It should be common news by now that Apple has taken the decision to have an executive shake-up in Cupertino, with a number of notable faces set to leave the company in 2013. One of the most well-known casualties of the internal restructure is Scott Forstall who has held the role of Senior Vice President of iOS over the last few years. Forstall has been in charge of developing and handling the direction of iOS and has reportedly been shown the door due to his inability to play nice with other executives, as well as the publicly perceived shortcomings in the new Apple mapping system and the Siri digital assistant.
Apple's recently released iPad mini is already reported to be a good seller for the company, with three million units of the iPad mini and iPad 4 claimed to have been shipped in just three days of sales. Despite so-called experts deriding the lack of a Retina display, we didn't really expect anything different, did we?
Apple has posted the iPad mini User Guide, and if you wish to download it, you can do so by following the link embedded at the end of this post. Whenever a new iOS device hits the market, the user guide always arrives fashionably late, and while the "Fingertips" leaflet provided with said iPhone, iPad or iPod touch gives users a general idea of how to get started with their shiny new device, the User Guide offers more in-depth coverage.
The iPad mini has had to deal with a fair amount of criticism since its launch, and similarly, there have been quite a few outcries regarding Apple's decision to throw out a new iPad just seven months after releasing its predecessor. The lingering wave of skepticism clearly doesn't seem to have affected sales adversely though, and Apple has just announced the sale of three million new iPad units, which is double previous weekend record of 1.5 million set by the launch of the iPad 3 in March.
Apple's Siri may never shrug off that 'beta' moniker, but what it does mean is that the company can continue to add features to the voice-powered digital assistant, seemingly on the fly.
Although the Apple TV is still officially classed as hobby project for Apple that takes its place behind the likes of the iPhone and iPad, it is a piece of kit that is growing in popularity and prominence with more units shipping each quarter. Apple have showed recent signs of taking the Apple TV more seriously with the addition of streaming content such as the iTunes Festival and their own media event keynotes but until they add some powerful extensions and features, it may continue to live as the company's hobby creation. Thankfully, the jailbreak world loves to pay attention to unloved iOS devices and it now seems possible to control the Apple TV using basic voice commands.
One of the biggest Apple-related news items last week - other than the launch of the iPad 4 and iPad mini - was the announcement from CEO Tim Cook that Senior Vice President (VP) of iOS Software, Scott Forstall and Head of Retail John Browett would be leaving the company in 2013.
The “Apple products are cool” saga only reached a conclusion last week when the fruit company made its apology, and today, Apple’s UK website has now clarified the original issue, along with ads in several UK newspapers.
Along with the release of any new hardware from Apple, we start to see an influx of TV ads soon after. The iPad mini is proving itself to be yet another blockbuster from the Cupertino company, and staying true to their previous trend, Apple has released the first ever TV ad for the miniature iPad.
The iPad 3 has had the shortest shelf life of any Apple tablet in existence. Having arrived only in March in a blaze of glory, it's quickly been replaced by the fourth-generation iPad, and although the aesthetic changes are negligible (the Lightning cable has replaced the 30-pin job), internally, the newer of the two is said to be "twice as fast."
