Author Archives ⇒ Brandon Hann

eBay and PayPal Resolution Center Problems

· Brandon Hann

I needed to vent this after having some personal experience with eBay and PayPal and their item/payment dispute process through the resolution center. First of all, I’ll say that despite the issues and complaints I’ve had, I’m still glad they have these services in place. Reason being; it’s great to have help when you need it most.

However, unlike in the past, eBay and PayPal transactions are heavily buyer-focused and rarely favor the seller except in certain cases. While I’m here, I’ll also be grouping in eBay’s feedback system into the mix because it also shows a bias toward buyers. Now, this doesn’t mean that the seller never has any ground to stand on—it just means that the buyer has more leeway in the overall outcome of cases.

My current experience

I sold an old iPhone 3G to a buyer in the Ukraine. The auction, ending on August 14th, went off without a hitch, the buyer paid for the item plus shipping charges the next day and I, as a responsible seller, shipped the item within an hour of receiving payment. I sell a lot of stuff on eBay using through two eBay accounts, therefore I’m always at the post office dropping packages off.

The item went out in a Small Flate Rate Box which according to USPS, takes anywhere from 6 to 10 business days. The item shipped out on August 15th, therefore making the estimated delivery date fall between August 23rd and August 27th (not counting weekends).

Despite these facts, the buyer had sent me six emails asking the same question, and I quote: “Dear seller! Have you sent the goods?!” The first two emails were sent on August 15th, the next three were sent on August 16th and the one was sent on August 19th. Each time, I responded with a YES as well as some detailed information about how the buyer could track his/her purchase through their eBay account along with the estimated shipping information outlined by USPS. The buyer replied once through all this simply saying, “Thanks!”

So I figured either this person has been scammed before or doesn’t really understand how eBay works. To clarify, I use every aspect of the MyeBay account meaning if you bought something from me, you are notified instantly with an invoice, your order status is always visible in your account, a tracking number is inputted instantly since I ship directly through eBay and feedback is left based on the performance of your payment. I find that this is the simplest way to do business on eBay.

However, on August 21st, the buyer opened an item dispute case through PayPal contesting that the item has not been received.

Resolution Center

My complaint is very simple. How can a bidder open a case stating that the item hasn’t been received before the start of the estimated delivery period?! Also, why doesn’t PayPal see that tracking information has been clearly entered into eBay while also seeing that a shipping label was bought and paid for through PayPal? When eBay and PayPal merged, it was supposed be mainly to help integrate the two systems to allow for more transparency between the dual transactions (auction functions and payment functions), but it appears that no matter how integrated these systems are, the buyer retains the upper hand almost every time!

While this resolution center is helpful in certain situations, I don’t see how allowing buyers to open cases without meeting specific criteria should be allowed. Granted, normally I would complain about this, but it’s the other side of this story that really irks me. It’s the fact that when a case is open, PayPal immediately withdrawals the total amount of money received from the won auction which may or may not put your account in the red. It did in my case because I don’t keep money in my PayPal account.

Another side-effect is that these cases are always tied to your account for record purposes and I don’t like black marks on my account.

My two cents

I’ve already vented my frustrations with the resolution center, but another gripe I have is with the feedback system. Another feature they removed was the ability for a seller to leave negative feedback. The seller is now only allowed to leave positive or neutral feedback. The reason for this is clear: most sellers would wait until they received feedback from their buyer and then based on that comment, leave one in return. This opened the door for retaliation. So if a buyer left a negative comment because the seller was slow at shipping, the seller could then leave a negative comment back for revenge.

This doesn’t jive well with the whole point of the feedback system because sellers should be leaving feedback based on how fast a buyer paid for an item and nothing else! The buyer is then left to create feedback based on the overall auction experience. eBay could have solved the retaliation by forcing sellers to leave feedback first. This way, before a seller could get their comment, they would have to rate the buyer based on payment speed.

