iPhone 4S

After months of rumors, techies are gearing up for Wednesday's Apple event and anticipating a major reveal: the iPhone 5. If you're ready to upgrade from last year's iPhone 4S or the iPhone 4, now's the time to sell. Like, now, since with every minute closer to the press conference your current iPhone loses value. But before you post a listing on Craigslist, eBay, or Gazelle get all your ducks in a row first. To prep your gadget for resale, check off these tips and get top dollar for your efforts.

• Back up data and do a clean sweep — First thing's first — connect the iPhone to iTunes and back up all of its data. You'll be able to sync it with your new iPhone after you bring it home. And just like a computer, before you sell your old phone, wipe it clean of any sensitive information, apps, and contact lists. Erasing all of your content and settings (go to Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings) is great, but go ahead and perform a full restore in iTunes as well.
• Polish the exterior — Cleaning your old iPhone is kind of like cleaning your LCD monitor — you don't want to use any harsh chemicals or, even more damaging, water. Using a tried-and-tested cleaner like iKlear ($30) will ensure you won't damage its sensitive bits. Use a microfiber cloth to shine that baby up.

For more tips on how to get your gadget sold quickly online, keep reading.

While it seems we can't live without our iPhones, they certainly have a habit of speeding through their batteries at inopportune moments. Though some Apple customers have vocalized feeling constantly at odds with the battery life of the iPhone 4S, there are a few things you can do to lengthen the life of any cell phone battery life. See our tips for prolonging your iPhone 4S battery life below.

• Lower your screen brightness — Just like on your laptop, you can lower the screen brightness on your iPhone to increase battery life. Just head to Settings > Brightness to adjust.
• Use WiFi where you can — Instead of downloading apps, making Google Voice calls, or browsing the web over your cellular or 3G connection, find a WiFi hotspot or use your home's WiFi network instead. This will keep your data charges down and will improve battery life since your phone won't be searching for a data signal.
• Block GPS tracking in apps — If you're using lots of apps that include automatic GPS location and tagging (a la Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter), your phone is working overtime to locate you. If you don't need to geotag your posts and updates, keep the GPS off.
• Turn your iPhone's "Fetch" and "Push" off — I have my iPhone set to "fetch" my data every 30 minutes and a ton of apps set to push new messages and alerts as they happen. This is great for keeping up with news and messages when I'm at home, but bad for your data and battery. To turn your "fetch" functions off on your iPhone, just go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, and Calendars > Fetch New Data > Manually. You can also turn off your email and calendar "push" from this screen. To turn off app "push" notifications, head to Settings > Notifications, then switch to off.
• Shut down apps often — Do you shut down your apps after you're done using them? If not, you're using up lots of battery by allowing those apps to run. To shut down apps after use, double tap on the home button to get to your app drawer. To close open apps, just hold down on one until you see the wiggle, then click on the "X" to shut down.

Have any tips of your own to keep your iPhone battery juiced up?

A day we thought would never come has finally arrived to shine rays of hope on the wireless contract-shackled public: Cricket will offer the first pre-paid iPhone iPhone 4 and 4S plans in the US. Available June 22 the $55 per month plan includes unlimited voice, text, and data — though there is fine print that the data has a conditional fair usage policy of 2.3 GB per month.

How is Cricket able to offer the contract-less iPhone plan that other carriers balked at in the past? The subsidies that make an iPhone an affordable option for most users are not present in this plan, meaning the 16GB iPhone 4S will cost $500 for the 16GB model and the 8GB iPhone 4 will cost $400. It's a considerable difference in initial costs, but it may be the best option for customers used to $100 and higher monthly wireless bills. The pre-paid option might be the best game plan for those who have always wanted the iPhone 4S minus the drag on their bank account.

Why exactly is the 4S worth the hype? Follow the jump for a breakdown on what makes the phone a leader in smartphones.

For a device as valuable as the iPhone, we're guilty in not treating it with the respect it deserves. A case like the Cellhelmet ($45) is exactly what we need to keep our iPhone secure from clumsy drops and accidental sidewalk spills. Available as a Kickstarter project, the team behind the Cellhelmet case guarantees the iPhone 4/4S it holds against physical damages.

