News

Forget the iPhone 4S or the iPhone 5, how about the iPhone 6? The Apple/Samsung catfight has made things awkward for the two companies, and may cause Apple to move to its orders for A6 processors to Taiwan.

The iPhone's A5 chips are currently made in Korea, the latest battleground for Apple's lawsuit against Samsung. Apple alleges that Samsung's Galaxy S and other mobile devices "blatantly” copy its technologies and designs.

A T-Mobile spokesperson told 9to5Mac they are carrying more than a million unlocked iPhones on their network. When asked how, the spokesman said people with older iPhone devices had “taken the scissors” to their T-Mobile SIM cards. T-Mobile doesn't offer MicroSiM cards for iPhones, so people had to create their own. Owners of the new unlocked iPhone 4 can't access T-Mobile’s 3G or 4G data speeds, so they will probably want to stick with AT&T.

Patent number 7,966,578 could change the face of the mobile device market. The newly approved iPhone patent filed by Apple over three-years ago is for "[a] computer-implemented method, for use in conjunction with a portable multifunction device with a touch screen display, [that] comprises displaying a portion of page content, including a frame displaying a portion of frame content and also including other content of the page, on the touch screen display."

Depending on how the patent is interpreted, it could give Apple control over all capacitive screen and multitouch interface devices. Several patent experts warned that if it's not invalidated, it could allow Apple to bully other smartphone manufacturers such as HTC, Samsung and Motorolo.

“Unless this patent is invalidated or at least narrowed, it will be a potential impediment to innovation until December 2027,” patent expert Florian Muller told Macworld. “I don’t see any innovative achievement disclosed in that patent document that would justify a monopoly of that breadth and duration. Apple could use it in various ways throughout that period, including some that would be highly undesirable.”

The most likely "undesirable" method would be demanding high licensing fees from competitors.

The next generation iPhone rumors are steadily increasing while orders for the iPhone 4 are decreasing.

Tech blogs have the iPhone 5 arriving this August, September, November and not at all. There are rumors that Apple's next phone will be the iPhone 4S, an iPhone 5 with new case, and everything in-between, but the closest report that I've seen that even supports a next generation device being released in the near future, comes from the DigiTimes.

The Times reports that Taiwan-based PCB companies are lowering quotes for Apple orders.

"Despite the third quarter being a traditional peak season for the consumer electronics industry, Taiwan-based PCB suppliers have cut quotes for the quarter by 10% on average for their orders placed by Apple, according to industry sources."

Minutes after chasing down another next generation iPhone rumor, BGR hit us with this iPhone 5 bomb.

BGR claims to have confirmed that the new iPhone will not be an upgraded iPhone 4 as originally rumored, but that the next iPhone will feature a major case redesign. The details are slim, but a source revealed that Apple will break tradition by announcing the new device in August, followed by a late August launch.

BGR's tip seems to support a previous report that the iPhone 5 will feature a teardrop case design, and use the same dual-core A5 processor found in the iPad 2.