Poll

Poll: will you buy iPhone 6 full price or subsidized?

When Apple finally announces the iPhone 6 next month, I myself will be most certainly watching Tim Cook's pricing slide with great intent. There have been plenty of rumors indicating that Apple could actually hike iPhone 6 prices across the board.

Assuming the rumors are true, like most people I won't be happy about this change, though it won't discourage me from buying the handset.

The more suspicious watchers postulated that only higher-end models would command a premium. For instance, The Wall Street Journal just recently said that only the "more-expensive models" would get sapphire displays due to high production costs.

In the United States, T-Mobile is the only major carrier that fully separates device cost (fully paid upfront or via twelve zero-interest monthly installments) from wireless service plans. With other operators such as Verizon, the subsidy cost is not cut out of your wireless bill after your service agreement is over and your device has been fully paid off.

Which brings me to my question of the day: will you be getting your very own iPhone 6 unsubsidized, paying the full price of the handset upfront? Or, perhaps you'd be willing to commit your soul to a carrier for another 12/24 months, all over again, just to be able to pay the lowest possible hardware price at the time of your purchase?...

Poll: is ability to use iPhone 6 with one hand a priority to you?

Analysts and bloggers take it for granted that Apple's 4.7-inch iPhone 6 employs smart desing in order to make it perfectly usable with just one hand.

Whether or not the handset adheres to Apple's supposedly “unwavering principle of one hand use,” as one analyst put it, is anyone's guess because no one's seen the phone yet.

Most people would agree that older 3.5-inch iPhones are perfectly suited for one-handed use.

And by making the 4-inch screen taller but not wider, Apple's made recent iPhones efficient enough for the vast majority of users for whom one-handed use is a priority.

But 4.7 inches is on a different level than 4 or 3.5 inches. Unless Apple pulled some dark magic tricks, not everyone may be able to hit the top left corner with their thumb.

In today's poll, we challenge you to focus on the conceivable usability issues with the upcoming iPhones stemming from their much-talked-about bigger screens.

So, is being able to use an iPhone 6 with one hand important to you? Cast your vote below and meet us in comments...

Can’t redeem Yosemite beta code? Here’s a fix.

Apple today opened the floodgate by posting the public beta of its upcoming OS X 10.10 Yosemite software, which launches officially sometime this Fall, and already a bunch of people took to Twitter over an error message saying the redemption code has already been used.

Each copy of Yosemite beta requires a promotional code which must be redeemed in the Mac App Store to download the installer. Is there anything you can do about this error message?

Yes, there is - and a remedy couldn't be simpler. Read on...

Apple rolls out OS X 10.10 Yosemite public beta – are you in?

As promised, Apple today opened up OS X 10.10 Yosemite betas to the first million applicants who've signed up for the OS X Beta Program using their Apple ID. If you haven't yet signed up for the program, better hurry up! Otherwise, be patient as Apple will email you soon (using your Apple ID contact details) to let you know when your OS X Yosemite Beta redemption code is ready.

There's a lot to love about Yosemite - both in terms of the simplified, flattened user interface and  new features that take integration between iOS and the Mac to the next level.

It also marks the first time Apple has permitted both its registered Mac developers and the general public to access betas of a work-in-progress Mac operating system update.

Today's poll asks a very simple question: are you, or are you not, going to install the public Yosemite beta on your Mac?

Poll: should iPhone 6 have a lit Apple logo?

A pair of high-quality photographs of an alleged rear shell of the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 obtained by uSwitch are making the rounds this morning. The popular theory is that the device may have an illuminated Apple logo on the back, similar to the logo cutout on iPads and just like Apple's MacBook series of notebooks.

Rumors of iPhones outfitted with a lit Apple logo have persisted for years, but this is the first time a concrete part has surfaced that suggests an Apple logo-shaped cutout on the back.

In today's poll, we're asking if you think whether the next iPhone should come with the glowing Apple logo on its back...

Poll: what’s more important to you – screen size or battery life?

Pundits and fans are in agreement that a bigger screen will be the #1 selling point of Apple's forthcoming iPhone 6 refresh. With two models in tow, one with a 4.7-inch screen and the other using a phablet-class 5.5-inch display, the iconic smartphone will for the first time go comfortably past four inches.

So, who's willing to trade a bigger screen for a much-improved battery that could keep you going for 24 hours or more, on a single charge? For the sake of completeness, One survey identified a longer-lasting battery as the top feature request by early iPhone 5 adopters ahead of the handset's September 2012 launch...

Poll: have you jailbroken iOS 7.1.x?

