The iPhone 6 Plus is still sold out everywhere. Apple.com is stating 3 to 4 weeks for all models, on all carriers and in all colors.

For the iPhone 6, Verizon does have a couple of models that are available to order now.

Most of the shipping times have remained unchanged from yesterday. Verizon has clarified some of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus shipping times.

While waiting for a couple of UPS deliveries, I thought I would look into some things on the Apple iBooks and Amazon Kindle sites. I found some interesting information.

iOS 8 for Users and Developers is Currently #2 in the Amazon Kindle store under "Computers Operating System" category. It is also in the "Hot New Releases".

On the Apple side, it is currently #1 and #8 Paid books in the "Computers & Internet" category. The #1 is the ePub edition and #8 is the iBooks edition.

If a user clicks on the "Computers & Internet" category, under "Top Charts", you will also see the ePub edition as the "Top Paid".

For this, I would sincerely like to thank everybody who has purchased the book. If you purchased the book, and found it useful, please recommend it to others.

I thought I would provide percentages for sales numbers for my e-book, iOS 8 for Users and Developers. It has been on sale since Wednesday, September 17th. These are sales percentages for just two days, and this does include 16 days worth of pre-orders. This chart is comprehensive between both Amazon and Apple. Here are the links for purchase Apple (ePub), Apple (iBooks), or Amazon (ePub).

As you can see the United States has purchased the largest percentage of the e-books. To make it easier to see percentages, given such a disparity, I've created another chart.

This is a chart with percentages not including the United States. Hence, the percentages for this graph are based on 20% of total sales.

The iPhone 6 Plus is still sold out everywhere. Apple.com is stating 3 to 4 weeks for all models, on all carriers and in all colors.

For the iPhone 6, Verizon is still guaranteeing delivery by tomorrow 9/19. They are still stating the 64GB Gold, 128GB Silver, and 128GB Gold will have delivery by 9/19.

All of the shipping times have remained unchanged from yesterday.

My e-book "iOS 8 for Users and Developers" is now available from both Apple and Amazon. Here is the description of the e-book.

iOS 8 for Users and Developers looks at all of the new features for iOS 8 including Family Sharing, Health, Spotlight, iCloud, Extensions, Custom Keyboards, Handoff, HomeKit, Changes to Messages, Safari updates, and Mail changes. Specifically for developers We look at Handoff, HomeKit, extensions, Custom Keyboard Security, Touch ID API, Sprite Kit, Scene Kit, CloudKit, PhotoKit, WebKit (WKWebView), Universal applications and Size Classes, switching to Modern Objective-C, Visual Debugging, the basics of Swift, and how App Bundles will affect developers.

To purchase the e-book for $3.99, click on any of these links. Apple (ePub), Apple (iBooks), or Amazon (ePub).

The iPhone 6 Plus is still sold out everywhere. Apple.com is stating 3 to 4 weeks for all models, on all carriers and in all colors.

For the iPhone 6, only one of the carriers is still guaranteeing delivery by 9/19. That carrier is Verizon. They are still stating the 64GB Gold, 128GB Silver, and 128GB Gold will have delivery by 9/19.

Some times have changed, but not many.

One of the hardest things to do with the Internet is protect your information. The most common way to do this is to employ a username and password scheme. This technique can, and does work, it is not often the most secure. There are techniques to employ a T-N-O, or "Trust No One", security model. However, for most users this is a bit too cumbersome to setup and maintain. There is a somewhat "happy" medium. It's called "Two Factor Authentication".

The basic user and password scheme is only one factor. It is considered one factor because the username, and possibly an email address, are typically viewable to all users of the site that you are using. Two-Factor authentication is where you add an additional "factor", or method, for authenticating. A password is "something you know" and when you use enable two-factor authentication, the second factor is almost always "something you have". This second factor can be a key fob, or very commonly, a phone. The device With some services, this can be done either by app or by an SMS message.

The reason one would enable two-factor authentication is to protect their information. When two-factor authentication is enabled and if someone does manage to obtain your username and password, they would need that "something you have" object to be able to complete the login. There are many services that are now offering two-factor authentication for logins. Some of these include Microsoft's Live.com service (including Hotmail and Xbox logins on the web), Google, Apple, and many many more.

In case you have missed it, there were many celebrities whom had their iCloud backups retrieved by users. While Apple had previously allowed users to enable two-factor authentication it did not extend to their backup service, iCloud.com. Apple's two-factor authentication now extends to iCloud.com logins as well. Those who stole the pictures were able to retrieve the photos from the celebrities iCloud backups.

Those who stole the pictures were able to access the information by resetting the user's password and were able to easily guess the user's "security questions", because the answers to the questions is information that is easy to locate, given that they are individuals who are more easily recognized and are higher profile. Now, after you have enabled two-factor authentication for iCloud, you will be required to enter in a code sent to you via one of the mechanisms that you registered. When somebody does log in to your iCloud account on a non-recognized browser or device, you will receive an email stating so. If they are able to successfully login, then it is time to change your password, and deregister any devices that you may have an re-register them.

