What are custom phone skins?

The custom phone skins refer to a thin layer of film which sticks to the surface of the mobile phone, for the purpose of decoration as well asprotect the phone from scratching. The most commonly used material for the custom phone skins are vinyl films, which is no harm to humans and environmental protection. For good quality vinyl films that stick to the mobile phone, they can be easily removed manually without leaving any residue on the cover. Also, good quality custom skins for mobile phone are good for heat dissipating when the mobile phone cover becomes hot due to the mobile phone's CUP occupation is high such as when watching movies or playing games on the smartphone.

Generally speaking, there are 2 different types of custom phone skins.One is the printed phone skins with custom design picture. Another one is directly cut by special texture films without printing.

For the printed custom skins, usually people like to print personal photo or group photo to make it personalized. DAQIN provide high quality white printing design films that can be directly printed by 6 colors inkjet printer. The printing design films from DAQIN are very special. As you know, ordinary vinyl films can't be printed by inkjet printer while DAQIN managed to do it. The ink for 6 colors inkjet printer are dye ink, which has high quality printing effect and the cost for each printing is comparatively low.

After printed, the film needs to be laminate with a thin layer of lamination effect film in order to become water proof and add special textures such as leather, gridding, twill, 3D water drops, glossy, matte, flash-matte, ice-flower…etc.It's cold lamination, no need of turn on heat during the lamination process. DAQIN provide 4 rollers laminator which can effectively avoid bubble. Still, it needs several times of practicing before you become familiar with the operation of laminating.

After lamination, it's time to cut the film into custom phone skins with DAQIN's phone skin software and cutter. Any brand and model of mobile phone is OK! In less than 30 seconds, the cutting process will be completed and we can take the film out of the cutter and then pear off the sticker from the backing paper of the film.

At last, we can manually apply the custom skins on mobile phone for your customers. Or, we can ship the end product of custom phone skins to the customer who buy it in your online store.

For the production of the special texture custom skins for smartphones, it's easier and faster than printed custom skins. By selecting mobile phone brand and models and put the special texture film into the cutter, and then click cut button in the software it will start cutting the film into your custom phone skins.

Keeping Your Iphones With Right iPhone Cases

The importance of buying a right phone cover is many times missed out by people because they do not give a good look at what size would be right which is highly exemplified by Iphone cases. Since Iphones have become a highly sought after mobile phone in all over the world, their accessories are being prepared by many manufacturers. People from all over the world are proud of their precious possession and therefore they try to conserve their phones by buying best Iphone cases.

Almost every year, a new model of this phone is being introduced by the company for being used by people. Each new phone is having something better than the previous one and this involves keeping in mind a number of features. Starting from the shape of the phone to the individual technical features, everything is unique with the Iphone and therefore, a number of reasons have working it its favour. Iphone 4 is the newest model to hit the market and has instantly become a hit amount the Iphone users. Their show is quite beautiful with plenty of features in them and they also require a number of accessories to make it complete.

Iphone 4 cases are required for the newest model of phones because this is having slight variations in its shape and size, and hence the right case will be required to fit it inside. If there is a slight change in the shape of the cover for Iphone, then it will not fit into the cover and there will be an odd looking covering. To not let such a thing happen, people need to keep their Iphone cases of the best fit which will add to the beauty of the phones.

Nowadays, people are using this case to cover their phones and are buying them from different sources. They are making it a point to cover their phones properly with the Iphone 4 cases of the right fit, so that there is a proper covering from various angles. They should be careful not to buy the fake ones because they will not fit properly into the covers and also there can be damages while trying to fit in the Iphone.

There might be scratches on the screen if people try to forcibly fit their phones into such cases. Apart from being sensitive to rough surfaces, the sides of the phones can get hit if they fall with being inside Iphone cases. This will lead to breakage which is not going to happen if the cases are selected rightly. Plenty of such Iphone 4 cases are found in the market but people need to choose the right one, which will fit into the covers and will maintain the shape and size of these valuable phones.

Why Apple shouldn’t be selling a 16GB iPhone 6S or 6S Plus

With its latest 16GB iPhone 6S and 6S Plus Apple has answered the question of what it thinks really matters: profit or user experience?

The new iPhones are resplendent with new features, despite being the “tock” year in Apple’s “tick, tock” update cycle and looking exactly the same as last year’s iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

But the 3D Touch screen, the better camera, the Taptic engine and the faster processors all hide one thing – the starting iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, costing £539 and £619 respectively, still only come with 16GB of storage.

The iPhone has come with 16GB of storage since 2010’s iPhone 4. Apple presumably wants to keep a lower price point to market its phones at, and to be able to upsell customers to the 64GB version - generating an extra £80 in revenue.

Almost all companies do precisely this, including Apple’s main handset rival Samsung. And you can argue that users have a choice – pay more to get more – but the vast majority don’t appreciate how small 16GB now is. They just want an iPhone and buy whatever they’re given by default, which is usually the cheapest.

