After what has seemed like a good couple of years of waiting by the sidelines and hoping consumers would buy into its Windows Phone ecosystem, Microsoft appears to be taking a much more proactive role in helping draft in new users. Having recently launched an iPad trade-in promotion offering two hundred bucks for your old iPad, the Redmond outfit has decided to run something similar for those wielding an iPhone. By heading over to your local Microsoft Store, the company will give you $200 credit towards a new device if you decide to get rid of your old iPhone 4s or 5, and with quite a few new entries to the Windows Phone range during the past few months, it could be an attractive proposition to a potential upgrader.
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With the iPhone launch now, to all intents and purposes, out of the way, attention has quickly begun to turn to the iPad 5 and iPad mini 2, both of which are expected to be in line for some significant changes at some point next month. While it is widely assumed that the full-size Apple slate will take on a more iPad mini-esque form factor, the smaller of the two slabs is also in line for a few respectable upgrades of its own, and a new leaking of the iPad mini 2's shell via a Chinese site appears to indicate that we'll be seeing both the Touch ID fingerprint sensor and the popular gold color configuration.
It's the bane of many a Windows user's life. When you're using it more frequently than your poor digits care to stretch, it's often a tell-tale sign that you're opening too many apps and lagging your PC up, or you have some sort of malware / infectious outbreak on your hands. I am, of course, referring to the famed Ctrl-Alt-Del combination often sought by Windows users as a last resort to the Task Manager as well as a login mechanism, and after umpteen years as an omni-present feature, Microsoft co-founder and Chairman Bill Gates has stepped out and confirmed that it was actually a mistake.
Samsung has just come through with a Galaxy S4 Gold Edition, and with murmurings prior to the Note 3's release that the company was working on fingerprint sensing technology, some had suggested that latest addition to the the iconic phablet range could include a feature comparable to that of Apple's new Touch ID. But the South Korean outfit has stepped out to clarify that this is not the case, and as the Korean Herald reports, there's no plan to develop an iPhone 5s-like feature at any time soon.
Apple's AirPlay Mirroring feature has been popular among those in ownership of several Cupertino-made devices, but while folks on Google's Android have many similar alternatives, few offer the smooth ease-of-use that Apple's offering is famed for. But the team behind CyanogenMod are working on a system that brings AirPlay Mirroring-esque services to those on Android, and given how dedicated this group of individuals always seem to be, we don't doubt that when it does arrive, it will be a very well polished competitor.
Rumors have been ongoing for some time, perhaps even years, in the suggestion that Apple would be ditching the little black Apple TV box in favor of something more substantial, like a connected TV. But while certain analysts seem adamant that this will be the case, the time has not yet come, and for the time being, we're to make do with the device that Steve Jobs once described as "hobby." Yet, while there hasn't been much by way of updates in the past couple of years, the short period of time following WWDC has seen quite a bit of new Apple TV content added, and as well as Disney, ESPN and a plethora of others, it looks as though soccer and Disney fans now have something to shout about.
Upon first setting your eyes on Apple's new iOS 7, there are some pretty obvious changes. In fact, it's fair to say, compared with previous releases, that the latest, greatest version is the the break from the mold, but while the flattening and general brightening is apparent at first glance, some of the tweaks are only revealed once you begin using the new firmware. The whole experience has become a great deal more animated than ever before, but while these do add a nice touch of finesse to proceedings, not everybody has been thrilled with them.
Since Microsoft's Kinect peripheral really brought motion-based interaction to the fore, a bunch of companies have sought to take things a step further, and having already been dazzled by Leap Motion's effort to manipulate Windows by means of air gestures, it would seem that Microsoft is now working on a way to integrate Kinect with its flagship operating system.
Amid the unprecedented turnout for the iPhone 5s, the launch of Samsung's Galaxy Note 3 has certainly found itself playing second fiddle, and although the Korean company is also the first of the big names to come through with a smartwatch, even the new wearable gizmo has scarcely managed to get a look in. But today, at least for consumers in the United Kingdom and 58 other countries, both the Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Gear are now available to purchase, and if you were thinking of purchasing Samsung's two latest exports as a bundle, there are some pretty decent savings to be had.
As well as being the very first smartphone on the market packing a 64-bit processor, Apple's iPhone 5s also features an M7 motion coprocessor, allowing processes to be more efficiently managed while also preserving those essential droplets of battery life. But while these new hardware upgrades are great and all, their powers can only be fully recognized once developers adapt their apps to take advantage of them, and Strava Run, the socially-swayed training app, is the first such utility to make use of the Cupertino's new coprocessor.
