Articles about iOS

Just in time for iOS 7, Google has announced the release of Chrome 30 for iOS. Or for iOS 6-7, anyway -- the search giant has shifted its minimum requirements, so anyone still on iOS 5.x is now out of luck.

If you missed the release of Chrome 29 -- hardly surprising, as it only appeared last week -- then that extended searching with what Google called "intelligent pronoun understanding". And basically this gives your searches some context, so if you ask "Who directed Star Wars?", then "Where was he born?", you’ll get sensible answers in each case.

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Anyone who manages to get their hands on an iPhone 5c or iPhone 5s on Friday will find that it comes with iOS 7 pre-installed. But if you’re not planning on investing in new hardware, head over to Apple's update server right now and you can grab yourself an upgrade free of charge.

The OS revamp is available as of 10am PST / 6pm BST, and if you jump on the download straight away you may well find it a slow and frustrating experience as the world and its dog tries to do exactly the same. But hang on in there... it'll be worth the wait.

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Today is iOS 7 day! But there is more than just a new operating system for your iPhone, iPad and iPod to look forward to; Apple also has a redesigned iCloud website for you to use. Unsurprisingly the new design takes heavy inspiration from the look of iOS 7, mimicking the floaty, layered styling that graces the new mobile OS.

Log into your account and you'll immediately be greeted by a muted, blurry background, over the top of which various icons appear to float. Apps including Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Notes, Reminders and Find My iPhone all now sport the iOS 7 look, but the beta editions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote retain their older design. It looks as though there might still be a little work to do -- not all icons have been redesigned, for instance.

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Today Bump becomes the latest addition to Google's portfolio. In a blog post, Bump CEO David Lieb reveals that the company has been acquired by the search giant. Bump is known for two tools -- the eponymous Bump file transfer service, and Flock for sharing photos.

But it is the Bump transfer app that is most famous, making it possible to shift files from one device to another with a gimmicky bump together -- using "a matching algorithm" rather than NFC. The blog post assures users that "Bump and Flock will continue to work as they always have for now", and it is the "for now" part of this announcement that is intriguing. Google has yet to make an announcement of its own, so it is not yet clear whether Bump's tools will live on under the same name, get rebranded, or disappear into Google's fat folds.

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Today, Apple announced two new iPhones, the 5S and 5C. Sadly, through various leaks and rumors, the wind was taken out of the fruit logo company's sails; the element of surprise was lost. Surprise or not, either way, both new smartphones look really well made, attractive and full-featured. There is only one problem -- no one cares.

Well, "no one cares" is an exaggeration. I'm sure existing iPhone users care and these phones will sell well. Unfortunately, it won't be enough to lure the people Apple really needs to target -- first-time smartphone buyers and Android users. In other words, Google will continue to erode Apple's market-share, one chomp at a time.

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There were so many leaks prior to today's announcements at Cupertino that we pretty much already knew what to expect. Apple has taken the wrapper off the latest version of the iPhone and the company has stuck to its recent release schedule of following up a major iPhone with an S edition -- the iPhone 5S. Visually, things are very much the same as before, but in addition to black and white models, there's also the light gold colored model -- colors we now know should be referred to as space gray, silver and gold.

The promise to "brighten everyone's day" seems to have meant not only an addition to the color options for the iPhone 5C and 5S, but also new features. While the 5C retains the same processor as in the 5, the 5S boasts a new A7 processor which is the world's only 64-bit chip in a smartphone. iOS 7 has been re-engineered as a 64-bit operating system, but the chip is capable of running 32-bit and 64-bit apps. Apple claims the processor is double the speed of the iPhone 5 according to the graph they showed. And the processor now supports OpenGL|ES 3.0, the same as Nexus 7.

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Apple changed the smartphone market dramatically with the original iPhone, which launched in mid-2007. The company took the world by surprise as it reenvisioned the basic smartphone concept by forgoing the (typical) unintuitive user interfaces and adopting a simpler, hardware and software, design instead. The iPhone had turned Apple into the top smartphone vendor, a title which the Cupertino, Calif.-based corporation can no longer claim today. Why?

The short answer is "Android". The long one is a bit more complicated. Apple began changing the smartphone market in 2007, but the smartphone market changed as well since then. The iPhone was and still is a flagship product, a high-end handset with the price to reflect it. Consumers, however, have been slowly moving away from that price range and type of device to cheaper, mid-range and low-end products. According to an IDC report from June, the smartphone average selling price (ASP) dropped from $443 in 2011 to $372 in the first half of 2013, and is expected to drop even further, to $309 by 2017. That is a price-bracket that Apple could not tap into, as it had no product to fight with. The iPhone 5C, that the company just unveiled during a special event, is designed to change that.

