There's been much talk of late regarding Apple's expansive bank balance. As opposed to making a large acquisition like Google or Microsoft with its $100 billion kitty, the fruit company decided a share repurchase program would be a forward-thinking way to utilize some of that eye-watering wealth.
When it comes to mobile apps, the people in the know generally agree that keeping it simpler is the way to go. In fact, one widely used design model for developers is the Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) method which encourages designers and developers to make their creations as simple as possible. Mobile devices function differently from their desktop or notebook counterparts as they don't have as much screen real estate to take advantage of and need to function perfectly through a touchscreen interface.
Of all the essential everyday uses our smartphones give us, the simplest - and perhaps, the most vital - is the alarm clock.
World of Warcraft - a popular MMORPG that has been part of many stereotypes of grown men living in their mothers' basements, playing the game day in and day out - may be headed for the iPhone. Speaking to Senior WoW producer John Lagrave, gaming blog Eurogamer has learned that Blizzard is still determined to get the game ported to the iPhone.
iOS-powered devices such as the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad are hugely popular around the world, with Apple's mobile OS considered to be one of the most complete offerings in the mobile world. Like all major operating systems that are updated periodically, iOS has seen organic growth over its life and has benefitted from multiple feature additions as well as numerous bug fixes. Apple have steadily introduced enhancements to their mobile OS over time which has significantly improved the software and ensured that it clings onto the top spot.
There can be no denying that Apple puts a lot of effort into the native apps that it ships pre-installed with their iOS and Mac OS X operating systems. Some of the installed apps that make up the individual OSes are extremely in-depth and functional pieces of software which are often a lot more advanced that any competing offering that may be available from third-party development studios. With that said, there is always going to be a part of any app, regardless of whether it is part of the operating system or not, that doesn't appeal to users.
The production of the AssistantExtensions tweak for Cydia has made it a lot easier for developers to produce Siri based modifications for download from the Cydia store. Rather than have to do their own groundwork and lay the foundations for hooking into the intelligent assistant, developers can simply build their modification as a plug-in to the already created AssistantExtensions framework making things a lot easier and a lot less time consuming.
Sometimes technology can be used for good, and other times it can be used for evil. The development and inclusion of the Siri intelligent voice assistant on the iPhone 4S is an example of how technological advancements can be a good thing and no matter what a user’s personal opinion of Siri is, we must all agree that is represents an exciting future for human mobile interaction. With that in mind, developers involved in the jailbreak community also have the ability to modify Siri behavior, making her dance to the beat of their drum, which isn't always a good thing.
While there's no shortage of mouse and trackpad apps available for our mobile devices, any app updated to take advantage of the gorgeous new Retina display of the iPad are certainly worth our attention.
The world is a marvelous place. Made up of different countries, different cultures and different beliefs. Something that seems perfectly normal to one person could seem amazingly bizarre to another which is one of the things that make this world a wonderful place to live in. However, in some instances it doesn't matter what religion you belong to, what country you come from or what language you speak, some things are universal and transcend international barriers.
