The Art of Ancient

This stunning number makes the device the most successful debut yet for AT&T. It must be noted that Sprint Wireless and Verizon are yet to report preorder numbers for Apple's latest smartphone, so we can reasonably expect to see a number which is well above 200,000 for the device overall.

Despite keeping the design of its predecessor, the Apple iPhone 4S has received a serious upgrade of its internals, including a dual-core A5 CPU and a capable 8MP camera unit. Apple's voice-operated personal assistant, called Siri, is also among the major novelties in the device.

So it looks like Apple has done it again, folks. We will keep you in the loop on the subject as it develops. In the meantime, tell us what you make of the high demand for the iPhone 4S in the comments section below.

Back in May, Jefferies & Co. analyst Peter Misek conjectured that when it came time for Apple to unveil its brand new iPhone, we'll be seeing "minor cosmetic changes" rather than a complete overhaul.

"We believe the likelihood of the iPhone 5 launch in September including LTE is now remote," Misek said. "According to our industry checks, the device should be called iPhone 4S and will include minor cosmetic changes, better cameras, A5 dual-core processor, and HSPA+ support."

While Misek was a tad off in his launch date, new evidence has emerged that foreshadows a much more subdued press event tomorrow. One where the iPhone 4S, not the iPhone 5, makes its grand debut.

MacRumors' Arnold Kim shares a screenshot from Germany's Vodafone carrier site which lists rubber bumpers for the iPhone 4S.

Several factors enable a person to save first before paying any of his living costs.
1. In beginning a career it is best to stay with your parents first, thus avoiding paying rents.
2. Using you old parent's car, if there is, when driving to work and paying only the fuel. No need to bring out money for servicing a car loan.
3. No subscription bills like phone bills, magazine subscriptions, internet subscriptions and others.
4. Joining a company that has medical and dental insurances thus gaining more savings than paying for possible expenses.
5. Using company uniforms makes it unnecessary to purchase work clothes.
6. Avoiding too much entertainment to pleasure one's self after several days of work. Mostly staying at home helps.

From a cursory look, it’s very difficult to point out the design differences between the two tablets, but if there’s one thing we love about them, it has to be their solid feeling brushed aluminum casings – it simply radiates quality! Looking at them head-on, their overall dimensions are relatively close to one another, however, the iPad 2 takes the mark of being the more refined of the two due to its razor thin construction and lighter weight feel. It’s not to say that the HTC Jetstream is a chubby one, but when the iPad 2 is able to confine itself within a small space, we’d only expect others to follow closely in the same footsteps. Naturally, HTC does a valiant effort on their part, but the kudos has to go to Apple’s team for engineering the more premium feeling tablet between the two.

On one hand, the Apple iPad 2 features a 9.7” IPS display with a resolution of 1024 x 768, which might seem slim in figure compared to the higher 1280 x 768 resolution found with the Jetstream’s 10.1” LCD display. Actually, details are comparatively the same with the two tablets – with neither one gaining the upper hand in this area. However, the iPad 2’s display produces colors that are more natural looking compared to the bland tones exhibited by the Jetstream. Furthermore, there’s a subtle yellow tinge seen with the Jetstream’s display when it’s tilted at various angles. And when it comes down to outdoor usage, the higher brightness output of the iPad 2 enables us to visibly see whatever is on-screen in direct sunlight.

In our experience, we constantly find ourselves accidentally pressing the Jetstream’s dedicated power button and volume rocker since they’re very sensitive to the touch – thus, causing us to press them by mistake too often than none. In contrast, the iPad 2’s physical buttons are more pronounced and require a good amount of force to activate.

With only five days left before Apple officially spills the beans on its latest smartphone creation/s, we have yet another iPhone 5 related rumor. This time, it comes from AT&T's own inventory database, where cases for the most anticipated smartphone to launch this year have surfaced.

Apple iPhone is always considered as one of the best smartphone, also wanted to more one information, recently came across a new iPad puzzle game, found it really interesting. For more information download the app store link: http://itunes.apple.com/

We just got wind of the following video that shows what seems to be an iPhone 4 with a bigger screen. The phone seems to be the same size as the iPhone 4 but the screen now stretches from edge to edge with minimum bezel as those early mockups suggested.

