There are many companies embattled in a quest to gain the largest market share in both the tablet and smartphone markets, and the recent court cases between Apple and Samsung has offered us a strong indication as to the inner workings of the firms locked in the fight for supremacy. Internal documents have been leaked to the San Jose case revealing much about the practices of both companies, while some of the big cheeses of both electronic outfits have leapt from obscurity to make their feelings known.
If there is one thing which we love the most apart from an official launch of a new smartphone from manufacturers like Apple or Samsung is when concept developers throw their hat into the ring and produce some seriously gorgeous looking renders of entirely fictional devices. It isn't uncommon to see designers producing images of what they believe new Apple devices will look like, but this time, it’s the turn of Google to get the treatment as Dorian Lust has knocked up what he believes a possible Google Nexus device could look like.
Wireless charging has constantly been spoken of in the past as a technology the consumer market will eventually adopt with natural progression, and according to a report over at DigiTimes, Intel could be launching a new system that'll allow wireless charging of smartphones powered by its processors. The technology has been approved by the Wireless Power Consortium as the Qi standard, and is another leap in the quest of hardware manufacturers to minimize the cables and wires - something we definitely agree with.
In a similar fashion to the iOS App Store, Apple's official home for OS X apps can sometimes prove to be a bit of a software jungle with so many categories and apps being available that it can be a bit tricky to find things that will actually be useful to you. Investigating the top charts list gives an insight into what other users are downloading, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you as an individual will find it useful or appealing.
So far, we’ve seen leaks of just about every major component of the next and sixth generation iPhone. We’ve seen its home button, slightly larger front with a 4” display, a metal back, and an all-new MagSafe-like dock connector to name a few things.
It's difficult to remember what we all used to do to handle our increasingly busy schedules and work loads before we had such capable computers and mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad. Being able to be permanently connected to our diaries, appointments and task lists through the use of mobile hardware and scheduling software has proved to be an invaluable resource for those who have busy professional and personal lives, but the real power is needed when we knuckle down to actually sift through our list of tasks.
The invention dawn of the App Store meant that many thousands of developers were able to get their apps and creations seen by millions of people all over the world, and in some instances the apps turned over a very nice and welcome financial profit. One of the most successful and immediately recognizable apps, as well as being one that has left the developers in an extremely handsome financial position has to be Instagram, which has notched up millions of regular active members.
Apple is extremely lucky to have such a cloud of interest surrounding their every move, including unprecedented interest in every hardware or software release which they introduce to the world. Every single generation of the iPhone has been more popular than the last one, with each new model doing a fantastic job of retaining customer loyalty while also managing to appeal to those who are deciding which smartphone route to go down for their next purchase. If the leaked images and reported design of the next iPhone are indeed accurate, then I won’t hesitate in saying that Apple are once again onto another winner.
With the release of the next-generation iPhone just around the corner, we could be forgiven for thinking we already have a pretty accurate idea of what Apple is going to introduce to the world next month. Over the last few months, we have been treated to regular viewings of leaked images of individual components, as well as a few documents that claim to show the new iPhone assembled in all of its beautiful glory. Of course, the fully assembled images could all be part of an elaborate ruse to throw us off the scent, or may even just be a shell prototype that is distributed to official equipment manufacturers to design and build their wares, but they have succeeded in making us anticipate the release.
When Tim Cook and his cohorts took to the stage to introduce us to the next-generation of iOS, we were pretty much expecting most of the announcements which were rumored beforehand. However, as the demonstration of iOS 6 continued, there was a couple of little additions that took us by surprise and had managed to slip through the rumor net which led up to the event. One of those surprises came in the form of Passbook, a new iOS stock app which offers a new and efficient way for users to store tickets, coupons, gift cards and vouchers in one central place for easy access later on.
