Apple's Q2 FY14 earnings call on Wednesday revealed that the sales figures of certain products have not been as strong nor impressive as in previous years, with the iPad numbers in particular having faltered year-on-year. But given the growing number of competitors in both the tablet industry and the emerging "phablet" market, this is perhaps to be expected, and even the popularity of the all new iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina Display haven't prevented sales of the Apple slab from dipping somewhat.
Hitherto, those looking to test out beta releases of Apple's OS X would need to sign up to the Developer Program, which, for $99 per year, looked quite a steep fee for the casual, inquisitive user. Now, however, the Cupertino company has introduced a new OS X Beta Seed Program, whereby users can test out pre-release builds of the Mac software simply by signing up with an Apple ID - no annual fee required.
Thanks to extensions, browsers like Firefox and Chrome can be tailored to suit the needs of the individual users. Once a mere component of the wider computing experience, our browsers are like an OS unto themselves, and every element – irrespective of whether it may be aesthetic or function-related – can be adjusted by means of the many thousands of extensions available.
There's been plenty of speculation recently surrounding Apple's product plans for the remainder of the year. Conjecture and Internet based chit-chat continues to grow regarding what may or may not be included in iOS 8. Most of which will be either confirmed or denied when we get our first glimpse of the firmware in June at WWDC 2014. There's also mounting speculation about the fruit company's plans for the next-generation iPhone, dubbed the iPhone 6, with most focus being specifically placed on the device's display dimensions. Ming-Chi Kuo, of KGI Securities fame, has added fuel to that fire and put the cat amongst the pigeons by releasing a product timeline, indicating that Q3 could be a huge period for Apple.
We had a rough idea that this year's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) would kick off in June because, well.. it nearly always does. But with the Cupertino company having last week finally put any ambiguity to rest by officially announcing the WWDC 2014 event, we're now firmly fixated on what will be uncovered from June 2nd. Adding to the melting pot of information we already have regarding iOS 8 and OS X 10.10, more intriguing tidbits have emerged with regards to what Apple might have in store for this summer and beyond.
Even though Apple's continued effort to push proprietary mediums of physical connectivity goes against the ideals of many commentators, technologists and mobile users in general, there's no doubt that the Lightning dock connection system is the most pleasurable to use on the market right now. The reason for this is its reversibility, which makes the process of hooking up a device just that little bit less tedious, but with USB 3.1, connections via non-Apple gadgets will soon improve in terms of both speed and overall design. On Wednesday, the USB Implementers Forum showcased two new USB 3.1 connector standards, demonstrating how regular USB connectors will soon follow the lead established by Apple.
It's an accepted fact that lithium-ion batteries - by their very nature - will degrade over time. Even if you buy a smartphone and it manages to live up to the outlandish, exaggerated claims made by the manufacturer with regards to how long it can run between charges, we know that after a year or two, retention will decrease considerably. A new power bank, which goes by the name of the BatteryBox, aims to change the current state of play with a revolutionary, energy efficient 'BatteryOS' that prevents degradation and keeps powering your devices efficiently - even five years after you begin using it.
The MacBook Air is arguably Apple's best portable computer. It's thin, it's light and it's powerful enough for the vast majority of people to do everything they could ever want to. But it's lacking one thing, and it's the one thing that people want enough to upgrade to a MacBook Pro for, and that's the Retina display.
Over the last few weeks we have seen a lot of attention being paid to the future of Apple's mobile hardware and software. The annual speculation surrounding the next iteration of iOS has inevitably reared it's head ahead of this year's Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco. We've also been hearing about a number of possible inclusions that could form part of the next-generation iPhone. However, if mobile isn't your thing then a new post on Weiphone that outlines the purported future of Apple's MacBook lineup could be of extreme interest.
The introduction of the radically-redesigned iOS 7 brought a shock to the system of many everyday iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users back in September, but after the previous year's Maps fiasco and the subsequent shake-up this led to in the iOS design team, the techies among us saw it coming. With Jony Ive's influence now apparent throughout the company's mobile OS, we fully expect OS X to follow suit given Apple's craving for uniformity, and designer Danny Giebe has presented us with a concept idea of what this may look like.