Made in the US out of polyurethane, the Cellhelmet claims to protect the phone enough that you wouldn't even need to submit a repair claim. The Cellhelmet doesn't cover water damage, but should you drop, step on, or somehow break the phone they'll repair it, and if necessary, replace it. Similar to a wireless provider's phone insurance, all claims for repair or replacement on an iPhone requires a $50 handling fee. One year of coverage gets your phone as many damage claims as needed, and just one replacement per policy.

Bloomberg released a report today detailing how Siri has caused a jump in data usage for iPhone 4S customers. Utilizing Siri's voice recognition abilities to send texts, emails, get directions, and more, iPhone 4S users have been shown to use double the amount of data than that of iPhone 4 owners. AT&T and Verizon customers are familiar with the pain (and cost) of going over data limits, so staying on top of usage has become an important part of owning a smartphone. How can you check your iPhone's data usage? Read below to find out!

There are a few ways to check your usage, one being to head to AT&T's wireless website, log into your account, and create a billing report (under " Bills and Payments," click "Create Billing Report," and "Data Usage Trend"), which gives you a detailed graph on how much data you're using. You can also estimate how much you use with your provider's online data calculator. You can find your usage for Verizon and Sprint by logging into your accounts, but you can also check your data usage right on your phone.

First, head to your iPhone's settings app. Scroll down to "General," then click on "usage." You'll see your minute breakdown, but at the very bottom you'll see your data usage (sending and receiving) over the cellular network. If you've never reset your stats, you'll find that this number will be fairly high. You can reset your statistics today (by hitting the "Reset Statistics" button at the bottom of the screen), and check back in a week to get a rough estimate of just how much bandwidth you're eating up each month.

Apple confirmed some users are experiencing "lower than expected battery life on iOS 5 devices" yesterday, and promised that a software update can be expected in the next few weeks, which should wipe the problem clean. Can't wait that long cause your battery drains too fast? Below, a few tips to save your battery life until the problem is resolved.

• Lower your screen brightness — Just like on your laptop, you can lower the screen brightness on your iPhone to increase battery life. Just head to Settings > Brightness to adjust.
• Use WiFi where you can — Instead of downloading apps, making Google Voice calls, or browsing the web over your cellular or 3G connection, find a WiFi hot spot or use your home's WiFi network instead. This will keep your data charges down and will improve battery life since your phone won't be searching for a data signal.
• Block GPS tracking in apps — If you're using lots of apps that include automatic GPS location and tagging (à la Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter), your phone is working overtime to locate you. If you don't need to geotag your posts and updates, keep the GPS off.
• Turn your iPhone's "Fetch" and "Push" off — I have my iPhone set to "fetch" my data every 30 minutes and a ton of apps set to push new messages and alerts as they happen. This is great for keeping up with news and messages when I'm at home, but bad for your data and battery. To turn your "fetch" functions off on your iPhone, just go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, and Calendars > Fetch New Data > Manually. You can also turn off your email and calendar "push" from this screen. To turn off app "push" notifications, head to Settings > Notifications, then switch to off.
• Shut down apps often — Do you shut down your apps after you're done using them? If not, you're using up lots of battery by allowing those apps to run. To shut down apps after use, double tap on the home button to get to your app drawer. To close open apps, just hold down on one until you see the wiggle, then click on the "X" to shut down.

The iPhone 4S comes with some cool upgrades and iOS 5, but the tech-loving world has been focused mostly on the likes of Siri. The voice recognition software that's been dubbed your "virtual assistant," who even has her own Tumblr dedicated to her humorous responses, is also the focus of the latest iPhone 4S ad that was released by Apple last night. Check it out below and tell us — what are some of the ways you've been using Siri?

Siri may be your new best virtual friend, but heads up — she might be talking about you to strangers. A recently discovered security hole in Siri on the iPhone 4S allows anyone access to Siri even if your phone is passcode locked. Just by pressing and holding the home button, you can send text messages, emails, make and change calendar appointments, and get info on contacts.

Still, it's better to be safe than sorry. Follow these steps to secure Siri behind a passcode lock: go to Settings > General > Passcode Lock. Enter your passcode, then scroll down to where it says "Siri" and slide it into the "Off" position. This will limit Siri's functionality behind your passcode lock. Take note that this function is on by default, so change it right away if you don't want your texts and appointments falling into the wrong hands.