Articles about iOS

In what can only be described as a turning point for post-PC operating systems, cumulative Android device sales now exceed iOS, and in a shorter time period. Today, during a special media event, Apple reduced the cumulative number of iOS sales to 400 million -- that would be since iPhone's debut in June 2007. But yesterday, Google put Android sales at 500 million, from the G1's launch four years ago this month. The days of iOS' perennial lead are over.

Android has been on the catch-up track for better part of the year. At the end of June cumulative iOS shipments were 410 million, according to Apple. Why CEO Tim Cook put the number at 10 million less today is anyone's guess. Days before the quarter ended, Google put cumulative Android shipments at 400 million. A few months earlier: 365 million and 300 million, respectively. Daily Android activations now total 1.3 million, up from 900,000 in June, according to Google.

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Today, gadget tastemaker Apple is expected to unveil a host of new products, including a new iPhone, new iPods, and perhaps even an update to the bête noire that is iTunes. In all likelihood, the "iPhone 5" will be the scene-stealer of this event, which will add some small, incremental changes to the obnoxiously popular device. The changes documented herein are sure to be labeled as life-changing and essential by the bike-riding gentrification brigade, and be labeled as Android copies by the cloak-wearing dungeon masters. Since we've sat through six different iPhone unveilings, we've decided to call this one as we see it...

Today's event begins at 10:00 am PDT (1:00 pm Eastern), and all updates appear in reverse chronological order (i.e. newest posts first), and yes, you do actually have to refresh the page.

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Ahead of the Apple event rumored to be the unveiling of a new, smaller iPad, Google on Tuesday released an updated native YouTube application for Apple's smaller-screen iOS devices.

The new application for iPhone and iPod touch speeds up video discovery with an improved channel guide and search functionality, improved sharing capabilities, and a larger roster of compatible videos.

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Apple on Tuesday officially distributed its invitations to the media for an event on September 12 in the company's usual spot for press conferences, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, California.

The big number twelve on the invitation is casting a shadow that is shaped like the number five, which has naturally lead many to believe this is the event for the "iPhone 5," or fifth generation of Apple's iPhone. The iPhone 5 moniker has been in use since before the iPhone 4S was released, but as Dave Caolo of the Unofficial Apple Weblog jokingly pointed out on Twitter, it could just as easily mean a 5" iPad.

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#Antisec, The loosely-organized black hat security collective formerly known as Lulzsec has released a file containing a million and one (1,000,001) Apple Unique Device Identifications (UDIDs), and their related APNs (Apple Push Notification Service) tokens, as well as a certain amount of personal user information. The group claims the information was not taken from Apple directly, but rather though a vulnerability exploit on FBI Agent Christopher K. Stangl last March.

The group claims there were actually more than twelve million UDIDs on Stangl's Dell Vostro notebook, as well as an incomplete list of zip codes, mobile phone numbers, home addresses, and whatever personal detail fields could be obtained. Antisec said there were no other files in the same folder that mention the list or its purpose.

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Samsung's recently-announced Windows Phone 8 smartphone, the ATIV is oozing with power and modernity, and that is what the Windows Phone software needs to finally become a dominant platform.

A platform needs flagship devices --smartphones and tablets-- to showcase what it can do in front of (possibly) billions of people, and hardware-wise it doesn't get any better than Android and iOS devices displaying their inner strength, their performance. Android takes first place and iOS second in the smartphone charts, and they have halo devices to represent them. Windows Phone, meanwhile, has been a mere shadow behind the two flexing their muscles. The Samsung Galaxy S III best represents Android as much as the iPhone 4S best represents iOS, but what does Windows Phone 7.5 have to show? A single-core CPU with 512MB of RAM and a GPU that was news a few years ago? That doesn't cut it...

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I can't win. Just when I think I've finally cooked-up the perfect post-PC computing recipe, along comes some killjoy to spoil all the fun. This time around it's Apple. The Cupertino goon squad is on a mission to stomp out all unauthorized uses of lowercase letter "i" (among other things), and my latest pet project -- moving my entire computing life to a non-PC device -- is about to fall victim to their litigious ways.

You see, I made the unforgivable decision to deviate from Apple's proscribed post-PC formula (i.e. iPhone/iPad) and instead embrace the ways of the rebel Android Army. After several weeks of tweaking and tuning, I've finally achieved a level of PC-independence I never thought possible. But given last week's Apple-Samsung jury decision, I fear it may have all been for naught. That's because the reverberations from such a landmark case will no doubt spread far beyond its principle defendant (you didn't really think this was about hardware, did you?) to strike at the very heart of Google's OS strategy.

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Just like Firefox, Chrome rockets through version numbers as though it is going out of fashion. Although Google’s foray into the world of web browsers for iPhone and iPad is fairly recent, Chrome for iOS already is version 21. The latest release is a relatively minor one, but there is still one feature that brings the browser in line with other more socially aware apps.

