Apple may have enjoyed a successful 2013 with the iPhone 5s in particular, smashing first-weekend sales records for a smartphone, but even with the impressive number of units shifted, the Cupertino company only has to look at BlackBerry or Nokia for a reminder of where complacency can lead. Thus, with the dust having settled on that major smartphone release, Tim Cook's men are out to discover how iPhone buyers feel about their purchase, specific features like Touch ID, as well as rivaling products like Android. Taking the form of a rather long survey, it looks as though the fruit company is seeking thorough, enlightening feedback in its quest for an even more fruitful 2014.
When iOS 7 was jailbroken one of the first things everyone got excited about was the prospect of being able to re-skin their iPhones and iPads. With the new look that iOS 7 brought with it, the need to customize it became a big deal for some, and the theme they all wanted was Ayecon.
It may have been somewhat forgotten in the big iOS 7 furore, but that doesn't mean that 'iOS in the car' isn't a real thing. In fact, Apple has had given the thing a place on its own website so it was always going to put in an appearance at some point. Some motoring companies like Acura, Honda and BMW have even said that they will be taking advantage of the feature, but things have been rather quiet of late, with little coming out of either Apple or its partners.
Nike's FuelBand may be seen by some as a bit of a high-priced gimmick, but despite the naysayers, it continues to sell in fairly strong numbers. As well as building a growing number of admirers, FuelBand now arrives in a plethora of different colors and versions in the form of FuelBand SE, and is as stylish as it is practical. With this in mind, UI design guru Todd Hamilton has offered his take on the enigmatic Apple iWatch by basing it heavily upon close buddy Nike's likeable gizmo, and the result is truly something to behold.
Whenever a new console hits the scene, it's almost a given that teething issues and early bugs will arise. However, while both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One launched late last year without too much incident, the former seems to be suffering save-game errors with certain titles. Those encountering the "CE-34878-0" error will be somewhat pleased to learn that Sony has identified this coded error as being problematic, and is currently launching an investigation in order to find a solution.
Nokia mightn't be alone in its quest to bring premium image and video-capturing capabilities to the smartphone industry, but the Finnish outfit is certainly the only one to have left DSLR manufacturers looking nervously over their shoulders. Yet Sony is very much renowned for its impressive array of cameras, and one could argue that it has a much more evolved reputation as a camera maker than a smartphone OEM. But playing to its strengths, it looks as though the eventual successor to the Xperia Z1 could up the ante as far as camera technology is concerned, with software discovered by ExperiaBlog seeming to suggest that it will bring 4K video to the fold.
iOS 7 has brought the most significant list of changes to date, and while we've been impressed with most of them - in particular, the convenient new Control Center - the most obvious alteration has been the overhaul of the UI. Jony Ive, lead hardware designer at Apple and all-round cult figure, was tasked with the revamp, and so far, most users and commentators seem united in their praise and acclaim for the new look. But like any previous edition of the famed mobile OS, customization is still at a premium, but thanks to the jailbreak, along with tweaks like Fancy, you can change the way things look throughout your device's interface.
We've already witnessed Apple make some significant changes to how iOS looks and feels, but we could also see Samsung following closely behind. The South Korean company is rumored to be planning big things for 2014, which will inevitably result in a number of new product releases, the first of which will be the Galaxy S5, and is rumored to be introduced to the market on February 23rd.
By now I'm sure you all know the drill; Apple releases a new beta version of its iPhone and iPad operating system and I download it, use it for a few hours and then report back with what's changed, both good and bad. I've been doing this for a while now, and through the process of writing about changes in betas both big and small I've come across some great improvements as well as some alterations that, looking back, probably weren't the best idea Apple's iOS team ever had.
It's fair to say that, with iOS 7, animation is a much more prevalent feature than ever before. But thanks to the closed-source nature of the Apple firmware, customization is about as non-existent as it has ever been, but thanks to the wonderful work of the jailbreak community - namely, the Evad3rs team with their Evasi0n7 utility - we can actually now tweak the animations way beyond what we could have imagined at stock level. The Animer for iPhone tweak has been around a while to facilitate this, and in news that will certainly appease long-time users and jailbreakers, it has just been updated for iOS 7.