Anyway, I’ll keep this posted updated with any changes, but as of today, the dispute remains open even though the tracking number shows the item moving through the system.

UPDATED: September 8th, 2011

After waiting out the lengthily official “review” process by PayPal, the case has been closed and wouldn’t you know it…the payment was reversed! That’s right, I have now lost the $211 paid by the buyer for my iPhone and since I shipped the iPhone to the customer, I no longer have it either. Well done PayPal! You decided to favor an eBay member only 4 months old who jumps the gun on shipping times and stealing money from a customer that has been loyal to you for many years—not to mention that I’ve been selling on eBay for 12 years.

What’s truly sad about all this is that there’s no recourse. The buyer now has his money back and he will certainly, if not already still receive the item. What’s going to prompt him to repay me for the phone? Absolutely nothing. All I can do now is move forward. However, this time I won’t be taking it so lightly. I’m looking for ways around using PayPal and in short time, I’ll likely be moving my sales over to Amazon.

For all of those out there who take a proactive approach to weeding out potential deadbeat buyers, here’s another username you can add to your blocked list:

4irik12

New Computer Chips That Think Like Humans

· Brandon Hann

Ever since the first computer was created, not much has changed with how they process information. Sure they’ve gotten faster, smaller and way more functional, but if you move all that aside and just look at how a processor processes, you have the same exact thing: user inputs a function, function is stored in temporary memory, processor takes that function and performs a task.

The simple way to look at this process is to know that the processor and memory are still two very separate functions. Imagine if every time you wanted to do something, you had to write it down first and then go through the list one step at a time to make the task happen?! That’s what a computer is doing.

However, IBM has developed a computer chip where the memory and processing functions are one and the same. Darmendra Modha, the researcher leading the project, says, “It is IBM’s first cognitive computer core that brings together computation in the form of neurons, memory in the form of synapses and communication in the form of axons.” One example of how this will change the way we use computers is if you had a traffic signal being monitored by computers and video cameras. A brain-like computer can monitor these signals 24 hours a day and be able to detect anomalies (like traffic accidents) and be able to dispatch the needed support faster than waiting for an emergency call.

Another example would be to use such technologies in the oceans to monitor and detect abnormal changes in the temperature and overall condition of the water to know if things like rogue tsunamis are headed for a coastal town.

Researchers tell us that the brain-like chips are nowhere near the abilities of the human brain at this stage, but these new chips do show promise. Currently, they have 256 neurons-like nodes that allow the chip to contain 262,144 programmable synapses which is enough to drive a car through a simple maze.

My two cents

It’s kind of interesting and scary at the same time! On one hand, if a computer can make decisions for itself, we might be close to creating the perfect human, although it’ll be non-human if that makes sense. This could mean that it is always correct and nothing could corrupt it. However, it might be quite the opposite. If a computer can think, does that mean it can also be lied to? For example, if we got to the point where we created a robot with a real computer brain, could you tell it false information without it knowing whether it’s true? If so, could it really act on that mis-information just like a human does and make mistakes?

We might have a few years to wait before we know, but I can tell you we’re heading down a very interesting road in the technology sector.

AT&T and T-Mobile Merger Comes With Conditions – More Regulation

· Brandon Hann

Although the merger has practically been approved, AT&T might be facing more regulation and monitoring by the FCC in order to maintain a competitive cell phone market. As it stands now, if AT&T and T-Mobile merge, there will effectively be two cellular powerhouses (AT&T and Verizon) and one underdog (Sprint) left on the playing field. The FCC is concerned that this merger will reduce competition that could cause AT&T and Verizon to have no repercussions should they wish to increase their prices.

Although Sprint may be a worthy competitor now, what would happen when T-Mobile is absorbed by AT&T? It’s clear that AT&T’s only true competition is Verizon and by taking over all of T-Mobile’s customers, they are likely to get larger than Verizon. The two of them together could create an unstoppable duopoly forcing the majority of cell phone users to have less choice in their carrier as well as subjecting them to potentially higher prices.

