xenadu

Now I just get a 2-factor auth loop when I try to checkout until it eventually gives up and tells me to visit a Sprint store.

I would if Sprint's website weren't falling over.

I have no inside knowledge whatsoever but my guess is the CDMA version is using Qualcomm baseband and the non-CDMA version is using Intel baseband. The CDMA version is sold in the US for Sprint, VZ and in China Apple has always had a different SKU for CDMA. Even if the physical hardware were the same anyone who ships CDMA support has to pay an extra royalty to Qualcomm, thus multiple SKUs. At some point soon Sprint needs to drop CDMA as a requirement for new devices.

Finally got the website to activate. Everything's working so far.

The website won't let me activate, it just says that device cannot be switched to at this time. Phone support dumps me even though it's the automated system. What an embarrassment.

Apple does a great job keeping it a secret while they're doing R&D but over the past year they had to manufacture 222 million iPhone 6/6+ devices. It simply isn't possible to keep it secret and still have enough phones for launch day. The components need a 4-6 month lead time at least... and guess when the first supposed parts for the 6S started leaking? Unless and until the iPhone begins to be manufactured purely by robots (including the parts assemblies) the days of being completely surprised are over.

See my post above; your premise is incorrect. Exclusivity was AT&T's blood price for allowing Apple to sell the iPhone on their network. It wasn't Apple's choice. Steve Jobs was so angry at the carriers for being assholes he had a team seriously explore the idea of building their own cellular network or using WiFi. AT&T (Cingular) at the time took a risk and it seems to have paid off.

How quickly everyone forgets history. Do you guys not remember Sprint and Verizon locking out features of phones just because they could? The carriers were 100% in control of all software on phones, period. Without the iPhone there would be no app store as we know it today. That was Apple's real genius move: Apple controls the software, the iOS update cycle, and the app store. Take it or leave it. The exclusive agreement with ATT wasn't by Apple's choice, it was ATT's blood price to deign to allow Apple onto their precious network. Verizon was Apple's original choice and told them to go take a hike. I know from personal experience that trying to write software for phones pre-iPhone was a joke. You had to buy expensive development kits, then go to each carrier and beg their permission to develop an app for their unique snowflake of a store. Then their team of "experts" (read: idiots) would demand you make changes to your app. Then they'd allow it in the store, charge $7 for it, and take 80% of the revenue. Apple broke the backs of the carriers. Android wouldn't be allowed to do half of what it does if the carriers hadn't been desperate to combat the iPhone. You can see that legacy in the fact that all Android updates (except Nexus) have to be approved by each carrier individually. We should also remember that the idea of a phone really being a pocket computer that happens to have a cellular radio was very niche at the time. Geeks like us had them but the vast majority of people did not. I remember having to install custom ROMs and a registry editor and task manager on my Windows Mobile phones (yes all three of them) just to be able to kill tasks or turn off services that made them unstable or ate battery like crazy. No normal person had a hope of working one of them. As for the idea that the LG Prada was touch... yeah, so what? My Windows Mobile phones were "touch". They sure as hell weren't designed for touch though and the gulf between those phones and the iPhone was enormous. Not that those were unique... The Apple Newton did it before they did. And others did it before Apple originally. It is very rare for the first iteration of an idea to be successful or even good. No one cares about the inventor of the car, they care about Ford because he made cars mass-market. No one cares who invented the mouse; are PCs invalid because Apple shipped the first mass-market mouse? No. (I'm not even getting into the argument of whether Apple "stole" the Xerox PARC stuff - they didn't, Apple paid thousands in stock to Xerox for the privilege of touring PARC and using what they saw - stock that was ultimately worth billions) So the answer to the question is that without the iPhone the carriers would still be firmly in control of the phones like they were in the pre-iPhone days. There wouldn't be huge app stores with $0.99 apps. OEMs would still grovel at the feet of the carriers. Without exclusivity ATT would not have grown to the behemoth they became. That is unfortunate but it is the industry's own fault for laboring under the delusion that they are anything other than a dumb pipe to move data around. Sprint was never in the running because of their awful Nextel merger. Given their cash position and everything else I think the fact that they jumped on the iPhone as soon as possible speaks to the economics of the deal. They aren't stupid. That goes for the rest of the world too... many a carrier has proclaimed they didn't need the iPhone and wouldn't bow down to Apple. Thousands have changed their tune. They didn't want to give up control either but their customers had different ideas.

