,288 yuan. The gift pack includes accessories such as an external battery pack and an iPhone case, thus making it an added incentive for prospective customers to turn to China Telecom. Another rival carrier, China Unicom, hasn’t launched any promotions prior to the iPhones’ debut on China Mobile, perhaps it too will announce something as the inevitable launch date approaches. Despite being late to the party, China Mobile won’t offer the new iPhones at a reduced price, in fact, the prices are expected to be in line with that of its rivals.

China Telecom Discounts iPhone 5s Ahead Of China Mobile Launch original content from Ubergizmo.

Apple’s Touch ID for the iPhone 5s was designed for security, although thanks to innovative developers, we’ve seen it used for other purposes, such as acting as a home button replacement. Now for those with a jailbroken iPhone 5s looking for an alternative use of Touch ID, you’re in luck as a couple of jailbreak tweaks will allow you to use Touch ID as a way to launch specific apps that you might not want random people to be able to access when they open your phone. These tweaks come in the form of AppLocker and BioProtect, both of which share similar functionalities in that they require the user to enter their fingerprint when attempting to open a specific app, say emails, or messages, or your photo gallery.

This is a great way for those who don’t really want to has a pass-coded lock screen, but want to have some protective measures installed for their privacy at the same time. Of course there are some concerns, such as where are the fingerprints being stored? With Apple’s own lock screen solution, the fingerprints are stored on a Secure Enclave of Apple’s A7 processor, meaning that no one should be able to read it.The developer of AppLock claims that the fingerprints are still secure and are stored in encrypted hashes that cannot be read or uploaded online, which hopefully is enough to assuage the fears of those concerned about their privacy and security.

Both AppLock and BioProtect can be found in Cydia and will require a jailbroken iPhone 5s, and given that these tweaks will rely on the Touch ID sensor, it’s safe to say that this will only work the iPhone 5s. In the meantime if you’d like to see the tweak in action, check out the video above which is a hands-on of the tweak put together by the folks at iDownloadBlog.

iPhone 5s Jailbreak Tweak Lets You Use Touch ID To Launch Apps original content from Ubergizmo.

Bandai recently started a line of smartphone cases called Crazy Case, and they’re backing up their words with action. As you can see in Drool’d’s shot, the first Crazy Case is a Tumbler Batmobile toy car that happens to have a gap at the bottom big enough for an iPhone 5 or 5S to fit in.

The officially licensed case has several LEDs, including a mobile Batsignal. Its front wheels slide to the side to give way to the iPhone’s camera and sleep button. It also looks absolutely juvenile. I want one.

You can order the case from Bandai for about $57 (USD). It originally appeared on the Japanese Premium Bandai shop, but that site seems to be down as of this writing. You can check it out at Bandai’s Hong Kong shop too.

[via Drool’d]

Back in May of 2013, Finnish company Jolla announced their first smartphone running the Sailfish operating system. Since we’ve never tried it out for ourselves, we can’t speak to its quality, functionality, ease of use, and features, but over in Finland, it would seem as though the handset has been well-received, at least by some. The device has recently gone up for sale back in December of 2013 and according to the figures released by major Finnish retailers, it looks like the Jolla smartphone is doing pretty well. This is based on the figures released by Finnish retailer DNA, who at the moment is the only retailer carrying the device.

Based on their figures, it seems as though Jolla’s offering is sitting at a comfortable number 5 spot in their top 10 best-selling phones for December 2013, which is actually a spot above Apple’s iPhone 5s which came in sixth place! It also looks as though Nokia’s Lumia 520 is still dominating as it came the retailer’s fourth most popular phone for that month. We’re not sure if Jolla will be able to continue maintaining its popularity or if it was popular simply because customers wanted to try something new, so we guess we will just have to wait and see what the numbers tell us in the upcoming months to get a better idea.

Jolla Beats Out iPhone 5s At One Finnish Retailer original content from Ubergizmo.