The FCC aims to prevent this from happening. They have warned AT&T that close monitoring will be in effect after the merger and that regulations may follow. At this time, AT&T has already been actively selling off certain assets to reduce their market power in anticipation of a merger. One aspect of the merger might force AT&T to sell some of its cellular spectrum to Sprint to help maintain it’s competitive advantage.

Years ago when Verizon was merging with MCI, the FCC stepped in and forced them to lease fiber optic lines to business customers in major metropolitan areas such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. However, due to the size and nature of the AT&T/T-Mobile merger, more regulations are expected to be put in place and it may take much longer for AT&T to abide by the new rules.

My two cents

I never liked T-Mobile personally. I don’t know what it is, but it always seemed like the red-headed step-child in the Cellular world. Maybe it’s because you expect great phone service from companies that have been around for a hundred years or more and T-Mobile ended up looking like a higher-class Boost Mobile. I don’t even know what any of this has to do with anything, but the point it, I don’t mind that AT&T will soon take them over. My concern is with the power struggle that will come from it.

AT&T has been broken up many times before due to becoming too large of a company and maintaining various monopolies over customers. In fact, that’s how Verizon even exists today. I just don’t want to see something like this causing prices to rise while service quality and customer support falls.

Ledfrog.com is 11 Years Old Today

· Brandon Hann

Today is the 11th anniversary of Ledfrog.com. This was the day back in 2000 that I submitted my first domain application to solidify my presence on the Internet which was still a growing force not nearly the size that it is today. Here’s a little back story on the domain and why I decided to register it.

AOL 3.0

Readers of my site and those that know me personally most likely already know this part of the story, but it fully explains how the name “ledfrog” came to be. When the Internet was first starting out, there was a plethora of random companies offering services to get you online and it was often a confusing and tedious process—usually ending in a frustrated user with no email. America Online came out of this mess with software for Windows 3.1 back in January of 1993. It was to be the start of an online empire and the most popular Internet software/service the world would ever see.

I didn’t jump into the AOL world until version 3.0 (June of 1996) when we got our Windows 95 computer, but when I did, I was hooked! The thought of having access to the entire world and to be able to communicate with thousands of users anywhere at any given time just excited me.

I can’t remember what my first screenname was, but I do remember it having some numbers in it. See, back in those days there were so many people on AOL, that it seemed like no matter what screenname you came up with, you had to put numbers on it just to make it unique. Well, I sat out to change that. I wanted a short, pronounceable name that had no numbers, didn’t incorporate my real name and wouldn’t be something I’d regret using after growing up.

On July 22, 1998 I was 16 years old and sitting in front of my parent’s computer thinking of that name. At the time, I was using a picture of a small tree frog for my desktop background and listening to Led Zeppelin. It was that simple. Ledfrog was born.

Domain Name

While in high school, a friend and I started building cheap little websites that were hosted on free webservers like FreeYellow.com and Xoom.com. These sites were nothing more than collections of pictures and links for things we were interested in at the time, but for me, they were the start of a new hobby. The problem was that when I do something, I like to do it “pro” so I got tired of having a weblink that looked like: http://www.freeyellow.com/members/pages/username/index.html and wanted something more like http://www.something.com.

At the time, there weren’t any companies like GoDaddy.com where you can register about any domain you want in a matter of seconds. Before, you actually had to print out a paper application, fill it out by hand and send it off with a check for 2 years of registration minimum. It was $35 per year back then!

So again, I sat there thinking—this time of what domain I wanted to get. On a sidenote, I really wish I had a lot of money at this time. Looking back at how many valuable domain names were still available just blows my mind. But like any investment, there are never any guarantees. Most of us never would have thought the domain business would get to where it is.