So it seems we may finally know the day Apple CEO Tim Cook will unveil the iPhone 5 and the lower-cost phones that will likely accompany it: Tuesday, Oct. 4. What we don’t know is when you’ll actually be able to pick one up.

One date is almost certainly out: Tuesday, Oct. 4. Even if Apple could overcome the logistical hurdle of getting all its phones ready on the day of the announcement, that’s just not the company’s style. Its world-class marketing mandarins and PR mavens know all too well the value of building anticipation. There needs to be enough time to get people camping overnight outside Apple stores, for one thing. And this year, if early polling is any indication, the lines could be longer than ever.

So how much longer will we have to wait? AllThingsD, the outlet that leaked the announcement news from its gold-plated Apple sources, suggests the phones will go on sale “within a few weeks.” That would put launch day somewhere between Wednesday, Oct. 5, and Tuesday, Oct. 18. However, as Apple 2.0 points out, iOS device launches seem to be getting closer and closer to the announcement date. The iPhone 4 took 17 days to make it to stores, but the iPad 2 was there in just nine days.

So if we’re on the iPad 2 schedule, expect to see the iPhone 5 in stores on Thursday, Oct. 13. But there are plenty of reasons to think it might arrive earlier. Remember the leaked Sprint announcement blacking out vacation time for store employees in the first two weeks of October? It would be odd if Sprint were to go to that trouble, only to allow employees to take time off after the first two business days of heavy iPhone 5-based foot traffic.

That’s one reason why we’re sticking with the U.S. sale date we predicted two weeks ago: Friday, Oct. 7. Yes, it’s only four days after the announcement event, but bear with us. All indications are that Apple has coordinated this launch more closely than ever with its retail and carrier partners, hence the plethora of leaks from Sprint, Best Buy and AT&T, among others. And with all eyes on Tim Cook’s first product unveiling, what better way for him to wow the crowd than to tell them they can get their hands on their object of desire at the end of the week? (That would fit Cook’s brand, too: he’s renowned as a maestro of inventory management.)

Friday launch dates seem to work well for Apple (see the iPad 2 launch); it can take advantage of the fact that relatively little tech news drops on a Friday, as well as the here-comes-the-weekend carnival atmosphere. Just as long as the company doesn’t encourage Rebecca Black to take any part in the festivities, we’re fine with that.

The holiday season is coming and people are starting to think what they can replace their aging phone with. Analysts at UBS did a survey, which revealed interesting stats about retention rates - that is how many people plan to stick with the same maker for their new phone.

Unsurprisingly, Apple topped the charts here with 89% retention rate. That’s impressively high, but it’s a bit down from what it was a year and a half ago - Apple used to have a whopping 95% retention rate in 2010.

Retention rates are down all around, say UBS. HTC managed to sneak into second place with 39% after RIM fell to 33% (half of what it was 1.5 years ago). Samsung and Motorola come in fourth and fifth with 28% and 25% respectively, followed by Nokia with 22%.

Android as a whole proves not as binding as iOS - 60% say they’ll get another Android, while 31% are pondering a move to Apple’s mobile OS.

Most of the people questioned in the survey were high-end smartphone owners and four fifths of them will be spending more on phones and related expenses, regardless of the state of the economy.

After what felt like an eternity of waiting we finally have some information about Apple's next event. According to some insider information acquired by AllThingsD, the iPhone 5 unveiling will take place on October 4th.

Reportedly, it will be Tim Cook, who will lead the show for Apple on the big day. He will be joined on stage by Phillip W. Schiller (Senior VP, Worldwide Product Marketing), Scott Forstall (Senior VP, iOS Software) and Eddy Cue (newly appointed Senior VP of Internet Software and Services). Keep in mind that none of this has been officially confirmed so take it with a pinch of salt.

The exact devices that will be unveiled remain a mystery too. New iPods seem likely, and the next gen iPhone almost certain (though we don't know if it will be an iPhone 4S or 5 or both) and some even expect an iPad 3 announcement, which is really pushing it if you ask us.

If the October 4th date turns out true that would mean an almost immediate release of the next iPhone on October 15th.

It's been now over a year since the last (best-selling) iPhone (4) arrived and most Apple users and fans are going crazy with anticipation - heck, even Apple haters are probably waiting to see what the next iPhone will be like.

We're also expecting iOS 5 to be officially released at the event as it's already nearing its Gold Master version (due September 23rd).

