parts

It's that time of year again! The lull between Apple product releases, which means -- yep, you guessed it -- mystery parts.

The latest, courtesy of 9to5Mac, is a little more exciting than camera modules and home buttons. In fact, it may or may not be the back of the next iPad, perched next to a black iPad Mini for comparison.

Some disclaimers: The images' legitimacy is unknown, short of being from an accessory maker in China. The little scuff marks on the back and masking tape around the antennas do nothing but add to the intrigue.

Apple is, … Read more

The best I can say about most cheap subwoofers is they make bass. The bass won't be the deepest, most powerful, or the clearest, or blend all that well with most speakers, but all subs make bass. Better subs, like the $449 Hsu Research VTF-1 MK2, generate deeper, less distorted sound, so you can actually hear distinct bass notes, and can play louder and fill larger rooms better than most cheap subs.

So my expectations for Dayton Audio's $79 Sub-800 weren't high. Still, I can't say enough nice things about Dayton's B652 bookshelf speakers. There'… Read more

We learn a little more about the Apple processor inside the iPhone 5 every day. Today, the focus is the graphics processing unit.

UMB TechInsights has looked inside the chip, and review site Anandtech has followed up with an analysis claiming a 3-core GPU, which is likely a PowerVR SGX 543MP3 running at 266MHz, according to the chip-review site.

All of this makes for a fast A6 chip. Preliminary benchmarks show roughly twice the performance of Apple's A5.

Note that though the A5X chip in the third-generation iPad has a quad-core GPU (one more GPU core than the A6), … Read more

The iPhone 5 is a departure in many respects from the 4S, including easier screen replacement and a retro unibody back design, according to iFixit.

The teardown and repair site is in Melbourne, Australia, has taken the apart the new iPhone. And UMB TechInsights has done its own teardown, focusing on Apple's new A6 chip.

Key differences as cited by iFixit:… Read more

Just what's lurking inside Apple's latest iPhone?

There's not a whole lot of mystery given that Apple's own promotional video for the device shows a cutaway of the battery, circuitry and other parts.

That hasn't stopped iFixit from taking a brand new device -- fresh from a just-opened Australian store -- and breaking it down to the component level.

In years past this practice was, perhaps, a bit more interesting, in part because Apple did not list its suppliers. That changed with this year's annual Supplier Responsibility Report, which included a standalone list of … Read more

If leaks are true, a feature Apple is sure to tout on its next smartphone is thickness. But just how will Apple's latest compare with iPhones of yore?

We got some idea of that from French blog Nowhereelse.fr, which stacked it up against an iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS in photos last week. Today online repair site iResQ, which has provided numerous photos of what it says are pre-release components, has a fully assembled iPhone 5 (minus a few pieces) right next to an iPhone 4S.

Three of the four side-by-side shots show a definitive difference in thickness, … Read more

We've seen battery packs, and even rear casings for what could very well be Apple's next iPhone, and now you can see both those things (along with other internal goodies) put together.

Repair site iResQ once again has posted what it says are leaked replacement parts for the unannounced, unreleased Apple device. That includes the rear casing, along with what looks to be the same battery pack that cropped up last month. iResQ has put the two pieces together, which you can see in the photo on the right.

"Along with all of the other parts that … Read more

Leaked parts purportedly for Apple's next iPhone that recently surfaced have been assembled by an electronics repair company and have been found to fit "perfectly."

iResQ published photos today of the smaller docking port and headphone jack assembly attached to the frame of what is believed to the next generation of Apple's smartphone.

"The docking port and headphone jack assembly seemed to fit perfectly inside of the frame," the firm said in a blog post. "One of our technicians was even able to screw the assembly into the pre-aligned screw holes inside of … Read more

All signs point to a taller screen for the iPhone 5. For many, that alone will redefine Apple's iconic phone.

Probably more than any other single hardware feature, Retina screens are what consumers of the iPhone and iPad are focusing on these days -- not to mention Apple marketing folks.

And Apple won't disappoint with the iPhone 5. 9to5Mac says the taller screen will boast a resolution of 640-by-1,136. (iPhone 4 and 4S are 640-by-960.)

Those tweaks will yield a resolution "very close to a 16:9 screen ratio, so this means 16:9 videos can play full screen at their native aspect ratio,&… Read more