Anyway, wishing to spend my $70 wisely, I opted to stay with the ledfrog name and decided to create a brand out of it. From that point forward, this domain has served as a fan site for Metallica, an FTP server, a collection of links to popular “hacking” tools for AOL and other things, a personal page for me, an FTP server again, a blank page, a forwarded page to other domains and now finally (since 2008), a blog mostly about technology. I remember one of the greatest satisfactions I got while running the FTP server was when I asked a co-worker one day if he knew where I could download a particular freeware program and he said, “There’s a site I found called Ledfrog.com that has a lot of stuff…you could try there.” I was floored that someone actually knew my site without me telling them about it!

I’ve come a long way with this domain and through the years I’ve owned well over 80 different domains, sold a few and made some money, started websites and failed, had ideas that never materialized but had fun each and every day. For me, Ledfrog.com had withstood the time and is currently my oldest and most active domain. It is here to stay for quite a while!

No Criminal Charges for Jason Chen or Gizmodo

· Brandon Hann

Remember back in March of 2010 when that mysterious prototype iPhone was found in a bar that fueled the speculation of what the new iPhone 4 was going to look like? For those that don’t remember, an Apple employee charged with the task of testing a fully functional iPhone in the ‘real world’ spent his birthday at a local bar, ended up drinking too much and left the prototype phone at the bar only to be found by another patron. It was this guy and his friend that pitched the sale to Gizmodo.com’s Jason Chen.

Shortly after Jason took possession of the device, he blasted out blog posts including pictures and videos showing off the new device and only speculating what could possibly be inside. It was then that one of the largest tech exclusives took off. It became world news for 2 reasons. 1. Everyone was waiting to hear about any little detail they could find regarding a new iPhone and 2. Apple NEVER gives sneak peaks or media previews. They make their announcements to the world while everyone is watching.

Originally after the news broke, everyone was up in arms about who could have done this, was the device stolen, was Jason Chen’s possession of it illegal, etc. After a year of investigations, Jason Chen will not have any charges filed against him. Apparently, as a journalist, he is covered by the shield laws that basically protects a journalist’s 1st amendment rights as a reporter.

At the time authorities had seized Jason’s computers and notes related to the unfolding event, although it’s widely believed that this seizure was illegal because they ended up taking unpublished notes from a reporter—another gray area of the shield law.

Prosecutors claim that although they potentially have a case with charging Jason Chen, they are opting not to pursue due to the many gray areas that could upset a final verdict. The two individuals responsible for finding and selling the device to Gizmodo are not so lucky. Brian Hogan and Sage Wallower are both getting slapped with misdemeanor charges. Hogan was charged with one count of misappropriation of lost property; Wallower with misappropriation of lost property, and possession of stolen property. Each faces a maximum of a year in county jail, plus fines and probation.

My two cents

This truly is a gray area because I believe that all parties knew what they had. Even without it being an iPhone prototype, they all had to have known they were doing business with stolen property, but as the prosecutors knew, it might be impossible to prove that Jason Chen knew that. Adding to that, the “illegal” search and seizure and you no longer have an open and shut case.

Either way, none of this really matters anymore. Apple got the phone back and it appeared that none of the leaks damaged any sales. In fact, that kind of press might have actually helped sales.

Cable TV Industry Losing Record Numbers of Subscribers

· Brandon Hann

For years, the amount of time I spend watching tv has dramatically been decreased to practically nothing. Aside from a few number of shows that I still enjoy, there’s nothing really exciting on. However, this article is not about the quality of tv—it’s about the alternative choices.

In my current house, there are six televisions all set up with boxes from AT&T UVerse. I don’t get into the downsides of AT&T UVerse here, but let’s just say being able to only watch 4 different channels at any one time across all 6 boxes is an outright crime! The worst part about this is that when that 5th person wants to come on and view a different channel, he or she has the ability to either watch one of the 4 channels being viewed or kick off the newest person to turn on their tv! Sorry, I said I wasn’t going to get into it, so let’s move on!

According to the Associated Press, eight of the nine major subscription-TV providers have lost 195,700 subscribers between April and June of this year. This group provides TV services to about 70% of the country, so these numbers equate to 0.2 percent of their 83.2 million customers. This might not seem like a lot, but if this trend continues, who knows what may happen.