In 1908, Rolex was founded by Mr. Hans Wilsdorf, a German National Citizen. Initially the company was named Wilsdorf & Davis as Wilsdorf founded company together with his brother in law. At the time, mostly pocket watches were produced by Swiss watch manufacturers as manufactures still had difficulty to produce accurate and reliable movements in such small size that they would fit in a wrist watch. Wilsdorf was a perfectionist who improved the standards for watch making as he did strive for smaller and more accurate movements that transformed style and fashion from larger pocket watches to smaller more practical wristwatches. Aegler, a small Swiss company agreed to supply Wilsdorf with movements small enough to be worn on the wrist. Wilsdorf's production included a variety of case designs: casual, formal and sporty.

In 1910, Rolex sent their first movement to the School of Horology in Switzerland. It was awarded the world's first wrist watch chronometer rating. Wilsdorf recognized two major requirements for watches: 1) To keep accurate time, and 2) To be reliable. With the Chronometer Award, 'accuracy' of timekeeping was considered to be under control and Wilsdorf started to work on improving the reliability of his watches. One of the main problems at the time was, that dust and moisture would enter in the watch case and progressively damage in movement. To solve, one would need to develop a completely dust and waterproof watch case. Dust and water would enter watch cases via the casebook and via the crown. Wilsdorf developed a screw crown and casebook mechanism that revolutionized the watch industry.

The first waterproof watch was cleverly advertised around the world. At the time, the public was rather skeptical if the watch would be really waterproof. However, after seeing a watch in an aquarium in the shop window, many people were convinced. Around the world one could see windows of watch shops with an aquarium and submerged Rolex watches. This campaign created an enormous brand awareness for Rolex. Since then, Rolex has continued to be at the forefront of the watch making industry. Today, almost every watch manufacturer followed Rolex and offers waterproof watches.

The Rolex Prince, developed in 1928 became a best seller with its dual dial and rectangular case. In 1931 Rolex invented the "Rotor" - a semicircular plate of metal that with gravity, would move freely to wind the watch. Thus, the Rolex "Perpetual" (automatic) movement was born. Rolex's star has risen much higher since those days of the First World War. "People want to own a Rolex because it shows that they made it.". It is something to which you aspire and then treat yourself after a successful venture or a windfall.

Industry watchers say that what distinguishes Rolex from other premium timepieces is its signature look--a big, round face paired with a wide metal band--that's become as familiar on a basketball court as at a black-tie reception. Identifiable from across a room, the Rolex look has an unrivaled, near-universal appeal. Sportsmen value its ruggedness, adventurers its reliability and royalty its elegance. The design's evolution could be best described as glacial. There have been changes over the years, but it's all in the details. Take Rolex's first calendar watch, the Datejust. If you put a Datejust from 1945 beside a Datejust from 1998, you'll see the resemblance. There probably won't be a single part inside that's interchangeable, but the outward design has evolved ever so marginally."

This timeless appeal often translates into an excellent investment. At Christie's auction house in London last September, the excitement created by the sale of a private collection of 360 Rolex watches dating from the 1910s to the 1990s surprised even the most nonchalant pundits. The highlight of the auction was the sale of a cult icon--a late-1960s stainless-steel manual-wound Paul Newman Cosmograph Daytona (so named because the actor wore one in the 1969 racing flick Winning) that took the hammer for a cool $21,212, twice its estimated value. The Paul Newman, with its flashy dial and oversized indexes, wasn't an immediate success and was produced for a very limited time. Its meteoric ascent in popularity didn't begin until the mid-1980s. The Italians were the first to go for it. It was perfectly possible 16, 17 years ago to buy a Daytona at 20 to 25 percent under list price in England or America at the same time Italians would pay you 30 to 40 percent over list. Let's just say it was a nice little earner for quite a number of enterprising people.

By the time Daytona fever swept across Europe and the United States in the late 1980s, a relaunch was already in the works. Introduced in 1991, the updated Daytona replicated the original's racy chronograph--a built-in stopwatch that's perfect for timing the morning sprints of Kentucky Derby contenders or your nine-year-old's dash for first base--but added an automatic winder. Today, the $5,150 stainless-steel Cosmograph with a white face--the rarest combination and the one that Paul Newman reportedly wears off screen--is one of the country's most-coveted timepieces. The Daytona is actually worth more on the secondary market than its retail price. I mean, here's a watch that--assuming you could find one, that is--you could pick up new and turn around and resell for a $2,000 profit. And in steel.

