According to a new report from the marketing research firm ABI Research, the average size of an iOS app measured 23 megabytes in September, an increase of more than 16% in the last six months.
The increase, it says, can be contributed to number of factors, including the release of the Retina display iPad back in March, and the recent bump in the over-the-air App Store download limit to 50 megabytes....
Though Apple takes quite a bit of criticism, from both users and developers, over its rigorous App Store approval process, there is one significant benefit to the approach: security. iOS sees just a fraction of the viruses and malware as other, more open platforms.
Case in point: the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), which does work for the Bureau of Justice Assistance and the FBI, issued a warning late last week to smartphone users regarding malware for mobile phones. And unsurprisingly, there was a focus on Android...
Apple unveiled the iPhone 5 on September 12 and the following day updated the iCloud.com web interface by dropping the Beta flag and introducing the new Notes and Reminders web apps with cloud notifications enabled. Today, club Cupertino improves upon its cloud-based suite of services by adding shared reminders to the Reminders web app on iCloud.com.
You were able to set up shared reminders using Reminders on OS X (not via the stock iOS Reminders app, though), but those wouldn't sync with the web interface. Today's update is a minor but important one as it finally provides for a more seamless sync of reminders across devices, though not yet perfect...
Heads up all of you designers and concept artists. The entire GUI (graphical user interface) for iOS 6 has just been uploaded to the web.
That's right, all of the buttons, menus, icons and anything else you can think of graphic-wise in iOS are now available for download...
I was a little surprised realizing the blogosphere today reported on a nice little nugget I discovered nearly a month ago, but here it goes. If you visit the iTunes Preview page on the web for Google's Gmail iOS app and check out the screenshots, you will notice a nice tribute to Apple's late CEO Steve Jobs in two screenies. The images depict an email message with the subject line “Your favorite Steve Jobs quotes” and contain the following text in the message body...
We've been receiving vague hints that Microsoft, which is currently busy for the big Windows 8 launch scheduled for October 26, is also working on bringing the Office suite to the iPad. Today, a new report quotes a Microsoft executive as confirming that the software giant is in fact hard at work developing a native Microsoft Office suite for both iOS and Android. The software should hit the two mobile platforms "sometime after March 2013"...
An interesting patent grant surfaced in the United States Patent & Trademark Office's (USPTO) database this morning related to a two-step screen unlock feature. This is Apple's second patent grant for the feature, with first patent issued in June 2012. One of the inventors listed on the second grant for a dual slider locking approach is Apple's iOS chief and Senior Vice President Scott Forstall...
Since Apple introduced multitasking in iOS 4, the app switcher has remained relatively the same. The jailbreak community, of course, has found dozens of uses for the pop-up app menu, but Apple, for the most part, has left it untouched.
With that in mind, you can understand why mockups that offer a new take on the app switcher create so much commotion. And such is the case with a concept that recently surfaced called "Rethinking the App Switcher for the iPhone 5..."
It's been widely reported that Apple dropped stock YouTube and Google Maps app in iOS 6. I'm not really sure how nobody noticed this before, but it's been reported that Apple did kill another handy feature: the ability to gift apps.
The removal of the gifting capability affects mobile App Store storefronts running on iPhones, iPads and iPod touches as users can still gift apps using desktop iTunes on a Mac or PC. Apple itself confirmed the change and it's unknown when (or if, for that matter) the feature will return to iOS 6...
As part of its ongoing iEconomy series, The New York Times on Sunday evening published a fascinating piece covering patent wars in excruciating detail, touching upon Apple's decision to go thermonuclear on Android, how the company changed its strategy after it had been forced to pay $100 million for the iPod user interface, why Apple is allowed to own patents covering basic software concepts and more...
Forgive Rovio for milking the Angry Birds franchise for all its worth, but if it hadn't been for the original Angry Birds game no one would have heard of a small Finnish game developer that was struggling to make a living making games you never heard about. Hot on the heels of releasing Bad Piggies and Angry Birds Space, Rovio has just announced a broad partnership with Hasbro, a toy and board game company.
The mash-up will see Rovio release a range of Star Wars and Angry Birds figurines, costumes, plush toys and a brand new Angry Birds game set in the Star Wars universe. More information and a teaser trailer follow right after the break...
iDB discovered a week ago that Google is set to introduce street-level photography on the iOS platform in form of a web app in about two weeks. Today, The Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg made it a fact, claiming that the software is coming as early as Thursday, possibly tomorrow. The journalist had some hands-on time with the web app which includes both360-degree photographic street views and interior photographic views of certain businesses...