Developers who produce software for mobile smartphones and tablets are always looking to push the boundaries and are readily including the-next-big-technologies in their apps. In the past, we have seen apps reduced to minimalistic works of beauty, decisions made to remove buttons and houses navigation handled entirely by user gestures, and more recently, we are starting to see the serious emergence of augmented reality in mobile applications.
It sometimes really doesn't matter how hard companies like Apple and Google try to make their devices and operating systems the best and most powerful on the market, users just occasionally want to try something a little different. As you would expect, devices running the Android operating system always ship with a built-in native music player app which allows playback of any track that is imported to the device. Unfortunately, native apps don't always offer a one-size-fits-all solution, meaning people are often forced to look elsewhere.
Anyone who is an avid user of the top of the range smartphone or tablet such as the iPhone 4S, iPad or the new Google Nexus 7 tablet will appreciate the difference that a beautiful looking app can bring. Functional apps are all well and good, after all, we expect a purchase or download to fulfill its purpose but an app that does what it says on the tin while looking beautiful pushes the user-experience to a new level.
As a Windows user (and as an ex Ubuntu user), I like to keep my Windows experience as pure as possible. What I mean by “pure” is that I try to stay away from installing things like themes, transformation packs and UI features from other operating systems. Windows 7 on my two year old computer looks a lot like a freshly installed copy of Windows 7.
With Apple actively working on the sixth-generation iPhone which is likely to see a public release towards the end of this year, users of older generation devices like the iPhone 3GS and even the original iPhone could be forgiven for thinking that the time has come to look for an upgrade or purchasing a more up-to-date unit. The core functionality of the iPhone has remained stable since 2007 but the hardware has greatly improved with each release, with the most notable changes coming in the form of the Retina display with the iPhone 4 and incremental processor and memory upgrades.
Of all the features that arrived when iOS 5 reached the end-user back in October of last year, iMessage has been arguably the most significant, and by now allowing messages to be sent and received in a faster, more secure manner across a variety of platforms, it has to go down as one of the best in the business. Granted, it has its occasional downtime, but it's not bad as is, and with the service also arriving to the Mac with OS X Mountain Lion, it will almost certainly become the sole mode of quick communication to many Apple enthusiasts.
Research In Motion's BlackBerry OS is clearly struggling to maintain relevance in the current consumer market, but with all three of the major mobile operating systems having taken steps to implement some description of voice-recognition functionality, it appears BlackBerry will also be joining the party, too.
VLC Media Player from VideoLAN has long stood out as the media player of choice among consumers. Famed for handling just about any media format you could care to throw at it, it’s certainly the best in the business, and although the VLC Media Player app was tossed from the App Store by Apple, VideoLAN as bounced back, offering an iteration for Google’s Android platform.
With a considerable amount of ground to make up already on the various app hubs available from the likes of Apple, Microsoft needs to deliver the goods with its Windows 8 Store, and the Redmond company has now released details via the MSDN Blog of how its new store will distribute apps.
With the on-going development of iOS 6, the production of the next generation iPhone and the rumored smaller iPad, as well as the imminent release of OS X Mountain Lion, Apple has been really scrutinized lately be a Russian researcher who found a way to bypass the in-app purchase process in apps available via the official App Store. The bypass procedure, involving an intermediary server and two iPhone certificates undoubtedly caused an internal headache at Apple and prompted almost immediate action.
