IFYBRIAN

The new £999 iPhone X has hit shelves in more than 50 countries - but what drove fans to line up in the middle of the night for it? The queue was already 100-strong when Nick Davies arrived at Apple's flagship UK store at 02:30. It wasn't the painfully early start or the night-time cold that people minded. It was the lack of portaloos. "Everyone is desperately looking for a toilet at 4 or 5 o'clock," he says. There were queues outside Apple stores the world over in the early hours of Friday for the launch of the tenth anniversary iPhone. Apple is predicting that big demand for its most expensive phone to date will help revenue hit a new record high. If it is a big hit, the US tech firm could even become a trillion dollar company, according to some analysts. Image caption Nick Davies was frustrated he couldn't get the version of the iPhone X with more memory There is always fanfare for a new Apple phone - but Brady Daniels, who joined the queue...

Last month I  sang the praises  of the  Sony MDR-1A , a $300 pair of full-size headphones that's stood out from the  many pairs I've tested  for being smooth-sounding, good-looking, and so very, very comfortable. They're not the best, but they're the ones I'd be most likely to buy.  That said, they're $300 full-size headphones. Anything along those lines isn't going to be all that portable. Sometimes, it's good to have a pair of "beaters" on hand — cheap, secondary headphones you can stuff in a bag, toss on quickly, and wear on the go, without having to worry about busting your Very Nice Thing.  I've followed this setup for the past few months, and of the many inexpensive, beater-level pairs I've had lying around, the  Xiaomi Mi In-Ear Headphones Pro  have emerged as a personal favorite. Like the MDR-1A, they have a few clear flaws, but they still feel and sound better than I'd expect from a $22 earphone.  The most immediat...

Apple on Wednesday released Security Update 2017-001 to fix a serious flaw revealed earlier via Twitter. The patch is available for macOS High Sierra 10.13.1. macOS 10.12.6 and earlier versions aren't affected by the flaw. "This morning, as of 8 a.m., the update is available for download, and, starting later today, it will be immediately automatically installed on all systems running MacOS High Sierra 10.13.1," Apple said in a statement provided to TechNewsWorld by company spokesperson Todd Wilder. "We greatly regret this error and we apologize to all Mac users, both for releasing with this vulnerability and for the concern it has caused," the company said. Internet Uproar The MacOS High Sierra flaw allowed anyone take over a Mac, coder Lemi Orhan Ergin, founder of Software Craftsmanship Turkey, disclosed in a tweet to Apple Support on Tuesday. Dear @AppleSupport , we noticed a *HUGE* security issue at MacOS High Sierra. Anyone can login as "root...

A long-simmering dispute between Google and Amazon this week escalated into a front-burner feud, following Google's decision to block its YouTube video service from Amazon's Echo Show, effective immediately, and from its Fire TV, effective Jan. 1. Google apparently decided to cut off YouTube as retaliation for Amazon's refusal to carry its products, including Chrome cast and Google Home, on its website. Further, Amazon has not made its Prime Video service available to Google Cast users. Amazon also recently stopped selling some smart home products from Nest, another subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet. Echo Wars The tiff marks the latest in an evolving series of disputes related to ecosystem building. Companies with their own hardware and content ecosystems constantly must choose between interoperability and competition, suggested Tim Mulligan, senior analyst at Media Research . "Hardware/ecosystem proxy wars are an inevitable consequence of an integrated tech a...

Apple’s new iPhone X has a spectacular edge-to-edge display that dominates the entire front of the device. Well, nearly the entire front. Unlike  Xiaomi’s Mi Mix 2 ,  Samsung’s Galaxy S8 , and  LG’s V30 , Apple hasn’t kept the iPhone X top bezel intact; and compared to the  Essential Phone , its camera array is much, much more noticeable... and odd-looking. While the iPhone X design was leaked several times before Apple was able to officially unveil it, the company revealed this week that it is fully embracing the notch and not hiding it away with software. It’s a move that has generated a lot of discussion online, both during the leaks and after Apple’s official announcement. Some say “ Steve Jobs would have never let that happen ,” while others have mocked it by creating a  “notch mode” for Chrome  that adds a black cut-out to every YouTube video. There’s a mix of surprise, sarcasm, and intrigue that Apple has chosen to go with a screen layout that l...