The problem is that 16GB is not enough storage for today’s smartphones. After formatting and the OS being installed, this ends up providing around 12GB of storage space for the user.

Back in 2012 the average app size was 23MB. Retina screens have significantly increased that size because each app has to have much higher-resolution imagery, which take up more room. Apps are also more complex, do more and provide richer experiences – everything that’s good about a vibrant app ecosystem - but they’re also taking up more space in the process.

Apple increased the largest app size to 4GB this year, meaning a single app can take up a quarter of the space on the normal iPhone. Not every app is massive, of course. Facebook weighs in at 95.2MB, Twitter 62.7MB, Snapchat 52.9MB and the Guardian’s app is 24.7MB.

That’s the size of the unopened installed app, but the moment it starts doing something – caching the images and data it needs to operate – the app sizes start to balloon.

The Twitter app, for instance, can easily hit more than 240MB, for a regular Twitter user. The Facebook app can grow easily to that size too, while many others including Apple’s own Messages app can start to put on data weight if users start sending photos.

Delete those photos

Speaking of photos, the iPhone 5S and 6 shoot 8MP photos that are just over 3MB in size each, which makes the average holiday, and the 200 or so photos that accompany it, a 600MB chunk of the storage.

The iPhone 6S now has a 12MP camera, which means larger photos that will take up more storage, and Apple’s new Live Photos will consume yet more space with their added video and audio. You can forget about shooting 4K video, which consumes around 300MB per minute. That 16GB of storage could easily be filled with just photos, let alone everything else.

There are ways to offload those photos onto cloud storage, of course, but most users do not do that by default and are simply forced to delete some.

What about music? Most people use their smartphone to listen to some sort of music, and while streaming is labelled as the answer, our 3G and 4G networks are not everywhere and cannot always be relied upon to sate our thirst for music.

An average album of 12 tracks stored on an iPhone from Apple’s own iTunes music store or Apple Music takes up around 90MB of storage. A 200-track playlist, therefore, takes up around 1.5GB of storage or around 12% of a 16GB iPhone.

That’s without talking about other media such as the movies and TV shows on offer from Apple’s various stores; we’ll gloss over those that weigh in at around 1GB per movie.

Gaming cost

The biggest offenders, of course, are games. Even a small game such as Apple’s current favourite Crossy Road, weighs in at 74.7MB of space before being opened. Angry Birds 2 takes up 91.6MB, Candy Crush Saga 55MB and the critically acclaimed Monument Valley demands 275MB without the Forgotten Shores expansion pack.

Those are all small compared to graphically rich games such as Real Racing 3, which claims at least 855MB of your storage. Even a card game such as Blizzard’s popular Hearthstone demands a minimum of 868MB of storage. An avid player of Hearthstone, for instance, with all the latest content will need at least 1.3GB of space on their smartphone.

The average user had 27 apps on their iPhone at the end of 2013 according to data from Nielsen, which means with apps growing in size and photos, music and videos becoming more compelling that 12GB of space seemed small last year, let alone today.

Running out of storage makes the smartphone behave poorly and provides a very unsatisfactory user experience. Users are forced to delete precious memories, tracks they might want to listen to or apps and games that they can no longer afford to keep on your phone, and that might just be to install an update.

Given that Apple does not allow users to add storage with removable cards, if it cared about the user experience of the vast majority of its users it should have increased the storage capacity of the starting iPhone.

Analyst firm IHS estimated that storage cost Apple $0.42 per GB of storage. Adding an extra 16GB of storage to bring it to 32GB would have cost Apple just $6.72 extra per smartphone, something it could have easily eaten within its profit margins – the biggest in the industry by miles.

The iPhone 6S and 6S Plus are premium smartphones, which Apple claims are the “most advanced smartphones in the world”. Yet the rest of the industry, including arch-rival Samsung, has woken up to the fact that 16GB is not enough storage these days and either allows users to add their own storage to top-end smartphones or provides at least 32GB of rated space for their base models.

In 2015, anyone who buys a 16GB smartphone risks quickly running out of space or being forced to pick and choose what apps they use. That’s a problem for the user, but it’s a problem for Apple too - its iPhone 6S innovations won’t be seen as as good as it thinks they are if users quickly run out of space to store their 4K videos

Apple iPhone 6S and 6S Plus review roundup: stronger, faster, heavier

Apple’s new iPhone 6S and 6S Plus smartphones land in customers hands on Friday, but a select bunch of reviewers have been given early access.

The Guardian is not one of those picked by Apple to receive a sample of the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus ahead of its release, and will publish a review after buying one at the same time as consumers.

