iPhone News Updated

Petition calls for “ethical” iPhone 5

With Apple’s labor practices in the spotlight, an online group has started a petition asking the company to make its next iPhone model “ethical.”

Nearly 40,000 people have signed the petition to Apple on the online petition site called SumofUs.org, asking Apple to “overhaul the way its suppliers treat their workers in time for the launch of the iPhone 5.”

Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, executive director of SumOfUs, said that — as an Apple user herself — she would like to see Apple reform its labor practices, even if it means taking a hit to it profit margin or passing some of the costs onto consumers.

Read the rest of this entry »

iPhone Buyers Hit Redial

The record quarterly sales Apple announced Tuesday night were boosted in a big way by repeat customers – existing iPhone owners accounted for 43% of all sales of the new iPhone 4S, according to new research. And many recouped much of the cost by selling their older models.

Only 36% of iPhone 4S buyers switched from a rival smartphone operating system, while 43% upgraded from an older iPhone, according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. Among those who bought in the first few weeks after the launch, about 70% were iPhone upgraders, says Michael Levin, a co-founder of the firm. In fact, in October and November, Apple claimed the top three spots among the top 10 smartphone models sold with the 4S, iPhone 4, and 3GS, according to research by the NPD Group, a market research firm. And consumers are clearly willing to play along with the upgrade cycle: About half of new smartphone buyers had owned their previous phone for two years or less, according to NPD Group.

Read the rest of this entry »