iPhone 5

Hey butter fingers, the Apple Store is now your destination for damaged, cracked, and dented iPhone 5 screens. Apple retail stores are now offering iPhone display replacements for $149, down from $229. It's a competitive price coupled with convenience. The part itself, without the cost of installation, is about $150 on Amazon.

All Apple retail customers pay the $150 display replacement price, regardless of whether or not they've purchased AppleCare ($99, plus $49 for each additional replacement).

The Apple Store's in-house services will become even more comprehensive in July, adding à la carte iPhone camera, sleep/wake button, and logic board repair according to MacRumors.

The added repair offerings for iPhone 5 arrives just as the original iPhone is deemed obsolete. Bona fide iPhonians with the original 2007 device will no longer be able to service their phones at Apple retail stores come June 11, but they can turn to one of these worthy repair alternatives.

This Friday at T-Mobile, you can swap an iPhone 4 or 4S for Apple's latest and greatest, the iPhone 5, for $0 down. What's the catch, you ask? We break down T-Mobile's no-contract trade-in deal to find out what it's all about and how to maximize savings on the best iPhone around.

The Basics

• What — Trade an iPhone 4S or 4, and receive an iPhone 5 for no cost upfront and $20 per month for two years (total $480) without a wireless contract.
• Where — T-Mobile retail stores will offer the deal.
• When — Customers can trade in their old phones for new ones starting this Friday, April 12 until June 16.

What will you save? What about the data plan? The answers to your burning questions are after the break.

Want an iPhone in your life, minus the pressure of a contract? After years of speculation, today T-Mobile announced the iPhone 4, 4S, and 5 will be available to customers April 12, with preorders beginning April 5.

The iPhone 5 will be offered nationwide for a $100 down payment, plus monthly payments of $20 over 24 months, which equals a total cost of $580 for the phone. The iPhone 4S and 4 will be in limited markets with a down payment on the 4S costing $70, plus $20 per month for 24 months, while the 4 has a down payment of $15, plus $15 a month for 24 months; that brings the total price of the 4S and 4 to $550 and $375, respectively.

The phones join T-Mobile's new contract-free plans, which include unlimited calls, text, and data (up to 500MB before data speed throttling) for $50 per month. For an extra $10 per month, add 2GB of high-speed data, or $20 per month for unlimited 4G data.

If you already have an unlocked iPhone (likely bought on Amazon, eBay, or directly from Apple), T-Mobile allows you to use the device with its monthly plans and actually have no contract, since the monthly payment setup still technically has you locked into a contract with the company until the value of the phone is paid in full. Unlocked iPhones only work on the GSM network, which both T-Mobile and AT&T are part of in the US; devices purchased from Verizon Wireless and Sprint are part of the CDMA network and aren't compatible.

Are you considering taking your iPhone to T-Mobile and its contract-free monthly plans?

If the Curiosity Rover and the iPhone 5 went head to head, who would win? Today at the MacWorld/iWorld Expo, Ben Cichy, James Kurlen, and David Oh of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory got under the hood of both robot and device, and showed how the nearly two ton Martian stacks up against the .25-pound iPhone 5.

So, how does Apple's latest and greatest smartphone fare against the NASA rover currently transmitting HD images and video from the surface of Mars? The iPhone 5 bests Curiosity in terms of processor, memory, storage, and (low) cost. But the rover indisputably takes the cake in terms of temperature range and accessories (laser auto-win). Plus, it's a little more mind-blowing to know a computer not even as powerful as many people's phones is currently hard at work on another planet.

In truth, NASA and Apple aren't competing at all. In fact, most of the software code that landed the Curiosity Rover was written on Macs. And, just in case you forgot how amazing that landing was, here's a little reminder.

Stay tuned for even more updates from Macworld by following us @geeksugar on Twitter and Instagram and, of course, the GeekSugar homepage!

Each iPhone 4S and 5 camera is equipped with a really cool HDR setting that can dramatically improve your photos. HDR stands for high dynamic range, and it essentially takes a series of images, each shot with a different exposure from darkest to lightest. HDR combines the best parts of the three overexposed, underexposed, and balanced shots to create a dramatic image with beautiful shadowing and highlights.

Do: use HDR for close-ups and outdoor portraits.

Compare the normal photo of ice cream on the left with the HDR image on the right. Oftentimes, HDR images look crisper, and colors appear much richer than the normal photo. Try HDR for close-ups and outdoor portraits, especially if the subject and the background have a harsh lightening difference. Click here to read more about HDR.

The iPhone 5 may have been Apple's fastest-selling smartphone ever, but according to SNL's new show "Tech Talk," it's certainly not perfect. This weekend, the comedians of Saturday Night Live and guest host Christina Applegate, posing as their tech-blogging alter egos, picked apart the flaws and failures of the iPhone 5.

They claimed that "Apple Maps was a total disaster" and that the new device is so thin "it's like holding three pieces of paper together." But in typical SNL fashion, the tables were turned when three surprise guests showed up on the Tech Talk stage and gave those critical tech commentators a run for their money.

No one anticipated the iPhone's meteoric rise when it was first introduced in 2007. Critics complained that, unlike the BlackBerry (remember those?), the touchscreen phone was too hard to type on. It was too expensive. It had to be on the AT&T network. Little did those critics know that, five years later, the rectangle with rounded corners would own the smartphone market.

The device's wild popularity has, unfortunately, grown so much that iPhone and iPad thefts rose 40 percent in New York City. Thieves love the Apple smartphone so much that they'll even snatch them from babies. This stat got us thinking about Steve Jobs's masterpiece and what makes it so special. So, as you clutch your device to keep it out of harm's way, read these five totally crazy — but true — facts about the iPhone.

1. The most expensive piece in the iPhone 4 costs a whopping . . . $28.50. According to research firm iSuppli, the phone's Retina display screen is the priciest piece of the iPhone puzzle. Together, the parts total about $200, although that doesn't take assembly, design, or branding into account.

Continue on for more facts and figures on the iPhone.

The tricky thing about the iPhone 5? That pint-size Lightning connector. For the crafty techie, that's no obstacle — just whip up your own like filmmaker Casey Neistat did.

While we imagine the project's not quite as easy to create as Casey makes it look, it's certainly an inspiring take on thwarting the must-update cycle of a tech giant.