CNN reports the works are striking because of working conditions.

“Considering Appleʼs repeated promises and assurances that the Chinese factories do have good working conditions, this is extremely disturbing news,” said John of CrackDefender.com a protective cell phone case distributor. “Weʼve all heard reports of terrible working conditions, following by official denials from Foxconn, the Chinese government and Apple. These denials have always been followed by plant inspections by independent media, but this strike calls all that into question.”

China Labor Watch (CLW), a New York-based advocacy group, reported some workers and plant inspectors actually fought with some people sent to the hospital. The CLW reports the work shutdown lasted several hours on Friday and “paralyzed the production lines.”

The workersʼ complaints, according to CLW, come from managementʼs demands for production of the iPhone 5.

“Apple needs to take a hard look at itʼs manufacturing process in China,” Mr. Hilaire said. “As much as people want an iPhone 5, the people who make these phones deserve to treated right. That means good pay, good working conditions and reasonable expectations for production.”

According to British media, Apple makes more than $400 profit on every iPhone 5 sold. Since most iPhones are sold at a discount, with a contract for service, the cell carrier pays the difference to Apple.

“Apple is making plenty of money on the sale of the iPhone 5. It could use some of that money in China.

The Chinese state run media Xinhua also reported on the matter, calling it a disturbance and noting some inspectors claims to have been attacked by workers.

Foxconn denied any problem. “Any reports that there has been an employee strike are inaccurate,” Foxconn said. “There has been no workplace stoppage in that facility or any other Foxconn facility and production has continued on schedule.”

Mr. Hilaire said considering Foxconnʼs repeated history of coverups and denials of stories that were later proven, the strike probably took place.

“Since Apple if Foxconnʼs customer, Apple has a huge lever to control what goes on in the plant. Apple needs to step up and be responsible,” he said.

The Android interface is powerful and there are some really great smartphones out there using it however a lot of power has been put into the new CPU of the iPhone 4S. The Apple A5 has a lot of functionality that is working on the dual-core chip and there are no pauses as you move from one function to another. This is the feeling you get from the Android, as you scroll around the screens and move from application to application, there is the accumulation of all the different functionality fighting to use the CPU and an occasional lag is felt. Compare this with the absolutely fluid and smooth operation of the apps in the iPhone 4S and you are hooked.

On the other side of technology is the experience of many Windows owners who experience the great smoothness of operation when they first get their machines, only to find down the line with the addition of one bit of software and another plugin there that everything changes. The smooth browser experience that comes with a new machine becomes the World Wide Wait, as these lags accumulate and slow the experience right down.

It is going to be interesting which of the devices, the Androids or the iPhone will suffer from this accumulation over time. With the iPhone already making itself felt with fluid operation right from the start with its new chip on board. The Apple A5 may have been under-clocked at 800MHz (the chip can go at 1000MHz), to save the battery life, but it seems that it is still running fast enough to allow the software to run seamlessly.

So what does the iPhone 4S camera and video give you?

The camera on the 4S is now at a respectable 8MP, up from the iPhone 4 camera of 5MP. The pictures from the 4S are now more colorful and clearer. There is now a sensor to determine what the illumination is like and the aperture is larger at f/2.4 giving you more depth of field and the 4S is much better at those close shots than the iPhone 4. Many using the camera are delighted with the picture detail against rivals. There is ‘face detection’ for those portrait shots along a number of advanced color improvements with auto white balance and accuracy. Comparisons made around the web of the pictures against the iPhone 4 are very positive, with the image quality much improved. It is seen that this camera is competing now against many midrange cameras on sale, with a more rapid operation taking photos. The iPhone 4S is managing to take pictures with a more responsive half a second delay, definitely a point-and-shoot contender.

The video on the iPhone 4S is going to be a hit with the new high definition level, from the iPhone 4′s HD 720p to a watchable HD 1080p. It still maintains a frame speed of 30 per second, like its predecessor but the increase in resolution means for normal shooting a larger video can be displayed. One point that is clear is that if you do a lot of video shooting
you will need the space, especially with the higher resolution. This might be a factor of whether you will choose the 16Gb, 32Gb or 64Gb version of this smartphone. A lot of web and YouTube videos will be made using this, filmed, corrected and uploaded, as the iPhone allows you to edit the video in the phone itself. Everything you need for on the road video production.

“Phone Story” takes the player through slaves mining for rare earth minerals in Africa, their assembly in Chinese factories, the fun store rushing of getting an iPhone and of course show you how they all end up in the trash in the end. The controversy mostly stems from the part of the game where factory workers attempt suicide to escape the tedium of manufacturing smartphones. It’s a bit drastic for a marketplace where most of the games are about making smoothies or flinging birds at pigs.

While the premise of the game is depressing, the company who created it (Molleindustria) say they’re just trying to raise awareness; underneath each iPhone 4G lurks a background of human rights abuses that’s no good for humanity or the environment. The one bright spot of the whole ordeal is that all money received from sales of the game will be donated to human rights and labor rights groups who are trying to fight against the conditions described in the game.

The app was live in the appstore for about three hours before it was pulled; the developers voiced their surprise and announced they were planning to release it to Android devices at a later time. This isn’t the first time that Apple has removed an app from the appstore; from apps that have taught people how to crack DRM on Blu-ray discs to apps that contained sexually suggestive or political content.