In the meantime, here is a quick roundup of the general opinion on Apple’s latest.
Review: Apple’s iPhone 6s And 6s Plus Go ‘Tick’ - Tech Crunch

Matthew Panzarino sees quite an uptick in performance of this year’s iPhone over the iPhone 6, in its “tick-tock” upgrade cycle:

    In our tests, there was a 56.5% increase in Geekbench benchmark scores from the iPhone 6 Plus to the iPhone 6s Plus. That follows a 97% increase from the iPhone 5 to the iPhone 5s.

    In comparison, there was only a 24.9% increase from the iPhone 5s to the iPhone 6.

    In terms of performance, the ‘tock’ years are really kicking the ‘tick’ years in the butt.

iPhone 6S review: Apple’s 3D Touch screen and camera improvements make the best better - Digital Spy

Despite the iPhone 6S being thicker and heavier than its predecessor, Matt Hill found it wasn’t noticeable.

    No need to grumble, this is still slim by any standard, with the phone’s increased portliness barely noticeable and the added 14g giving the phone a more reassuring heft. Easily the most well constructed handset on the market - despite increased competition from the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S6 and HTC One M9 - the iPhone 6S’s cool-to-the-touch metal body and softly curved edges make the phone look and feel great.

iPhone 6S review: Apple presses forward - The Verge

Nilay Patel loves the new pressure-sensitive “3D Touch” screen but admits that it’s not exactly a novel concept, even if it’s a new implementation:

    On the home screen, app icons can show quick actions when you push them. Pushing on a calendar entry shows you more information about it, and pushing on a map pin lets you jump straight to directions. Pushing on a message in Mail opens a preview that you can slide to either side to delete or archive, and pushing harder opens the message. It’s the same in Safari: pushing lightly on a link opens a preview, and pushing slightly harder actually opens the page.

    It’s not some insane lightning bolt of inspiration; Google is doing something very similar with Material Design and Microsoft has been sliding things all over the screen since someone was drunk enough to approve the name ‘Windows Phone 7 Series’. But 3D Touch [is] by far the most aggressive and interesting step in this direction anyone has ever taken.

iPhone 6s Review: A Slightly Better iPhone 6 - The Wall Street Journal

The camera’s better, the processor is faster and it has a new screen, but the battery life of the iPhone is still poor, according to Joanna Stern:

    Let’s get this out of the way first. The No. 1 thing people want in a smartphone is better battery life. And the iPhone 6s doesn’t deliver that.

    The 4.7-inch 6s will get you through the day, but you’ll struggle to make it til bedtime with moderate to heavy use. And it seemed to drain even faster than my 6 when I used the new processor-intensive camera features like Live Photos. The bigger 5.5-inch 6s Plus lasted longer and is the best choice if you’re a heavy user and want some juice left over at the end of the day.

I Used The Crap Out Of The New iPhone 6S And This Is What Happened - BuzzFeed Life

Writing for BuzzFeed Life (not BuzzFeed News, that’s below) Nicole Nguyen found Apple’s marketing a little distasteful:

    The marketing slogan for the 6S is “The only thing that’s changed is everything,” which is funny because that’s, well, not true. Take a look at the hardware. It’s impossible to tell the difference between the 6S and 6 iPhones, save for a tinyyy [sic] ant-sized “S” on the rear and slightly more heft (the 6S phones are one ounce heavier). They’re fraternal twins that basically look like identical twins.

    What is different are the few, significant internal improvements, one of which is what I think will entice people (namely, me) to upgrade. 3D Touch is the 6S’s killer feature. But it depends on what apps decide to support it.

Yet Another iPhone 6s Review - BuzzFeed News

John Paczkowski found images shot by the 12-megapixel camera were generally better, as you would expect.

    The photos I’ve taken with the new 12 megapixel rear camera on the iPhone 6s look a little bit better than the ones I’ve taken with the 8 megapixel one on the iPhone 6 — and even my not-at-all-a-photographer’s eye can see that.

    Apple says this is because of “improved local tone mapping” and an “advanced pixel technology” called Focus Pixels. It probably is. I don’t care. What matters is that pictures of my daughters look warmer, sharper, more detailed, whatever. And they look equally good when I blow them up.

iPhone 6S Plus review: Is bigger better? - Pocket-Lint

Stuart Miles says the optical stabilisation and phase detection autofocus make the new 12-megapixel upgrade to the iPhone’s camera a winner, but Live Photos are a mixed bag for now.

    A lot of Live Photos we’ve shot have footage of us hastily dropping the camera after taking the shot. Another frustration is that audio is automatically recorded, which at times is lovely - a child’s giggle for example - but not so great when you’ve got the same child screaming in the background.

