The Internet was buzzing with anticipation for the next-generation iPhones heading into the smartphones’ release Friday. Retailers and carriers last week tried to push their way to the front of consumers’ eyes for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, and advertising highlighted the upgraded finishes, led by the wildly popular rose gold along with silver, gray and gold. Engadget noted that the rose gold model had rose gold screws to match. Target is selling 6s and 6s Plus in stores only on the AT&T, Sprint and Verizon networks, it said. Sprint (see 1509240023) and T-Mobile touted consumer-friendly upgrade deals to get customers to swap up their still-valuable iPhone 6 phones. Verizon joined them, announcing its first iPhone upgrade plan that allows customers to get a new phone every year without having to wait for the contract to end. Carriers are competing now with Apple, which offers its own upgrade program promising “a new iPhone every year” starting at $32.41 a month. That could be trouble for companies including eco-ATM and Gazelle, whose business models rely heavily on the iPhone’s trade-in value. CNET focused on the 4K content creation capability of the iPhone 6s models, which it said will lead to a “surge” in user-generated 4K video. “The content that ushers in the age of 4K is likely to come from the stars and aspiring filmmakers on sites like YouTube and Vimeo, and from regular folks who shoot their baby's first steps or grandma's 80th birthday,” CNET said. Meanwhile, IHS forecasts a 22 percent jump in iPhone shipments this year versus 2014. “Sales of the iPhone 6S should do better than past iPhone initial sales because of wider country availability early, especially China,” said an IHS email, which forecast Apple will ship 236 million iPhones this year. The key differentiator this year for Apple is 3D Touch, which is “strongly differentiated from every other smartphone maker's phone,” IHS said. 3D Touch will power new apps that are exclusive to the iPhone “because Android smartphones lack the hardware support needed for a pressure sensitive screen,” it said. The pressure will be on Apple next year to continue to drive upgrade sales with a radical new design, IHS said. That will be “a greater challenge than achieving success in 2015,” when Apple was able to capitalize on sales of larger screen phones, it said.

Turing Robotic Industries announced a Dark Wyvern edition of its Turing Phone that comes with a WiGig-enabled protective case. The Turing Armor case packs technology that can transfer 3.2 GB of data in less than 25 seconds and back up 64 GB of data in less than eight minutes, the company said. The phone is a dark gray version of the Turing unbendable Liquidmorphium design and features the same authentication methodology, chip platform, screen and dimensions of the company’s series one Android-based phones, it said. Price of the 128 GB edition is $999, including case and battery pack, the company said.

If the FCC undertakes rulemaking regarding use of frequencies above 24 GHz for mobile services, including the 42-43.5 GHz band, it should look to answer a slew of policy and technical questions, such as what the 5G system characteristics are that can be used to look at the sharing environment, said the Satellite Industry Association in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 14-177. It lists more than two pages of suggested 5G, propagation, satellite, inter-service sharing, cumulative interference and licensing questions. They range from whether in certain bands 5G networks could be limited to indoor-only use to minimize interference to what are the prospects of developing user devices that can operate across the bands spanning 24-95 GHz and even above that might be used for 5G services. When looking at propagation models, SIA asked, should the FCC use the free space loss model to calculate interference, or are there other models that should be tested? It also said the FCC might want to inquire about technical parameters of the earth station types deployed or in the works in the frequency bands under consideration, and how sharing between satellite earth stations and 5G systems might work. And as it looks at cumulative interference, the FCC might need to ask about compatibility models or studies that look at cumulative 5G interference, SIA said.

Apple is allowing the new app Hinder, which allows users to browse where their elected officials stand on women's rights issues like birth control, abortion and sex education, to be included in its app store, a group said. Apple’s decision to make the app available was announced in a news release Wednesday by UltraViolet, which had a petition signed by more than 30,000 people that asked Apple make the app available. Direct tweets from nearly 1,000 individuals asking for the app to be available also helped convince Apple to change its mind in less than 24 hours, the release said.

Marketers of a software app for mobile devices and PCs that claimed the Ultimeyes video game app would improve a user’s vision agreed to stop making deceptive claims about the app, in a settlement with the FTC, the agency said in a news release Thursday. Carrot Neurotechnology and co-owners “also agreed to disgorge $150,000,” the release said. Health-related apps can be beneficial, “but the FTC will not hesitate to act when health-related claims are not based on sound science,” said Consumer Protection Bureau Director Jessica Rich. Ads for the app, which cost between $5.99 and $9.99, said using the app would “Turn Back The Clock On Your Vision,” would improve vision for uses like sports, reading and driving, and would reduce a need for glasses and contact lenses, the release said. Ads claimed scientific research proved the success of the app, but failed to mention that the app's creator was among those who did the studies, it said. “If you’re looking for health-related apps -- or other products or services -- keep in mind that some companies may overstate claims in their advertising,” FTC Consumer Education Specialist Aditi Jhaveri wrote in a blog post on the settlement Thursday. The commission vote to issue the administrative complaint and accept the proposed consent order was unanimous, the release said. Comments are due Oct. 19, then the commission will decide whether to make the consent order final.

Bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better for smartphone battery performance, Strategy Analytics said in a report. The research firm tested the battery performance of “flagship” smartphones from Apple, Google, HTC, Huawei, LG, Nokia, Samsung and Sony and found that the smartphones with the largest battery capacities didn’t provide the longest battery life, it said Wednesday. “Battery life is consistently one of the most important aspects taken into consideration when a consumer purchases a new smartphone” and also is one of the biggest sources of “smartphone owner dissatisfaction,” it said.

The numbers were “extremely positive” over the weekend on the pre-sale of the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, Apple said Monday in a statement: "We are on pace to beat last year's 10 million unit first-weekend record when the new iPhones go on sale Sept. 25." BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk noted Monday that for the first time since the release of the 3GS in 2009 Apple isn't releasing pre-order numbers. “Of course in 2013, there was no pre-order for the iPhone 5S, so there was no data to report,” Piecyk said in a blog post. “Apple instead indicated that it would top last year’s record first weekend sales of 10 million units. While this is encouraging, first weekend sales includes China this year, more than doubling the addressable market for launch day compared to last year when China was not launched until mid-October.”

The FTC approved its final order against retail location tracker Nomi Technologies, after the close of the public comment period, the agency said in a news release Thursday. Nomi was accused of misleading consumers about the available choices to opt out of the company’s mobile device tracking program (see 1504230036) and will now be “prohibited from misrepresenting consumers’ options for controlling whether information is collected, used, disclosed or shared about them or their computers or other devices, as well as the extent to which consumers will be notified about information practices,” the release said. The commission vote to approve the final order was 3-1, with Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen dissenting. Commissioner Julie Brill issued a statement saying “this order provides companies with an incentive to periodically review the statements they make to consumers, and make sure their practices line up with those statements.” Brill said Ohlhausen “expresses concern that our order will deter companies from offering privacy choices in the marketplace,” but it’s because of the order that Nomi no longer offers a deceptive choice. In her dissenting statement, Ohlhausen said the enforcement action may “undermine the FTC’s own established privacy goals,” saying commenters (see 1505270012) generally agreed the order would “diminish companies’ incentives to be transparent about their privacy practices,” and would “discourage companies from offering privacy choices to consumers.” Brill tweeted Thursday that the order makes the point that “basic consumer protection principles apply to new technologies.” Nomi had no comment.

Apple held a dominant lead in U.S. smartphone market share for the three months ending in July, a report from comScore said Thursday. Apple gained a percentage point from the April period, moving to 44.2 percent, while second-place Samsung slipped a point to 27.3 percent share. Third-place LG held virtually steady with 8.7 percent share, as did fourth-place Motorola at 4.9 percent, comScore said. HTC rounded out the top five with 3.5 percent of U.S. subscribers, it said. Android was the top smartphone platform in July with 51.4 percent market share, followed by Apple with 44.2 percent, Microsoft with 2.9 percent, BlackBerry with 1.3 percent and Symbian with 0.1 percent, it said. The top five apps were Facebook, Facebook Messenger, YouTube, Google Search and Google Play, it said.

Strong security and end-user controls are “critical to protect personal information,” FTC Commissioner Terrell McSweeny wrote in a blog for the Huffington Post Thursday. “Most of us are just beginning to be aware of the amount of sensitive information we are sharing or transmitting each time we download a new app or connect up a new wearable, sensor, household appliance or device.” With estimates of 25 billion to 50 billion connected devices by 2020, that's a “target rich environment for bad actors,” she said. Companies collecting and storing data have an obligation to secure it and should do more to protect against breaches, she said. The FTC is urging companies to embrace security by design because the impact of major breaches may be reduced the more users’ data and communications are encrypted end to end, but there's no such thing as perfect security, McSweeny said. “Each of us can play an important role in protecting our information on laptops, desktops, and smartphones by using strong end-user controls, such as disk encryption and firmware passwords.” McSweeny encouraged policymakers to “carefully weigh the potential impact” of requiring “back doors,” saying if consumers don’t trust the security of their devices, innovation could be stymied and privacy and security protections could be weakened for consumers.