iPhone 6 could use curved glass front panel

In what would be a big departure from the recent squared-off designs of the iPhone 4 and iPhone 5, new rumours suggest that the next iPhone – dubbed the iPhone 6 or iPhone Air – will use a more curved design.

Previous rumours suggested that curved corners would feature, making the latest iPhone more similar to the original iPhone in concept. Now Mac Otakara is suggesting that the front and back panels may be made up of curved glass. This would give the handset a far more friendly-to-hold shape. It must be noted though that such a curved panel, even on the front, doesn't necessarily mean a curved display underneath, as a subtle curve could still be laid over a traditional flat screen.

The iPhone 6 is said to be coming in two sizes, a 5.5in display and a 4.7in display, the site suggests the larger handset will use a 1,920x1,080 display, with and the smaller handset a 1,334x750 resolution.

We're not sure about the idea of a front curve, though a device with a rear curve and slender edges does ring true, as it would be reminiscent of the design of the current Apple iMac, which cleverly hides its actual depth in a pleasing bulge which tapers to very thin edges.

An aluminium rear casing looks a possibility too, again curved, though this does cause issues with antenna placement, as the metal blocks the signal, which is why the HTC One (M8) has a pair of horizontal lines across it, which allow the rear antennas to pick up a mobile signal.

Image created by www.ciccaresedesign.com, head over there for more great-looking Apple-related renders.

For all the latest information on the upcoming iPhone read our iPhone 6 price, specs, release date rumours.

Xiaomi will sell its smartphones in ten new markets this year

Xiaomi announced its plans to enter ten new market this year. The Chinese manufacturer’s founder and CEO Lei Jun delivered the news at a press conference in Beijing.

Xiaomi will begin sales in large developing markets such as India, Brazil, Russia, and Mexico. The rest of the list of countries includes Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Turkey. The move is part of a plan for international expansion. Xiaomi has a goal to increase its sales five-fold to 100 million handsets in 2015.

Four years after entering the industry, Xiaomi has enjoyed considerable success in China (the company sits ahead of Apple with 7% share in its home market), Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore. The Chinese manufacturer is known for selling its keenly-priced devices directly to consumers online - a process which generates impressive sales over short periods of time.

HTC Droid DNA to get Android 4.4, Sense 5.5 tomorrow

HTC unveiled the Droid DNA in late November 2012 with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and Sense 4.0. The smartphone has since been updated to 4.3 Jelly Bean and Sense 5, but starting tomorrow it will get yet another major update.

The update will bring Android 4.4.2 KitKat and Sense 5.5 (not Sense 6 like on the new HTC Ones). The Executive Director of Product Management at HTC made the announcement that the update has received technical approval and will roll out over the air starting April 24.

DNA Owners! Appreciate your patience, we have technical approval for OS 4.4.2 + Sense 5.5. Expect OTA updates to start on 4/24. Thanks!

— Mo (@moversi) April 22, 2014

The international version of the device, the HTC Butterfly, already got the good news of a KitKat update.

Still, not bad for a device that's nearing the 18-month deadline for software updates, especially considering the HTC One X (the international version) will forever remain on Android 4.2 despite launching only a few months before the DNA.

That particular decision made a lot of HTC fans angry, but the company has been moving to make amends with things like this and the HTC Advantage program that guarantees 2 years of updates for newly bought phones (it's US only for now).

Apple announces better than expected fiscal Q2 2014 earnings

Apple announced its financial results for the fiscal Q2 of 2014. The Cupertino giant beat the expectations by posting net profit of $10.2 billion, or $11.62 per diluted share from $45.6 billion of revenue.

The above results are higher than the $43.6 billion of revenue and $9.5 billion of profit for the same period last year. Apple’s gross margin was 39.3% - up from 37.5% a year ago. Two thirds of the company’s revenue came from international sales.

The strong financial results were achieved thanks to stellar iPhone sales. Apple moved 43.7 million smartphones in Q2 – up from 37.4 million for the same period last year.

Sales of the Apple iPad however didn’t fare so well. The company moved 16.3 million slates – down from almost 20 million sold in the same quarter in 2013. Mac and iPod sales were 4.1 million and 2.76 million respectively.

Apple also annoucned that it will make a seven-for-one stock split on June 1. The board also upped its share repurchase program to $90 billion – up from $60 billion.

Going forward, Apple expects the revenue in fiscal Q3 2014 to reach between $36 billion and $38 billion. Gross margin is expected to remain between 37% and 38%.

Galaxy S5 outsells iPhone 5s over launch weekend

The Samsung Galaxy S5 scored more sales in its launch weekend than the iPhone 5s in its respective period. More specifically, the Galaxy S5 snug 25% and 18% of the smartphone market share in the USA and Canada for that period. The iPhone 5s did slightly worse at 18% market share in the US and 13% in Canada.

