It was in January 2007 when Steve Jobs, on stage at Macworld, proudly announced the original iPhone. It was, according to Jobs, a revolutionary three-in-one product: a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone and a breakthrough Internet communications device. It was released on June 29th the same year for $599 with a contract on AT&T. Now, if you notice the release date, that’s exactly five years from today.
It really isn’t a big secret that the smartphone and tablet industry is an extremely competitive marketplace to be in. The iOS and Android operating systems are undoubtedly the two major players in this space, with Apple having sold more than 250 million iPhones in the last five years following the original launch and Google currently activating 1 million Android devices every day. The competition between the two platforms has always been a fierce one, but with Apple announcing their own mapping system in iOS 6 to rival the tried and tested Google Maps, the competition has ramped up another notch.
Back before the first iPad was announced and when the rumor-mill was in full force, everyone pretty much knew that a tablet was on the way, but nobody really knew what form that tablet would take. Whilst many thought that the tablet would indeed turn out as it did, some were more hopeful that Apple would simply offer an OS X-like machine that resembled a MacBook Pro, but in tablet form. Sort of like one of those Tablet PCs that nobody bought back in the 1990s. Thankfully, Apple knew better.
As of right now, the existing consumer tablet market is dominated and was essentially created by Apple when it released the first iPad. Since then, Microsoft and Google have been working to catch up and get their foot in the door of this Apple-dominated market. Google's Android tablet OS has managed to gain some ground, and we can expect Windows 8 tablets to hit the shelves later this year. However, in the past two weeks, both Microsoft and Google have announced special tablet hardware devices that they hope will help them gain even more ground in this market.
Apple has been long rumored of entering the home entertainment market with their own HDTV. Sources even claim to have seen the mystical HDTV, describing it as an Apple Cinema Display with a $99 Apple TV built-in. All these strong rumors of Apple releasing a dedicated HDTV have have amounted to absolutely nothing.
Apple, Inc. has in recent months filed so many lawsuits against so many different companies in so many different countries that it is really difficult to keep count. The company is currently embroiled in legal battles with companies like HTC, Motorola and is particular against Samsung Electronics.
Remember a few days back when Samsung won a patent claim over Apple regarding 3G technology? Well now, it has emerged the fruit company has also violated one of Google's (or specifically, Motorola Mobility's) registered innovations, and finance analyst ZeroHedge (via 9to5Mac) believes the Big G is looking to block shipments of the fruit company's iPhone and iPad devices as a result.
Apple has long since claimed a proud reputation for protecting its user base from the perils of viruses and malicious intrusion. Unfortunately, that particular label has been severely damaged over the past couple of months, largely due to the outbreak of the Flashback malware which managed to find its way onto several hundred thousand Macs across much of the world.
When Apple announced iOS 6 - the next installment to its famous mobile operating system - at WWDC earlier this month, the centerpiece feature turned out to be the hotly-rumored Maps app, which, in displacing Google's omni-present Maps offering, will include 3D aesthetics and turn-by-turn navigation.
We are all hoping that everyone at Apple headquarters will wake up in an extremely good mood one day and decide that it will be a perfect time to arrange a spur of the moment media event, announcing the immediate release of the new iPhone. However, we all know that the likelihood is we won't see a hardware release until October of this year, but that doesn't stop us from speculating and discussing what Apple's next-generation iPhone will bring.
