Microsoft is seeking to spread a little pre-Christmas cheer by offering users of its SkyDrive online storage service something extra this holiday season. If users stake their claim before the end of January, they will be treated to a whole 20GB of extra cloud storage, free of charge.
It may have taken months to get to iOS, but Google's Music app isn't going to stand still now that it's finally on Apple's platform. Instead, just a month after its release the Google Play Music app has received a sizeable update, bringing it up to scratch with other apps that are designed with iOS 7 in mind.
Being able to take a smartphone and then tinker with it to the nth degree is part of the charm of the Android community. Being able to be the best looking, highest spec device on the planet and then put your own, heavily customized or completely stock version of Android onto it is the reason many people swear by Android over its iOS and Windows Phone competition. We've flashed more than our fair share of Android ROMs in our time, and we know both how much fun, and how frustrating an enterprise it can be.
Some analysts, as well as many general Apple fans, have been under the impression that the fruit company would, at some stage, come through with its own connected TV effort, unofficially referred to as 'iTV.' The name itself probably wouldn't hold; at least, not in the UK, where it is the name of one of the foremost broadcasting services, and by the lack of any tangible activity or evidence to suggest otherwise, it doesn't seem as though iTV is anywhere near the top of Apple's to-do list. The substantial improvements to the range of Apple TV content suggests that the little black box is doing just fine for now, and if Jony Ive and his design minions did feel like revamping the OS in the image of iOS 7, perhaps the concept below, dreamed up by designer Andrew Ambrosino, offers us something of a preview.
Many Android phone makers have been accused of using less than stellar industrial design. Samsung in particular is famously fond of using flimsy plastic shells for its smartphones, including the high-end premium devices like the Galaxy S4. It's a decision that flies in the face of what Apple does with its iPhones, or even what Nokia believes is the best way to make its Lumia handsets. While Samsung doesn't look likely to change its grand philosophy any time soon, there may be another solution.
For the lucky few who managed to get a hold of the Mac Pro before the shipping was pushed back to February, the wait is finally over, and no new product launch would be complete without a spate of unboxings. The first are beginning to emerge online on sites such as YouTube, and if you're anxious to see what the device and its packaged contents look like as they're extracted from packaging, then you'll want to join us after the break.
It's that time of year again, and if you've sufficiently recovered from all the over-indulgence and big tech savings over the Thanksgiving weekend, you'll be more than ready for round two. Christmas is just around the corner, and developers usually cut the prices of their apps amid the celebrations. This is all fine and dandy, but with hundreds of thousands of entries to the famed App Store, it's hard to keep track of what's cheap and also, worth purchasing at the discounted rate. Luckily, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users have the appropriately named App Santa at their side to help them to discover and take advantage of these bargains.
As most of you will have gleaned, BlackBerry is a struggling brand just now, and the decision of the Canadian company to roll its prized BBM out to Android and iOS was seen by many as a sign of its desperation. In October, we learned that BBM for Android and iPhone was would also, at some point, offer free voice calls to other users of the app, but despite the confirmation BlackBerry's VP Andrew Bocking on its imminent arrival, it looks as though we won't be getting the feature until early on next year.
We've seen iPhones of the computer generated variety be used for marketing before, and we've even seen CGI iPhones used to create an impressive domino effect in previous videos, but with Christmas just around the corner it was only a matter of time before the two were merged into one truly great video. And now it's happened.
Instagram is a big player in the mobile space these days, and it was already growing into a big deal long before Facebook splashed the cash to bring it under the social network's roof. It has shown no sign of slowing its progress since that acquisition either, even launching an Instagram for Windows Phone app for those that have been waiting impatiently for such a thing to be released.
