News

Recent rumors about a September iPhone 5 release have caused a 70 percent increase to eBay's smartphone trade-in program. eBay said (via CNET) the number of trade-ins started to increase around the same time several well known sources purportedly confirmed Apple will hold a special event to announce the new iPhone on September 12. The company said "nearly" 100,000 smartphones were traded-in during a three day period following the announcements.

The 16GB model of the iPhone 4S topped the trade-ins, followed by the 8GB iPhone 4 and 32GB iPhone 4S. Last year eBay received 375,000 trade-in offers for smartphones when the iPhone 4S was officially announced. 89 percent of those smartphones were iPhones.

Sharp's president Takashi Okuda has reaffirmed a fall iPhone 5 release by telling Reuters his company plans to start shipping next generation iPhone displays in August. Previous reports have suggested Apple will announce the new iPhone on September 12, and release the device nine days later on Friday, September 21.

The next generation iPhone is expected to feature a larger screen to compete with larger Android devices like Samsung's latest Galaxy smartphone. Sources have told Reuters the new displays will be "4 inches corner to corner." Apple is also expected to reduce the size of the iPhone's dock connecter from 30-pins to 16.

Apple and Android users who download the new Mitt's VP app will be the first to know who the Republican nominee chooses as his running mate for the 2012 election . Beth Myers, senior advisor to Romney made the announcement on Tuesday:

These last few months, I've had the privilege and honor of leading Governor Romney's search for a vice presidential running mate. While I won't be breaking any news today, I wanted to let you know how to be the first to get the VP scoop with our new Mitt's VP app. Just download the free app on your iPhone or Android device and when Mitt decides on his running mate, you'll get an exclusive notification of his VP selection before anyone else.

Romney supporters can download the free iOS app from the App Store, and sign in using their MyMitt or Facebook accounts to receive a notification when the announcement is made. MyMitt is a photo sharing app which allows you to customize photos with a variety of "Mitt-inspired artistic frames." It's also free to download from the App Store.

FreedomPop is now accepting pre-orders for its iPod Freedom Sleeve. The case converts your iPod into a 4G iPhone with 500MB of guaranteed free broadband every month. Each additional gigabyte will cost you $10. The Freedom Sleeve allows you to make calls, use Skype or FaceTime and stream music or videos anywhere. You can even turn your iPod into a hotspot for up to eight devices.

Just like the FreedomPop iPhone case, the iPod sleeve is a a WiMax mobile hotspot that incases your device. The WiMAX network is available in 82 markets with plans to connect to Sprint’s new LTE network in the future. It may not be as fast as other 4G networks, but the free data may be worth the tradeoff to some iPod owners.

If you prefer Google Chrome (or any other browser) over Safari but use Safari because it's faster, I have the perfect jailbreak tweak for you. iPhone users can now give Chrome and other third party apps a speed boost with a new jailbreak tweak called Nitrous.

Safari is faster than other mobile browsers on the iPhone because Apple restricts access to the fast Nitro Javascript engine in iOS. Nitrous levels the playing field by unlocking the Javascript block for third party apps. This allows browsers like Chrome and apps like Tweetbot to perform much better.