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Nearly a year after it debuted Xbox Music, Microsoft has introduced iOS and Android apps for its impressive music service, and sent out a clear warning to the likes of Spotify with the introduction of free web streaming.

iOS and Android users with an Xbox Music Pass can now enjoy unlimited access to 30 million songs for $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year. When you add a song to your music library on Xbox, it will be instantly available on the mobile device.

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Microsoft is locked in a battle for your note-taking needs on mobile devices. Evernote is the perceived king of the field, but OneNote is certainly a strong competitor and today the software giant announces improvements to the iOS version of the Office app.

The latest update allows users to create notebooks on the iPad as well as create, delete and rename sections. Microsoft claims this was one of the most requested features from customers already using the previous version, but it is also not the only enhancement made to this build.

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Spotify users with both an iOS device and a premium subscription -- oh, and at least one set of compatible speakers -- will soon be able to take advantage of a new Chromecast-like feature. Spotify Connect allows for a seamless music experience, transferring music playback between devices and sound systems. Everything can be controlled using an iOS app, turn your iPhone into the ultimate music remote.

The new service is showcased in a YouTube video that demonstrates the ease with which music can be transferred from one set of speakers to another. Walk home from work listening to your favorite album on your iPhone earphones, and as soon as you step through the front door you can push the music to your home stereo.

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Or is it? It's not often that I see Windows Phone linked to being a "key player" on the smartphone market (quite the contrary, if some pundits are to be believed). But, according to a new report from Kantar Worldpanel Comtech, it appears that Microsoft's operating system has established itself as a "real adversary" to Android and iOS. That appears to be no small feat.

Between May and July 2013, Windows Phones accounted for 8.2 percent of all smartphone sales in five major European markets -- France, Germany, Italy, Spain and UK. Compared to the same time-frame from last year (when it had 4.9 percent market share), the OS grew by 3.3 percentage points, or 67.34 percent. That is a sizeable increase, however one that did not lead to Windows Phone's market share hitting double digits in a larger region (which, in my opinion, is a noteworthy steppingstone for any podium contender).

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Yahoo has released Flickr 2.20 for iPhone and iPod touch, a major new update to its app for quickly sharing and uploading photos using your iOS device’s camera.

The new build adds three major new filter-based features to its roster, plus adds new camera tools while dropping the paywall on some of the more professional editing tools. Both sets of tools are also jazzed up with new animated transitions for "the best camera experience yet".

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Most graphics software will do its best to clean up your photos, removing noise, optimizing brightness and contrast, and generally leaving them bright and polished.

If you’re bored with this approach, though, you could always try Grungetastic ($0.99 iPhone -- $7.99 Windows, Mac), which prefers to reduce colors, add layers of scratches, dirt and grime, tear image borders, and generally leave your pictures looking as though they’ve been left in a box in your garden for a very long time.

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It's no secret that most mobile users only install a tiny fraction of the total number of apps available in the relevant stores. There are hundreds of thousands of offerings for Android, iOS and Windows Phone, but the vast majority will never make it onto your smartphone or tablet -- some cater to a very specific audience (like root-only apps for Android), some are designed for certain local markets (Internet banking apps, for instance) and some are plain dreadful (half-baked third-party clients spring to mind). It comes as no surprise then that there are apps that users don't even know about or which developers have abandoned entirely. The question is: How many?

Well, according to a new infographic that was just released by StarDust, over 41 percent of all Android apps available in Google Play can be deemed as "dead" -- they have received less than 10 reviews and ratings and not a single update throughout their existence -- while a more significant 65 percent of all iOS apps in the Apple App Store and 69 percent of all Windows Phone apps in the Windows Phone Store share a similar fate. The numbers are staggering, and show that it's not easy to make an app popular. The low number of reviews indicate abysmal user awareness and interest, which may have lead to the developers ceasing to release updates (and vice-versa).

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Apple users tend to like Apple things. Typically, the user's experience will be the best when all of their hardware is Apple. However, Google is hoping that iOS users will change course and shun the Apple TV in favor of its inexpensive Chromecast device.

Today, Google took a big step towards its goal by releasing a Chromecast app for iOS. Will it be enough to lure Apple users from the Apple TV?

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