Articles about iOS

This week Atari, the game system that my generation grew up with, filed for bankruptcy. It's a sad end to an icon of youth, but, still, the company's legal troubles do not spell an end to everything. First, while there are legal nuances that I will not detail because of the complications they bring with them, the important thing is what Atari meant to all of us -- games. Simple, 8-bit joy, created with the 2600 way back in the dark ages of 1977.

Just because the company experiences financial woe does not mean its legacy will cease to exist. The games live on in many forms, and we can still relive our youth whenever that nostalgic mood strikes.

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Barack Obama is now officially in his second term as President of the United States, following the January 20 inaugural swearing in. We have another four years of Obama, but does he have another four years of BlackBerry? He is by far the most profile Crackberry, in 2009 fighting to keep his smartphone in the face of opposition. (You think Apple losing that iPhone 4 in a bar was bad? Imagine the president leaving his handset behind.) But Obama is President and Commander-in-Chief and got to keep his Canadian gem.

But it's a new administration, and Obama appoints new cabinet members. Which of them is more important, gets more attention than his smartphone? So the question: Should he stick with BlackBerry or switch platforms?

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Users of the satellite TV provider’s free Sky Go service -- which enables subscribers to watch live Sky channels and on-demand programming on mobiles and tablets -- will soon be able to download TV shows and movies on their portable devices.

According to Sky, this will make it the first mobile TV subscription service to offer downloadable Hollywood movies in the UK and Ireland.

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Amazon has created a mobile MP3 store optimized specifically for use on iPhones and iPod touches. Built on HTML5, the new store lets users browse the 22 million strong MP3 catalog, and buy tracks directly.

"Since the launch of the Amazon Cloud Player app for iPhone and iPod touch, a top request from customers has been the ability to buy music from Amazon right from their devices," Steve Boom, Vice President of Amazon Music said. "For the first time ever, iOS users have a way do that -- now they can access Amazon’s huge catalog of music, features like personalized recommendations, deals like albums for $5, songs for $0.69, and they can buy their music once and use it everywhere".

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I'm not an investor or financial analyst. But I do have a measure of commonsense. Lots of people are asking about Apple's falling stock price and why it is. You don't need a MBA or ponder price-earnings ratios to, by commonsense, see what's happening. Apple is undergoing a long-overdue course correction. It's the new normal, baby, get used to it.

Analysts making wild-eyed predictions just months ago about $1,000 a share or bloggers banging keyboards about $1 billion market capitalization are nutty fruitcakes. Apple cofounder Steve Jobs is gone, so they made their own Kool-Aid and spiked it. They're the only thing getting high here. Apple is laid low.

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So much for that Windows 8 pick-me-up. The PC market got no 5-Hour Energy lift during fourth quarter. If anything, the personal computer is out of shape and out of breath, and no Microsoft personal trainer can change that. Gartner calls the current crisis -- and it is for the WinTel and MacTel folks -- a "structural shift". The tablet is the slimmer and shapelier alternative, and it kicks the PC's ass all over the work-out floor.

"Tablets have dramatically changed the device landscape for PCs, not so much by 'cannibalizing' PC sales, but by causing PC users to shift consumption to tablets rather than replacing older PCs", Mikako Kitagawa, Gartner principal analyst, says. "Whereas as once we imagined a world in which individual users would have both a PC and a tablet as personal devices, we increasingly suspect that most individuals will shift consumption activity to a personal tablet, and perform creative and administrative tasks on a shared PC. There will be some individuals who retain both, but we believe they will be exception and not the norm. Therefore, we hypothesize that buyers will not replace secondary PCs in the household, instead allowing them to age out and shifting consumption to a tablet".

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Shortly after Apple launched its disastrous maps app, Google’s CEO Larry Page made a comment regarding how it had taken Google seven years of hard work to get to where it’s at now. Seven years sounds like a long time, but it pales into insignificance when compared to the 232 years that British mapping agency Ordnance Survey has been making and refining its maps.

It’s rather surprising that it’s taken this long for the OS to put its work on iOS, but the agency has at last come up with an official app. OS MapFinder isn’t a straight alternative to Google Maps or Apple Maps though. Rather, as Ordnance Survey puts it, the app is "aimed at walkers, ramblers, runners, cyclists and generally anyone looking to enjoy the outdoors".

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Following on from the success of last year’s hugely popular Olympics app, BBC Sport has released a new sports app for iOS, with an Android version to follow in the coming weeks.

The new app displays the headlines from the BBC Sport website, and lets you view the latest scores and results for all of the major sports, including football (soccer), rugby, cricket, tennis, and horse racing. The Quick Links button lets you select any of your favorite sports. Choose football, for example, and you’ll be able to view live scores, results, fixtures, and more. The app will also provide live text coverage of England's cricket Test matches, rugby union's Six Nations, and the forthcoming Formula 1 season.

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Apple ended 2012, Tim Cook's first full year as CEO, with a whimper. Analyst, blogger, reporter and social commentator puppy-love adoration gave way to persistent angst-questions about what's next and why the stock, which soared in September, soured through most of fourth quarter. Shares closed at $549.03, 22 percent down from the 52-week high. I can only describe 2012 as Apple's year of iteration and wonder where will be innovation this year. After all, the bitten-fruit logo company has a reputation to live up to.