The iOS 7.1.x jailbreak is here, and it works. That said, it's been met with its own fair share of controversy. We believe that more people are coming around to the idea that the jailbreak is generally safe to use as we discussed on Let's Talk Jailbreak, but there are still quite a few of you holding out. So, tell us; what have you decided to do? Have you used Pangu to jailbreak your iOS device yet? Sound off in the poll inside.

Poll: which one’s a better buy – $1,099 iMac or MacBook Air?

Apple is taking some heat over its $200 cheaper baseline iMac, which released this morning. See, in order to bring the price down to an attractive $1.099, the iPhone maker has sadly skimped on the specs.

This $200 saving translates into half the hard drive storage and a slower Intel CPU/integrated graphics.

Specifically, the entry-level 21.5-incher packs basically the same dual-core 1.4GHz Intel Core i5 processor and integrated Intel HD Graphics 5000 as the MacBook Air family. And with recent MacBook Air price drops, choosing between the all-in-one and one of ultra-portable Airs is anything but trivial.

That's why I've created a quick poll, so we could learn from your opinion. Tell us which one, in your opinion, is a better buy: a $1,099 iMac or a $1,099 MacBook Air...

Poll: which iPhone 6 size would be right for you?

The rumor mill has settled on two display sizes for Apple's upcoming iPhone models, a 4.7-inch one and a massive phablet-class screen measuring 5.5 inches diagonally (for reference, the iPad mini is 7.9 inches).

I'm dying to find out which model would be more popular with you guys so I put together this nice little non-scientific poll to gauge your form factor preference. This, of course, is assuming that screen size is the only hardware difference between the handsets, just like the iPad Air and the Retina iPad mini.

Don't be shy, jump past the fold and cast your vote now...

Poll: would iPhone 6 be worth $300 to you?

iPhone 6 rumors are heating up as we inch closer to Apple's summer developers conference and an assumed Fall launch of a 4.7-inch iPhone 6.

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek recently claimed in a note to clients that Apple is negotiating with wireless carriers to raise the iPhone 6 price by $100, because the handset will be "the only headline-worthy high-end phone launched this year.

The price hike would make the larger-screened iPhone retail for $299 after a two-year contract with a  carrier versus the usual $199 starting price of latest on-contract iPhones. Interestingly enough, a recent study has found that one-third of iPhone shoppers would indeed pay more to  get an iPhone with a screen larger than four inches.

What about you?

Poll: does iOS 7.1 crash less on you?

If you're a proud iPhone 5s owner, I'm sure you'll agree that the experience of using iOS 7 on a daily basis is less stellar than what we've normally come to expect from our favorite fruity company. If anything, iOS 7.0.x has taught iPhone owners, especially iPhone 5s ones, to get used to random crashes at least a couple times a day.

It's not just that Safari crashed a lot on me, I crashed while listening to music, reading books and taking pictures - I even crashed on the iOS app switcher. It was almost as if my iPhone 5s would restart if I looked at it the wrong way.

I'm pleased to report that iOS 7 crashes far less on my iPhone 5s versus any prior iOS 7.0.x version, including the recently released iOS 7.0.6. Of course, your mileage may vary and with less than a day's worth of running newly-released iOS 7.1 not everyone's had a chance to experience just how stabler and snappier the new version is.

Having said that, I'd like you to vote in this non-scientific poll about iOS 7.1 stability and learn about your experience thus far. Go ahead, cast a vote and join the civil discussion down in the comments....

Poll: will Apple launch Retina MacBook Air in 2014?

After transitioning its MacBook Pros to high-resolution Retina screens, the ultra-portable MacBook Air - my favorite Apple notebook of all time - has remained hopelessly stuck in the past with that normal-resolution display. I don't want to trade portability for power, but non-Retina computing just doesn't cut it for me anymore, simple as that.

I guess you could say I'm ready to upgrade to a Retina MacBook Pro, unless - unless Apple brings out a Retina Air at some point this year. Of course, it's always easy to argue that a Retina-fied MacBook Air is going to remain wishful thinking until all the technological pieces have fallen in place. After all, aren't Retina screens known as power and GPU hogs?

Yes, but fourth-generation Intel Core processors have made some great strides in power efficiency and graphics performances, as evidenced by the mid-2013 MacBook Air refresh: these systems now rock up to twelve-hour battery on the 13.3-inch model, or nine hours for the 11.6-inch version.

The bigger problem: Retina needs a powerful backlighting to push more light between those densely-packed pixels, in turn requiring a larger battery inside the Air's already ultra-thin enclosure.

Me, I'm willing to sacrifice battery performance and be back at six hours of runtime in exchange for that ultra-sharp Retina screen. Which brings me to my question of the day: is Apple going to give the MacBook Air a Retina treatment this year, do you think?