    All that extra video adds to their size too, meaning a Live Photo is worth around two still photos in terms of space. While you can offload some of that to Apple’s iCloud Drive service (at a yearly subscription) a 16GB iPhone 6S Plus isn’t going to stretch as far as it used to (compounding the argument for a 32GB minimum model).

iPhone 6S Review: Come for the New Features, Stay for the Screaming Speed - Bloomberg

Speed is at the heart of the new iPhones for Sam Grobart, including the new and improved fingerprint scanner:

    The Touch ID sensor is instantaneous: By the time you’ve pressed the home button to wake up the phone, you’ve already authenticated yourself and are on the home screen.

iPhone 6s review: built for success - The Telegraph

According to Rhiannon Williams, the always-listening “Hey Siri” feature needs a bit of work learning to ignore everyone but you:

    Thanks to the integrated A9, Siri is now always on, waiting to be activated by the command “Hey Siri”. This is attuned to your voice when you first set Siri up during the iPhone activation process, which means Siri is supposed to be able to pick out your voice alone from within a crowded room. I did find that a woman of a similar age and voice range to myself was able to activate Siri from a distance by speaking a command, so maybe this is a feature which needs a bit of refining.

iPhone 6s Plus review: more battery, better camera and a bigger screen mean new phone could win you round to huge phones - The Independent

And of that Rose Gold colour, apparently it’s difficult to photograph and looks better in real life, says David Phelan.

    The rose gold, by the way, looks better in the flesh than in photos, thanks to a colour that is understated and warm rather than out-and-out pink.

iPhone 6S review - Tech Radar

Gareth Beavis sees the upgrade as a no-brainer if money is no object, but it’s a much more difficult call for most people.

    It’s still one of, if not the, most expensive flagship phones on the market, and as such needs to impress in every way, which the iPhone 6S doesn’t quite do. The iPhone 6 remains on sale at a lower price, and the difference between it and Apple’s latest phone is negligible.

Huawei G8 With Metal Body, Fingerprint Sensor Launched at IFA 2015

Huawei at its IFA 2015 event in Berlin launched the new Mate S smartphone. The Chinese manufacturer alongside also revealed the new G8 smartphone.

Huawei has announced that the new G8 will be available in several markets starting this month at a recommended retail price of EUR 399 (approximately Rs. 30,000). Some of the markets where the Huawei G8 will be available include China, Egypt, Germany, Malaysia, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, and United Kingdom among others.

The new G8 smartphone will be available in Dark Silver, Gold, and White colours. For specifications, the Huawei G8 comes with a 5.5-inch full-HD display and features a 2.5D curved Gorilla Glass. The handset features an all metal body, a highlight of the G8.

Another highlight is the fingerprint scanner at the back of the handset. Huawei notes that the G8 smartphone sports Fingerprint Sense 2.0. The dual-SIM handset supports 4G LTE on both the SIM cards.

There is a 13-megapixel rear camera with sapphire protection around the sensor. The rear camera also features built-in OIS, RGBW sensor, ISP Foodie mode, and makeup mode. Under the hood, the Huawei G8 is powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor coupled with 3GB of RAM and comes with 32GB inbuilt storage. It supports expandable storage via microSD card (up to 64GB).

Running Android 5.1 Lollipop with Emotion UI skin on top, the handset is backed by a 3000mAh battery.

The Huawei Mate S, on the other hand, also launched at IFA 2015, is the first smartphone featuring Force Touch display, which can distinguish between a light tap and deep press.

Samsung and Apple battle over the smartphone ‘floating voter’

Samsung and Apple are fighting over the technology world’s equivalent of the “floating voter”, according to Samsung’s president of UK and Ireland.

Andy Griffiths said customer loyalty to the two companies means most people never consider switching between Android and iOS, so the brands are actually competing for only 20% of customers in the UK.

Phablets are the name of the game as Samsung and Apple trade blows over the 20% of the market that actually switches. Photograph: Donald Bowers/Getty Images

“There are groups of people who stick with what they like, whether that’s Samsung or Apple, and then there are there are people in the middle that you can kind of sway, a bit like the floating voter, and that’s who we’re all fighting for,” Griffiths told the Guardian, as Samsung unveiled its new Galaxy S6 Edge+ and Note 5 devices.

“We hold about two-thirds of the Android base in the UK and we have a very high level of retention. The fact is that it’s a two-brand market and I think people are choosing to go both ways, so we’re always going to be trading customers between us.”

Data from research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners suggests that a similar situation exists in the US, where in the past two years 20% of iOS users switched to Android, and 16% of Android users switched to iOS.

Making these switches has become easier, with cross-syncing services helping people to take their personal information such as calendars, contacts and email accounts from one platform to another. Most popular apps are also now available on both platforms.

Smartphone saturation driving ‘kick down’ in sales

The battle for these “floating voters” has intensified as smartphone penetration has reached saturation point in markets like the UK and US, where most people who are likely to buy a smartphone already have one.

That has led to a dip in global sales for Samsung, which, like Apple, is facing up to the challenge of persuading people to upgrade to a newer handset.

“Overall saturation means a kick down in the market as it settles,” said Griffiths. “Once it reaches its new rhythm people will want a better phone than last time, and that step up is what we’ve seen in the UK.”

He added that in the UK, Samsung has helped to grow the premium market – smartphones costing upwards of £400 – by more than 30% since its Galaxy S6 launched in March, and expects that pattern to continue until Christmas.

