Within our phone books and contact lists, there'll always be those few people we only make short, uninteresting, mundane small-talk with, and most of us absolutely detest those conversations which scarcely deviate from "how are you?" "what are you doing?" or, "oh really, how is that going?"
The native Music app on the iPhone does the job, and does it well, but let's face it, it doesn't set the world alight, and for those who like their music to dominate the interface rather than the other way around, LeechTunes for iOS might be the answer to your prayers.
So, what has been foreshadowed and rumored over the past couple of months was recently officially announced by Microsoft in yet another fairly lengthy post on the Building Windows 8 blog: The company will be ditching the Windows Live brand. The products will continue to exist, of course, but they will no longer be under the umbrella of the Windows Live branding; instead, everything will be unified through what is called a Microsoft Account, formerly known as a Windows Live ID. We'll have SkyDrive, Hotmail, and Messenger as services, which will be accessible on Windows 8 via the SkyDrive, Mail, and Messaging apps, respectively (this begs the question; is the future bleak for the actual Windows Live Messenger client?)
Thanks primarily to the popularity of Instagram and similar services, it's now a case of, "another day, another image-manipulation app," and 8mm Vintage Camera by Nexvio Inc., enables you to create some fantastic, retro-looking videos.
The constant squabbles and patent-based conflict between Apple and Samsung is a well-documented debacle, and while both companies have agreed to drop several claims each, Apple does feel as though Samsung's recent rise as the number one smartphone vendor is mainly due to plagiarism of its products.
Apple works pretty darned hard to ensure iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users cannot downgrade their devices. Gone are the days when a downgrade could be achieved by simply downloading the older firmware and overwriting, but thanks to the Dev Team and its Redsn0w tool, one can quickly restore to an older version of iOS 5 with minimal fuss.
With Apple pushing out the latest version of iOS, taking the current release to 5.1.1, users are once again split right down the middle, thinking whether or not they should update to the latest firmware. On one side of the fence are the everyday users who use their iPhone without any modifications, but on the other side are the jailbreakers and unlockers who are always understandably hesitant when the update notifications come through.
If you are an owner of a jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch, and happen to be the kind of person who appreciates a rather useless, but nonetheless cool looking tweak, then the VolumeColour option could be right up your street. Cydia is packed to the rafters with packages that provide in-depth features and some that just provide minor modifications to iOS, VolumeColor will definitely fall into the latter category.
While some of us like to keep our iPads all to ourselves, the device often finds itself utilized as a shared entity within a household. As such, there has been great pressure from consumers to offer some variation of multi-user support - allowing individuals to personalize their own iPad profile with custom wallpapers, alerts, mailboxes and preferences.
In terms of social networks, Twitter definitely seems to be the place to be at the moment. Facebook may be ruling the roost when it comes to its total registered member base, but it's the micro-blogging platform that seems to be getting all the headlines and the celebrity attention of late. Although Twitter is essentially a platform which allow users to share nuggets of information that don't exceed 140 characters, the service wouldn't be anywhere near as popular without the ability to upload and share media such as photos and videos.
