Apple’s iPhone 5 will feature a 4-inch screen, allowing for an extra row of apps on the homescreen, increasing that maximum from 20 to 24 apps

The Wall Street Journal reports Apple has placed a hefty order of screens measuring “at least 4-inches diagonally” for its next-generation iPhone. While only a half inch larger than the current iPhone 4s – and all other iPhone models for the fact – a 4-inch screen is a dramatic increase in screen real estate.

While the WSJ was shaky in its confirmation on whether the iPhone 5 will feature a 4-inch screen or potentially a larger screen, Reuters was firm in saying it will measure in at 4-inches. “The new iPhone screen will measure 4-inches from corner to corner,” a source told Reuters.

Apple is working with a number of manufacturers, including Sharp, Japan Display and LG Display. It’s unclear if the screen will be LCD or OLED.

The iPhone 5 is expected to be released in October, after Apple releases an updated MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and iMac.

Before today’s report, it was rumored that Apple’s decision on a design was still up in the air. It seems likely that Apple is ditching its classic 3o-pin connector for a much simpler “micro-dock.” It’s also been rumored that the new iPhone 5 will be thinner. With a taller device, you could have a little bit more room to go thinner and spread the components out.

A larger screen would be great for Apple’s rumored 3D maps app that is expected to part of iOS 6. The new mobile operating system would ditch Google Maps for even more realistic looking 3D maps that would include turn-by-turn directions and a simpler user interface.

A problem that arises, however, is the iPhone’s aspect ratio. Video that doesn’t fill the iPhone’s current 3.5-inch screen has the black bars. Apple wouldn’t stretch that video and sacrifice quality, so I think we would have to deal with larger black bars. I don’t see app developers having any problem, because when Apple released its Retina display for the iPhone, it simply provided developers with simple coding to update their apps. They could do something similar.

If Apple is thinking about shrinking its iPad into an iPad Mini and grow its iPhone, the two devices would only be about 3-inches apart. Gutsy move? I think Apple can pull it off.

A new Retina display on Apple’s latest MacBook Pro, rumored for release this summer, is also coming with a larger price tag.

Multiple reports say Retina panels on the market currently cost $100 more over non-Retina displays. If Apple can’t find a way to cut costs, expect a more expensive MacBook Pro.

Apple pays $68 per display on the 15-inch currently and would pay $160 for the Retina display, the LA Times reports. That cost could hit consumers.

While Apple kept prices stable when it brought the Retina display to the iPhone 4, that device was also subsidized by cellular providers. It also had a smaller screen with a smaller price differential. When the New iPad was released, its Retina display only cost $30 and Apple kept prices the same as a new iPad 2 when it released.

A current MacBook Pro ranges from $1,199 to $2,499, depending on screen size, storage and speed.

Richard Shim, senior analyst at NPD DisplaySearch, told CNET the screens are certainly at a premium.

“Now what we’re seeing in the supply chain is that (Apple) is going to move that to their notebooks, and it’s becoming a premium feature,” he said.

Would you pay $1,299 for a 13-inch notebook? Is more pixels really that important? We should hear more June 11 at Apple’s WorldWide Developer’s Conference.

Price: FREE     Score: 9/10     Category: Games

FantasyXRunners, developed by moonrabbit, is an awesome freerunning game that combines jumping, slashing action with gorgeous anime-meets-fantasy visuals. If you’re a sucker for sidescrolling running games, there’s no reason not to check out this challenging and fun game.

The basic premise is simple: choose an avatar (you’ll only have access to the fighter at first, unless you want to pony up for a bag of rubies right up front), and then jump to avoid obstacles. The more enemies you slash with your sword, the more rubies you can collect. And more rubies means more cool running avatars, allowing you to pick a runner that’s just as cool as it is talented.

But where FantasyXRunners really excels are the moments where it blends other gaming elements with its running roots. For example, there are tons of RPG-style features such as a companion system, tricky boss monsters, a quest system, and berserk system. The latter of these allows for some seriously impressive combo moves, so its worth mastering.

The longer you run, the more speed you pick up, and the more challenging it becomes to anticipate enemies and obstacles. And with 5 stages to master, you have a lot of running to do if you want to unlock all the characters without paying for rubies.

The controls couldn’t be easier. Tap left to jump, tap right to attack. Like any good running game, the controls are simple enough that they don’t distract you from speed and strategy.

The music is totally charming, and very appropriate to the subject matter. And thankfully, it’s not so catchy that you’ll be humming it for hours afterward. It’s perfect, but not ear-wormy.

More than the sum of its parts, this running game appeals to anyone who loves sword and sorcery, time wasters, runners, or casual gamers just looking for an awesome free game to try out.

FantasyXRunners is compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 3.1.3 or later.

