The best iPhone 6S deal for Christmas: save £150 with code XMAS150

Update: this deal will run up until midnight on 31st December

If you're looking for a great deal on an iPhone 6S before Christmas, this is a bit of a cracker. Mobiles.co.uk and O2 are currently offering a fantastic deal on the best-of-the-best iPhone 6S 128GB.

The deal allows you to save £150 on the up front cost of the phone and then get yourself on a good value contract with O2.

It looks to be by far the cheapest and best-value way of getting hold of the iPhone 6S 128GB and even beats most (if not all) of the deals out there on the 64GB model.

Here's the deal: using the voucher code XMAS150 you can save £150 on the superior 128GB version of the iPhone 6S, leaving you paying £150 up front instead of £300. It comes with a brand new O2 contract which offers great value - unlimited calls and unlimited texts with and 3GB data for £31 per month. That's a really good deal.

It's available in Space Grey, Silver, Rose Gold and Gold, so that's all the colours checked off and it will be available until midnight on December 31 - but note you'll need to order by December 22 to guarantee delivery before Christmas!

The best iPhone 6S deal in the UK

We've had a look around to make sure this deal is really worth recommending and we think it is. The only way to get an iPhone 6S for cheaper than this is to go for the vastly inferior 16GB version.

We did find this other deal which offers the same £31 O2 contract with 3GB data - but that'll cost you an extra £25 up front and it's for the iPhone 6S 64GB not the 128GB version.

The phone-only price of this handset on Amazon is currently around £664, which means you're paying an extra £230 for the O2 plan - less than £10 per month.

The XMAS150 deal in full:

iPhone 6S 128GB | £300 £150 up front | Unlimited calls + texts | O2 4G | 3GB | £31pm | £894 total
Use the code XMAS150 at the checkout to save £150 on the best-of-the-best iPhone 6S 128GB handset and pay just £150 up front instead of £300. Then you'll be on a 4G contract with O2 which offers unlimited calls and texts and 3GB data for £31 per month. Total cost of this deal over two years is £894.

• Get this deal in Space Grey
• Get this deal in Silver
• Get this deal in Rose Gold
• Get this deal in Gold
• Voucher code: XMAS150

​Apple iPhone 5s price slashed to almost half, priced at Rs 21,945 for 16GB

Apple iPhone 6s and 6s Plus holds the title of the being the latest and the most advanced smartphones from the Cupertino giant but the two years old- iPhone 5s is still a favorite among the Apple fans in India. The smartphone that according to retailers accounts for almost 50 per cent of total iPhone sales in the country was launched towards the end of 2013 at Rs 53,500 for the 16GB variant. But today the smartphone is available at Rs 21,945 on Flipkart for the 16GB variant and the 32GB variant costs Rs 30,399. This puts the smartphone in the fight with the popular OnePlus 2, the recently launched Nexus 5X, which is selling at Rs 23,979 on Amazon.in and the camera focused Lenovo's Vibe Shot.

In term of specifications, the smartphone may not match the today's standards on papers, but in real life usage, it can still give a run for money to a number of Android flagship devices. The smartphone features a 4-inch Retina display with a 640x1136 pixel resolution. It is powered by the Apple A7 chip, which has a dual-core 1.3GHz processor and is coupled with 1GB RAM. The smartphone has an 8MP iSight rear camera that can record 1080p videos at 30fps and can also shoot slow motion videos. There is a 1.2MP front facing camera that can be used to record videos in 720p. You also get an effective fingerprint scanner on the front. The smartphone runs on the latest iOS 9 and is backed by a 1560mAh battery unit.

With the new pricing, Apple now has a strong contender in the mid-range segment that can easily take on a number of Android counterparts. Keep the smartphone in consideration if you are looking for a handset priced in sub- Rs 25,000.

Tesla's new iPhone 6 cases are made from unused seat leather

As a brand, Tesla Motors has made its name in resource-consciousness. Now, it is extending that philosophy past its electric cars to your smartphone accessories.

Tesla's officially-licensed iPhone 6 and 6 Plus phone cases are not just made from the same leather that lines the interior of its luxury vehicles, but use the exact same material left over from manufacturing its car seats in an effort to reduce waste.

Starting at $45 (approx. £30/AU$63), Tesla's recycled seat upholstery cases will let iPhone users be able to keep a piece of their vehicle with them at all times. For $50 (approx. £33/AU$70), an upgraded version with RFID-blocking card slots is also available, for those wanting to skip buying a wallet altogether to reduce their leather footprint.

While not all made with recycled car parts, other Tesla-branded accessories are available on the company's online store, including a "sustainably sourced" alpaca wool scarf for those long drives with the windows rolled down.

