Are You Giving, Getting An iPhone 5 For Christmas? How About An iPad Mini?

iphone 5 and ipad mini Apple’s late-set releases for the iPhone 5 and iPad mini were clearly positioned to reap big sales rewards for the Christmas rush. With that in mind, are the iPhone 5 and/or iPad Mini going to be under the Christmas tree this year? We wish you a Merry Christmas, iPhone 5 and iPad mini — and a Happy New Year! Two years and fours months (and three Christmases) after the establishment of this blog, we’re still talking about the iPhone 5. Who would have thought? uniea iphone 5 and ipad mini case saleLately, it has been hard to reconcile some of the middling news about the iPhone 5′s sales performance throughout the world. In spite of a prolonged rumor cycle and the most frenetic buzz ever generated for an iPhone release, the iPhone 5 has not necessarily performed up to snuff in some markets. In addition, Wall Street has stressed over some the supply and demand issues that plagued the early release of the device, causing Apple stock to shed some of its value heading into Christmas. One now wonders if the Christmas holiday shopping season will right the ship for Cupertino. By contrast, the iPad mini’s launch has been smooth sailing for Apple: there have been no widespread complaints about the device, and all of the top tech analysts agree that it dominating the tablet market, in spite of its premium price compared to competing models like the Kindle and Nook. The only real criticism of the iPad mini has been a question of whether or now it is cannibalizing regular iPad sales. But one would imagine that Apple had anticipated this in its revenue models. With the iPad Mini selling like hotcakes, and with the iPhone 5 supply and demands issues worked out, one would have to assume that it is going to be a big holiday season for Apple. How about you? Are you giving the iPhone 5 and/or iPad mini as a gift to anyone else this Christmas? Or do you think that you might be getting one of Apple’s shiny, new gadgets for Christmas? It will be interesting to gauge the answers, since, for all intents and purposes, many of the readers of tech blogs are early adopters of new technology; we might be an outlier group of electronics consumers. But even if we’ve already onboarded to the iPhone 5 and/or iPad mini, it stands to reason that not everyone in our families have as well. You’ll recall that several of the top electronics retailers in the U.S. — Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Target — all launched aggressive iPhone 5 sales in the run-up to Christmas, fueling speculation about what those sales might mean. While the rumor mongers see an early sale as potential proof that the iPhone 5S or 6 could arrive sooner rather than later in 2013, the less optimistic tech pundits see the sales as an example of flagging iPhone 5 sales in the U.S. Still another possibility is that the top retailers in the U.S. are using an on-sale iPhone 5 as bait to get consumers into their stores to do more Christmas shopping, recognizing that the iPhone 5 still remains one of the most popular products on the market today. Regardless, by the first week of January, 2013, we’re likely to hear more about how Apple, the iPhone 5, and iPad mini have done. But maybe if we share our iPhone 5 Christmas stories, we’ll have a better sense of how big a Christmas season it’ll be for Apple. Or maybe not. Merry Christmas!

iOS 6.0.2 Update Prompts Battery Drain Complaints From iPhone 5 Users

iOS 6.0.2 and iPhone 5 battery drain A recent update to iOS 6 was meant to target wi-fi issues experienced with the iPhone 5. The new patch, however, may have afflicted the new iPhone with iPhone 4S-esque battery drain issues. It’s deja vu all over again with respect to battery drain and the iPhone 5. After the iPhone 4S release was tarnished in 2011 with widespread battery drain complaints — and initial grumblings from early iPhone 5 adopters that Apple had not done enough to improve battery life on the new iPhone — now, the new iOS 6 patch appears to have negatively impacted battery life. According to a CNET report, iOS 6.0.2, which was released largely to deal with some wi-fi issues experienced by many users, has had some kind of adverse effect on the software side of battery usage, with a number of iPhone 5 users taking to the Apple forums to complain. Tech Radar: “Curiously, the battery drain appears to only affect the iPhone 5 and not the iPad mini, which was also updated to iOS 6.0.2 this week; other devices didn’t receive the minor update. Initial speculation points to a change in Wi-Fi antenna behavior under iOS 6.0.2, although this theory doesn’t explain why most iPhone 5 devices – and all iPad mini tablets – remain unaffected.” There’s an obvious cause-effect going on here, with the wi-fi fix affecting battery usage on the iPhone 5. Most likely, the patch is also having some kind of effect on the iPad mini as well, but seeing as the device has not been fraught with battery drain issues in the past, the effect might be much more subtle than on the iPhone 5, which sports an already undersized battery. It still remains odd that Apple has not aggressively moved to improve battery design for the iPhone since the release of the iPhone 4. The 4S saw no increase or improvement in the device’s battery, and the iPhone 5, while utilizing a slimmer battery design to accommodate the device’s slimmer profile, did not substantially increase its capacity, all while outfitting the 5 with 4G LTE and other battery- sucking hardware components. A possible explanation for this design decision by Apple is that Cupertino sees the iPhone user base keeping their device docked more frequently throughout the day, thus providing several daily auxiliary charges that augment the nighttime charge, thus precluding the need for higher capacity batteries. Also, Apple’s software designers may feel like they can continue to optimize iOS for battery life, seeking a software solution to a hardware problem – a long-held Apple ethic. However, it can be argued that Apple has not done a great job at doing this since iOS 5 and the 4S was released. With the eventual release of the iPhone 5S in 2013, it is unlikely that the next iPhone device will see any substantial overhaul of its battery. At the same time, it’s also unlikely that the 5S will feature new hardware components that would put an undue stress on the current battery. Chances are, Cupertino will make marginal upgrades to battery capacity to meet the demands of the A6 chip. One would hope, however, that eventually Apple is going to take battery life seriously once again, since a mobile device is only as good as its battery.

 
i Phone © 2012 | Designed by Prasad