It’s true that Apple made tablets – portable computers with a slate design – a mainstream gadget with their iPad, even though there existed a lot of similar devices before that. Not only did they make it more accessible by selling the iPad at a price point that was agreeable to the masses, but the support from the Cupertino giant’s iTunes App Store with its massive number of iPad specific apps also helped the device’s popularity. Even though competitive manufacturers jumped onto the bandwagon with their similar Android based offerings, even today, the iOS App Store sports a much larger number of tablet-optimized apps in comparison to Google Play Store.
Earlier this week, a report surfaced suggesting that Apple might be working on a lower-end, lower-cost iPhone in order to increase its share of a market that is becoming increasingly crowded with low-cost smartphones. In a rare one-to-one interview with a Chinese newspaper, Apple Marketing SVP Phil Schiller flat-out denied the rumor.
If you happen to be the type of iOS device user who loves nothing more than adorning your outgoing digital messages with smiley faces and little Emoji characters, then this little accessibility nugget in the operating system is definitely set to bring some amusing times.
Security firm Bitdefender preyed on the privacy-conscious tendencies of the smartphone user when it released its Clueful app last July, with its aim to snitch on apps which may be using your private data, UDID, or other such sensitive info they've often no business snooping through. Rather than allowing iOS users to continue believing in the fallacy that every app developed follows stringent ethical practice, Bitdefender sought to expose and in turn, inform users of exactly how apps may use your data without your knowing.
In a market dominated by the likes of the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy devices, it's difficult enough for alternative OEMs - let alone those of different ecosystems - to get any kind of look in. But Nokia has defied odds by managing to sell an incredible 4.4 million Lumia devices in the last quarter. If you were surprised by the figures, the Finnish company is, itself, pleasantly taken aback, noting of how the vast quantities have "exceeded expectation".
The battle for music selling supremacy has never been tougher at the top with a number of large profile outlets all vying against one another to capture the hearts, and of course the wallets, of consumers. It wasn’t that long ago when we all happily amassed huge collections of music on physical storage mediums like CDs, but times have changed a lot, thanks to the introduction of digital downloads. In an attempt to gain some interest and boost their own music sales; Amazon has introduced a new service known as AutoRip that is an amalgamation of the physical and digital.
An Android device is hardly any good without modifications. Don’t get me wrong; they have powerful hardware with capable software to accompany the former, but in most cases, the manufacturer’s additions and modifications to the stock Android Open Source Project (AOSP) makes the environment a little restricted, to say the least. That’s perhaps one reason behind why we see every new high end and mid-range device getting root, custom recovery and whatnot as soon as they’re released (even sooner than the actual release in some cases). While the casual user might not pay attention to all of these a lot, power users feel suffocated when they cannot mod their smartphones and tablets.
Anyone who uses their iPhone to frequently capture video or sound snippets will be more than aware of the limitations of the device. The iPhone 5 has had its fair share of haters due to the controversy surrounding the alleged purple haze appearing on photographs, but it’s also very hard to deny that video recording on the device is nothing short of stunning. Improving captured sound quality is definitely on the agenda for some people and the Zoom iQ5 audio attachment could certainly help with that.
Personalizing your mobile device to your liking is still one popular idea, and a lot of people spend quite a good amount of time setting their phones up with the right wallpapers, themes, graphics and audio effects. Of course, as the smartphones have evolved, so have the customization means, but that still doesn’t mean that the old things have lost their touch. I remember back in the day of Nokia devices when monochord ringtones were the rage, and being able to compose your own ringtone was the height of customization that you could’ve gotten on your phone (along side the funky carrier logo on the monochrome screen of the Nokia 3310).
Windows Phone 8 is definitely picking up pace as a worthy alternative mobile operating system for those who have grown tired of iOS and Android, or who want to stay away from the mainstream offering. The firmware's cause is definitely helped by the growing number of quality apps that are appearing on the Windows Phone Store, some from large development houses and some from third-party indie developers. The platform may not have an official Instagram presence yet, but the innovative Instagram Lockscreen app that is now available could at least give Windows Phone 8 users a taste of what they are missing out on.
