Google is firing on all cylinders at Google I/O 2012. They’ve announced a new, much improved version of Android – Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, an accompanying Nexus tablet that’s getting rave reviews, new and updated Google apps and services and, more recently, Google Chrome for iOS devices.
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.
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Google is on a roll at I/O, with the second day of proceedings again bringing in a number of notable announcements and releases that will certainly please iOS users. Day two of the event is well underway with delegates and attending developers being informed that Google's Chrome browser has been released for iPhone and iPad and is now available for download immediately.
It doesn't matter how old we get or what we currently have going on in our professional and private lives, I am pretty sure that every single one of us would love to slip into a superhero costume and take to the streets looking for social wrongs to put right. Regardless of whether you want to be Superman, Batman, The Green Lantern or one of the other spandex clad heroes, the time has come for you to lock yourself indoors and prepare for some serious web slinging action as Gameloft has officially released The Amazing Spider-Man game for iOS and Android.
Owners and lovers of devices running the Android operating system will regularly tell you that one of the shortcomings of iOS is the fact that the visuals of the software can't really be customized in any way. While this may be true for stock installations of Apple's mobile operating system, performing a jailbreak on the device leaves the whole system open to intense customization.
It seems like only yesterday when Apple entered the smartphone market with the release of the beautiful and unique iPhone. At that time, it was thought to be a bit of a gutsy move considering they had no experience in that sector and were attempting to compete in an industry that already seemed saturated with big names such as Nokia and Samsung.
If you’re an iPhone owner since 2007, the introduction of iOS 6 may represent what seems like the passing of an old friend as Apple cast out the old and brought in the new with the replacement of Google Maps with their own mapping system. A large group of users are willing to embrace change and really have no opinion on the situation, but with Google providing a tried and tested comprehensive mapping experience, some are understandably skeptical about the whole affair.
Most of us wince apprehensively when we've dropped our smartphone, cautiously edging towards the ground, praying to the Gods that it remains in full working order. That said, there's certainly a perverse pleasure in watching three gleaming, brand-new specimens of the most powerful, popular devices being dropped from various different heights. Well, there is for me, anyway.
Whenever Apple announces a new major build of iOS, it is always seeded to registered developers in the first instance, with the theory being that they can test out their apps for compatibility and ready them for the final build and also file bug reports which they find with Apple. In that sense, Apple tends to treat their registered developers as there own tried and trusted software testers, something that has worked out well historically.