Freakdroid iPhone App Review

Price: FREE     Score: 5/10     Category: Entertainment

Sick of apps and games that force you to socialize every single aspect of your experience? Much rather play a game in your own little phone microcosm, and skip out on features like OpenFeint?

Then boy, you are gonna hate Freakdroid, an app that blends social media with quizzes and comics (and forces you to sign in to Facebook to suffer through it all.)

On the other hand, if you’re constantly bombarding people in your social circle with what you’re up to, and want Facebook to be your be-all, end-all hub of online activity, then you’ll probably love it. And for my part, I wasn’t a fan. Not at all.

For starters, putting up hurdles between potential users and your product is a good way to turn them off. And for the anti-Facebook crowd, not even being able to have the option of playing without an account is sure to burn some bridges.

Developed by Digital4You, Freakdroid is a sort-of companion to Freakbop. Both games are part of the developer’s “Freakverse,” which currently just consists of these two apps.

In Freakdroid, you’re ostensibly testing your wits against a wise-cracking robot. Who knows more about films? You’ll have to play him to find out. While it’s awesome that new questions are added every day (and the Openfeint leaderboards are included, if you like that sort of thing), the comic element is a frustrating addition. It’s funny, in truth, but boy is it hard to read.

The robot does have some funny bits of dialogue, but even his snappy comebacks and put-downs aren’t enough to elevate this sleepy, convoluted app into stellar territory. And a confusing navigation system doesn’t help matters either. While the overall package has a lot of charm on the outside, it’s ultimately not a satisfying gaming or social experience.

Freakdroid is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.3 or later.

shake2u iPhone App Review

Price: $1.99     Score: 9/10     Category: Utilities

shake2u normally costs $4.99, so scoring it for just $1.99 is pretty sweet. Developed by Wenjoy Technology Inc., this handy app offers a secure way to transfer big files from phone to phone using WiFi or Bluetooth.

Smartly designed with tons of cool features, this super file transfer app is worth checking out (provided you need to transfer files often enough to need a pay-to-play app.) Beyond sharing in the app, you can also transfer your files (like photos, for example) to other apps or to your computer, save to Photo Album, or send them via email.

One of the smartest touches in the app are the sending settings. For example, you can arrange for a file to be deleted automatically after a certain amount of time has passed, protecting your security, or just saving memory space. You can also set files as read-only, so they cannot be sent out of the app. It’s the perfect smart touch for an app that prides itself on secure file sharing over WiFi or Bluetooth.

There’s support for a wide range of file types – full list below. Depending on what kind of media you’re trying to share, you might need to compress it before sharing. But for an average user looking to share work-related documents, pictures, or web files, you’ll be pretty well satisfied.

a. MS Office (doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, pps, ppsx…)
b. iWorks ’09, ’08, ’06 files (key, numbers, pages…)
c. PDF file (pdf)
d. Text files (txt, rtf, rtfd)
e. Web files (htm, html, xml, svg), Safari Web Archives (webarchive)
f. Compressed files (zip, rar)
g. Image files (jpg, tif, png, gif, bmp, BMPf, ico, cur, xbm)

Bottom line: if you need a file transferring app, you can’t do much better than shake2u.

shake2u is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

Fans have encountered a number of error messages while trying to log-in to the online-only game, the most common being ‘Error 37′ – aka the servers are full, please try again later.

Today, the US servers have been taken offline for ‘emergency maintenance’ and users attempting to login to Diablo 3 have been reporting receiving ‘Error 3003′ or ‘Error 75′.

At the time of writing, the BattleNet server status showed that both Europe and Asian servers were still online.

Blizzard has been heavily criticised over the launch, with fans highlighting the fact that pre-sale numbers were well known and the company already has extensive experiencing dealing with online games.

Update: The Americas Diablo 3 game servers are back up and running according to Blizzard (as of 15 May, 11:45 PM PDT). The real-money auction house is still offline. From the official forum thread:

The service is up! We’ll be continuing to monitor throughout the night and will provide updates should any further issues occur. We appreciate your continued patience and will see you in-game.

Nilay Patel at The Verge is reporting that the US Customs Service is delaying shipments of the HTC One X and Evo 4G LTE. Agents are investigating whether or not the devices violate Apple’s #5,946,647 patent, which covers the automatic conversion of information like phone numbers and email addresses into actionable links that open a menu of options.

That said, Apple won a US International Trade Commission (ITC) mandated exclusion order covering HTC products that violate the ’647 patent in December 2011 that came into effect on April 19 of this year. Now, Customs Agents are checking to see if HTC cleared up previously defined violations in their current devices.

Assume the position…

And, the timing couldn’t worse, or better (depending on your perspective), as both devices are purportedly listed as out of stock at AT&T retail stores. Whereas HTC has been on something of a rebound recently, following a year of market and legal setbacks worldwide, the sudden interruption of their supply chain just as the One X and Evo 4G LTE were gaining market momentum has to be extremely painful.