The interesting statistics come from company iQmetrix, which specializes in retail management software for the wireless industry in the US and Canada. It collected data from over 15,000 stores and compares the launch weekends of the two rivals - September 20-22, 2013 for the iPhone 5s and April 11-13 for the Galaxy S5.A more detailed analysis reveals that the Galaxy S5 did best in the Southern US region, where from Aprill 11-13 the phone accounted for 41% of the overall phone sales. In the Northeast that number is 30%, 23% in the Midwest and 21% in the West.iQmetrix also provided data of the 6-month lead-up period before the two flagships hit the market. From May 2013 to October 2013 the iPhone 5 sales dropped progressively as customers patiently awaited the iPhone 5s announcement. Interestingly, that's not the case for the Galaxy S4 (October 2013 to March 2014), which saw a boost in sales thanks to the Holiday shopping season.

New Samsung Galaxy K Zoom photos pop up, cases in tow

A new photo of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy K Zoom (formerly known as the Galaxy S5 Zoom) has surfaced, showing the back of the device. Still, you can clearly see the back cover sports the perforated leather-imitating pattern of the Galaxy S5.

You may have also spotted that the cameraphone is wrapped with a protective plastic casing. A listing on a Chinese website shows two of them, a transparent and a blue one. They hint that the left side is clear of any buttons, while the right will hold a Power/Lock key, volume rocker and a camera shutter key.

 

The photo once again confirms that the camera lens at the back doesn't protrudewhen not in use. That's certainly going to be helpful when using the devices as a phone. The first Galaxy K Zoom photo shows that the Samsung logo is below the camera, while the Xenon flash is above it.

While not really readable on this photo, the first one reveals the Galaxy K Zoom 20MP camera will sport a 10x zoom lens covering the 24-240mm range in 35mm equivalent. The rest of the specifications include a 4.8" 720p display, Android KitKat with Samsung's TouchWiz UI, and a quad-core 1.6 GHz chip or the new Exynos hexa-core with two Cortex-A15 and four Cortex-A7 cores.

Update: A couple of new photos of the Galaxy K Zoom have showed up. This time, their depict the cameraphone with the lens on full zoom.

 

OnePlus One is official, runs custom CyanogenMod 11S

Finally after months of teasing and releasing details one bit at a time, OnePlus announces the One - its first Android smartphone.

In terms of specifications, there's little surprise. The OnePlus One features the Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 (8974AC) platform with a quad-core 2.5GHz Krait 400 CPU, 3GB of LPDDR3 RAM. The display is a 5.5" full HD JDI-made, resulting in a pixel density of 401ppi.

The OnePlus One runs CyanogenMod 11S based on Android 4.4 KitKat. The company has worked closely with the ROM team to release a special minimal and flat UI. There are also a bunch of custom themes and icons specially made for the device.

OnePlus put a great deal of effort into the design of the One and its hows. The company tried materials such as stainless steel and aluminum for the One, but with a weight of 198g and 175g, respectively, was unacceptable. As a result, the team chose magnesium for the build of the phone and it brings down the weight of the phone to 162 grams. In fact, OnePlus claims this is the lightest 5.5" smartphone in the world.

       

OnePlus One official photos

Interestingly, the company admits that its only regret is that it wasn't able to use metal borders for the One. The problem is that it was creating signal issues as well as added unwanted weight to the body of the phone.

The One measures 152.9 x 75.9 x 8.9mm with the edges of the phone measure 4.6mm. At the bottom, there are dual stereo speakers and popular audio company JBL helped for their fine tuning.

At the back, the OnePlus One features a 13 MP Sony IMX214 Sensor with 6 Lenses and f/2.0 Aperture. We already saw it in action in the hands of a professional photographer as well as its 4K video recordingskills. The camera is capable of quick shutter speed of 0.3 seconds.

  

OnePlus One official photos

The back cover of the OnePlus One is removable and the company is also launching special StyleSwap covers. Available in bamboo, wood, denim and kevlar, the StyleSwap covers add a dash of personality to the One similarly to the Moto X. Sadly, the 3,100mAh Li-Po battery isn't user replaceable.

The OnePlus One will launch in Q2 with Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, UK and the USA getting it first. More markets are expected to follow suit soon after.

Available in Sandstone Black and Silk White, the unlocked 16GB OnePlus One will retail for $299 (€269 in Europe) and the 64GB model will cost you $350 (€299 in Europe). In the UK, the phone will sell for £229 and £269 for the 16GB and 64GB model respectively.

Here are the prices in Sweden, Denmark, Honk Kong and Taiwan. Mind you, the price for Hong Kong is HKD 2599.