The iOS 7 features Apple didn’t mention at WWDC
There’s no question that iOS 7 is a sexy looking mobile operating system. Jony Ive and his team have done a fantastic job of reinventing and modernizing the interface, but the great news for fans of Apple products is iOS 7 isn’t all style and no substance.
Apple ran through a lot of the new or improved features yesterday, including Control Center, AirDrop, Photo app, Siri (with added Bing!), iOS in the Car, FaceTime Audio, and iTunes Radio. But there were features that Craig Federighi, SVP of Software Engineering, didn’t mention but which appeared on a slide in the background.
View Outlook’s Calendar and Tasks on your desktop with DeskTask
While Outlook is great at organising your To Do lists, and maybe setting up your schedule, it’s not exactly lightweight. And that can be an issue if you’d like to keep an eye on your tasks, appointments and more, without having to regularly switch back to it just to remind yourself what’s coming up next.
There is a simpler alternative, though -- and it’s called DeskTask. This small free program displays your Outlook calendar and tasks in a transparent window on the desktop, which means you can track your schedule at any time with a glance.
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 shows off advanced healing brush, smart straighten tool
Veteran US developer Adobe has released Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 for Windows and Mac. Photoshop Lightroom is aimed at improving digital photographs, and version 5 debuts some major new features, including an Advanced Healing Brush for removing unwanted elements from photos.
Other new features include Upright, a smart straightening tool, Radial Gradient, smart previews, video slideshows and the promise of better photo book creation.
iCloud Keychain -- Will Apple hand your keys to the NSA?
Yesterday at WWDC, Apple announced iCloud Keychain. This is a password management service that utilizes Apple’s iCloud. It will allow users to sync their website login credentials, Wi-Fi passwords and credit card information across multiple devices (iOS and OS X) using 256-bit AES encryption. On the surface, it sounds like a great feature that would be very convenient for Apple users. However, the world has changed much since the PRISM scandal.
Ever since we learned that the US Government has allegedly infiltrated Apple, such a service is problematic. By storing all of your passwords with an NSA infiltrated company, you could be potentially compromising the security of all of your accounts. It could be especially bad to expose your Wi-Fi passwords as you could be compromising entire networks. While 256-bit encryption is a wonderful thing, it makes no difference if the NSA has direct non-encrypted access -- it would be understandable for users to be suspicious.
iTunes Radio is too little, too late
At WWDC, Apple's big annual show, the company finally announces iTunes Radio, a service rumored and bandied about around the internet for some time. Apple, as it is known to do, builds this up to be the be-all and end-all of everything that came before. Is it?
To answer that we must first delve into what iTunes Radio is. According to Apple, customers "have access to Featured Stations, stations inspired by the music you already listen to, and more than 200 genre-focused stations — including everything from Hard Rock to Doo Wop. Your stations evolve based on the music you play and download".
Apple tempts me with its new MacBook Air
On Monday, during WWDC, Apple introduced a new MacBook Air lineup which now features Intel "Haswell" Core processors. The latest fruit-branded ultrabook generation comes with beefier specs, more internal storage in the 11-inch models and, bar the entry-level version, steeper or lower price-tags.
Let's kick off with the 11-inch MacBook Airs. The base model is available for the same $999 as before but now packs a larger SSD -- 128 GB instead of 64 GB as offered by its predecessor. The high-end version is $100 more expensive at $1,199 (previously ran for $1,099), however, also features an SSD with twice the storage capacity -- 256 GB in the latest model compared to 128 GB in the previous one.
Apple reveals all new iOS 7 -- ‘defines an important new direction’
We all knew that Apple would be revealing a redesigned version of its mobile operating system today at the 24th Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, and we've just been treated to an in-depth look.
As was widely reported, the Jony Ive designed iOS 7 has a flatter, functional design and the skeumorphism -- faux wooden bookshelves, green felt and the like -- that was a central theme in previous versions of the operating system is no more.
Microsoft announces Xbox One availability and pricing -- Will you buy one?
The next Xbox was a lightning rod of controversy between rumors and the official announcement (and even that came without key details). Today's E3 keynote address fills in the information we were waiting for. Microsoft took the stage at the world's gaming mecca to deliver important information such as pricing and availability, as well as the all-important games stuff.
