Sony's PlayStation 3 had a reasonably good week this Black Friday weekend, with the Japanese company announcing that 525,000 consoles were sold this holiday period across the United States.
There's a growing concern that Redmond-based Microsoft is not achieving the kind of orders it had initially hoped or expected of its Surface RT, and it's now looking like the company's orders are petering out - as opposed to increasing - in the run-up to Christmas. CEO Steve Ballmer's note of "modest" sales at launch has done very little to instill confidence recently, and to compound the situation, upstream supply chain sources have revealed the software maker has reduced orders of the Surface RT by half.
It hasn’t been very long since the world saw Android 4.2 Jelly Bean come to light, with all its fancy new feature enhancements, some of which have been welcomed across the globe with great enthusiasm. Whether you’ve tried the latest Android flavor on your device yet or not depends solely on what smartphone or tablet you are carrying, or if you’re using a custom ROM or prefer stock ones, but Google is on a roll already, having let out Android 4.2.1 just a while back, carrying, among various others, a bug fix that’s more obvious than all the others – the missing “December” in the original 4.2 release, which rendered people with birthdays and anniversaries in the last month of the year, well, without a reminder of sorts.
iTunes 11 has just been seeded by Apple after a great deal of delay, and naturally, the tech world is busy trying to dissect all of the new features. Among them, arrives the ability to redeem iTunes Store gift / credit cards by simple means of using your computer's camera. Typing in a long alphanumeric can be a pain in the rear, and unless maximum concentration is applied, mistakes are easy to make, rendering the whole process somewhat seamless. With this new camera snapping system working in much the same manner as your typical QR scanner, you can finally let the tech do the donkey work for you.
With the Surface RT struggling to pick up momentum and sales in the tablet market, Microsoft desperately needs to call upon plan B, and in a move that'll no doubt inject a little life into the Surface brand, the software maker has revealed pricing details of the upcoming Surface Pro. Unlike the current slate, it will run on Windows 8 Pro rather than the - for lack of a better phrase - watered-down offering in Windows RT. Legacy apps will be supported on the Intel-powered device, meaning those looking to really get some use out of the Surface won't need to rely on the very, very slim pickings over at the Windows Store.
Apple just pushed out an improved version of its desktop media player / content hub, bringing the version number up to 11. It was originally presumed that iTunes 11 would drop alongside the iPhone 5, iPad mini or the 4th-gen iPad, but instead, it has been released after many delays which we’ve documented quite well here at Redmond Pie. As well as feeling a lot lighter than it has ever done, some work has gone into reshaping the look of the App Store, as well as iTunes itself.
The Adobe Photoshop Touch app may be familiar to a lot of design professionals who love the versatility and power of being able to create and edit photographs on the go, but the chances are that it has actually managed to pass a few people by without creating to much of a fuss. Love it or hate it, Photoshop is definitely one of the most popular design apps of choice for those who deal with this sort of thing on a daily basis with the iPad.
Whenever we talk about the executive structure of Apple, or watch a live media event, we invariably see the same names and faces; Tim Cook, Jony Ive, Phil Schiller and Eddy Cue to name a few. While they are all extremely important in the company’s structure and vital to the history of what makes Apple the company that it is today, it's worth remembering the almost forgotten names of those who played their part in phoenix from the flames story that surrounds the Cupertino company. Tony Fadell is one of those previous Apple executives who has gone onto ventures new, but it seems that Apple's departing SVP of iOS, Scott Forstall, left a bitter taste in Fadell's mouth.
Microsoft today announced some information surrounding a new release of its Windows Phone software that will go some way to answering some of the most oft-asked questions - when will Windows Phone 7.8 be released, and who will be able to take advantage of it?
At a time when many carriers offer very limited cellular data packages, Wi-Fi awareness is of much importance to smartphone and tablet users. Many of you will have fallen victim to roaming or download charges at one point or another, but if you stick to a Wi-Fi hotspot, browsing and other online activities suddenly get a great deal cheaper. Unfortunately, when you're not in a Wi-Fi location and forget to turn it off, the strain - or rather, drain - on your battery can be significant. Thankfully for those on Android, a little app called Smart WiFi Toggler does exactly as its name implies, and only prompts your Wi-Fi connection into action when you are in the vicinity of a favored hotspot.