Same for me last year - the order status said up to 4 weeks, then it shipped and arrived on launch day. Took telesales 51 minutes to get it sorted out but the orders are finally in.

I've been using the GM for a week and the first time a call came in on my phone in the other room while I had my iPad on the toilet was freaky . It's really nice though, no setup required... It just "knows". It's also a great solution in marginal signal areas. I can put my phone over by a window or wherever gets decent signal, then handle the calling and SMS on my iPad.

The gold 64gb 6+ said the same thing "3-4 weeks", then I got a tracking number last night. Same happened last year with Sprint orders. My wife's phone was through Apple, no problems there. For me, the company is paying and they are on Verizon. The idiot rep says it will be 10/22 before it comes in. Then why did I bother getting you my preorder ahead of time jackass?

Apple is screaming as loudly as they do within their self-imposed policies that you had better adopt AutoLayout because new device sizes and resolutions are coming. I never thought they'd do third party keyboards but given the security infrastructure around extensions it makes sense to allow it since you can be guaranteed it isn't recording your keystrokes and sending them off to some server. Also they changed the NDA: you can discuss anything they reveal at WWDC on public forums, you just can't post screenshots, reviews, or distribute the software (duh).

You beat me to the punch! The largest slice of our debt is money one part of the federal government owes to another part. The next largest slice, by far, is money owed to US citizens. The security concerns are around potential backdoors. NSA spying notwithstanding, the government doesn't (and legally can't) compel Qualcomm to include spying hooks in baseband chips for example. But in China, the party and military can make them include hidden backdoors or anything else. That's the concern anyway, well-founded or not. It's already a concern for the military that so many electronic devices and chips are made overseas.

Sorry, I was just joking. LTE has a bunch of patent licensing costs too. Qualcomm is shipping over half the LTE basebands right now, though Broadcom and Intel seem serious about challenging them. Either way, you can't just manufacture a baseband chip... It's fairly specialized, maybe 10 companies in the world have the expertise, and you have to pay the patent piper regardless.

Well then I have some bad news for you...

Seriously, how can Sprint justify raising the price of a 4/5 line family plan by 80 or 100? You think people won't notice that? Are they trying to send multi-line accounts to other carriers?

Obviously no one can confirm this for certain, but I've always been told that the patent licensing fees alone are over $25 for cellular radio technology. Almost everyone gets a slice of that pie, Nokia, Motorola, Alcatel-Lucent, Qualcomm, etc.

I know this is old, but you really should be using iCloud and have iCloud backup turned on. That makes restores super easy. Personally, I don't sync any of my devices with iTunes anymore. They are all 100% PC-free and I'm much happier. If you buy music on the computer, you can download it on the device for free. Or you can do what I do: sign up for iTunes Match and let it sync playlists and music between my computer and devices automatically. I use Photostream for pictures. Apps don't need to be synced, and everything backs up to iCloud. When I got my new iPad Air, I just said restore from iCloud, entered my credentials, and within five minutes I was back up and running. Took an hour or so for all the apps to re-download and install but they all worked and had my data no problem.

It's not completely unheard of, and it is generally people keeping it in their back pocket and the pocket being situated such that it puts maximum pressure on the center of the phone when they are seated. As phones get lighter and lighter, it may become a larger possibility since you have to remove material to get the size/weight down. Using aluminum, milling it out of a solid piece, and including structural reinforcement bars are the best you can do (and in fact what the iPhone 5/5S do). You could make the case out of titanium, but I don't see many people clamoring for $2000 phones