But the best-known Swiss watchmaker has always been something of an outsider in Geneva. Perhaps it's because the company didn't start out Swiss. As mentioned, Rolex was founded in London, in 1905, by the 24-year-old Wilsdorf, a German who became a British citizen after taking an English bride. It was an era when national borders tended to define men's ambitions, but Wilsdorf thought big from the beginning. In 1908, before anyone had uttered the term multinational, Wilsdorf trademarked the word Rolex, a name that's easily pronounced in different languages and short enough to fit on a watch dial. It's said that Wilsdorf dreamed up the word while riding a London bus, having been inspired by the sound a watch makes as it is wound. Rolex didn't leave England until after the First World War, when an import tax hike of 33 percent made receiving its Swiss-made movements prohibitively expensive.

The company's first decade was driven by its founder's relentless obsession with precision. "Wilsdorf wasn't content merely to invent the first wristwatch. He wanted to invent the first truly accurate wristwatch, one that you could actually run your life by." Validation came in 1914, when London's Kew Observatory certified a Rolex wristwatch to be as precise as a marine chronometer. It was the first time that a watch had received "chronometer" status--a classification that, even today, is held by a relative few timepieces.

Still, improved accuracy didn't immediately transform the wristwatch into an essential item in the common man's wardrobe. Dust, heat and moisture had a way of wreaking havoc with a wristwatch's intricate mechanical movements, and the earliest models required too much maintenance to be practical. Rolex's big breakthrough came in 1926, when Wilsdorf developed a case that was impervious and waterproof. The secret was a revolutionary double-locking crown that screwed down on the case like a submarine hatch to create an airtight seal. Recalling his difficulty in prying open an oyster at a dinner party, Wilsdorf christened his creation the Rolex Oyster.

To launch his company's new timepiece into the popular consciousness, Wilsdorf came up with an ingenious publicity stunt. After learning that a young British woman named Mercedes Gleitze was planning to swim across the English Channel, he presented her with a Rolex Oyster and dispatched a photographer to chronicle her endeavor. When Gleitze emerged triumphantly from the sea, her Oyster was keeping perfect time and, true to its name, had remained waterproof. Wilsdorf capitalized with a splashy front-page ad in London's Daily Mail newspaper, touting "The Wonder Watch that Defies the Elements: Moisture Proof. Waterproof. Heat Proof. Vibration Proof. Cold Proof. Dust Proof." It was the genesis of the famous Rolex testimonial ad campaign that continues to this day.

If the first Oyster had an Achilles' heel, it was its winder button. The watch was hermetic only when the button was screwed down. To discourage people from toying with the winder, Wilsdorf came up with another innovation that propelled the industry forward even further. In 1931, Rolex introduced a "perpetual" rotor that literally rewound a watch with every flick of the wearer's wrist. The world's first successful automatic watch became the bedrock of the Rolex empire. "The Oyster Perpetual is really what makes a Rolex a Rolex--it's waterproof, with a tiny engine that you power every single time you move your arm."

Nearly 70 years later, the Oyster Perpetual has proved undaunted by the worst possible conditions. It has survived the depths of the sea with Jacques Piccard and the summit of Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary's Sherpa. It has retained its accuracy in subzero arctic temperatures, the scorching Sahara and the weightlessness of outer space. It has shrugged off plane crashes, shipwrecks, and speedboat accidents, broken the sound barrier, and been ejected from a fighter jet at 22,000 feet. Some of the most colorful recommendations are the cautionary tales: the Englishman who inadvertently laundered his Oyster in a scalding cycle, then rinsed, spun and tumble-dried it; the Australian skydiver who dropped his from 800 feet above the outback; or the Californian whose wife accidentally baked his in a 500-degree oven. In each case, the recovered Rolex was running perfectly.

By the advent of the Second World War, the Rolex name had become so prestigious in Britain that pilots in the Royal Air Force rejected inferior government-issued watches and used their paychecks to nearly deplete England's supply of Oyster Perpetuals. The compliment was duly returned: any British prisoner of war whose Rolex was confiscated had only to write to Geneva to receive a replacement. Yankee GIs returned home with a new trinket on their wrists. And so Rolex's romance with America began.