A growing proportion of that premium market is made up of phablets – smartphones with screen sizes larger than 5.5in. Phablets accounted for 21% of US smartphone sales in the first quarter up nearly four times year on year, according to data from Kantar Worldpanel.

“The phablet category is three times bigger this year than last, and we believe there’s exponential growth in that size of smartphone, with one in 10 of every smartphone sold being 5.5in or above,” said Griffiths.

Phablets here to stay

Phablets also command some of the highest prices in the smartphone market, providing the biggest margins for smartphone manufacturers, explaining why both Apple and Samsung are pushing the supersized smartphone category so hard.

Griffiths said: “If you look at the proportion of the business by value in the premium end, phablets are a substantial sector and something we wanted to add to the recovery in our business in 2015.”

The odd thing about Samsung’s device lineup this year, however, is where and when it is launching its Note 5 phablet.

The Note line pioneered this category back in 2011, but its latest model does not yet have a UK launch date, making its debut instead in the US and Asia. In the UK, Samsung is relying on its 5.7in Galaxy S6 Edge+ for now.

One thing is clear, phablets aren’t going anywhere in the near term, with Griffiths admitting that phone screen size is increasing because “almost one of the last things you do on a smartphone is make a call”.

TfL cautions users over pitfalls of Apple Pay

Apple Pay on the tube could leave you charged twice, stuck at the gates or with a penalty fare, warns Transport for London. Photograph: Apple/PA

Transport for London has warned tube, train and bus passengers paying with Apple Pay on iPhones and Apple Watches not to let their batteries run flat or they could get stuck at gates and face penalty fares.

TfL advises users that, as with other smartphone payment systems including EE’s Cash on Tap, Apple Pay only works if a device has power. It warns that, if the battery runs out in the middle of a journey, a user will not be able to tap out, which means they could be charged a maximum fare.

“If an inspector asks you to touch your iPhone or Apple Watch on their reader, it will not be able to be read and you could be liable for a penalty fare,” TfL says.

TfL also lists having both an iPhone and an Apple Watch as a potential issue – with a risk of being charged twice. It also warns that receiving a call while attempting to touch into or out of the gates will also cause issues, and that users with multiple cards on their account must remember to use the same one or potentially be charged twice.

For overseas travellers using Apple Pay, TfL warns it may not work and that users could be charged currency conversion fees.

Another problem with smartphone payment systems on public transport is the speed with which they operate. One of the biggest obstacles holding back contactless credit cards and smartphones with near-field communication chips from being used on the London Underground was the time it took for the system to authenticate the user and open the gates.

Oyster cards operate at sub-second times, which are faster than paper tickets and contactless cards. Apple Pay and other smartphone systems operate at a rate that is slightly slower than contactless cards, if they are pre-authorised.

For the iPhone that means selecting the correct card and having authenticated it with a fingerprint before touching it on the card reader, which has led to irate commuters and queues at the gates.

Samsung 'investigating' claims of fingerprint hack on Galaxy S5

Samsung Galaxy S5 review Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian

Samsung is “investigating” claims from security researchers that hackers can steal copies of fingerprints from the company’s 2014 flagship Galaxy S5 smartphone, as well as other Android devices, by exploiting a weakness in the operating system’s handling of biometric data.

According to security firm FireEye, Android fails in its attempts to render fingerprint information inaccessible to most apps by sequestering it in a “secure zone” on the phone. The flaw is simple: rather than trying to break into the secure zone itself, the attackers simply focus on reading the data coming directly from the fingerprint sensor before it reaches the secure zone.

With this information, it’s possible to reconstruct the fingerprint, and potentially use it elsewhere, the researchers told Forbes’ Thomas Fox-Brewster.

“If the attacker can break the kernel, although he cannot access the fingerprint data stored in the trusted zone, he can directly read the fingerprint sensor at any time. Every time you touch the fingerprint sensor, the attacker can steal your fingerprint,” one of the researchers, Yulong Zhang, told Forbes. “You can get the data, and from the data you can generate the image of your fingerprint. After that you can do whatever you want.”

The vulnerability is fixed on the newest version of Android, Lollipop – which runs on newer devices, including the Galaxy S6 – and users who can upgrade should. As well as Samsung, some – but not all – other Android devices running versions earlier than Lollipop are affected, though the Galaxy S5 was the only one named. Samsung says it “takes consumer privacy and data security very seriously” and is investigating FireEye’s claims, which are due to be revealed in more detail at the upcoming RSA security conference.

Apple’s TouchID system, present on the iPhone 5s and iPhones 6, uses a similar trusted zone architecture, but no attacker has yet demonstrated the ability to lift fingerprints off the device using a software hack. The fingerprint sensor has, however, been shown to be vulnerable to spoofed fingerprints: a fake fingerprint, printed onto a laminated sheet and stuck to a real finger, can fool the fingerprint sensor.

