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.
Google I/O 2012 has so far exceeded all expectations I had from the event. The number and variety of announcements is enough to rival Apple’s at WWDC. So far, we’ve seen an updated version of Android (4.1 Jelly Bean), a Nexus tablet, a show-stopping Google Glasses demo and, the news we will be discussing in this post, new Google+ apps and features. Check it out after the jump.
A few days back we reported that Apple might give Podcasts a brand new home in iOS 6 with a dedicated app on its own. In a rather interesting move, Apple has pushed out the said app for iPhone and iPad users and it does exactly what it says on the tin, brings all your podcasts in one place for you to consume/enjoy on your device.
Apple has invested a lot of time and money into their mobile devices and the advanced iOS software that powers them. Hardware such as the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad are some of the most powerful examples of mobile consumer tech on the market today, with Apple's mobile operating system being the perfect companion, thanks to its advanced features and elegant aesthetics.
The second beta version of iOS 6 - currently only available to registered developers - has just landed, and thanks to Dev Team’s Redsn0w, it can be jailbroken already on A4 devices like the iPhone 4, iPod touch 4G, iPhone 3GS. Of course, the jailbreak is tethered, which means you will need to connect your device to a computer with Redsn0w installed each time your device is turned off or rebooted, but you knew that already.
The development team over at Google have today pushed the button on the 1.2.7812 update for their iOS Gmail application and with it comes a number of improvements, feature upgrades and user-interface changes that have been specifically requested by Gmail users. The official iOS Gmail client has come in for quite a bit of criticism since its launch due to the fact that some feel it is little more than a wrapper for the web service and does not offer a true native experience, something Google hopes the update will help with.
Anyone who has been in the jailbreaking game for any significant length of time will more than likely have a set of favored packages which always get installed to the device after a fresh jailbreak. As new packages and enhancements become available, that list may become a lengthy one, but the underlying core set of extensions is usually set in stone for a lot of people. Although a relatively new package, the Deck home screen action bar for iPhone and iPod touch managed to quickly make its way to the top of a lot of users charts due its unique implementation and functionality.
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.
I’m a big fan of music discovery services but, unfortunately, the most popular ones like Pandora, Spotify, last.FM don’t work outside a handful of supported countries where streaming music from big music labels is allowed. Outside these countries, you have services like GrooveShark which, really, is the poor man’s Spotify. There is, however, one not-so-famous service that not only works outside the USA and Europe but also offers excellent music discovery features for free.
When Tim Cook and his executive team took center stage at the Moscone Center earlier on this month, it didn't come as any great surprise when they mentioned that the new Maps app is Apple’s in-house solution and they are ditching Google Maps altogether. The fact that Apple has been building their own maps system had been widely reported on during the build up to WWDC 2012, with Cook and his cohorts only serving to officially confirm that it was happening.