Though he lived in Geneva for 40 years, Wilsdorf never became a Swiss citizen. He died a Briton in 1960 and was remembered by colleagues as a good-humored, fatherly man who loved life as much as he loved a fine watch. Two years after his death, the company's board of directors appointed 41-year-old André Heiniger as Rolex's new managing director. While working under Wilsdorf for 12 years, Heiniger had come to share his boss' vision for the company, as well as his high energy level and sanguine outlook. All three traits proved invaluable when the Swiss watch industry found itself slipping into oblivion.

Just as video killed the radio star, the quartz boom of the late 1960s and early 1970s nearly snuffed out the mechanical timepiece faster than you can say "Seiko." By substituting low-cost, digital technology for labor-intensive artisanship, the Japanese sent the Swiss horology industry into crisis mode. Yet while most of Geneva's watch houses feverishly hitched their star to the digital bandwagon, Rolex stuck resolutely to its mechanical guns. By the time the dust had settled, more than half of Geneva's watch manufacturers had gone under. Fully a third of the survivors, including such prestigious names as Omega, Longines, Blancpain, Tissot, Rado, and Hamilton, were subsumed into a publicly owned consortium to avoid bankruptcy. This fate won't befall Rolex. Wilsdorf, an heirless widower at his death, created a private trust run by a board of directors to insure the company would never be sold.

What made Rolex so resilient? "The single most important thing that saved Rolex is that up until then the company had only been run by two managing directors: Hans Wilsdorf and André Heiniger. They really never had to worry about this quarter's results. They could think long-term appeal: 'Where will we be in five or ten years' time?' That's a completely different philosophy than at another watch house. Even in times of uncertainty, Rolex's greatest policy was never to adopt change for change's sake." Revealingly, the single quartz model developed by Rolex in the 1970s never exceeded 7 percent of the company's total production. (Today, that figure is 2 percent).

"If Rolex had gone to quartz there's no way it would have the image and prestige it has now." And being a private company without external shareholders, Rolex can better afford to remain aloof to fads than many of its counterparts. That means no chunky cases, no madcap numerals, no avant-garde shapes--nothing that's going to look dated in a decade's time.

In 1992, Patrick Heiniger replaced his father as Rolex's managing director. Both Heinigers share the twin virtues of undying optimism and ironclad discretion, according to colleagues. It's a combination that generates intrigue among rivals and industry observers. Montres Rolex S.A. is hugely secretive. Rolex always was an outsider company in Switzerland. Their top executives almost never do interviews. Essentially, their philosophy has always been to let the product speak for itself. At Rolex, the product is an obsession."

Consider the care taken to decorate the inside of a Rolex--the parts the wearer never even sees. At the company's Geneva headquarters, Rolex's craftsmen, dressed in white laboratory smocks, pull up to ergonomically designed workstations, then execute minute operations in near silence. Each component of every tiny movement is sculpted with swirls, lines or loops. Every angle is rounded and polished to a brilliant shine. This provides absolutely no value to the consumer, except as a gesture of the brand's refinement.

That Rolex has always produced its own movements separates it from other well-known mechanical brands. More than 200 craftsmen and technicians will work on a watch before it acquires Rolex certification. "There's so much more to a Rolex than the average person will ever need. And in that sense it's the Mercedes-Benz of wristwatches. It's over engineered. Not because Rolex wants to squander money but because that's just the way they do things."

Before leaving Geneva, every Rolex watch must travel through a high-tech obstacle course of quality-control checks. Every dial, bezel and winder will be checked and double-checked for scratches, dust and aesthetic imperfection. The microscopic distance between its hour and minute hands will be painstakingly calibrated to ascertain that they are lying perfectly parallel. An ominous-looking air-pressure chamber will verify that each watch is waterproof to a depth of 330 feet. (The Submariner and Sea-Dweller divers' models are guaranteed to 1,000 and 4,000 feet, respectively.) And every watch will engage in a precision face-off against an atomic-generated "überclock" that loses but two seconds every 100 years. Only after successfully passing dozens of checkpoints does a watch receive the Rolex seal.

Such attention to detail limits Rolex's production to about 650,000 watches a year, based on industry estimates. "That might sound like a lot," insists Lister of Christie's, "but it's very far below market demand." But, as André Heiniger once said, "We've never wanted to be the biggest, but certainly one of the finest in the field."