Of course, stealing a fingerprint through a software hack may not be the easiest way to bypass biometric security: in December, a hacker demonstrated the ability to spoof a German minister’s fingerprints from just a photograph of her hand.

City of Berkeley to require cellphone sellers to warn of possible radiation risks

Berkeley lawmakers voted this week to require cellphone retailers to provide customers with a notice on the potential health hazards of carrying their device too close to their bodies, making the progressive California city the first in the nation to have wireless warnings if the law is allowed to go into effect in July.
“It’s an important right-to-know issue,” said Berkeley mayor Tom Bates, who voted in favor of the measure. “It’s really just a note of caution.”
Currently, most wireless-capable devices such as smart phones carry FCC-mandated safety recommendations on how close to the skin the devices should be kept. It’s suggested that users keep most models at a distance of 5 to 25mm to limit radiation exposure to safe levels.
But those notices are often buried deep inside manuals and online instructions, leaving most consumers unaware they even exist.
A poll of Berkeley residents conducted in April found that while 74% of respondents carried their phones in a pocket – considered close contact – 66% were unaware that cell phone manufacturers recommend the products be carried away from the body or used in conjunction with hands-free devices.
The Berkeley ordinance would require sellers to post the safety information in public view and hand out a separate flyer to buyers who purchase or lease a phone.
“To assure safety, the Federal Government requires that cell phones meet radio frequency (RF) exposure guidelines,” it reads. “If you carry or use your phone in a pants or shirt pocket or tucked into a bra when the phone is ON and connected to a wireless network, you may exceed the federal guidelines for exposure to RF radiation. This potential risk is greater for children. Refer to the instructions in your phone or user manual for information about how to use your phone safely.”
Berkeley’s action comes the same week that emfscientist.org, a group of 190 scientists from 39 countries, released an open letter on the potential dangers of electromagnetic fields and wireless technology, calling for impartial study on the topic from the United Nations and the World Health Organization.

“Numerous recent scientific publications have shown that EMF affects living organisms at levels well below most international and national guidelines,” that letter read in part. “Effects include increased cancer risk, cellular stress, increase in harmful free radicals, genetic damages, structural and functional changes of the reproductive system, learning and memory deficits, neurological disorders, and negative impacts on general well-being in humans.”
Children and pregnant women might face the highest risks, according to Dr Joel Moskowitz, director of the Center for Family and Community Health at the University of California at Berkeley. Moskowitz both signed the EMF letter and helped craft the Berkeley ordinance. “Five-year-olds absorb at least twice as much radiation (from cellphone contact) as the adult brain,” he said.
But the science around wireless devices remains controversial. CTIA – The Wireless Association, a trade group for the industry, opposed the Berkeley ordinance as pushing inaccurate information on consumers.
“This proposal fails to provide information grounded in science or sound policy, thus misleading consumers and eroding confidence in government,” wrote Gerard Keegan, senior director of external and state affairs for CTIA, in a letter to Berkeley’s city council.
Moskowitz counters that science often requires time to make connections between hazards and health, and that too often studies are commissioned by the industries they affect. “We have seen so many examples of what you could say is interested science turn out to be bad science – tobacco, asbestos, lead,” he says. “The list is endless. Then all of the sudden there is scientific evidence saying it is not safe.”
Moskowitz added that the Berkeley law is specifically crafted to avoid any debate over the actual safety of wireless devices. Instead, it “narrowly” focuses on making buyers aware of the fine print most often fail to read.
“It’s about disclosure, period,” he said. “It’s about trying to get people to see the actual safety information that the cellphone manufacturers put out. The industry has been very successful about hiding or burying these truths and spinning doubt about it.”
That distinction will be critical to defending the new law in court, according to Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig, one of its authors.
Lessig said that Berkeley waited to pass the law while the fate of a similar proposal in San Francisco was decided in court. In the San Francisco ordinance, retailers would have been required to go beyond the existing warnings included in manufacturers’ materials and add “that there was something dangerous about their cellphone and they should use their cellphone less”, said Lessig.
San Francisco dropped the ordinance after losing a legal challenge by the CTIA. Six other states have also considered some sort of disclosure regulations, but currently, none have passed. Lessig said that if the Berkeley law stand up, “then I do think it will be a model” for other jurisdictions.
The ordinance must have a second reading by the city council on 26 May. If it passes, the new law would go into effect 30 days later, barring legal challenges.
While Berkeley mayor Bates says he anticipates the CTIA “will sue us”, he feels confident “our ordinance that we are proposing is one that will stand up” in court.
“All we are doing is saying a principle about how you should be carrying your cellphone,” said Lessig. “You could think the debate that cellphones are dangerous is complete malarkey but still agree you should not carry your cellphone against your body.”