By the financials, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company is the golden child. Starting in 2010, money poured in faster than the US Mint could print greenbacks. Apple takes in more cash than any other tech company ($156.51 billion during fiscal 2012), commands the largest market cap ($516.47 billion) and sits on a cash horde of at least $120 billion. But these capital gains come from past strategic investments, lucky timing (transition to the so-called post-PC era) and brilliant brand revival marketing and product execution. For the long haul, I predict that 2012 will be remembered as the year Apple stumbled -- as companies often do at the height of success -- and in this case following the tragic loss of its visionary cofounder.

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Although New York City manages to pack a huge number of people into Times Square every New Year's Eve to watch the famous ball drop, most of us have to settle for watching it on TV. That is not necessarily a bad thing -- if you have ever talked to someone who has actually been there then you may conclude that you never want to be among the crowd, given the requirements and the hassle that attendees go through.

Thanks to the Times Square Official Ball App you don’t have to be in front of a TV at midnight this December 31st, to follow all of the action. You just need to have your Android or iOS smartphone or tablet at hand -- sorry Windows Phone users.

The app is not new this year, but has been updated with support for tablets and larger screen phones. According to the app’s website, it not only provides the live video feed of the big event, but also includes extras like the ability to submit your own New Year's Eve photos. The best shots will be displayed on the big screen right in Times Square. It also contains "everything you need to know about the Times Square New Year’s Eve Celebration, including the history, news, weather, photos, relevant maps and LIVE Show schedule".

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If there's one word that best describes my personal tech use for 2012, change is definitely it. For the most part of the year I "cheated" one platform with another, with no particular personal favorite to get me through (almost) 365 days. Each piece of software and hardware is used for a particular scenario, something that I find rather soothing for my personal early adopter endeavors as well as my sanity. I just can't stand tinkering with the same bit of tech for longer periods of time, although there still is a dear old friend in my life...

My colleagues Alan Buckingham and Wayne Williams already wrote about their personal tech choices in 2012, and now it's my turn. Without further ado here is what I used most throughout the year, starting with my trusty dear old friend.

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To paraphrase Ferris Bueller, "Technology moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it". Smartphones and tablets are being updated, iterated and replaced so quickly these days. Take the iPad. Apple rolled out a new version in March, and then replaced it with a faster model in November. You’re never at the cutting edge for long, so you need to enjoy that moment while you can (not that it really matters if your tech devices are a generation or two behind, of course -- so long as they work and do what you need them to).

My colleague Alan Buckingham wrote the first of the BetaNews team’s personal tech retrospectives yesterday. Now it’s my turn.

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Google’s new mapping app for iPhone was always going to be a hit. People trust Google to get them where they want to go and it’s a great product. The fact the app stormed to the top of the App Store charts less than a day after its release provided a pretty clear clue as to its popularity.

And now Google has revealed just how big a success Google Maps is on iOS, announcing via a Google+ post that the app was downloaded more than 10 million times in less than 48 hours. A staggering number. Google doesn’t usually reveal download figures for its apps, but clearly this is something of a special case. As good as that news is for Google, it’s another slice of bad news for Apple which was probably hoping people’s dislike of its mapping tool had been exaggerated by the media.

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For more than a decade I've quipped: "In business perception is everything". For some brands, this axiom is truer than for others. Apple leads the list, much to its determent. For more than a month now, I've read speculative stories from all quarters trying to figure out why the company's stock tailspins. Some people blame the fiscal cliff, others taxes. Meanwhile, the anti-Apple crowd delights in rumors iPhone sales are slowing and the mini cannibalizes iPad 4 sales. There's an aura of doom that I can only describe as the anti-reality distortion field.

Earlier today, Apple shares briefly dipped below $500, a low not seen since around Valentine's Day. Bloggers are beside themselves posting about this catastrophe -- or so they see it. I laugh, because they are a large part of the company's falling stock price problem. All these stories contribute to negative perceptions that feed the frenzy. That's one part of the answer to how someone nicked an artery and Apple bled about $200 per share, or 27 percent decline, from September's $705.07 record high. These bloggers were, and still are, detached from reality -- like analysts covering the company. Just two months ago, the Apple Fan Club gloated about projections of $1,000 a share. Now they run around like street people holding signs "The World Ends Dec. 21!" as shares slip and analyst cut back projections.

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What Apple takes away, Google gives back. Early this morning, Google Maps arrived for iPhone, replacing the app removed by Apple with release of iOS 6. The company's homegrown product proved nothing short of disastrous, for the fruit-logo brand and customers using the app/service. Earlier this week, law enforcement in Australia warned against using Apple Maps, after motorists were misdirected and their lives put at risk.

Reviews rightly have been scathing, while iPhone users cried not to Apple but Google for direction. Now that it's here, irony comes along. Android's developer may do more for current iOS than its maker. A surprising number of people held back iOS 6 upgrades or iPhone 5 purchases, not wanting to give up Google Maps or take on Apple's replacement.

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