Thus far, Apple has launched the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in just under 30 nations, with the initial roll-out in the United States, United Kingdom and several others on September 19th followed closely by the addition of a further 20 countries only last Friday. Conspicuous by its absence, however, has been China, an emerging market with something of an affinity to Apple's product line-up. But with the news having trickled out to the blogosphere a short while ago that Chinese regulators has approved both of the Mac maker's new smartphones for retail, Apple has now confirmed that the larger handsets will be available throughout the world's most populous nation as of October 17th.
Apple has just released bash updates for OS X 10.9 Mavericks, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and OS X 10.7 Lion. These can be downloaded and installed by all users concerned by the well-documented Shellshock vulnerability, which has caused quite the stir over the past few days. We've all of the details, along with those all-important download links, right here.
Apple has just released iOS 8.1 beta 1 download for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users. The first beta build carries a build number of 12B401 and is available to download immediately for registered developers, and is likely an update which includes support for Apple Pay and other bug fixes.
Ordinarily, Apple releases a major enhancement to its mobile software in September, with a further, '.1' update arriving early on in the following year. However, iOS 8's schedule of updates will see the Cupertino pushing out the changes much more aggressively, with three major new releases set to arrive before iOS 9. Not only has iOS 8 brought so much to the table already, but there's still a great deal to come, and so along with the customary iOS 8.1 update, expect to see iOS 8.2 and a further iOS 8.3 as Apple seeks to roll out and establish the likes of Health / HomeKit, CarPlay, Apple Pay and several other potential game-changers.
We heard late on last week that Apple could be plotting the roll out of a refreshed Mac mini next month to coincide with the launch of OS X 10.10 Yosemite as well as the iPad mini 3 and iPad Air 2. A new report has added another release to a growing list of touted products set to arrive over the next few weeks, noting that Apple is also set to take the wraps off a 27-inch iMac with Retina display. Citing sources familiar with Apple's product movements, the report suggests that this as-yet unannounced keynote may be much larger than first anticipated, but like the purported Mac mini refresh, the Cupertino company will be forced into using the ageing Haswell processor from Intel rather than the imminent Broadwell.
Microsoft's next version of Windows has been casually referred to as "Windows 9", which makes a great deal of sense given that the current Windows 8.x was preceded by Windows 7. But while it's still a distinct possibility that the software giant will retain the numbered system, the company has also tried to ramp up hype of the impending Windows Technical Preview by keeping enthusiasts guessing as to what name the next major build will take, and with an official moniker expected to be officially revealed soon, a site set up specifically for the Tech. Preview appears to have slipped "Windows TH".
As well as opening up the keyboard aspect of its mobile software to third parties, Apple's iOS 8 has also treated the stock offering to a much-needed overhaul. The autocorrect-befuddled experience that users had begrudgingly grown accustomed to was certainly below the standards being set on Google's Android, but as well as introducing some SwiftKey-like features to the iOS 8 typing repertoire, Apple has also brought a more substantial predictive text to the fore. Not only will it correct your sentences within the context of what you've written before - unlike Auto-correct for the most part - but it'll also have a pretty good pop at guessing the next word in your sequence. One cartoonist thought it would be interesting / entertaining to see whether iOS 8's new keyboard could pick up on famous movie quotes using predictive text, and while it didn't exactly come up trumps, it did produce some quite hilarious alternatives.
iOS 8 has brought a considerable amount to the table in terms of features, many of which are specific to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. With larger displays, there's definitely something of a learning curve involved for those long-time iPhone users accustomed to much less real estate, and so to make it easier for smaller fingers and thumbs to reach all of the UI elements, Apple introduced a neat feature called Reachability. As suggested by the name, the implementation enables iOS 8 users on iPhone 6 or 6 Plus to reach the upper tiers of the interface with two light taps of the Touch ID fingerprint sensor, which pushes the entire UI downwards, and although your iOS 7-running device mightn't necessitate such a feature, the jailbreak community has nonetheless obliged.
Now that Consumer Reports has released its report into whether the iPhone 6 Plus bends too easily or not, we're all of the desperate hope that the whole Bendgate debacle will die a death as soon as possible. Even if it does though, there's always someone willing to take something that's already a little bit crazy and then take it to an extreme that few could imagine.
Apple's release of iOS 8.0.2 brought with it not just the rather important fixes for some rather massive bugs, but also finally brought the world of third-party apps in line with the new HealthKit framework originally touted for iOS 8. After pulling support for apps that tied into Health from the final release of the latest big release of its mobile OS, Apple has now re-instated it while pushing a handful of app updates that mean users can now take advantage of the company's attempt to put all our health and fitness data into one place.
