Even if HTC sails blameless through this patent-inspired Customs Service investigation, the Taiwanese smartphone maker will have lost millions. It seems Apple has executed perfectly again, hitting HTC with both impeccable timing and at a great location — right on the airport tarmac — which is probably an excruciating form of punishment in and of itself…

What’s your take?

This week’s Apple news wasn’t dominated by the iPhone 5 or iPad Mini — it was all about the MacBook Pro.

This is what we (possibly) know:

• Apple is releasing a new MacBook Pro this June at the WorldWide Developer’s Conference, likely alongside its newest operating system Mac OS X Mountain Lion. Bloomberg news confirmed the news, calling it a “controlled leak” from Apple’s Public Relations department.
• The new MacBook Pro will feature a much slimmer, MacBook Air-like body, solid-state flash memory, longer battery life and the much-desired Retina display that’s found on today’s iPad.
• It will also include USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt ports.
• To support a higher resolution screen, the MacBook Pro is expected to use GeForce GT 650M graphics card.
• The MacBook Pro isn’t the only Apple device experiencing an upgrade. The iMac is expected to see similar upgrades, minus a change in design. The Retina display’s super-high resolution, however, will likely be a hardware challenge.
• Rumors out Tuesday also pointed to the MacBook Air (as originally pointed out by TapScape) receiving a refresh in performance and a Retina display.
• The new operating system running on the MacBook Pro — Mountain Lion — could come to us in less than a month. Apple is expected to release the OS on June 11 at the WWDC.
• As part of that operating system upgrade, Apple is also toying with its iCloud syncing system by debuting it’s own version of Instagram with a photo sharing service only between iCloud users. The availability of photo editing services is unclear.

We have less than 26 days until the WorldWide Developers Conference — will all of these rumors come to fruition? Only time will tell, but the MacBook Pro seems very likely. If rumors about a still-undecided design for the iPhone 5 are true, we could have a lot more time before we get anything close to a confirmation on that.

Apple’s iMac, along with the new MacBook Pro, is expected to receive an ultra-high resolution Retina display as part of a refresh this June.

That report comes from ABC News.

But increasing four times the amount of pixels to the iMac display isn’t as easy as it sounds.

The rumored MacBook Pro’s Retina display would carry a 2880×1800 display, up from its current 1440×900. While a 2880×1800 would work just fine on an iMac, if Apple decides to stick to the same formula, its 27-inch iMac would go from a 2560×1440 display to an unheard of 5120×2880. Talk about a a graphics chip nightmare.

Or maybe not.

A new Graphics Chip is in the works for the next-generation MacBook Pro. The rumor states that Apple is switching back to NVIDIA from AMD for its graphics chips. It’s unclear if that chip could handle such a monstrous resolution on a 27-inch iMac.

Other (minor) problems also come with huge resolutions — namely wallpapers. The average resolution is around 1360×768. If you throw one of those on a 5120×2880 display, it’s just not going to look right.

And of course, there is the price issue. With confirmed rumors of a new MacBook Pro, likely rumors of a new iPhone 5 and even possibly an iPad Mini, this summer could turn expensive for tech enthusiasts.

One thing is for sure though: If Apple’s entire product line features Retina displays, they will certainly be ahead of the game. And then it’s only a matter of time before the competition begins to mimic.

And, yes, boys and girls, USB 3.0 should be among the bullet points, as well.

That said, with online and brick n’ mortar retailers, like Best Buy, trimming Mac prices, new product could arrive anytime now, though the informed speculation has the MacBook Pro arriving manna like from Cupertino (a.k.a. heaven) in the June timeframe.

Take an Apple issued photo of last year’s MacBook Pro, skinny down the enclosure
and paste in OS X Mountain Lion’s default desktop picture and… ‘voila’?

And, now, another tasty morsel has fallen from Apple’s table. ABC News’ Joanna Stern, recently of Verge fame, writes that “the laptops will also get a graphics boost from Nvidia’s latest graphics, the GeForce GT 650M card.”

What’s that all about? AnandTech has the dish on the GeForce GT 650M. But be forewarned, their write up is very bandwidth intensive.

One would expect that this year’s 15 and 17 inch MacBook Pros will use Intel integrated graphics for less intensive, low-power tasks and switch to the GT 650M for the heavy lifting, such as gaming, image editing, etc. Again, if past is prologue, then the entry-level 13-inch models will ship only with Intel graphics as will as updated MacBook Air models, which are likewise expected in June.

Ready to break out the plastic for a shiny new 2012 MacBook Pro? Personally, I’m waiting for the iMacs…

What’s your take?