August is fast approaching an end and it means only one thing to the Apple-loving-smartphone world, we are getting ever closer to the official announcement from Apple regarding the sixth-generation iPhone release. September 12th is the day on which we believe Apple will be holding their press event to introduce us all to the new iPhone, and although, it has yet to be officially confirmed by the world's most valuable company, there has been overwhelming evidence that something is happening, and soon.
Less than a month after releasing OS X Mountain Lion to the public via the Mac App Store, Apple has updated its desktop operating system bringing an array of minor bug fixes. Despite selling over two million copies in the first 48 hours alone, the very first iteration has had a couple of minor issues, as is nearly always the case with an initial release.
Considering Facebook is the world’s largest social network and their mobile apps for iOS and Android are probably two of the most downloaded apps on their respective platforms, you would be forgiven for thinking that they provide an extremely positive user-experience, especially considering Facebook's own statistics show that an enormous percentage of their user-base regularly access their accounts through mobile devices. Unfortunately, the Facebook apps have been the center of a lot of criticism due to the internal decision to build the app primarily using HTML5 for cross-platform distribution.
Coverage of the leakage of new iPhone / iPhone 5 parts is now a common topic here at Redmond Pie. Of course, until Apple officially announces it, we really can’t be sure about the parts, but some of these have been coming from authentic, reputed sources like 9to5Mac and, today MacRumors, so we have a strong feeling that they indeed the real thing.
Android was known in the past for looking terrible compared to the more elegant looks of iOS and the now dead webOS. Things have indeed improved significantly over the past few months, thanks to a UI overhaul in Ice Cream Sandwich and a significant boost in smoothness with Project Butter in Jelly Bean.
When Google eventually took the plunge and pushed out the Chrome browser to the iOS App Store during the second day of their I/O conference in San Francisco, it answered the prayers of thousands of iPhone and iPad users who had been longing for a worthy competitor to the native Mobile Safari browser which Apple ships with the operating system. Chrome for iOS immediately jumped to the top of the App Store download charts and has remained there ever since with users loving the simple and elegant design with great features such as the Chrome Omnibar and gesture integration.
As is typically the case in the run-up to a new Apple product, much media attention has focused on what the Cupertino company will, and won't be including with the next-generation iPhone, dubbed unofficially as the iPhone 5.
As powerful as Apple's iOS is, some users will always disagree with the way certain things are implemented throughout the system, meaning there will always be a place for jailbreaking in the iDevice ownership world. One of the much discussed areas of concern in iOS is the way in which users can see what is running in the background and invoke apps from the multitasking part of the OS, something that Apple added as one of the major new features of iOS 4.
Now that we are nearly into the last quarter of the calendar year, it means that the holiday season is officially coming and we need to be thinking about getting into that gift purchasing overdrive mode that sees us spend our hard earned money on friends, family and loved ones. Alternatively, we could just see it as an excuse to go out and buy ourselves all the great things that we want and blame it on holiday madness. I know which one I'd prefer.
Grand Theft Auto has, for the past 15 or so years, been one of the most popular titles available on most platforms, and with GTA V beckoning, Rockstar is giving fans more to salivate over with some beautifully-realistic visuals.
