Many of us like to, or are often forced through work commitments, to travel around on a frequent basis. As a hardcore geek, blogger, and general Internet obsessive, I take my MacBook Air pretty much everywhere I go, but as any seasoned journeyman would vouch, plugging in for a charge at any given location can be a trying task. With so many variants of the two-pin plug aiming to make life as difficult for somebody like myself, who has only ever used the three-pin here in the UK, it winds up being another annoying thing to tick off the list of pre-travelling to-dos.
If you’re a long time reader of Redmond Pie, you would no doubt already know that most of us here love to jailbreak our iPhones. But personally, if you follow me (@theiBlog) on Twitter, you’ll probably know that I wasn't a fan of jailbreaking. Well, originally I was, then I wasn’t. And now I am again. Confused? You will be!
Popular iOS title Infinity Blade has gone free for a very limited time, having earned Apple's coveted App of the Week award. The revered action RPG will be available at no charge for the next week, with the normal price returning from 21st February.
A new beta has been released of WhatsApp Messenger for Android featuring, among other things, a new, Holo-style theme much better suited to the general look and feel of Android in general. The app has, hitherto, looked like a straight port of its iOS cousin, but with the security issues of yesteryear now having been resolved with WhatsApp Messenger for Android, the developers behind the popular app can now focus on aesthetics and features.
iOS 6.1, released last month, has already received its fair share of criticism and bad press as major connectivity issues were discovered within weeks of the system’s public release. If that wasn’t enough of a reason to put you off from upgrading for the time being, this might be: with a few simple steps, it is possible for any user to bypass the passcode lock screen on an iPhone, giving an unintended user permission to view and edit sensitive information such as contacts.
When Apple introduced Siri, they started quite a war amongst and for other smartphone competitors to match the Cupertino giant’s virtual personal assistant. Android, being the biggest iOS counterpart, received the most share of such solutions, including the likes of S Voice from Samsung, and Google’s own Google Now – a real time, intelligent and location-aware service embedded within the Google Search app for Android. Over time, Google now has matured quite a lot, delivering the right information at the right time, letting you plan your commutes, flights, travel plans, day schedule and whatnot when you need it. Now, with the latest update to Google Now, Google has made the app all the more useful, introducing widget support for devices running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and above, as well as new information sources.
The Apple TV may not strictly run on the same software as the likes of the iPad or iPhone, but it still has to be considered an iOS device, because, well, it runs on a variant of iOS. Following the Evasi0n jailbreak for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, the same exploit used on that occasion has been utilized by FireCore, the team of individuals behind the Seas0nPass jailbreak tool, to provide an untethered jailbreak on the very latest Apple TV 5.2 firmware.
For the last year or so, many have been wondering when Apple would open up its set-top box, known as the Apple TV, to developers for third-party apps. At the same time, excitement about a major upgrade to the iPhone has already started. An analyst from Jeffries has answers from both of these questions based on “channel checks”.
Mozilla's biggest export is Firefox, and with Windows 8 having been in circulation for a few months now, the next stage of preparations for a version of the popular browser tailored to Microsoft's latest OS release have begun. Last week, the Metro/Modern-ized browser reached Mozilla's nightly build channel, and today, it has reached Mozilla-central. Although Firefox desktop product manager Asa Dotzler confessed there is still "plenty of work" to be done, it has now reached a point where it is stable enough for regular testing.
After the spec'd-out One X and One X+ failed to make the desired impression on an Android user base concerned primarily with Samsung-branded handsets, HTC is back with a new flagship device, and is doing its level best to gather some momentum behind it. The HTC One, which has been the subject of quite a few carefully-engineered leaks, is going to be showcased very, very soon - on February 19th, in fact - and in anticipation for its special launch event in New York City on that very date, the 'quietly brilliant' Taiwanese manufacturer has been running special promo page (complete with a countdown timer) on its Web page.
