China Times reports that the iPhone 5 has entered a trial production phase and will feature a larger screen. Purported iPhone 5 parts have already leaked that seem to match the claim of a four-inch screen. The iPhone 5 itself is expected to have a similar form factor as the current model, with the display reaching all the way to the edge of the device.

The rendering above by Piotrek Photos shows how a larger iPhone 5 screen might compare to the current iPhone 4 display. This news comes as the New York Times has confirmed Apple is working on near-field communication (NFC) technology so that future iPhones can easily make wireless mobile payments at specially equipped cash registers. The NFC hardware would be integrated with the iPhone processor and linked directly to the owner's iTunes account.

Rumors of an iPhone on T-Mobile are nothing new. The recent agreement between AT&T and parent company Deutsche Telekom may have excited some T-Mobile customers looking to score an iPhone 4. After all, the $39 billion acquisition would form the largest wireless carrier in the US.

Not so fast. Assuming the deal is approved by regulators, the merger would take 12 months. Until the merger is complete T-Mobile will operate as an independent company and has expressly stated it has no plans to offer the iPhone. So what will happen after the merger is complete?

If you're one of the millions of iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS owners who have updated to iOS 4.3, you may have found the battery on your device drains noticeably faster that it did before. This isn't the first time Apple firmware updates have changed battery consumption, but luckily there seems to be an easy way to improve the situation.

Ping has been cited by Pocket-lint as a possible culprit on the iPad, iPod touch and iPhones running iOS 4.3. The software runs Apple's iTunes-based social networking service, which makes it possible to connect with friends and get related music recommendations. For those who use the service this battery fix won't help, but if you don't find Ping useful then you can turn it off.

AT&T has thrown down the gauntlet, sending a limited number of subscribers warnings via email and SMS to stop unauthorized tethering. The wireless carrier plans to automatically sign up users for its DataPro and Personal Hotspot plans if they continue to tether their devices without contacting the company.

The move is a first for AT&T since they launched official Personal Hotspot support on March 11 with the release of iOS 4.3. Prior to this, iPhone users could only connect one computer to the iPhone. The new service makes it possible to share your 3G data connection with 3 devices at the same time via WI-Fi, and connect to others with Bluetooth and USB.

In an official statement issued yesterday, Apple has refuted the results of a study by Blaze.io -- a mobile optimization company -- which claim that web browsing on Android is 50% faster than on the iPhone. According to Apple, the study's conclusions are invalid because the tests involved failed to test web browsing through the iPhone's Safari browser. Instead, the Blaze.io test evaluated iPhone web browsing speed through the iPhone's embedded browser, a container/tool for displaying web content made available to developers of iPhone web and native applications.