With WWDC just two days away, you could be forgiven for thinking the end of the world was nigh considering the non-stop coverage throughout the tech world. Despite no promise of an iPad or iPhone - the two main instigators of rampant Cupertino commentary, there's still plenty to look forward to, and with so much having been mentioned over the past few days/weeks/months, we take a more classified look at what we're expecting to see.
If ever confirmation was needed that iOS 6 will be showcased at this year's WWDC event - set to kick off on Monday - then one Instagram member has removed any lingering doubt. Brought to our attention by 9to5Mac, Zac Altman, member of the popular social image-sharing app recently acquired by Facebook, has upped a photo showing a new banner being readied over at the Moscone West convention center, confirming beyond dispute that the sixth iteration of Apple's mobile operating system will be a huge significant talking point from Monday.
With every launch of a new a new iOS device and every major Apple conference or media event, there is inevitably going to be a seemingly never-ending string of rumors flying around the world wide web. In the past, we have seen some pretty far fetched and out-there speculation, as well as some conjecture that resonates and turns out to be true.
Our iOS devices offer a variety of services, and when it comes to watching viral videos, few do it better than Google-owned YouTube. Sure, the iOS stock YouTube app is woeful and dated, but thankfully, there are plenty of alternatives out there offering a fuller, altogether more feature-rich YouTubing experience.
While the tech world was largely unaware of what eventually became the iPhone 4S, we have pretty solid evidence of the upcoming Apple smartphone, which has been unofficially labeled the iPhone 5.
Whenever anyone talks about social networking, it is generally the social behemoth Facebook that crops up first in conversation, but with Twitter adding more and more users on a daily basis, the mini micro-blogging service is starting to make some serious waves in the social world. What could be better than mixing the power of a jailbroken iOS device with quick and simple access to two of the world’s largest social forums? And for good measure, throw in voice input support to update your status on said social networks, then we definitely have a winner here.
Google has recently announced big changes to its mobile mapping services, with upcoming features including an interesting-looking offline mode, and with Apple set to ditch Google for its own, in-house iOS maps offering, Google quite clearly needs to remain on its toes in the mobile game.
Considering the amount of excellent and quality apps that are available on the App Store, it goes without saying that iOS device users will more than likely have a decent amount of apps installed upon their device to allow them to complete a wide range of tasks. With all of those apps in one place, all having different abilities and functions, it also stands to reason that notifications are going to be used to allow users to keep track of what is going on, and so that nothing important is missed or overlooked.
With all the rumors and buildup to WWDC surrounding the possible announcement of a new beta release of iOS, Bloomberg has suggested that the news could also accompany a shift in search engine choice for Chinese iOS devices.
Considering we have recently been seeing a lot of speculation surrounding the rumored deep integration of Facebook into iOS 6, I am not entirely sure whether the recent release of the FacebookThis tweak has been put together to take advantage of the current hype or is entirely coincidental. Either way, the package is available in Cydia now for jailbroken iOS 5 devices and allows users to post images directly from within the Photos app to their Facebook timeline.
