Despite boasting several hundred thousand apps, there are still a few areas within Apple's App Store that one could point to as lacking somewhat in really groundbreaking apps.
Siri was introduced as one of the three major features of the iPhone 4S back when it was announced in late 2011. As we all know well by now, it is a voice-based personal assistant that lives inside the iPhone 4S which serves all sorts of commands given by the user. Voice commands involving things like setting a reminder/timer, going through latest text messages, firing off an email/text message, getting weather updates etc. etc.
Most of you following the news here at Redmond Pie will own a smartphone. In fact, I'd guess that all of you own a device boasting features qualifying your cell for the "smart" moniker.
One argument for Android phones in the giant, ongoing war between Android and the iPhone, is its level of customizability. Android fans can tinker with their phones as much as they want, make them do all kinds of things that iPhone users just cannot and just generally tinker around to their heart's content.
I would imagine that being the CEO of Apple would be one of the most challenging but also most rewarding job in the technology industry at the moment. The company is enjoying such a tremendous run of success with their mobile and Mac products and have seen their stock price soar in recent weeks, but that doesn't mean that the position of CEO doesn't come with its fair share of stress. After being in the position full-time for the last seven months, it seems that Tim Cook is settling in rather nicely if the latest employee opinion polls are anything to go by.
At one point or another I am pretty sure everyone has wanted their iPhone to be able to communicate with them. For those who are lucky enough to have the iPhone 4S, Apple's Siri voice assistant probably has you covered in the human to device communications department, but for the rest of us; Cydia has come up trumps again with the Text2Speech app. Text2Speech has been around on Cydia for a while, but is one of those nice little apps that manages to raise a smile on our faces every time we use it.
One of the pitfalls of being a huge company is that you become less agile and more prone to slip-ups that perhaps wouldn't happen if there was more focus, or if it had a better understanding of a the market or territory it is operating in.
Everyone loves a bit of privacy every now and then, and let's face it, I am pretty sure that everyone has given their cell phone number out to someone that they later regretted giving it to for one reason or another. You would expect, that in this advanced day and age when smartphones play such an increasingly important and prominent role in our everyday lives, we would have a native filtering option on the device, or at very least our networks would be able to provide such a service.
The ongoing patent disputes between Apple and Samsung are constantly subject to media attention, and at present, U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh has the unenviable task of listening to the argument regarding Apple's U.S. Design Patents D558, D757, D618 and D678, related to the look and feel of its iDevice range.
With the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, the once-popular iPod has become something of a dying breed. Although the world's number one music player continues to sell in good numbers, less and less consumers are looking for a standalone music player, preferring to utilize their smartphone's inbuilt music player.
