The Kindle Paperwhite finally made it across the pond. Amazon UK, France and Germany are already accepting pre-orders. UK users however, will be getting it a good month in advance.

Amazon UK has a suggested shipping date of 25 Oct, while both Amazon DE and Amazon FR expect it to launch on 22 Nov. The custom Paperwhite Leather Cover, which is capable of activating the reader magnetically, will be available around the same time, but it’s priced at the rather steep £31/€35. Read more »

Modern day smartphones are great at many tasks, but unfortunately, swimming is not among them. Ken Hovanes learned this the hard way when he accidentally dropped his iPhone in a lake about six months ago. The water in the lake was 2m deep and murky back then so Ken gave up on retrieving the device and bought a new iPhone.

Fast forward to more recent times. After finding the lake waters have slightly receded, Ken went to search for his iPhone again. And he found it, still sitting on the bottom. What surprised him most however, is that it still worked. Read more »

Here we go again. Another new iPhone generation and another wave of battery life complaints rises again. I can clearly remember similar stuff going on around the times the iPhone 4S, the iPhone 4, and the iPhone 3GS were released. But is that supposed to be a consolation?

There’s little official battery troubleshooting info available from Apple and yet, it’s a real problem for a lots of users, as this thread alone in Apple Forums would tell you. Unfortunately, it’s a self-help thread where users try to help each other instead of getting some meaningful feedback from Apple. Read more »

As is usual with these things, Apple has so far been mum on all matter related to a possible iPad Mini. A new rumor however claims that the company is gearing up for an iPad Mini announcement event in a but more than a two week’s time.

Invitation to the event are supposed to be emailed on October 10. Read more »

Shopping for an e-book reader this holiday season is certainly an exciting task, from a geek’s point of view at least. There are interesting offers on all price points and manufacturers and bookstores are vying for your attention. Whatever your price range though, you can’t miss on checking out the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite, which just launched today. Priced at $119 with Special Offers (which means lockscreen ads), this is probably the most sophisticated e-book reader your money can buy right now.

As the first reviews of the Kindle Paperwhite are now rolling in, we get to learn more about this, still US-only, gadget. Here’s a rundown of what’s hot and what not about this new e-reader. Read more »

By this point, most of you have probably already seen a leaked snap or two of what the rumored 7.85″ iPad Mini would look like. And honestly, since the iPhone 5 body leaked from Chinese factories months ahead of the announcement, I’m willing to give this rumor the benefit of a doubt as well.

The new iPad Mini looks like a… mini version of uhm, well… the iPad. There are no surprises there and given Apple’s track record in approaching product design conservatively, this might as well be it. Read more »

Hot on the heels of the new alternative Maps apps section in the AppStore, Apple has also toned down the elated iOS6 Maps app copy as keen visitors to its website have spotted.

As the screenshot conveniently points, the previous copy called the new Maps app “the most beautiful, powerful mapping service ever”. Read more »

As of iOS6, Apple replaced the well-known Google Maps app with one of their own. And ever since its launch, there’s been strong controversy surrounding it. Map data and POIs have frequently been found to be inaccurate by users around the world and satellite imagery has been rather spotty, interchanging between high and low res, different times of day and even seasons all on the territory of one and the same town.

The new Maps app has been rushed to the market and it’s far from ready for prime time. And that got the anger of users, who have been voicing their discontent online quite loudly (and originally, too). Read more »

Sony has long been the key supplier of imaging sensors for the iPhone and other high-end smartphones. As it seems, the iPhone 5 again uses Sony’s tech for its main camera module.

A closeup shot revealed the Sony branding on the iPhone 5 image sensor, though no specific model number was found. In contrast, the iPhone 4S image sensor has already been identified as a Sony IMX145. Read more »

The new iPhone announcement is certainly an exciting industry event. As usual, Apple didn’t allow any live video streaming, so it’s only now that we get to appreciate the whole demo on stage in its original glamor.

I’ve certainly seen better quality clips from past year keynotes, but perhaps it’s just my connection to blame. See for yourselves.

You can watch the Apple iPhone 5 announcement (along with all the other announcements) on Apple’s website RIGHT HERE. Make sure you have Quicktime installed, though. And enough spare time, too, the keynote runs for good 2 hours.

Today’s announcement was one of the most hotly anticipated industry events. I waited and waited, ready to be wowed. But now that it’s over, I have a bad taste in my mouth (and it’s not the Chinese I had for dinner).

These few past months I followed the iPhone leaks as closely as possible and during all this time I just hoped there will be more to the new iPhone than they suggested. Well, unfortunately, that was it. Even Samsung made a better job of keeping their Galaxy S III under wraps before it was ready for announcement. Read more »

It turns out the built-in Panorama capture feature won’t be exclusive to the iPhone 5. The iPhone 4S will have a taste of that 28MP goodness, too, once the iOS 6 update arrives on Sept 19.

The iPhone 4, however, won’t have such luck. Read more »

One of the things that get me excited is camera tech and with high-end smartphones such as the LG Optimus G there’s always something to drool about. This latest video by the LG marketing tells us a bit more about the camera technology behind the 13MP snapper on the LG Optimus G.

In similar fashion to the previous set of LG Optimus G videos, this new spot makes rather bold claims about the the Optimus G capabilities, touting it as having “the world’s best camera module technology”. And if that ain’t something… Read more »

By now even my grandma knows the new iPhone will be announced on Wednesday (and it took me a good half an hour on the phone to explain what’s an iPhone). My point is one of the hottest industry events is just around the corner and the rumor soup has already reached a boiling point. Things get frantic and for the casual reader it gets pretty hard to follow all the rumored leads and suggested features.

It’s exactly cases like this, when there’s nothing better than a nice, fake iPhone 5 ad to get us through the latest rumors in a quick and informative way. And kudos to the author, as this is one nicely done video. Read more »

New leaked photos of Apple’s new USB interface jack show it’s about the same size as microUSB jacks. So far we’ve seen a lot of iPhone 5 leaks showing reference designs distributed among Chinese sources, and all of them suggest Apple is switching to a smaller size jack for the next iPhone (reportedly for the iPad mini too).

So hot on the heels of these leaks, come these photos of Apple USB cables, showing in detail the new connector plug Apple would use.

Of course, before we see the thing announced for real next week on September 12, we’ll never know for sure, but these shots seem quite believable on their own. Read more »