Actually I have some theories on that! First of all, why are people leaving their tv services? One major contributor to this downsizing is the economy. Naturally, when times are tough and unemployment rates are high, people begin to trim expenditures where they can afford to. “Afford” in this case means where people are willing to let go of some luxuries. For some reason, they’d rather eat than to watch tv.

In the last few years, Verizon, AT&T and DirecTv have all been ‘stealing’ customers away from the big cable companies like Time Warner and Cox which would explain for their continued losses year after year, but now all of these companies are starting to feel the burn. Another contributing factor in the losses is assumed to be Internet video sites. More and more younger people are getting their entertainment fix on sites like YouTube, Hulu and Netflix. In the case of Hulu, users are opting to wait a day or two before their favorite show appears on the site opting to watch it there instead of sitting in front of their tv.

Even for those wishing to watch Hulu on their tv, they can do so now with their Blu-ray player or Xbox system. YouTube and Hulu are free while Netflix charges $7.99 for the streaming of any available DVD they offer which includes feature films and plenty of television shows that have appeared on DVD discs. Hulu Plus offers customers the ability to watch shows online with less commercials and usually a lot sooner than the free users. No matter how you slice it, these online services can undercut tv subscriptions any day of the week.

However, as the paradigm shifts, we can surely expect an increase in fees that we pay to those online services because afterall, they have to pay for the content too and what do you think all the tv and movie studios are going to charge them if they can’t get their money from advertisers?

My two cents

There is no direct comparison between cable tv and Internet tv simply because with Internet tv, you have to find everything you’re looking for and constantly change videos as each of them end and that requires work. Part of the enjoyment of watching tv is having the never-ending flow of programming at your disposal without having to get up and do anything about it.

As for me, I spend most of time at a computer both for work and pleasure, so it’s a natural thing for me to watch tv and movies online. However, I don’t watch much of anything anymore due to my hectic schedule so I could do without the tv service and most of the online stuff, but I’ll never get rid of my Netflix!

Google+ Brand Pages Compared to Facebook's

· Brandon Hann

The battle started when Google launched Google+ and now it’s going to get even more heated with the introduction of brand pages just like the ones that Facebook allows businesses to manage. There’s not an official name for it at this time, but it’s coming in a month or two.

I love how Google does business. Most companies out there would spend countless amounts of cash and resources to try and bring people toward their product or service, but not Google. They simply create something and just leave it alone. The statement, “If you build it, they will come.” is more than true for Google and in the case of branded pages, Google is actually telling businesses NOT to create Google+ profiles at this time!

Google+ Product Manager Christian Oestlien says that Google is in the process of building a business-side of Google+ that will “creat[e] a unique experience for businesses that includes deep analytics and the ability to connect to products like AdWords.”

First of all the problem with Facebook’s brand pages is a matter of advertising. Companies want to know whether their advertising dollars are being spent well and Facebook simply doesn’t have the capacity to track post-click engagement of non-Facebook ads driving to Facebook. Google+ will attempt to solve this problem through the inherent connections between all of Google’s services like AdWords and actual searches. Here are three other reasons why Google+ brand pages are likely to beat Facebook’s.

  1. Better search opportunities – Advertisers paying for sponsored search results on Google’s search results have to pay for these clicks to go through to the Facebook.com domain which is pretty generic when compared to their business. Facebook.com generates a lower click-through ratio (CTR) because people won’t automatically associate Facebook.com with any particular business.

    With Google+ already showing in search results, it’s likely that businesses setup with Google+ pages will be in better positions in the general search due to the relation between content and search query.

  2. Customization – If you look at a current Google+ page, you’ll notice right off the bat how customizable it could be based on ad placements and such. If an advertiser could customize their ads to better brand themselves. This would be similar to how an advertiser can customize an entire YouTube experience or what MySpace has been allowing users to do for some time now.