I'm talking about the process developers use to submit apps to the App Store. Those go through a review system before Apple makes the app/update available to users. This is in contrast to Google, where I can create an account and start uploading apps today with no oversight. Apple enforces its app rules, but you can appeal if you think you have a good reason or their interpretation isn't valid. Basically this means on Google Play I can create a game that also requires permission to copy your address book, send SMS messages, install background processes, etc and if users click OK when downloading my app (hint: users don't read the permissions list and wouldn't know what they meant if they did read it) then my game can rip off your address book in the background, install a key logger, sign you up for $10/month premium SMS messages, and kill your battery with a constantly running background process. Google doesn't know, nor do they care. They take the Microsoft Windows approach of "buyer beware". On iOS, none of those things are possible because Apple doesn't allow apps to do them. If you use Apple private APIs, your app will be rejected. If you use tricks to get around the restrictions, you can be rejected. If your app claims to be a game but is actually something else you can be rejected. Is Apple perfect? No, but when they find out, they will pull your app from the store and possibly even ban you from submitting new apps if the violation is big enough and willful. Since you have to provide legit state-issued ID to publish an app, it cuts way down on the scammers and spammers. iOS also requires you confirm the app can access things like the address book, microphone, etc at the time the app wants to use them, making it far more likely that users will notice that a game is asking to read their contact list for some reason (apps are required to continue working, even if the user says no to all permission requests) As for the Reviews of apps on the App Store itself, Apple doesn't read those. People post tens of thousands of them a day. Some are good, others are rambling incoherent gibbering like the screenshot you posted, where people threaten developers, Apple, or the President for random things that may or may not be legitimate. I'm sure whether or not Sensorly can use the signal strength API has a direct relationship to Apple's stock price We developers read the reviews for our own apps. I can't speak for others, but I certainly pay attention to them. I find that a paid app has much more legitimate reviews, including critical ones. My free apps are subject to people posting 1-star reviews, including ones complaining about a missing feature the app actually has. There appear to be a cabal of people that exists to download free apps then give them 1-star reviews without even running the app. But regardless, I do pay attention to the reviews and try to address issues people have.

Ive advised those guys previously to go ahead and submit for review with mapping of signal strength, then when the rejection comes open an appeal and explain their case. Believe it or not, Apple doesn't enjoy rejecting apps. They want to make sure that a) they aren't prevented from making changes due to unauthorized API usage - see the lengths Microsoft has to go to cover for badly written third party apps. make sure users don't ever have to worry about installing apps - no Trojan apps sending premium SMS messages, key logging, ruining the battery, etc. If you can make a case that your app should be allowed they will often approve it.

I don't think it charges you. I recently had a device replaced by AppleCare and the new phone showed up on Sprint.com as "EXCH iPhone 5 32GB", but with the old phones ESN. Plus I forgot to swap SIM cards. So I had to go get and activate a new SIM which they have an online form for, but it wouldn't let me change the ESN. So I had the bright idea to try activate a new phone and bam, issue resolved. Also, the Sprint stores apparently don't have iPhone SIM cards anymore. They directed me to the Apple store instead. I dream of Sprint one day just getting on the SIM bandwagon like everyone else, especially since the 5S (and presumably all models going forward) support CSIM or whatever it's called where you can activate on CDMA via the SIM card.

China is a very stratified market. Maybe 50-100 million of those customers would pay for an LTE data plan and consider buying flagship devices like iPhones and Galaxys. The rest are using $150 Samsung Y series or Chinese brand phones, which although they technically run Android can hardly be considered smartphones. They certainly aren't going to sign up for data plans or buy expensive handsets. Edit: iPad Air arrived today. I didn't think the weight would matter at first but I can totally tell. Performance is noticeably improved too.

I didn't think Qualcomm was even selling the MSM8974 as a standalone part yet, I thought you had to use their Krait CPU. I could be wrong, I can't remember all their part numbers. I'd like to see Apple put some of that cash horde to use and buy a baseband maker and take control of that aspect, instead of being stuck waiting for Qualcomm. They aren't afraid to invest billions in R&D as we are now seeing with the PA Semiconductor payoff. The other thing is buying fab space from Intel... That would permanently put them out of reach on performance, and Intel has been looking to get into that business, but who knows.

It's OK, we can all still be friends. I also suggest you check out Anandtech's review of the A7 if you think Apple is "behind the times". It's the worlds best SOC currently shipping in any phone or tablet. My new Air arrives this Friday. Ended up not paying the cellular tax, I just don't need it but once or twice a year. I almost got the Tmobile one though, since it comes with lifetime free data monthly which would be perfect for those once in a while needs.