I wrote an editorial on Redmond Pie some time ago now, outlining my thoughts on the iPod touch and the fact that I believed Apple was missing a trick. With iPhone sales continuing to increase and iPad sales as strong as ever, I believed that the iPod touch could be used as something of a 'gateway drug' to help Apple snare the younger generation long before they can walk into a mobile phone shop and sign a two-year contract.
Long term iDevice owners who frequently enter the so-called dark side of iOS through jailbreaking will no doubt have a list of packages from Cydia which they classify as essentials. Tweaks are pushed into Cydia every day of the week by repository owners, but it is rare that something comes along and manages to make it to our must-have list of tweaks.
The rumors of a smaller iPad retailing to compete with the cheaper, down-sized tablets now surfacing such as the Google Nexus 7 are incessant, and the latest reports regarding the purported 7.85-inch "iPad Mini" suggest the device will be manufactured in Brazil.
Seeing that Google announced Android 4.1 Jelly Bean last week during its Google I/O conference - where it also announced its home entertainment device, the Nexus Q, among a few other things - Android users are surly antsy to get the latest version of the OS onto their devices. Well, Nexus S and Nexus S 4G owners are in luck; two guys from the XDA forums - DeXmax and CooLoserTech - have ported Jelly Bean 4.1 to the Nexus S and Nexus S 4G, respectively.
The ongoing patent battle between Apple and Samsung has really come a long way and has slipped thoroughly into the wilderness. It wasn't that long ago when both companies found themselves in the news in an ongoing dispute over individual registered patents, with judges in certain European countries ruling on whether or not those patents had been infringed upon.
While the cool thing to do is typically compare S Voice or Google Now with Apple's own personal assistant, Siri, Clayton Ljungberg of AndroidAuthority has decided to pit the two brotherly voice assistant services to see which one is the best.
If you've been longing for the immensely cool and "futuristic" ability to charge your iPhone wirelessly, you may be waiting a while for an official solution from Apple. However, a tinkerer who goes by the name of Tanveer took apart a wireless charging case for the iPhone and installed its components into the iPhone 4S chassis itself. If you have a bit of patience, a lot of soldering skills, sufficient knowledge of the iPhone's internals to disassemble, modify, and reassemble, and you don't fear breaking your iPhone by mistake, then this would be a fun project of you. The entire process is briefly touched on in a three minute video released by Tanveer.
Remember the outlandishly awkward Galaxy Note that's too big to be a phone, but too small to be a tablet? It appears that Samsung is cooking up a successor to the device which it will unveil at the end of August during the IFA 2012 consumer electronics show in Berlin. On top of this, it is rumored that the Galaxy Note II will come with a 5.5" display, which is slightly larger than the existing Galaxy Note's 5.3" display. It will of course run Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, which is now the latest version of the operating system.
The war of the operating systems has almost reached a boiling point, with Microsoft all but ready to push out the final build of Windows 8 and Apple looking likely to release OS X Mountain Lion later on this month, it represents nothing but a winning situation for the consumer. Windows 8 has been receiving some fantastic reviews from people who feel Microsoft have really stepped up with this version, with the only real contentious point being the price of the OS in comparison to Apple's $19.99 Mountain Lion offering.
Google’s recently announced Nexus 7 is receiving critical acclaim throughout the blogosphere. It offers the hardware of a $500 tablet – a 7” HD IPS display, quad-core processor, 1GB RAM, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean – for the unbeatable price of $199. Some sacrifices had to be made to bring price down to this level, sacrifices like the lack of a rear camera, higher storage capacity, extendable storage and GSM connectivity.
