Apple surges iPhone orders, plans 26m iPhone 5s in late 2011

Apple is significantly increasing the production of iPhones for the back half of 2011, most of which will be the iPhone 5, part suppliers divulged Monday. Volume was going up 12 to 13 percent to over 56 million phones, nearly half of which would be the iPhone 5. While it had trimmed back its iPhone 5 production for the summer down from seven million to no more than 6 million, Digitimes saw that it would more than compensate for this by surging orders in the fall from 14 million to 20 million.

Production of existing phones for the summer also won't taper off in spite of the run-up to a new model, the component makers said. Combined shipments for the iPhone 3GS and both variants of the iPhone 4 would still top 20 million, keeping Apple's shipments roughly on par with the 20.34 million it shipped in the spring. Their shipments should be scaled back to eight million in the fall as the iPhone 5 takes over.

Apple wouldn't quite get to a symbolic 100 million-unit figure in 2011, but it would grow faster than planned at 95 million.

The production queue if accurate suggests Apple will avoid a common pre-launch lull as customers hold off on buying an iPhone before a new model. At 25.5 million to 26 million units just in the summer, Apple would see a spike of 25 percent just over the last quarter. Fall shipments would also keep growing to hit 28 million or more. Unlike last year, Apple will have the advantage of catering to Verizon owners with a genuinely new iPhone launch for the first time and might also reach out to Sprint or T-Mobile with their first models.

Source : electronista

McAfee Offers iPhone Security App for Consumers

Intel’s McAfee unit said on Sunday night that it will start selling a $20 app to help consumers make sure their iPhones are secure.

The WaveSecure software offers the ability to remotely back-up contacts, photos and other data as well as options like device tracking and remote-wipe capabilities.

Source : allthingsd

New app translates IM into 52 languages

iPhone application developer TNT Creations, has secured $170,000 in first-round equity funding to develop an application called Transfire, which translates chat messages into 52 languages including Arabic.

The first version of the Transfire app is currently available free on the iTunes app store and has passed 150,000 downloads, many of these from Arabic-speaking regions, according to TNT Creations.

"We are excited and enthusiastic about the future prospects for chat applications," said Elik Topolosky, president and co-founder of TNT Creations. "Instant messaging is continuing to grow and we are expanding the boundaries of current chat applications.  We have eliminated the language barrier that still restricts instant messaging globally."

The Transfire app uses several key technologies to translate text in real-time between 52 languages.

"The perfect chat application will process and understand all communication regardless of language, slang or abbreviation," said Jonathan Topolosky, TNT Creations president and co-founder. "That is where Transfire is headed."

Transfire also integrates gtalk, a new innovative messaging interface, and fast message delivery, according to TNT Creations.

"Improvements in chat technology are continuous and significant," said Elik Topolosky. "We are on the verge of a universal platform where any user can communicate, no matter what programme they are using or what language they speak."

Source : itp.net

Mad Man Builds Ridiculously Cool 40-inch iPhone

Benjamin Bachmeier turned a 40-inch LCD Full HD display into a perfect giant iPhone replica. It doesn't run iOS but Mac OS X, but it's gigantic buttons are fully functional. It's computer, a display, a table and completely ridiculous.

He calls it the iTableous. It's not even a Mac, but a Hackintosh running Mac OS X and Windows 7. Funnily enough, I think this is the only time that I've actually liked the white iPhone 4. [Benjamin BachmeierInsanely Mac]

Another reason to go iPhone: It's cheaper to support

Users already seem to have decided that the iPhone is the way to go when it comes to smartphones, but IT isn't always so convinced. Here's something that might help IT skeptics relax: iPhones require less support than Androids and BlackBerrys.

So says ClickFox, a firm that analyzes customer experience data to identify problems. ClickFox analyzed the support calls related to smartphones received by the North American carriers, and after factoring out the questions related to billing and carriers' various plans, it found a startling pattern: iPhones cost less to support than Android devices and BlackBerrys.

ClickFox isn't releasing much of the underlying data, so it's hard to get a sense of exactly how much easier iPhones are to support relative to the others devices or to regular cellphones. However, analytics director Lauren Smith tells InfoWorld that the differences are significant to the carriers' finances, with BlackBerry users costing North American carriers in aggregate $46 million more a year to support than iPhone users, and Android users costing $97 million more a year.

The reason: It more often takes multiple agents to solve a BlackBerry or Android user's problem, which means calls must be transferred, or the issue ends up taking multiple discussions to resolve. By contrast, iPhone users' problems are typically handled in just one session. At an average cost of $4 per user for the extra help, that means about 11.5 million BlackBerry incidents needed additional assistance -- and 24 million Android incidents.

The BlackBerry may be more confusing for users and thus harder to support than the iPhone, but Android is the worst of the three platforms by far. Whereas BlackBerry users typically need to have their calls transferred or followed up on a separate call 37 percent of the time, Android users need more attention 77 percent of the time (compared to iPhone users in both cases), ClickFox reports.

Smith says he suspects the iPhone support advantage comes down to what Apple is famous for: better hardware and software design. iOS and the iPhone hardware are more intuitive, so they're easier and faster to troubleshoot, he theorizes.

The data send a clear message to IT: iPhone users will be noticeably less taxing on your support desk than BlackBerry users and significantly less taxing than Android users.