    Facebook pages still look like profiles and while this creates consistency, it doesn’t do much for user interaction and participation.

  3. Analytics – Google already has a major head start here with Google Analytics and they will no doubt integrate this service with Google+ to make it much easier (and possible) to track detailed information about a company’s fans among other things.

    These tools will allows companies to make better content decisions much like they already do with their main websites.

My two cents

I have a Facebook page for my photography business and while it’s functional in terms of engaging interested Facebook users with everything I offer, it still feels like just another Facebook profile. I spend enough time just managing one and now I have two. I’m not saying Google+ will be much different, but what I like (so far) is the thought of how integrated it will be with the functions of Google itself.

Since I already spend time getting Google to play well with my websites and whatnot, it just makes sense to keep these processes going in a seamless transition. Of course, only time will tell if all of this will be truly seamless, but so far, everything sounds appealing.

Lego Crew on its Way To Jupiter

· Brandon Hann

It’s Friday and this story made me smile. Having just concluded a 30-year run of the Space Shuttle program, NASA continues its space explorations in a new era—one without low-orbit vehicles. NASA’s new space program is still on hold while the government decides its fate through a series of funding decisions. However, this hasn’t stopped NASA from launching rockets.

This particular rocket launched today from Cape Canaveral, Florida and set into a trajectory aimed at Jupiter. NASA believes that learning more about the largest planet will enable us to learn more about how our solar system and Earth were created. The rocket, so aptly named Juno is an Atlas V rocket and is being managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at a price tag of $1.1 billion.

The part that made me smile was that onboard this “un-manned” rocket are three Lego characters made from special space grade aluminum! These three characters were custom designed for this rocket and are in the shapes of Jupiter himself, his wife Juno and (presumably close family friend), Galileo Galilei. That’s right, NASA has sent the God and his company back home. The trip is a mere 1.7 billion miles away and expected to arrive around July of 2016. Let’s just hope there are no crying babies onboard.

Lego Space Crew

Once in Jupiter’s orbit, the rocket is scheduled to make 33 revolutions in just about 1 year and will begin returning data sometime in 2017. Along with the flight crew and passengers, a plaque has been placed on board to honor Galileo’s discovery of Jupiter that reads:

On the 11th it was in this formation — and the star closest to Jupiter was half the size than the other and very close to the other so that during the previous nights all of the three observed stars looked of the same dimension and among them equally afar; so that it is evident that around Jupiter there are three moving stars invisible till this time to everyone.

Sending Legos into outer space actually has a legitimate purpose! It’s part of the Bricks in Space project, the joint outreach and educational program developed as part of the collaboration between NASA and the Lego Group to inspire children to explore science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Apple and Microsoft Teaming Up Against Google?

· Brandon Hann

Nortel logoWhether this is the reality or not, Google seems to think it’s happening. When bankrupt Nortel decided to sell its approximately 6,000 patents and patent applications covering a broad range of wired, wireless and digital communication technologies back in April, the plan was to offer a stalking horse deal to Google for a cash purchase price of $900 million. The intention with this was to place a starting value on the patents for inclusion in a public auction with Google in position to bid on the final package.

What happened was that bidding finally raised the price to $4.5 billion! These 6,000 patents seemingly cover the entire spectrum of mobile computing and telecommunications which would put any buyer at the helm of the technology industry. This “buyer” ended up being a consortium of tech companies that banded together in order to share the patents, thus eliminating possible costly licensing fees. This consortium is comprised of Microsoft, Apple, Ericsson, EMC, Sony and RIM. Originally, Google was invited by Microsoft to be a part of it as well, but Google declined.

Novell logoAdding into that mix, another set of tech patents, this time from Novell was cleared for sale to a slightly different group of companies: Microsoft, Oracle Inc., Apple and EMC Corp. This sale contained 882 patents. All of these patents were also made available to Google at some point in the last 2 months, but Google again declined to be a part of it.

