In the November of last year, Apple seeded the initial beta release of iOS 5.1, which as usual was available to registered members of the iOS developer program. The first beta build of 5.1 (9B5117b) was available as download for the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad, iPad 2 and the third and fourth generations of iPod touch.
I never thought that this would be something I'd ever say, but the device that changed my life celebrates its fifth birthday today. Yes, the retroactively named original, or '2G' Phone was first announced by an enthusiastic Steve Jobs during a keynote speech at the Macworld Conference & Expo on January 9th 2007.
Regardless of you opinion on whether or not people should jailbreak their devices, one thing I'm sure we can all agree on is that we have seen the rise of some great development talent due to the community that has been created around the art of jailbreaking. The innovation, creativity and dedication that goes into producing some of the finest tools and utilities that exist within Cydia is commendable, even more so when you consider that a good proportion of them are available free of charge.
Regardless of whether or not you are a gamer, I am sure you are aware of the astronomical rise in popularity of video games in the last decade. In 2007 the estimated vale of the worldwide gaming industry was approximately $41.9 billion, with that total expected to rise at a rate of 9.1% annually. To give some scale as to how far the industry has come, in 1982 the gaming sector was valued at $1.5 billion, in 1990 it was $4.7 billion, in 1997 it was $7 billion and in 2004 it had risen dramatically but was still only valued at $25.4 billion.
With the App Store numbers fast approaching the million mark and 64GB of storage available across the board, it’s pretty easy to accumulate page upon page of SpringBoard icons as we continually binge on the many great titles available.
The chances are that you can relate with this situation. You've got your expensive smartphone, 3G modem or whatnot, and it's somehow ended up submerged in the nearest puddle/bath/wash basin or worse. So, what do you do next? Get on the phone to your insurer?
As much as I love iOS and the devices that it runs on, as a user I have always felt there has been certain aspects of the operating system and the native application experience which are fundamentally broken. In previous articles I have discussed my love of the Photos applications that comes preinstalled on iOS, and the problems that it comes with. Well now it is the turn of the native Messages application to get the same treatment.
If you are anything like me and millions of others around the world, then you without any doubt made a ridiculous New Years resolution, which if history is anything to go by you have no hope whatsoever of keeping. For those keen to know, my particular resolution this year is to release an iPhone game which actually sounds somewhat achievable, but time will tell.
Samsung's instant messaging app, ChatON, is now available for download via Apple's App Store, and it goes straight into competition with Apple's own iMessage.
Profits of HTC have dipped for the first time in two years, with Android Community citing pressure from Apple’s iPhone as the main cause for the decline.
