With Scott Forstall's departure, watchers and users alike are keeping their eyes peeled for Jony Ive-ification of Apple's mobile operating system. It is no secret that iOS is showing its age in several key aspects, especially compared against Android. The concept of alerts, despite advancements such as Notification Center, is still too obtrusive and leaves a lot to be desired.
That's why I approve a new solution proposed by an Apple fan who has envisioned friendlier and actionable iOS alerts...
Recently, a pattern has begun taking shape that I fear signals something worryingly awful is afoot as excellence takes a back seat at Apple in favor of mediocre web services. It's always been that way, critics might add. Indeed, here we are, at the end of 2012, and yet weekly outages of key iCloud services such as iMessage and FaceTime are still a norm rather than a rare exception.
While iCloud storm is raining on users, Apple seemingly struggles in figuring out how to sprinkle its magic dust on Internet software. With over half a billion iOS and Mac devices straining its data centers, something clearly had to give. The iPhone maker isn't an isolated example: competitors experience outages, too. But Apple's different in that its online woes are symptomatic of a much larger set of problems the company faces.
Cupertino's infrastructure is lacking. For all the computational power its array of super data centers provide, Apple's software underpinnings are outdated and increasingly incapable of handling high load. Software shortcomings are putting Apple at risk at a time when competitors like Google tap their massive scale and expertise to successfully marry hardware to Internet software in ways Apple cannot...
Just as Samsung added the iPad mini, fifth-gen iPod touch and fourth-gen iPad to its suit, claiming Apple's latest gadgets violate its patents, news broke that Google's handset arm Motorola Mobility is thinking about doing the same in its litigation against Apple in the Southern District of Miami, Florida. And in order to establish that Apple's devices violate Motorola patents, Google is moving to perform some infringement analysis and has filed a motion complaining that Apple is withholding the source code for iOS 6, which powers the latest iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices...
Google Shopper, a free download for the iPhone, was last updated on October 3 with minor tweaks. Though optimized for the iPhone 5, the search Goliath seems to have forgotten about shoppers looking to use the program to "browse for gift ideas, research products and locate great deals on the go” using their iOS device. How's that?
Well, the Android version of Google Shopper was updated to version 3.0 on November 9 with attractive new features for holiday shopping. Meanwhile, Google Shopper for iOS remains stuck at version 2.6. Worse, it was last updated more than a month and half ago and contains none of the new features from Google Shopper 3.0 for Android. So, where does this leave folks who want to shop smarter with Shopper?
Remember iPhone location tracking? That was child's play. Should Apple have its way, future versions of its iOS mobile operating system might record every event you ever perform on your iPhone, iPod or iPad, creating a uniquely detailed footprint of your interactions with iOS devices. It would make geotagging a system-wide feature.
Every gesture invoked and input event registered could get timestamped and stored. Every phone call, every keystroke, every tweet, like, comment, game achievement, song played, you name it - basically any set of device data might get logged automatically.
But don't get all worked up about the privacy implications: good ol' Apple isn't up to nefarious intents. Matter of fact, the goal with this invention is a noble one: provide a searchable, actionable lifestream of sorts to make your mobile computing easier, more meaningful and tailored for you.
So how does the Cupertino firm plan to pull it off? Simple: by way of using a journaling file system that's already present in OS X...
The social networking giant Facebook has begun rolling out a new feature aimed at automatically uploading each photo a user takes on his or her device. This capability exists in some other third-party iOS apps, like the Dropbox app and the Google+ client. Facebook has figured out how to implement the feature without breaking Apple's rules, by using standard API calls for background uploads and not relying on location APIs or its deep integration with iOS 6...
OS X 10.9, the next major revision to Apple's desktop operating system, will contain Siri and Apple Maps, the two headline capabilities currently exclusively available on newer iPhones, iPads and iPod touches. According to a new report this morning, early builds of OS X 10.9 that were previously spotted in web logs include Siri and Maps integration. Both features are purportedly in the early testing stages so it has yet to be determined if they will be ready for prime time when OS X 10.9 ships some time next year...
Flipboard, the popular social news reader platform, has partnered with Apple to launch a new section in iOS apps called Books which, surprisingly, highlights select books the iPhone maker sells on its own iBookstore. The new Books section is now live in Flipboard iOS apps in ten countries. It's customized with 25 new sections containing the most popular books from Apple’s iBookstore. "It’s like browsing in a bookstore, right from your Flipboard", the company says. The new section is localized for the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy and Spain...
As mobile phones become smarter, Samsung and Apple continue to rule the landscape as the world's best-selling cell phone brands. As for Google's Android platform, it now controls more than seven out over every ten smartphones in consumers' hands, a new report suggests. Both Samsung and Apple controlled 46.5 percent of the smartphone market in the third quarter.
The iOS-Android duopoly had a commanding 86 percent platform lead in the third quarter, according to research firm Gartner. Individually, the South Korean smartphone maker held 32.5 percent of the market while Apple held 13.9 percent, the researcher announced Wednesday. Android now controls an astounding 72.4 percent of the mobile operating system market for smartphones, up from 52 percent in the year-ago quarter...
Hot on the heels of last week's screen rotation lawsuit comes another infringement claim aimed at Apple. NovelPoint Tracking, which fits the usual patent troll description, filed a lawsuit against the Cupertino company yesterday in the troll-friendly Texas Eastern District Court regarding its location-based patent...
With the holidays just around the corner, Apple has been seen stocking up on app-enabled accessories. A few weeks ago we noted that the iPad-maker had started selling iPhone-controlled lightbulbs, and now it's added an iOS-friendly guitar to its inventory.
Fender, a long-time legend in the guitar business, has created a custom version of its popular Squier Stratocaster guitar with built-in USB and iOS connectivity. This means that you can plug into anything from a complex digital studio, to your iPad, and rock out...
Apple just seeded its registered developers with the second beta of iOS 6.1. The software follows November 1 release of the first iOS 6.1 beta which brought out MapsKit improvements and other tidbits.
Beta 2 has a build number of 10B5105c versus 10B5095f for Beta 1. Apple says iOS 6 Beta 2 contains bug fixes and improvements over iOS 6.0.1, in addition to tweaks like a new information card in the Passbook app.
A new beta of the Apple TV software is also available. The new iOS 6.1 beta is available for the various iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Apple TV devices. Apple's registered developers can download them via the company's developer portal.
The iPhone maker also released Xcode 4.6 Developer Preview 2 today (build 4H95e), its preferred development environment for third-parties that write Mac and iOS apps. Your release notes and additional info are right below...