As a result, Google is now claiming that Microsoft and Apple have teamed up together in an effort to bring down the Android market. The way this works is if Google is making phones that use technologies covered by any of the aforementioned patents, they would be subjected to licensing fees controlled by Microsoft, Apple and the rest of the bunch. Google claims that this would give their competitors an unfair advantage in the smartphone arena.

While this is very true, can Google really complain? Considering they had the chance to partake in these deals and the fact that Microsoft invited them to be part of the consortium, I can’t really say I side with Google on this! However, Google is already paying Microsoft licensing fees on Android phones for patents they own, so it’s very possible that Microsoft would use this as a way to bring down Android. In fact, Microsoft just recently asked Samsung to fork over $15 per Android phone they make—presumably due to the fact that Samsung also makes Windows Phone and Microsoft probably wishes they didn’t deal with Android.

It’s estimated that there are some 250,000 patents involved in making an average smartphone so it seems no matter who owns what patents, the only real losers in this case will be the customers. Afterall, we’re the ones having to pay upwards of $600 to own the latest tech gear. This price of course is not including any subsidized cost of buying a phone with a contract. One possibility for lowering prices would be the ownership of a majority of patents that go into making a smartphone. In a perfect world, there’d be no licensing fees and the phones could become dirt cheap.

iPhone 5 Is Coming

· Brandon Hann

As with everything “tech”, out with old and in with the new is becoming the statement of the week due to the ever-changing face of technology. One question that always follows in my mind is, “Do we need another device?”

It seems so. iPhone 4 is just over a year old and not only does this make it old news, but apparently its technology is ancient compared to that of the latest Android phones—or at least that’s what they’d have you believe. The reason I’m not that excited about iPhone 5 (yet) is that I still like my iPhone 4, but now that I’m using a Windows Phone, I don’t even use it anymore. In fact, I plan to sell it to the highest bidder before iPhone 5 shows up, just so it won’t lose any more value.

Nonetheless, I’m an Apple fan and my blog is about tech stuff, so I’ll be talking about iPhone 5 just as much as I did with iPhone 4. Let’s get it going.

iPhone 5

Not much is known about the new device, but that’s Apple’s style. What does leak out is information stemming from unusual movement in other industries—in this case, manufacturing. According to TechRadar, Pegatron was sent a massive order to produce 15 million handsets for Apple to meet a fall release date. This date has only recently been rumored to be September 5th after months of speculation pointed to a September release.

We don’t have any rumored specs and only a few photos have surfaced, but like every past iPhone release, these pics are nothing more than hopeful designs, assumed specs and/or straight fabrications. We even had a similar event regarding an Apple employee testing the new device in the “real world” and got caught on camera. Of course, the photo doesn’t do any justice.

Apple iPhone 5 Leaked

The major question of the day has been about whether this device will actually be called iPhone 5 or if it’ll just be a performance upgrade much like the 3GS. In this case, iPhone 6 might appear next summer bringing the franchise back on line with its prior June releases, while September’s device would basically be an iPhone 4S. That name will really throw off those people that still think their iPhone 4 is a 4G device!

Speaking of which, if the iPhone 4S doesn’t have 4G (and it most likely will not), then we’ll have to wait until iPhone 6 comes out before we see any important performance increase. And I wonder how AT&T and Verizon will handle a 4G iPhone now that both carriers have capped their data plans. Sprint is looking more and more like a great alternative at this point!

My two cents

As it stands, I am unloading my iPhone 4 and keeping my Windows Phone (Samsung Focus). I intended to wait out my contract period in case I wanted to jump ship to Sprint, but I just found out that I’m stuck with AT&T until next June. At this point, I’ll just wait and see what this fall brings us. One thing is for sure—with Apple potentially releasing iPhone 5, a new iPad, Microsoft launching Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) and Nokia attempting to bounce back into the smartphone world with the N9 and other Windows devices, this fall is going to be a nuthouse!