BlackBerry has spent the past year preparing and reinventing itself for another serious assault on the smartphone market, and although the company did try sticking with the old formula and essentially flogged a dead horse for far to long, the company looks ready to be taken seriously again. BlackBerry 10 looks like an intuitive, innovative operating system much more in line with the likes of iOS and Android, and with the BlackBerry Z10 certainly strong enough to hold its own against many of the market's considered elite, the Waterloo, Ontario-based company is looking for customers once more.
If there's one negative that is consistently levelled at Windows Phone, it's the platform's lack of any kind of unified notification system. Unlike Android or iOS, Windows Phone does not feature an area of the operating system that plays host to all new notifications, meaning it can be easy to miss something important.
April is an exciting month mainly for two reasons. The first is Samsung's Galaxy S4, which is easily the most anticipated smartphone release this year; and the second is the HTC One, which, for numerous reasons, has already been touted as the best Android handset the market has ever seen, and we agree with the notion wholeheartedly. The latter of the two titans was announced some time ago, but yield issues on some of the hardware powering the device's marquee features have beset numerous delays upon the Taiwanese company. Now though, it looks as though folks interested in the One won't have to wait that much longer, with reports suggesting pre-orders on AT&T could begin as early as Thursday April 4th, with the HTC One release date touted in the April bracket officially.
There was some debate as to whether it was the iPhone 4S, or indeed the iPhone 5 that should be considered in Apple folklore as Steve Jobs' "last project" before his untimely passing back in October 2011. Just as we thought the next era of Apple would see the company attempt to find its feet without its most influential scholar, Apple's government liaison has revealed that the next two generations of iPhone have long since been developed, and that in actual fact, both were designed before Steve Jobs succumbed to his illness.
With Google having confirmed its intention to cease operation of Google Reader (in spite of hundreds of thousands of petition signatories pleading them to reconsider), Reeder has found itself looking a little bit lost. The app's creator Silvio Rizzi has spent the past couple of weeks trying to assure users of the popular app that it wouldn't "die with Google Reader," but with Rizzi himself lining up one or two projects in the same field, many still suspect the service is about to be culled, the outlook is bleak. On a brighter note, as of today, Reeder for Mac and iPad is free of charge, and we've got the details and download links coming right up after the break.
The jailbreak scene is not only invaluable for all those practical tweaks that enhance the functionality of iOS, but also a great wealth of resources to those looking to freshen up the look of their iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Color Keyboard, as we first reported on when it was introduced back in 2011, lives up to its name by allowing you to create all kinds of interesting looks to your keys, and a currently free theme by the name of "Dashing" is one of the best CK themes we've seen to date.
Google's Maps is by far the navigation utility of choice not only on the company's very own Android platform, but also iOS, where millions of iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users have downloaded the search giant's third-party offering from the App Store. Why do we all love Google Maps so much? Well, besides being one of the most accurate and feature-rich experiences in the field, it is also incredibly easy to use, and the swiping, tapping and pinching gestures make the whole process pretty seamless. Thanks to mobile device enthusiast Carl Sednaoui, we've got a little video demonstration of a feature many of you may have missed within Google Maps, which allows users to zoom in and out effectively using a little-known one-handed shortcut.
The ability to control devices and machines remotely is invaluable to many of us in our everyday and working lives, and although remote desktop apps tend to offer a broad range of functionality, sometimes, only the very basics are necessary. XDA-Developers Member RavinduSha has come up with a nifty app offering a remote switch-off feature for Android, and although we'd perhaps struggle to think of many occasions where such an app would be immediately necessary, it's certainly a useful one to have in the inventory.
A lot of iOS users go through the jailbreak process so that they can install different packages and tweaks that go some way in improving the functionality of their device. Apple has undoubtedly gone through a lot of effort to make their iOS devices some of the most powerful pieces of consumer technology available, but it can never hurt to have different tweaks available that build on that great work from the fruit company. Those who have been looking for a way to improve the capture quality from the front-facing camera on the iPhone or iPod touch should definitely check out the Front HDR package on Cydia.
Battlefield 4 was first announced nine months ago, but since then, we've heard relatively little of a title expected to be one of the biggest game releases of the year. A couple of days back, excitement was reignited by the release of the 17-minute gameplay trailer, which gave an insight into the upcoming title, and now, we've got a firm release date straight from the horse's mouth. Microsoft has announced that the game will be available on October 29th, and considering the previous ballpark timeframe was given as "Fall", this is perhaps slightly earlier than many would have anticipated.