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge faces shortages as demand outstrips supply

Samsung won’t be able to keep up with unexpectedly high demand for its new curved screen Galaxy S6 Edge smartphone, the company has admitted.
Head of mobile JK Shin told press on Thursday that because the curved screens of the S6 Edge, which roll over the left and right sides of the smartphones, are difficult to manufacture the Korean firm won’t be able to keep up with demand for the model in the near term.
Samsung released the curved smartphone as higher-priced twin to the regular flat-screened Galaxy S6, which was expected to be the dominant model of the two. But higher than expected levels of pre-orders at some UK retailers and mobile phone operators are running at a 60/40 split between the S6 Edge and the regular S6, according to multiple sources talking to the Guardian.
“Some carriers are switching existing orders to get more of the S6 Edge, and it looks like demand for the model will exceed supply throughout this year,” said HMC Investment analyst Greg Roh. “That means average selling price will fall at a slower rate, which will have a positive impact on Samsung overall.”
The Galaxy S6, which ships in 20 countries starting 10 April, is expected to set a sales record for Samsung’s Galaxy series of smartphones, said Lee Sang-chul, head of mobile marketing at the company, although he did not release figures for the current record of handset sales.
Nomura analysts estimated that Samsung sold 80m Galaxy S3s in three years from its 2012 launch, and 43m S4s from the model’s April 2013 introduction to the end of that year. Some analysts say Samsung could ship 50m or more S6 phones this year. For comparison, Samsung’s chief rival Apple shipped 74.5m iPhones, of which it sells four models, in the last quarter of 2014 according to data from research firm Strategy Analytics.
Samsung’s Shin also said the South Korean electronics maker is preparing a variety of wearable devices, including a new version of its Gear smartwatch, but did not give specifics. Apple’s first wearable device is due to roll out its 24 April, with pre-orders starting on 10 April.

Time for a loan? Solid gold Apple Watch will cost $17k

Apple will make its entry into the world of high-end fashion with a solid 18-carat gold Apple Watch costing over $10,000.
Uncharacteristically for the company, Tim Cook gave the price of the Apple Watch Edition as “from” $10,000, with no corresponding price at the top of the range, but the company’s website reveals that it can rise to $17,000 when bought with the “modern buckle”, a strap containing a chunky solid-gold clasp.

The mid-tier Apple Watch, by contrast, starts at $549, but can rise to double that, $1,099, with the larger screen size and most expensive watch bands.
Despite being made from solid gold, few analysts had predicted a price of more than $10,000 for the watch. A poll of Guardian readers pegged the likely price at half that: $5,000. Some observers guessed even lower, around $2,000–$3,000, based on reports that the company was employing a new method for making gold alloy, using ceramic particles, which required 28% less gold by volume for an 18-carat.
In the end, the company appeared to base its pricing on comparably high-end analogue watches. A rose gold Rolex costs $18,000 (£12,000), while a similar Omega watch, set with diamonds, can be as much as £24,000.
But unlike those watches, which are designed, and often explicitly advertised, to last long enough to pass down to one’s children, the Apple Watch will eventually be obsolete, replaced by newer models.
Some thought that the company may have announced a way around this problem, either offering the ability to upgrade the internal components, or to trade in the old watch for money off a new one. But no such programme was announced, suggesting that the advice in the future to owners of a newly obsolete £13,500 watch will be the same as it is to owners of a newly obsolete £600 phone: suck it up and buy a new one.