The console maker refers to its new lineup of games as "blockbuster", though that is for consumers to decide. Unveiled games include Ryse: Son of Rome, Forza Motorsport 5, Dead Rising 3, Project Spark, Sunset Overdrive and Titanfall. The biggest related news, however, is the unveiling of "Halo Xbox One", the next chapter of the gaming franchise developed by 343 Industries, which launches in 2014.
Apple reveals OS X 10 Mavericks -- no, seriously, that’s the new name
Live at WWDC 2013, Apple's Craig Federighi has just announced the first new non-cat named version of OS X 10.
After admitting Apple had run out of Lion variations, and making a joke about calling it OS X 10 Sea Lion, he revealed OS X 10.9’s real title -- Mavericks (named after the surfing location in Northern California rather than Tom Cruise’s character in Top Gun). Which is probably the worst name of any operating system ever. Even worse than Windows Me.
Nokia dominates the Windows Phone market, leaves little room to HTC and Samsung
Today, cross-promotion network AdDuplex sent me its latest Windows Phone report for June 2013 which, once again, places the Nokia Lumia 920 as the most popular device running Microsoft's tiled mobile operating system. The handset accounts for 12 percent of all Windows Phones, followed by the Lumia 710 and the Lumia 800 with 11.6 percent and 10.6 percent share, respectively.
According to the report, the Finnish maker is behind nine of the 10 most popular Windows Phones. The only non-Lumia entry in the top is HTC's Windows Phone 8X which takes the ninth place. The most noteworthy changes in the rankings comes from the Lumia 520 and the Lumia 620, which have managed to surpass older Nokia-branded Windows Phone to take the fourth and the fifth place, respectively.
Watch the Sony PlayStation E3 press conference here, LIVE
The Xbox One has been grabbing all the headlines lately, and not all for the right reasons, but Sony will be hoping its next gen gaming console draws at least some of the limelight today when we finally get to see what the fabled machine looks like and find out more about what it has to offer.
At the E3 press conference Sony is expected to reveal the home entertainment features of the console, and of course we’ll get to see some of the games for it. You don’t need to fly or drive to LA to watch the conference as we’ll be streaming it right here, live.
Kicksend lets you order prints and share photos from Windows 8
I can't remember the last time I printed a photo. Can you? The versatility of cloud services and the increasingly accommodating on-device storage changed the way folks enjoy and look at pictures, turning printing from a once-popular activity into a dying art. Today, more than ever, digital replaces physical.
But prints are not dead (yet), as cloud services like Kicksend look to modernize the way people get their memories onto paper. Kicksend, available first on iOS, Android and the web, just turned its eyes towards Windows 8 and Windows RT, also allowing users of the tiled operating system to share photos and order prints straight from its app.
Trojans continue to top virus chart
Dr Web Anti-virus has released its latest report on malware activity showing that Trojans continue to be the most common threat.
New threats found in May include Trojan.Mods.1 which replaces the contents of webpages loaded in a browser. This is part of a premium rate SMS fraud that puts up a page asking for a mobile number and then sends a text message asking for a reply. Almost 16,000 copies of this Trojan were detected by Dr Web during the month of May.
Nokia Lumia 925 available in Germany, gets Glance Screen beta
Finnish maker Nokia announced, on Monday, that its Lumia 925 Windows Phone 8 flagship is now officially available in Germany. The smartphone can be purchased from local mobile operators and retailers like Vodafone and Amazon, respectively, alongside carrier agreements or off-contract for EUR599.
Nokia revealed that the Lumia 925 will be its first Windows Phone 8 device to receive Glance Screen. The app, initially available in beta trim, allows users to double tap on the screen in order to unlock the handset and can show the ringer mode, battery status and time on the display, when the smartphone is on standby.
What to expect from Apple at WWDC 2013
Apple events are always preceded by rumours and occasional leaks, so we usually have at least a rough idea of what to expect prior to the keynote. There haven’t been any major leaks ahead of this year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference which could mean one of two things -- there’s nothing really big coming, or there’s something so big to be announced, security is super tight.
We do know some of what Apple CEO Tim Cook will talk about when he takes to the stage later today, and we have a good idea of what else might be announced, so prepare to get excited for the following…
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