If the production is delayed, iOS 5 will have a longer length of time to be tested on current devices and any bugs in the code can be found. This also gives them time to do product testing and make sure they fix any kinks in the hardware. This does have its negative points though, since so many mobile cell phone carriers have geared up to release the iPhone 5 on their own networks in the middle of October. With Verizon and AT&T working on rolling out their prepaid plans for the iPhone4 mini/S, they’ll still have a fallback plan if the iPhone 5 isn’t released on time. The iPhone 4 mini/S is a cheaper smaller version of the iPhone 4 that will be rolling out to consumers sometime in the next three months.

But the rumors of the manufacturers being delayed are just that, rumors. No one will confirm or deny when the iPhone 5 is rolling off the line and into the eager hands of Apple customers, especially Apple itself. This might explain why they never gave a projected date publicly and of course keep people guessing. The only information that’s come out so far about it is from unintentional leaks from various industry insiders and company memos; we can only wait and see.

In emerging markets like India and China, the iPhone 4 will continue to sell well into next year, as most countries are still upgrading from the previous iPhone 3. There, of course, is always the matter of price. The latest iPhone adopters always pay a premium for adopting within the first six months, and two thirds of those surveyed say they will be waiting for the price point to drop a bit before they commit to a two year contract with the same phone (and then they avoid the usual upgrade fee when the next iPhone gets kicked out in 2013).

With all of the iPhone 5’s cool new features, people are expected to come out in droves to buy it… but it looks like the first six months of life for the new iPhone will be a little quieter than the iPhone 4. But, there is good news; with T-Mobile and Sprint entering the iPhone game, it looks like competition for services will finally begin. Sprint is offering unmetered unlimited plans for under a $100 for its release of the iPhone 5, and T-Mobile will be doing the same (albeit with slower speeds after users exceed a set limit of data).

The iPhone 4 will still be in demand for at least another six months, and apps will be backward and forward compatible regardless of which version of the phone is being used. For early adopters and those slow on the draw it’s good news all around.

Sadly, Samsung only measured the thinnest part of the phone and not the entire device overall, and ended up losing the case. Some might ask, why is it important to know who has the thinnest smartphone, and is this news at all? Standards in advertising are important, say many analysts, to prevent companies from making outrageous claims that confuse consumers and mislead them with irrational claims.

The smartphone market is expected to grow infinitely, with people constantly upgrading their phones and new markets opening up to cell service every day. With mobile marketing also rising, agencies like the Advertising Standards Authority are an important evil; they keep consumers safe from corporations who will constantly try to outdo the competition without actually doing anything at all.

But with the upcoming release of the iPhone 5 in the near future, the iPhone 4’s status as the world’s slimmest smartphone might be in jeopardy; little is known about the phone beyond some basic specifications that were leaked by Sprint and Best Buy earlier in the month along with the release date.
The new Droid Bionic might also give the iPhone 4 and iPhone 5 a good run for their money, but only time will tell for who will retain the title.

Whoever comes out on top, consumers will win. The future is now: thinner phones with computing power faster than server farms run by governments just a decade ago can fit in your pocket and do everything imaginable.

One of the big rumors circulating about the iPhone 5 right now is that it will be sporting a larger home button than the iPhone 4; this means that you’ll be able to use gestures on the home button and extend functionality. Sadly, it’s looking like this is just a rumor and not fact after some parts for the iPhone 5 were released from a Chinese manufacturer on their website.

The part is the “iPhone 5 Home Button Circuit” and it doesn’t appear to support a larger home button than what the iPhone 4 has now. It was a much wanted feature that you could swipe across the home button on the next model, but there’s no real proof that this could be the case. Consumers have wanted this feature so they can do multi touch gestures on the home button and not just the screen.

With the iPhone 5 premiering on the market by mid-October, there will be a lot of people speculating on features; everything from home buttons to how many megapixels will be in the onboard camera. While the iPhone 5 may not have a multi-touch home button, it will have a lot of other cool features that will bring out old fans and new users alike.

The first new change up is the flatness of the device to hold the new higher capacity battery. This means that the case will be flatter and even more streamlined than the previous version of the iPhone, and will make for an interesting new look. The aluminum backing will help keep the system cool and prevent any of the battery issues that they ran into in the past. There have been some rumors about an iPhone Nano that should have been out already, but there are doubts about whether or not it actually exists. This case could be just another in a long line of stuff that never came to be.

This isn’t the only change; another interesting tidbit from the new case releases is the fact that the home button will be elongated and might even support gestures from some of the talk that’s circulating the blogosphere. It would be better to focus on the fact that there will be many changes to the inside of the case, and maybe a few cool new cosmetic changes that will dazzle us or just make the user experience a little bit better for everybody!

Recently Apple touted on its website that it had the world’s thinnest smartphone, and Samsung took them to task for it. After analysts went over the iPhone 4’s claims, they found it was indeed the thinner of the two; the Samsung Galaxy has bulges on the top and bottom. The truth is that the iPhone 5 is a brand new device and the Galaxy S2 has been on the market for awhile. It only has an Arm processor, 1GB of RAM, and of course Touchwiz. iPhone 5 on the other hand will be sporting a thin design, multi touch gestures and of course the best the appstore has to offer. Which one will be the best though?

Knowing how Apple design cycles always improve, it might be worth it to wait to see how the new Droid Bionic phone performs before you rush to go buy a Samsung Galaxy or iPhone 5. The bumps in the Galaxy’s case are due to the camera and speakers, while Apple has found a way to integrate everything without bumps (but who is going to notice .3 cm in thickness?) Apple always has the latest technology, and there’s rumors that they’re already working on hardware and upgrades for the next iPhone 6 to head off other companies in the next smartphone war.