Apple passes gas firms with record $18bn quarterly profit

Apple has smashed into the record books by reporting the largest quarterly profit in corporate history.
The tech company – already the most valuable on the stock market – reported profits of $18bn (£11.9bn) for the third quarter of the fiscal year, surpassing the previous record quarters set by oil companies ExxonMobil and Gazprom.
Apple chief executive Tim Cook called the company’s sales “phenomenal” and said the company had sold 34,000 iPhones an hour every day of the quarter. “This volume is hard to comprehend,” Cook said.
A record 74.4m iPhones were sold in the three months to the end of 2014, the California-based company announced on Tuesday, comfortably beating analysts’ expectations as sales of its two newest models soared during the Christmas holidays and found new fans in China.
The record $74.6bn in revenues for the all-important third quarter was well ahead of the $67.5bn expected by analysts. Apple, the world’s most valuable company, ended the quarter with $178bn in cash.
Sales were led by China, up 70% on a year ago. Sales in the Americas and Europe were up 23% and 20% respectively.
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The iPad’s popularity continued to wane, however. Apple sold 21.4m of the devices in the last quarter of 2014, less than analysts had expected, but iPhone sales cheered investors. Ahead of Apple’s announcement, analysts had predicted the company would report sales of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus of between 66m and 70m over the quarter. Apple’s shares jumped 5% in after-hours trading on Tuesday.
“We’d like to thank our customers for an incredible quarter, which saw demand for Apple products soar to an all-time high,” said Cook. “Our revenue grew 30% over last year to $74.6bn, and the execution by our teams to achieve these results was simply phenomenal.”
Apple had a record-setting year in 2014, with its share price hitting new highs and taking its stock market valuation to $650bn. Last week, the company revealed that Cook’s pay package more than doubled last year, to $9.22m. Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s new head of retail, took home the biggest award in 2014 – $73.3m – boosted by a massive sign-on package.
The performance beat Apple’s previous quarterly record for iPhone sales, 51m, set in the quarter ending 28 December 2013.
Apple’s latest iPhones were introduced in September and have proved a hit with consumers. The company had eschewed making iPhones with larger screens until last year, and the decision to take on rival Samsung and others with a larger smartphone appears to have paid off.
The introduction of the larger iPhone 6 Plus alongside the iPhone 6 and lower-priced iPhone 5S and 5C pushed Apple’s iPhone sales past 20m a month for the first time in November, according to recent research from Counter Point. Japan, Korea and China have proven bright spots for Apple, with higher-than-expected demand for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models.
Apple also managed to increase the amount of money it charges for iPhones over the quarter. The average selling price of the iPhone was $687 in the final quarter of 2014, compared with $637 for the same period a year ago. The iPhone 6 Plus costs $100 more than Apple’s previous high-end model.
In the US, iPhone owners accounted for 42.3% of all smartphone users in 2014, according to eMarketer, up from 40% in 2013. By comparison, Android users accounted for 51.3% in 2014, up from 50.5% the previous year.
According to eMarketer, there were 76.2m iPad users in the US in 2014, or 51.8% of all US tablet users. That market share was down from 54.5% of all US tablet users in 2013.
In the UK, the number of iPad users reached 15.7m in 2014, up from 12.9m in 2013, eMarketer estimates, but Apple lost market share, falling to 53% of tablet owners from 57% in 2013.
Apple is preparing to launch the Apple Watch, its first truly new product line under Cook, who took over following the death of co-founder Steve Jobs in 2011. The smartwatch is expected to go on sale in April. Cook said his expectations for the watch were “very high”.
“I’m using it every day, love it, can’t live without it,” he said of the watch.
The product launch comes as Apple is struggling to sell iPads in the face of cheaper alternatives, winding down sales of its iPod media players and increasingly concentrating on services like Apple Pay, its credit card-less payment system that can be used with iPhones and the new watch.
Cook said that some 750 banks and credit unions have signed on for Apple Pay and that the service already comprises more than two-thirds of all contactless payments. He said Whole Foods had reported a 400% rise in contactless payments thanks to Apple Pay.

Apple Pay on the way: why we may start shopping differently in 2015

Evolving technology has fired up the race to bring in contactless mobile payments services for Britain – with Apple out in front

The Apple Pay mobile payment system, already in use in the US. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Europe is oddly hampered when it comes to payment technology. In sensibly upgrading to chip-and-pin payments, and then contactless cards, we freed ourselves from the low-tech, easily hackable swipe-and-sign cards still widely used in the US. But we also made it harder for innovative startups, by raising the cost of building something compatible with the secure payment terminals.

This is why Britain is in the odd situation where it sometimes seems as if the biggest innovation to hit our wallets in 2014 was Barclaycard’s bizarre “PayTag”. Advertised as a “handy little sticker that can turn any mobile phone into a new way to make contactless payments in seconds”, it’s little more than the circuitry of a contactless payment card attached to a bit of sticky-backed plastic.
Enter Apple.
 The company’s Apple Pay technology launched in the US last autumn, and with the company advertising for a London-based “Apply Pay intern”, you can be sure a European launch isn’t far off. In America, it immediately sparked a proxy war between the credit card companies and retailers, with almost as many big-name retailers swearing blind they would never accept the technology as there were signed up on launch (perhaps speaking to Apple’s demographics, the former camp included Wal-Mart, while the latter was led by WholeFoods).
But the technology does represent a step change in how we will be paying in 2015, albeit an evolution rather than revolution. Mobile wallets have been around for years, but have failed to take off due to a combination of network intransigence, handset fragmentation and simple lack of awareness of what is possible. Apple, in its trademark manner, simply steamrollered through those problems. If you have an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus, you’ll be able to use Apple Pay from the day it’s turned on in the UK, your phone network can’t say a word against it, and you can be sure that Apple won’t let you forget it. After all, it gets a cut every time you buy something.
The tech has already sparked an arms race, with Samsung rumoured to be developing a response to Apple Pay, and a Walmart-led coalition leading its own mobile-led payments service. Whether any of them can take on Tim Cook’s charge remains to be seen, but whoever wins, 2015 could be the year we change the way we buy things.
– in pictures
Nature writer and broadcaster Sarah Raven and Andy Byfield at Plantlife identify 10 of Britain's most endangered wild flowers.
Don't miss your 108-page guide to 50 of Britain's wild flowers, an exclusive excerpt from Sarah Raven's Wild Flowers (Bloomsbury), free this Sunday 29 April with the Observer