As products and services evolve, the branding is often reviewed by the provider in order to reflect changes. We saw a similar thing a couple of years ago when the Android Market was renamed to the Google Play Store, and as of today, Microsoft's Xbox LIVE Marketplace is now known as the Xbox Games Store.
We first heard a few days back that Apple would begin an iPhone trade-in program around the time of the release of the next-gen handsets, a move designed to boost general sales of the device from the company's own retail stores rather than partners. Today, the service has come into full effect and now, consumers will be able to trade-in their old devices in part-exchange for a gleaming new handset.
With what's shaping up to be an interesting slog for the next-gen console crown, both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 continue to grapple for those column inches as consumers make up their minds about which one to choose. After a spate of reports pertaining Microsoft's next big thing, a leak of the PS4's Killzone: Shadow Fall bundle has emerged. Now, we've seen a Killzone bundle already, but this one, which features the new Killzone as well as a PlayStation Camera, briefly appeared on the French Amazon site.
Android is a fantastic mobile operating system, and continues to become one of the biggest forces in mobile software out on the market. As is the nature of Android, everybody seems to want a slice. Whilst this means that we, as consumers, have a large product base to choose from, it also means we get lumbered with a huge amount of manufacturer bloatware. Without a doubt the worst feature of the Samsung Galaxy S4, in my opinion at least, happens to be the user experience that Samsung TouchWiz provides. HTC Sense 5 isn't any better either, and don't even get me started on Motorola's MOTOBLUR from some years back.
Apple's decision to make the iPhone into a decidedly closed platform has allowed it to do all kinds of weird and wonderful things throughout its six year lifecycle, but it's also come at the cost of flexibility. Like it or not, there are just some things that devices running iOS simply cannot do when compared with most other smartphones, especially those running Google's rival Android mobile operating system. One of the things it cannot do is send or receive files over Bluetooth. It's also something that phones have been able to do for many, many years.
Although Instagram has taken the mobile world by storm over the past couple of years - enough so to prompt Facebook into shelling out a cool billion dollars to acquire it - Yahoo!-owned Flickr is a veteran of the photo-sharing game. It may not boast the kind of popularity of the app founded by Burbn Inc., but it does offer an altogether more full-on experience, rather than the simple crop-and-filter job offered by Instagram. Flickr's position as the true service of choice for photography lovers has been outlined once again today in an update for the iOS app, which now offers a very robust set of editing tools for pro and wannabe photographers alike. More details can be found after the break.
The first beta of SimCity first rolled out at the beginning of the year, and a short while ago, it was confirmed by EA that SimCity for Mac would be ready for prime time at the end of August. Right on cue, SimCity has just made an appearance over at the Mac App Store, and considering how badly the PC launch went down thanks to its requirement of an always-on Internet connection, the publisher will be hoping for a lot less controversy this time around.
Grand Theft Auto 5 is almost here, and Rockstar Games, the developer-publisher of the popular franchise, is doing its level best to generate even more hype in anticipation of the September 17th launch than there already is. While naturally dismayed by the news that 40+ hours of the game's famed music content leaked online last week, the company's mission to feed Grand Theft Auto 5 fans plenty of teasers continues, and with several GTA 5 trailers of the title already having been released, including the GTA 5 online gameplay video, another official trailer of the lively Los Santos-based title has just been uploaded to YouTube.
Apple likes to keep its nose clean when it comes to security flaws, and prides itself on offering consumers a slightly better deal than rivals when it comes to keeping its products water-tight from potential attacks. By and large, the company manages to remain a top of any such issues, and when such time comes as they do arise, the response is usually swift and successful. However, an old, and as-yet unpatched security flaw within OS X offers intruders a route to root, so to speak, and the method, which involves playing around with certain clock and user timestamp settings, is rather alarming.
While much of the US is now 4G LTE-compliant, the UK is still in the preliminary stages, and on the eve of O2 and Vodafone's official 4G rollouts, network operator Three has taken the opportunity to announce its own plans for faster data. In a real turn up for the books, Three, a company renowned for going against the grain by being the only network to offer truly unlimited connection over 3G+, will be sticking to its favorable ethos for those currently subbed to those packages, meaning those enjoying uncapped data right now will be able to do so when 4G rolls out.
