MURMER GADGET

While many market watchers are concerned that Apple has not announced preorder numbers for the iPhone 5c and may face supply constraints with the iPhone 5s, one analyst believes launch weekend sales will blow past last years record setting iPhone 5 performance. According to KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apples silence may simply be a strategy to conceal the exact iPhone 5s and 5c sales breakdown from competitors, and does not necessarily mean preorders for the plastic shelled device are weak. In fact, Kuo said in a note to investors on Wednesday that Apple will likely ship 6 to 8 million new iPhones over the devices first weekend of sales. By comparison, Apple racked up 5 million sales when the iPhone 5 debuted last year. Earlier in the day, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster forecast 5 to 6 million unit sales, a more conservative number based on the prior models in-store launch sales. Kuo believes Apple wont show its hand until the launch weekend is over, combining total iPhone 5s and 5c ...

iPhone 6 concept  with EYE ID retinal scanner.  According to new report from The Korea Herald claims that iPhome 6 will come with besel free display. The report focusing on the next generation iPhone and Samsungs Galaxy. There are not significant details about the future iPhone in the report, contrary the Galaxy S5, just few sentences noting that Apple is working on a "similar" prototype with bezel-free display and fingerprint sensor. The report also claims that the next Galaxy phone will be even slimmer, as Samsung plans to use a new panel technology that would further trim the depth of the phone. “Scanning fingerprints on the entire screen, which was much talked about recently, will be available in the latter half of this year as there are still technological hurdles to overcome,” [the source] added, hinting that the production yield for the full-screen fingerprint scanner is still far from satisfactory. The source said that Samsung’s top rival Apple is also testing a sim...

At its media event introducing the new iPhones earlier this month, Apple highlighted several chip innovations included on the iPhone 5s including a new A7 main chip with one billion transistors and a smaller M7 "motion coprocessor" designed to efficiently measure accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass data and thus allow for enhanced fitness tracking , navigation, and more. Chipworks and iFixit have now posted a teardown revealing whats inside these chips, as well as several other components of the iPhone 5s, offering an interesting first glimpse at these components at the heart of the device. In looking at the A7, Chipworks noted that it is indeed manufactured by Samsung using its 28-nm process node. Apple has been seeking to shift its A-series chip production from Samsung to TSMC, but TSMCs chip production will reportedly not start until early 2014. Gate pitch comparison of A7 and A6 (click for larger) For the A7, Apple and Samsung have reduced spacing between transistors ...

Apple has topped the list of world’s most valuable brands for the third straight year in a row, and is now worth almost twice as much as any other brand on the planet, Forbes reports. The Cupertino company is now valued at $104.3 billion, up 20 percent over last year, which puts it way out in front of Microsoft, Samsung, and even Google. It’s all thanks to increasing iPhone and iPad sales, and the continued success of services like iTunes. Apple sold a record 33.8 million iPhones last quarter, as well as 14.1 million iPads and 4.6 million Macs . iPod sales continued to decline, but Apple still sold 3.5 million of them during the three-month period, and 26.4 million over the year. As a result, it secures the top spot in Forbes’ list of most valuable brands for the third year in a row. Microsoft takes second place in the list with a brand worth $56.7 billion — $47.6 less than Apple’s — but its value is flat over the past three years due to its struggle to make a mark in the mobile world ...

Last week a report from Taiwans Commercial Times picked up by AFP claimed that Apple new chip partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has begun production on the next-generation A8 chip destined for the iPhone 6 later this year. The worlds leading contract microchip maker last month started producing the A8 chip, which is tipped to power the expected iPhone 6, the Commercial Times reported. The report, which cited supply chain sources, said TSMC had won most of the manufacturing orders for logic and power management integrated chips for the new handset. The Apple A8 will reportedly be manufactured using the 20 nanometer and will include a quad-core 64-bit processor, also quad core graphics. An earlier start to chips production could give Apple the flexibility to comfortably launch the new iPhone in the third quarter of this year contrary to the previous years. Usually in the past Samsung is the sole Apples manufacturing partner for A-series chips, but Apple has lo...

The three digital download destinations were pitted against one another in the Pfeiffer Reports "2013 App Store Maturity Shootout." All three stores were compared in four key categories: search, discovery assistance, an evaluation grid maturity score, and user experience friction. When the overall results for each mobile application store were tallied by Pfeiffer, Apple was the clear top choice, earning a score of 53.1 out of 100. That handily beat Google Play, which scored 40.9, as well as the Amazon Appstore, coming in with a score of 34.1. Pfeiffer still sees a great deal of room for improvement for Apples iOS App Store, particularly in making it a destination where users can more clearly learn more about applications and trends in the market. "Current app stores do not fully reflect the breadth and richness of apps that are out there," the report states. "They work fine if all you are interested in is the next bestselling game. If, on the other hand, you ar...

With sapphire now a critical piece of two important iPhone features — in the camera lens across the entire iPhone line and, for the iPhone 5s, in the device’s fingerprint recognition home button — Apple is securing a ready future supply of the material by building an Arizona facility to manufacture it. On Monday, GT Advanced Technologies said it has inked a multi-year agreement with Apple to manufacture sapphire material in Mesa, Arizona. Under the terms of the agreement, GT will purchase and operate the sapphire production equipment that will ultimately be installed in the new Apple plant. In return, Apple is providing GT with prepayments of approximately $578 million, for which GT will reimburse Apple over five years, starting in 2015. “We are proud to expand our domestic manufacturing initiative with a new facility in Arizona, creating more than 2,000 jobs in engineering, manufacturing and construction,” Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet told AllThingsD . “This new plant will make c...