Apple is still working on making your next iPhone waterproof

Apple's iPhones are not yet officially waterproof, even though one or two intrepid users have been busy testing how they hold up to a dunking. Now a new patent has emergedsuggesting it's a feature that Apple has an eye on including in the future.The patent came to light this week but was filed back in July 2014. It focuses on a rubber port cover that loses and regains its shape - so it would allow a headphone jack to be plugged in but then seal the gap again once the headphones were removed, for example.Ports are one of the weak links when it comes to making a phone that's waterproof - how do you stop water getting into the handset when Lightning cables and other peripherals need to be inserted?Patently obvious?Thanks to a detailed teardown we know that the iPhone 6S was almost waterproof, and we've seen waterproofing patents from Apple before - the last one involved a hydrophobic coating that would protect the inner circuitry even if water did get in.All of those hints could mean we'll see a fully waterproof iPhone 7, though don't bet your house on it for the time being. It's worth noting too that the patent has yet to be granted to Apple.Ideas floated in industry patents don't always end up seeing the light of day but they can be very useful in predicting which way a manufacturer is thinking - and it seems Apple is thinking long and hard about how to add waterproofing to its flagship phones.

iOS 9.2 update: Here's what's new for your iPhone and iPad

Apple's iOS 9.2 update launched today, and it's such a minor software update you may not have noticed its changes. It's still worth upgrading, however.

Standout iOS 9.2 features fine tune Apple Music, give Siri a new language to understand and add support for a USB SD Card reader, according to 9to5Mac.

Most importantly, There are also a bunch of bug improvements, including a fix for alarms that would randomly turn off and potentially ruin your morning wake up call.

Today's firmware update applies to all three lines of iOS devices, including the iPhone, iPad and the often-forgotten iPad touch.

Here's the iOS 9.2 list of changes

Apple Music improvements

• You can now create a new playlist when adding a song to a playlist

• Your most recently changed playlist is now listed at the top when adding songs to playlists

• Download albums or playlists from your iCloud Music Library by tapping the iCloud download button

• See which songs have been downloaded with the new download indicator next to each song in My Music and Playlists

• See works, composers, and performers while browsing Classical music in the Apple Music catalog

Apple News

• A new Top Stories section in News so you can stay up to date with the most important news of the day (available in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia)

Mail Drop

• Mail Drop in Mail for sending large attachments

iBooks

• iBooks now supports 3D Touch to peek and pop pages from the table of contents, your notes and bookmarks, or from search results inside a book

• iBooks now supports listening to an audiobook while you browse your library, read other books, or explore the iBooks Store

USB Camera Adapter

• iPhone support for the USB Camera Adapter to import photos and videos

iOS 9.2 bug fixes

• Improved stability of Safari

• Improved stability of Podcasts

• Fixing an issue that caused mail attachments to be inaccessible for some users with POP email accounts

• Resolving an issue for some users that caused attachments to overlap text in mail

• Fixing an issue where Live Photos could have turned off after restoring from a previous iCloud backup

• Addressing an issue that could cause search in Contacts to display no results

• Resolving an issue that could have prevented Calendar from displaying all seven days in week view

• Fixing an issue where Camera screen on iPad could be black when attempting to capture video

• Addressing an issue that could cause instability in the Activity app when viewing the day of Daylight Savings Time transition

• Fixing an issue that could prevent data from appearing in Health

• Fixing an issue that could prevent Wallet updates and Lock screen alerts from displaying

• Addressing an issue where updating iOS could prevent an alarm from going off

• Fixing an issue where some users were unable to login to Find my iPhone

• Fixing an issue that prevented some manual iCloud Backups from completing

• Addressing an issue where using the iPad keyboard could unintentionally trigger text selection mode

• Improved keyboard responsiveness when using Quick Reply

• Improved punctuation input on the 10-key Chinese (Pinyin & Stroke) keyboards with new expanded view of punctuation symbols and better predictions

• Fixing an issue on Cyrillic keyboards where caps lock would be enabled when typing in URL or email fields

• Accessibility improvements

• Fixing issues with VoiceOver when using Camera face detection

• Adding support for VoiceOver to wake up the screen

• Adding support for VoiceOver to invoke app switcher with 3D Touch gesture

• Fixing an issue with Guided Access when trying to end phone calls

• Improved functionality for Switch Control users when using 3D Touch

• Fixing an issue with speech rate of Speak Screen

Siri

• Siri support for Arabic (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates)

That's everything from Apple's official iOS 9.2 release notes. We'll update this article if we discover any more off-the-record improvements as we test out this latest update.

Apple finally brings out Smart Battery Case to boost iPhone 6S power

Low battery is the bane of every smartphone user, especially those with iPhones, and Apple has just released its first battery case for the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6 to tackle the problem.
It's called the Smart Battery Case and looks similar to the company's range of normal cases but withthere's a bulge at the back where the extra battery sits.
The outside has a silicone material that's soft to the touch and it slips over your phone with ease.
An extra life
Battery-wise we don't have any official size in terms of mAh from Apple, but the company does say it will give you up to an extra 25 hours talk time and an extra 18 hours LTE.
There's a choice of charcoal or white, but there doesn't seem to be an option for the iPhone 6S Plus phablet. You charge the case up with a Lightning connector as well, much like you would for your normal phone.
If you want to buy one, you can get it now on the Apple Store for US$99.99, £79.99 or AU$165 but you'll have to wait 1-3 days for shipping or pick it up in a store.