Apple Treat in Two New Folds: iPhone 5S & iPhone 5C

The Apple Mania!

Just the moment Apple followers and fans worldwide were feeling tired of waiting for much heard iPhone 5S with another stunner, iPhone 5C, the brand announced the good news and started taken them out of their mysterious shells. The last Tuesday, the mother brand of iPhone has unleashed this duo to entice all their adorers across the globe. And yes, they are superbly designed with some truly stupefying features so far. Read on to explore this twosome and their wonderful functionalities ahead.

IPhone 5S: Aesthetically Designed, iPhone 5C: Out-of-the-box Beauty

As Apple has replaced its formerly popular model iPhone 5 with the latest 5S, so they did not disturb its outward beauty much. Both the precursor and successor look almost similar. The signature style of 4.0 inches display skinned with a pixel density of 326 ppi remains absolutely unperturbed.

While manufacturing other tech-wonder iPhone 5C, Apple has included a fresh idea of polycarbonate case designing. Well, some folks may assume that it has been crafted with the Nokia Lumia inspiration. Again it follows the spec structure of iPhone 5 and sports a 4.0 inch Retina display. What you will get with both of these classy sassy handsets is the collection of different and funky case colors. Ah! A perfect way to flatter your favorite shade!

Fingerprint Proof!

Sensitivity is no extraordinary in iPhone 5C and it looks and works just in the same way the other iPhones respond. But yes, 5S has a different essence. Using a laser cut sapphire crystal, the touch ID of iPhone 5S scan your fingertips at an image resolution of 550ppi. Thus your handset will keep your data secured. Even it will not allow anyone other than you to confirm App store updates and the further purchases. Yes, it is the much buzzed feature of 5S featuring a biometric scanner.

Snapping Throughout!

A brilliant 8 MP iSight camera is carved on each of the handsets with ultimate capability of capturing quality snap shots. IPhone 5C boasts iPhone 5 like camera aspect whereas 5S marks the difference with f/2.2 aperture with superior sensor. 1.5μ pixels resolution is included in its snapping tool to produce enhanced sensitivity and improved performance even in the low-light conditions. Hold your breath as there is even more to be heavenly happy! 10 frames-per-second shooting speed in burst mode and 120 frames-per-second in slow motion video recordings at 720p is now possible with the new fangled 5S. True Tone Flash carefully adjusts the image colors and monitors their intensity for over 1,000 combinations. And with such an interesting feature, it also makes the nightlife photography way better and commendable.

What's 'in' ?

With the boons of iOS 7, 5S and 5C sport the renovated design of Apple’s latest user interface. The iWorks Apps Suite comes free of cost to provide the users a complete glee of accessing swarms of iPhotos, iMovies along with hell lot of other things. 

What makes 5S more convincing than 5C is the marriage of 64 bit A7 chip and M7 motion. Where 5C is still trading with A6 chip, 5S promises better processing powered with an all new A7 chip i.e. equivalent to 64 bit. Bravo!

The Market Buzz! 

Splash of vivid colors on the outward casing of both the iPhones is gonna leave you spoiled for choice for sure. 5C is solely manufactured to cater the consumers with mid-range smart phone fantasies and also to beat competitors like Samsung. Better battery backup along with outstanding multitasking aptitude of 5S steals the glamour whereas 5C is meant to add more fun and color to your lifestyle. Now, choice is yours!

About Author: Piya Gogia takes interest in latest gadget updates and loves to explore gizmos. Being an instinctive gadget nerd, she has already reviewed Apple iphone prices in India, Karbonn tablet, Acer Tablet and many other popular devices. The more she discovers, the more she writes

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Do You Need Anti-virus Software for Your New iPad?

I get asked this question all the time actually. People who have recently purchased an iPad for themselves are rightfully aware that it's a significant investment and certainly don't want to see their expensive device fall prey to viruses or other forms of malware which could render these devices inoperable or compromise the security of their data. But do you really need anti-virus software on your iPad in order to ensure your device's safety?

No, Says Apple

Many anti-virus software companies have asked Apple personally, to open its iOS platform so that anti-virus programs could be designed for it but Apple has resisted. It says about its own product, that no anti-virus software should be necessary. Apple regularly sites the strict process for having apps approved for download in its App Store as one major way it has protected its mobile operating system from the risk of viruses. Indeed, the less stringent app standards for the Android platform have certainly made it more at risk of virus attack. This is impossible to deny.

