Mobile engagement platform Localytics has been tracking the usage of various iPhone models. According to the most recent data, the new Apple iPhone 7 and Apple iPhone 7 Plus are already more popular than the Apple iPhone SE. The latter represents 2.6% of active iPhone models in use, while the recently launched iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus represent a full percentage point more of active iPhones at 3.6%. We can break that down some more. The iPhone 7 makes up 2.7% of active iPhone handsets in use, while the iPhone 7 Plus accounts for .9% of active iPhone units. The most popular active iPhone models right now are the Apple iPhone 6 and Apple iPhone 6 Plus with a combined 38.3% of iPhone units now being used. The phones are old enough to have generated several years' worth of sales, but aren't too old as to be irrelevant. Next is the Apple iPhone 6s and Apple iPhone 6s Plus with 27.5% of active iPhone usage. The Apple iPhone 5 series accounts for 24.4% of the iPhone models in use today. That drops off sharply to the 3.7% usage generated by the Apple iPhone 4 and Apple iPhone 4s. As the next few months play out, we should see the usage attributable to the iPhone 7 models grow and overtake the iPhone 4 units. The current front runners (the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus) will decline, making up a smaller percentage of active iPhone models, and the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus will take over the lead.

The LG V20 is almost here. It's launching in South Korea (LG's home country) this week, and should be available to pre-order in the US starting October 2. Until you get the chance to try the new handset for yourself, you may want to check out one of its new features: Signature Wallpaper.

We're not sure we'd include Signature Wallpaper on a list of features to be truly excited about, but LG thinks it's important enough to have its own promo video, which you can watch below. A Signature Wallpaper is a lock screen wallpaper that includes the first character of your signature on V20's secondary display. Just like on the LG V10, you can set a signature for the ticker screen of the V20 - basically, this signature is a text of your own choice that shows up when the screen is off. Not terribly useful, but we guess it's still nice to have.

When you set up a Signature Wallpaper, you can choose various backgrounds for it to make it look the way you want. All in all, this is a quick way to personalize your V20. The LG V20 will be available in the US unlocked, as well as via all major carriers. The handset seems to be a worthy successor to last year's V10, and you can find out more about it from our LG V20 preview.

Almost 50 per cent of iPhone, iPad and iPod touch owners that can run iOS 10 are now doing so, according to new figures. iOS 10 is was rolled out just over two weeks ago with a bunch of new features and performance tweaks and now, stats firm Mixpanelhas discovered that 48.16 per cent of iOS 10-ready gadget owners have taken the plunge. 

Korean media NewsOne reports that LG has postponed the launch of its LG Pay mobile payments service for 2017, due to problems encountered during testing. Reportedly, the company wanted to introduce LG Pay together with its second major smartphone launch this year, the LG V20, which will go on sale in South Korea on September 29. But LG cancelled its plans, despite having completed development of the payment technology.

LG wants to pair LG Pay with an universal payment "White Card", a physical card with credit and debit card information contained on it. It connects to smartphones via NFC and supports IC and mag-stripe payments. However, the White Card hasn't been commercialized in Korea before, and LG encountered errors during testing the payment system. Moreover, it hasn't filled for regulatory approval of the service yet.

Gresso is a luxury brand that loves to decorate high-end smartphones and accessories with a tasteful amount of jewelry. Its latest offering is the iPhone 7 Black Diamond collection, which comprises three black iPhone 7 handsets worth $500,000 each. Their back panels are covered in 1450 black diamonds (totaling 102kts), while the body has been re-crafted from premium grade-5 titanium.

The Gresso logo and camera frame are made of 10 grams of 18kt gold, and the product is complete with the addition of black AirPods – covered in no less than 30 black diamonds (2kts). Each unit is hand-made and takes over 18 hours to assemble. It's certainly good that $500k nets you a 256GB model, too.

If $500,000 is a bit out of your smartphone budget, fret not, you can still order an iPhone case from Gresso that's made of grade-5 titanium and features an 18kt gold inlay, along with diamond embellishments. These are made in 999 pieces and the price starts from a more reasonable $2500.

In one corner, we have the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. The very popular Android powered phablet was on the way to giving Samsung a spectacular 2016, adding to the well received Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge. But a defective battery resulted in several explosions, and the Galaxy Note 7 was eventually recalled. The whole affair is expected to cost Sammy as much as $1.5 billion to pay for the recall, device exchange and more. In the other corner you'll find the Apple iPhone 7 Plus. With a dual-camera setup on back, a 3D Touch home button and the removal of the 3.5mm earphone jack, the latest iteration of Apple's phablet was sold out during the pre-order period. Now, these two high-end phablets face off in a drop test. Both models will be dropped from 1 meter up (3.28 feet) on the back, bottom, side and front. Any phone still able to place a call after the last test will participate in the bonus round, which means it continues to be dropped face down until it is no longer functional. The iPhone 7 Plus got off to an early lead with the Back Drop. The device was scuffed slightly, but remained in very good shape. The Galaxy Note 7 was cracked on both bottom corners on the back of the phablet. The Bottom Drop resulted in some scuffs on the bottom of each device. The darker color of the Galaxy Note 7 made its damage more noticeable, but the drop also extended the cracks created on the rear from the Back Drop. How did the two phones fare with the Side Drop? Both models received additional scuffing on the side, but nothing serious. The level of anticipation rose as the Galaxy Note 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus were getting prepped for the Face Drop. Both devices received some serious screen damage after this round, but both could still make a phone call. That means the pair qualifies for the Bonus Round. Since the Galaxy Note 7 was able to withstand 50 Face Drops in a prior test, the iPhone 7 Plus would have to match that in order to forge a tie. But after ten drops, the iPhone 7 Plus was no longer functional, making the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 the winner. If there is one thing we've learned from this contest, it's that a decent case might be a worthwhile investment for those who own either model.