The big news in this release: addition of new sharing options. Found a website that you think your friends will love? There is no need to copy and paste the URL into an email as there are now new sharing options built directly into the app. A new popup menu lets you share pages through Google+, Facebook, Twitter or via email.

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Second in a series. "My name is MB and I'm an addict" is what I would say at the first Early Adopters Anonymous meeting.

I'm driven by an addiction to try a product as soon as possible, at the earliest point in its life cycle and I can (silently) admit to it being a compulsive behavior. It's not that I don't enjoy it, but I feel that's what I should do with every new product that I can get my geeky hands on. Yes, that's the second confession, and I'm fairly certain it will not be the last either.

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Social gaming just used to be about having fun, but now there’s a real-money element creeping in. First Gamesys launched a Facebook app that allowed UK residents aged 18 and over to play for real cash prizes while interacting with friends, and now Big Fish Games is getting in on the act with Big Fish Casino for iOS devices. The game is a relaunched and rebranded version of Card Ace: Casino, from recently acquired Self Aware Studios, that offers new games and additional social features, and will soon also allow UK users to play slots for real money.

If the thought of wagering your earnings on spinning reels doesn’t do it for you, you might be more interested to hear that the real-money feature, powered by UK-licensed online gaming company Betable, will also be available in blackjack, roulette and video poker in the coming months.

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At the end of 2011, Microsoft released Office OneNote for iPad, bringing the cult favorite note-taking application to all of Apple's devices.

But major shortcomings with the freemium OneNote for iPad app have earned it a significant number of negative reviews in the iTunes App Store. Third-party iPad app Outline+, released at the end of July, seeks to provide fixes to these complaints. So far, the app tackles two of the major issues plaguing the iPad version of OneNote: syncing and formatting.

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Well, hell's bells. Apple sold about as many iPhones as Wall Street expected during second quarter after all. That's the big, glaring takeaway I see from phone sales data Gartner released today. The numbers also show something else: The analyst firm either has really lousy methodology (which I doubt), or Apple apologists have been wrong all along (as I've asserted for years). Gartner reports 28.94 million iPhones sold, to Apple's 26.03 million.

Gartner is the only major analyst firm tracking actual handset sales to end users, while others record shipments into the channel. Apple does the same, although every time Samsung reports smartphone numbers, Apple apologists rush to claim the figures are shipped while calling iPhone's numbers sales. Not so. Apple reports shipments, too, and corresponding revenue, which comes from sales to cellular carriers, other third parties and direct sales. As such, Gartner's numbers rarely reconcile with Apple's, but they're usually lower. For second quarter, they're considerably higher. The difference is significant, and in Apple's favor.

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If Surface is the hit Microsoft hopes it will be, there’s the possibility that Apple might follow suit with an OS X powered MacPad at some point in the future (well, we can hope, can’t we?). The good news is you don’t actually have to wait for Apple, before trying out OS X on a tablet, you just need OS X Pad HD.

The advanced theme from Fnet Designs transforms your iPad into a Mac tablet with a fully functional Finder bar, and lets you add apps to the dock and change its style to match any of the 70 available wallpapers (or your own), create sidebar folders for Finder windows, and access settings and customization options through the System Preferences Menu. All software updates are applied directly through the theme.

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Some people don’t like tablets, while others defend them. I’ve often wondered why people seem so crazy about them, but that is mostly because what I do requires me to run Windows, and Windows-based tablets (aka slates in the Microsoft Store) are neither popular nor cheap, especially with the hardware configuration that I need.

I say need, not want, because it is mission-critical that I finish the task at hand in a decent amount of time, and to do that requires powerful hardware. But there’s another reason as well, and it involves the size of the display. In one of my previous articles, I wrote that real work can’t be done on a tablet and I gave five reasons as to why it’s (still) true. Today, I’d like to add the sixth reason to that list: Most tablet displays are too small.

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Acer CEO JT Wang has been quoted as saying Microsoft's Surface could have a negative impact on the Windows ecosystem, frustrate OEMs, and potentially have far-flung negative consequences. Why is there a problem when Microsoft wants to set a standard in both hardware and software? Windows Phone, Surface, and Signature represent a generational shift in Microsoft’s thinking related to operating systems, hardware, and the intended software experience. This is the Microsoft that should surface (no pun intended) from every interaction with one of their products, and who’s to say that’s not a good thing?

When Microsoft announced Surface, I immediately saw great potential for people like me who need advanced software to perform real tasks that require an intensive use of resources. But at the same time, Microsoft Surface gave a glimpse of what’s to come: Microsoft can actually make hardware to its own specifications and design. It is an approach that has been slowly coming to the front with Microsoft which began three years ago, before the debut of the first Windows Phone. Working closely with HTC, Microsoft could make sure the hardware performed in such a way that its software looked better.

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