Enabling two-factor authentication will add a bit more complexity when you login, however given the benefits, it is well worth the cost of having a slightly more annoying login process.

The iPhone 6 Plus is still sold out everywhere. Apple.com is stating 3 to 4 weeks for all models, on all carriers and in all colors.

For the iPhone 6, only one of the carriers is guaranteeing delivery by 9/19. That carrier is Verizon. They are still stating the 64GB Gold, 128GB Silver, and 128GB Gold will have delivery by 9/19.

Ship dates for the iPhone 6 Plus have slipped for T-Mobile and Verizon. T-Mobile states up to 8 weeks, and Verizon is at almost 6 weeks. If you want an iPhone 6 or an iPhone 6 Plus your best option for getting a phone on launch day will be an Apple Store, or possibly a carrier store. Here is the overall delivery dates for each type of phone.

Many people in today's modern society enjoy getting a new gadget. The most common gadget that many users purchase, and upgrade at a somewhat regular frequency, is their cell phone. There is an ever increasing number of cell phone users. Being in the United States it should not surprise anyone that cellphone companies want to maximize their profits. In the United States there are four major carriers: AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile. There are many smaller and regional carriers that exist. But we will focus on the largest four.

When a user picks out a new cell phone, there are many things to consider. The biggest two are the initial cost of the phone and the price of the ongoing monthly cell phone bill. With it being September, let us use an example of a new iPhone 6, presuming you get it on day one. Here is the minimum costs per month on each carrier:

64GB iPhone 6 and the 1GB, or closest, per month data plan with a standard 2-year contract.

This is what the cost would be over the course of two years, if you start with a new phone plan. There is one thing not listed in the table above. That is the "activation" fee. The activation fee is an additional fee that most cell phone providers charge to activate a new phone. While this can be somewhat understood, if this was 1999, in today's world this makes no sense. If a person had to physically activate a new device by putting entering the device information into a database and it took even 30 minutes, a $20 activation fee would make sense. But this is 2014 and this is no longer the case. The device is automatically activated when registered and, in most cases, takes a couple minutes to enter in the information. There is no way that it costs $40, or more, per phone to activate.

When you purchase a traditional 2-year contract, the price of your phone is being subsidized by the phone company, and hence why there is a contract. Over the length of the contract, typically 2 years in the United States, the price difference between what you paid upfront, and the remaining cost of the phone, is paid for by your monthly bill. There have been some changes by the carriers, as of late, where you can effectively pay for your phone with a monthly fee that is not necessarily tied to your monthly phone service bill. Besides, the activation fee there is another fee that providers charge. The "upgrade" fee.

AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint all charge customers an "upgrade" fee. An upgrade fee is incurred when a user replaces a device at a subsidized price. In theory, this should make sense. But in practice it does not. The thing that does not make sense with this "upgrade" fee is that there it serves no purpose other than to generate revenue for the company. Just like the activation fee, the upgrade fee is merely a profit making feature. While one could possibly argue that the cell phone company has to cover the possible difference in price between when a user upgrades and the total price for renewed contract. But this is just load of crap. The "upgrade" fee is merely there to generate more profit for the provider.

With so many people in the U.S. upgrading their phone, cell phone companies stand to generate a significant amount of profit just from upgrade fees. With over 4 million iPhones sold worldwide, let us presume that 500,000 of those were in the U.S. Here is a chart with how much each company stands to make, in pure profit, from activation or upgrade fees.

As you can see, presuming 450,000 upgrades and new accounts the total profit that the carriers stand to make just from activation and upgrade fees for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus is a total of $14,227,200 between the largest three. T-Mobile users pay full price for their devices, and T-Mobile does not charge an upgrade fee. The guess of 500,000 orders being in the United States, is merely my own guess. The percentage of the market is based on reported subscriber count, obtained from wikipedia.

As long as we keep paying for these subsidized phones, the phone companies will continue to keep charging us these upgrade fees. If we all purchased unsubsidized phones, the market may become a largely different place. However, given the retail price of phones, it is not likely that all phone users will begin to pay for unsubsidized phones any time soon.

The iPhone 6 Plus is sold out everywhere. Apple.com is stating 3 to 4 weeks for all models, on all carriers and in all colors.

When ordering from an iPhone 6 from the carriers for delivery by 9/19 here is the current status: Sprint has gold models in all three sizes, 64GB and 128 in Gold and Space Gray Verizon has 64GB Gold, 128 Space Gray and 128AT&T is entirely sold out. T-Mobile states 1 - 4 weeks for iPhone 6 and up to 6 weeks for iPhone 6 Plus.

The only changes from yesterday has been that some iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus ship times from Verizon have slipped by another week. There are two new updates with Verizon. The first is that the 128GB Space Gray now has a ship date by October 7th. The second is that the 16GB Gold iPhone 6 Plus ship date has slipped by a week to October 28th.