But Less is Not Never

Apple's primary argument for the lack of virus protection on the iPad is that if you are using the iPad as is originally intended and downloading software and apps only through approved services then you should be protected against any risk of infection. This is a pretty solid point and it makes a certain amount of sense. However, it is foolish for Apple to say that this will never happen. iOS devices might be safe for the time being, but hackers are industrious individuals and if they try hard enough, they could certainly find ways to exploit the iOS and eventually infect these systems with viruses. There have already been several attempted hackings of the iOS system so we know that hackers and virus programmers are already on the move.

Apple has designed an extremely user-friendly and secure operating system for their mobile devices. As of right now, the risk of infection is minimal. But this does not mean that such risk won't increase in the future. As the number of users of iPhones and iPads rises, so too will the motivation of hackers and virus programmers to target these devices with their malicious creations designed to take them down. Currently there is no anti-virus software available for the iPad, however, this could change in the future as the risk of virus infections and hackings increase. You will not miss out when the first anti-virus software for iOS is released however, as it will be major news. 

As always, I recommend that in case the worst does happen to you and you have a compromised iPad in some form, it is a good idea that you are protected with a service such as Protect Your Bubble iPad insurance so that you can be covered if some sort of malicious software makes your device unusable.

About the author:

Laura Ginn is a professional writer and blogger. She writes regularly on the subject of technology and is wedded to her iPad, so you know she's aware of the potential security issues facing these devices!

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Create a Bootable Copy of your Mac OS X

Even though Mac OS X is termed as the best computer operating system, the performance issues Mac users around the world face every day make them realize that being best does not mean that it is perfect.

You find Macs running incomparably fast (i.e. high-speed data execution in technical terms) when they are new, though. However, their newness does not last too long and you find them sluggish after a period of rigorous usage. This sluggish performance of your Mac could be a symptom of its failure. Since you cannot be sure about the health status of your Mac, you should make some suitable arrangements to keep it alive. For example, you must have your Mac boot DVD, as you never know when a disastrous situation comes across resulting in data inaccessibility. 

Mac Bootable Disc

A bootable disc is a removable digital data storage media that is used to boot operating system on computers having inbuilt programs to boot and execute program files based on some predefined standards. When you purchase a new computer, you get a bootable disc along with it. A bootable disc enable you repair and re-install the operating system installed on your computer. For this, you need to boot your computer with this disc and choose desired option (i.e. to repair or to install).

Significance of Bootable Disc on Mac

Perhaps you rely on boot volume (i.e. Macintosh HD) on your Mac, but this trust may break anytime and you will find that your data is no longer accessible. Since all applications and their updates you install on your Mac reside on its boot volume, even a minor mishap (i.e. virus infection, software or hardware error) may cause Mac’s failure. Apart from this, following are the major needs for a bootable disc:

To Boot your Computer: You might have come across performance issues on your Mac, which sometimes lead to failure of your Mac system. As a result, you lose all your data stored on it. In such a situation, bootable disc is the absolute resolution that enables you to access all your data. Using bootable disc, you not only can repair minor corruption issues, but go for a fresh Mac OS X installation as well.

Repair Boot Disk Permissions: On Mac OS X, each volume has a set of particular access permissions associated with it. These permissions, as named, not only limit user access on Mac volumes, but maintain integrity of your Mac system as well. You might have found one or more volumes on your Mac inaccessible, which is due to corruption of their access permissions. You can easily repair these permissions if they are associated with any of the secondary volumes. However, repairing permissions on Mac’s boot volume requires you to boot from Mac OS X install disc (especially in Mac versions earlier than Lion), and then launch Disk Utility to repair its Disk Permissions.

Repair Boot Volume: Boot volume is the primary partition on your Mac drive, named as Macintosh HD. It not only contains system files and user applications, but the updates you install for them as well. Apart from these, a Mac slows down due to numerous causes, including corruption of its boot volume. This causes Mac startup issues, poor execution of programs, freezing, and crashing issues. In such situations, you need to repair Mac’s boot volume. For this, insert Mac OS X install disc and press C key to boot from it. Select a preferred OS X language, and then select Disk Utility in Mac OS Utilities window. Select Macintosh HD at the left and click Verify Disk at the right. If it reports any error, click Repair Disk.

