Apple maintains a tight grip on the smartphone, tablet and premium notebook market with the iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air/Pro. They make their own software for these gadgets; controlling the whole “widget” as Steve Jobs used to say. Yet, there are markets where Apple is hardly relevant. One such market is online social networking. Microsoft has investments in Facebook, Google of course has their own Google+ while Apple has nothing at all.
The tablet market is one which is arguably already sewn up. It's already done. Dead. Finished. It's already Apple's. Or is it? With Apple undoubtedly heading the charts in and around the $500 price bracket, there is plenty of room for manufacturers to play below that mark. As the netbook market showed years ago, if you can make something cheap, people will buy it, regardless of whether it's any good or not.
OS X Mountain Lion, Apple's most recent operating system for the Mac, has sold in excess of two million copies in just two days - on par with the release of OS X Lion last year, which shifted 1 million copies in its first 24 hours. The new operating system includes many new features - some of which have been borrowed from the company's iOS mobile ecosystem. Things like Reminders, iMessage and Notification Center made a name for themselves on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, but now take pride of place on the desktop.
Although now two years old, the iPhone 4 still continues to sell in great numbers, and having recently dropped down to the low price of $99, the device has now been made permanently cheaper at Best Buy - shipping for $49 on contract.
UK fans of Samsung's Galaxy S III now have two more handsets to choose from, with the popular handset available in two new limited edition guises that take advantage of the company's London 2012 Olympic sponsorship.
The Olympic Games, held in London, England this year, will certainly be the highlight of the sporting calendar. Despite Wimbledon, EURO 2012 and many other big sporting events currently in full flow, none will quite live up to the glorious, diverse, and immensely entertaining Olympics. Living in London, the media has talked about little else over the past year, and as exciting as it is for us on a national level, most of the world will - in one event or another - be tuned in to a chunk of the coverage.
As well as taking Apple's crown as the king of the smartphone market, Samsung seems to be selling mobile phones in record numbers, having shifted an impressive 50.5 million during Q2 of 2012. This is in spite of industry analysts suggesting smartphone sales in general had hit something of a plateau - seeing its slowest growth rate for three years, and the Korean consumer electronics giant marched through to sell an incredible 566,000 smartphones per day during the last 90 days.
The long standing Asphalt series of racing games are amongst the most popular games on mobile platforms such as Android and iOS. Combining some of the established mechanics of games like Ridge Racer and Burnout, the games are known for their fast-paced, arcade-style racing, standard-setting graphics and awesome roster of licensed supercars from some of the world’s biggest names in the automobile industry.
The iPhone 5, the New iPhone, the next-generation iPhone, Apple's latest iPhone. It doesn't matter what you are personally calling it or what you think the actual official name will be when the eventual time comes for release, the bottom line is we all want to see it and find out what they have in store for us. It has become part-and-parcel of the release build up for any iOS device that we see leaked parts and speculated technical specifications galore, and it has certainly been no different this time around. But could this new leaked image actually be of the official next-generation iPhone?
Sharing images with friends after a social event can be a real pain, especially since there are always those shots you want, but somebody else took, or vice versa. Nagging somebody to upload certain photos to Facebook or send them via email is a bit of a hassle, and in an age where our devices can do quite a lot already, sharing images should not be as time-consuming as it often becomes.