The Apple iPhone 7 recently scored a record setting 178,000+ on the AnTuTu benchmark test. In theory, that means that the Apple iPhone 7 is more powerful than the Apple iPhone 6s. While the AnTuTu test helps us make comparisons like that, we can even measure the build quality of the iPhone 7 against the iPhone 6s by conducting a drop test. To make it a fair test, both phones were dropped from exactly 3.2 feet up using a professional machine employed by manufacturers and companies that do that sort of testing.

Both handsets would be dropped three times. The first test was the back drop. After the impact, the finish on the back of both the iPhone 7 and iPhone 6s showed signs of minor scuffing. Both phones also held up well during the bottom drop, with only some minor marks visible in direct light. The story was the same with the side drop as neither phone was seriously damaged after that test.

The face drop did some serious damage to the screens of both phones, although both could still make a phone call. That meant that the iPhone 7 would be dropped on its face until it could no longer work. If it held on for longer than the five bonus drops that the iPhone 6s survived when it took on the Samsung Galaxy S7 in a previous drop test, it would be declared the winner.

Sure enough, the iPhone 7 survived eight drops, giving it the win over last year's iPhone 6s. You can catch the entire test by clicking on the video at the beginning of the story. Besides holding up to drops better than the iPhone 6s, the Apple iPhone 7 (and the iPhone 7 Plus) both have an IP67 certification rating against dust and water. Again in theory, the 2016 iPhone models can be submerged in up to 3.2 feet of water for as long as 30-minutes, and emerge unscathed.  Despite being marketed as being IP67 certified, neither the iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus are covered in the warranty for water damage.

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks, you've been hearing about Samsung's issue with their Note 7 smartphones deciding to explode because of a manufacturing issue with the phone's internal battery. The exploding phones have not only caused Samsung's stock to plummet to the ground, but it's also created for some rather scary stories. On September 8, there was a report out of Florida that a Galaxy Note 7 exploded inside a man's Jeep and caused the entire inside car to burn to a crisp. The man and his family were left untouched, but the owner of the Jeep's daughter had been using the Note 7 just minutes before the explosion took place. However, there was another report this past Sunday that a 6-year old boy in Brooklyn, New York suffered burns when a Note 7 exploded in his hand. However, that last story has since be brought back up with some conflicting information. The Samsung phone that exploded in the hands of a 6-year old wasn't a Note 7 - it was a Galaxy Core According to new information that was released by NBC New York, the 6-year old kid who was burned wasn't using a Note 7 at all. Instead, he was using another Samsung product - the Galaxy Core. The Galaxy Core was released more than 2 years ago, and this is the first time that we've heard any reports of battery issues like this that the phone has experienced. However, this doesn't mean that all Galaxy Cores now have faulty batteries as well. You see, the Galaxy Core is one of Samsung's older handsets that featured a user-replaceable battery. Seeing as how the phone was released back in 2014, we wouldn't be surprised if the owner of the phone had swapped out the battery for one of a third-party. However, if it does turn out that the battery was an official Samsung one, does that mean that Samsung has had issues with the quality of their batteries prior to the Note 7? If so, why haven't we heard anything major like this until the Note 7 recall? There's a chance that more issues like this have taken place prior to the Note 7 recall, but simply went unreported. If so, just how many unreported issues are we looking at? When the issue first took place this weekend, a Samsung rep told that We are engaged with the Lewis family to ensure we are doing everything we can for them and their son. Consumer safety remains our highest priority as we are investigating the matter. The issue revolving around the Note 7 is a serious one, and just because the 6-year old turns out to have been using a Galaxy Core, doesn't make the matter of the Note 7 battery any less of a serious one. If you're still the owner of a Note 7, we strongly encourage you to take it in to whatever outlet you purchased it form and take advantage of the many exchange programs that are currently going on. It might seem like an inconvenience to you, but it's not a matter of convenience. It's a matter of you and your family's safety.

On Wednesday, during an event held in San Francisco, Apple announced the iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, and Apple Watch 2. All three new devices are available to pre-order starting today, and will ship on September 16. If you didn't get the chance to watch the event while it was live streamed by Apple, or if you simply want to relive the announcements, you can now watch it all on YouTube. Apple uploaded a lengthy video that shows the entire event, just as it happened on Wednesday.

Unlike the live stream, which was only available on Apple devices and Windows 10 PCs (with Microsoft Edge), the video that's now online can be accessed on any computer or smartphone - like any other YouTube video. 

Mind you, the event is 2 hours long, so if you want to see just the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus announcement, play the video embedded below and skip to 54:00. For the Apple Watch 2, skip to 30:30. Or maybe all you want to do is see Sia performing live? You can find her starting at 1:48:40.

We argued that this Apple event was a lot about the courage to stay the same. How do you see it?

According to a Taiwanese supply chain report, Apple has increased chip and component orders for the Apple Watch Series 2, with monthly shipment volumes for August and September surpassing two million units. This indicates that Apple is feeling confident in the device and its prospects on the market.

In July, the IDC reported that the original Apple Watch commanded a 47% market share, shipping around 1.6 million units delivered in the second quarter of 2016. The third and fourth quarters look promising as a result, hence Apple is boosting orders and showing strong belief in the second-generation product.

The Apple Watch Series 2 features a number of improvements, including a brighter screen and faster processor, water resistance for swimming, and a built-in GPS that lets users partake in sports activities without carrying the iPhone. Apple will be bringing the faster processor to the first-generation watch as well, while discounting its price down to $269.