What if there is no Bootable Disc

When you face inaccessibility or corruption of Mac’s boot volume or its permissions, you need to repair the same after booting it using Mac’s bootable disc. You might wonder that if you can repair all Mac volumes as well as their permissions, then why you cannot do the same on its boot volume. Well, to repair Mac’s boot volume, it is necessary to boot from Mac’s bootable disc because you cannot repair it while booting from it. However, what to do if you do not have your Mac’s bootable disc? How would you install Mac OS X in case it is crashed suddenly? Besides, how would you repair Mac’s boot volume and its permission? You certainly cannot perform either of the operations it there is no Mac’s bootable disc. 

Creating Bootable Disc on Mac

A bootable disc is nothing but a bootable data storage media that is used to install and repair the operating system. In addition, using a bootable disc for your Mac, you can recover inaccessible data, troubleshoot software as well as hardware issues, and customize settings on your Mac in order for running large applications (i.e. games and Photoshop).

If you are a Mac Lion or Mountain Lion user, then perhaps you remember that Apple did not ship you Mac OS X bootable disc. According to Apple, Mac Lion and Mountain Lion users do not need a bootable disc, as they can download (after purchasing) these installers from Mac App Store and run them directly. However, this only way of making these installers available is proved as the biggest complain of Mac users, as it is much more convenient to boot from a physical media (such as a bootable DVD, a USB flash drive, or any external media) than a downloaded app. However, if you do not have a bootable disc for your Mac, you can create bootable disc using Mac OS X installer after downloading it from Mac App Store.

For this, you have to go online to Mac App Store, purchase the OS X installer app, and then download it. When downloading is finished, go to /Applications directory and look for ‘Install Mac OS X <version name>.app’ (such as Install Mac OS X Mountain Lion.app). Right-click or Control + click installer app and choose Show Package Contents in the context menu. In the opening folder, navigate to Contents folder > Shared Support folder, and then look for a file named as InstallESD.dmg (i.e. an image file). Once it is located, minimize this directory window and launch Disk Utility (found in Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility). Now, drag InstallESD.dmg to the left pane of Disk Utility. Now, you have two options:

• To create a bootable external drive (i.e. using any of the volumes on your Mac or a USB hard drive) or a flash drive, or 
• To create a bootable DVD 

Creating a Bootable Drive for Mac

Select InstallESD.dmg in the left pane of Disk Utility and click Mount option in the toolbar above. You see a new volume named as Mac OS X Install ESD mounted in the Finder. Select this volume under the image shown in Disk Utility and go to the Restore tab in the right pane. Attach a minimum 8GB drive (i.e. it requires around 5GB space) to your Mac. Now, drag Mac OS X Install ESD from left pane of Disk Utility and drop it to the Source field, and drag the destination drive to the Destination field at the right.

Important: Make sure that the destination drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and is using GUID Partition Table, which means you must be using an Intel-based Mac. If it is not, then format it first using these steps:

Attach a destination drive to your Mac and launch Disk Utility. Select this drive at the left, and simultaneously go to the Erase tab at the right. Now, select Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) as the Format and type a name for this volume. Click Erase button and wait until it is finished. Now, go to the Partition tab and click Options button. Choose GUID Partition Table as the Partition Map Scheme for this drive. Finally, click OK, and then click Apply button.

Once it is finished, click Restore button to start copying your Mac boot volume to external drive. Please note that the process formats destination drive, so make sure that there is not a single crucial file stored on it. If you have set a password to your user account, then you need to enter it (when prompted) to initiate this process. Besides, the time taken by the process is based on the number of applications installed on this volume.

Creating a Bootable DVD for Mac

Aside from a bootable disk or flash drive, you can also create a Mac OS X bootable DVD using the same InstallESD.dmg file. For this, you need to track the following process:

With Disk Utility launched and InstallESD.dmg shown in its left pane, select InstallESD.dmg image file and click burn option in toolbar above. Now, a message prompts and you need to insert a blank DVD (you can use both single as well as dual layer disc); set your disc burning preferences, and then click Burn to start burning it. When it finishes, you can use this DVD to boot any Mac matching system requirements (Mac OS X version according to hardware configuration).

Note:The above described method is for creating bootable dvd of Mac using Disk Utility which is an inbuilt tool of Mac. However, if one is not comfortable with this tool and want some advanced tool that can perform this job easily so, you can go for third party tools like Stellar Drive Clone. This tool is extremely simple and fast for cloning and imaging of Mac drive.

This post is written by our proud Reader and Writer : Rashmi Chauhan 

You can contact her on rashmi.chauhan09999@gmail.com

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