When we think and talk about Apple and their products, we generally focus on two key aspects, form and function, both of which make devices like the iPhone, iPod and iPad stand out in the marketplace above all competition. The iPod portable music player revolutionized the way we think about and listen to music. The iPhone was one of the first smartphones to fuse together advanced features with an almost flawless design and the iPad brought about what Apple is calling the "Post-PC" era, and looks set to go from strength to strength.
Multi-touch is a highly sought-after feature on our touch-based devices at this point in time. Additionally, it seems the larger the screen, the higher the demand, as users look to take advantage of the increased display real estate with as many gestures as possible.
I remember the golden days of mobile phone devices when functionality was limited to making telephone calls and sending/receiving text messages. The first mobile device I ever owned didn't even have the ability to send multimedia messages, although it could handle an array of amazing polyphonic ringtones which at the time was cutting edge stuff.
Some iPhone apps create little niches that we didn't even know existed. Others take a manual task and replace it with a nice, shiny digital alternative. Some even manage to do both at once, and Pocket Doorbell is one such app.
After enjoying the build up to the recent Apple event in San Francisco, we are now sitting in the aftermath of the company announcements which brought us the new iPad, a revamped Apple TV unit, various application upgrades and an immediate release of the iOS 5.1 software. For the most part, the Apple loving world will have walked away from the live streams of the event being extremely happy with what was announced. However, for those of you who rely on jailbreaking and unlocking your devices, the release of iOS 5.1 may not have been such good news.
We currently find ourselves at that time of the year which brings both delight and pain to members of the Apple product loving world. On one hand, the Cupertino company has just released the brand new and improved iPad which will be hitting the shelves in less than a week. They have also released a point upgrade to iOS 5, taking us to version 5.1 as well as a revamped Apple TV unit. On the other hand, those amongst us who love to jailbreak their devices, and perform a software based carrier unlocks on their iPhone find themselves in turmoil.
Although I am relatively still youthful and full of vitality and zest, I am old enough to remember the good old days of yester-year when technology was nowhere near as advanced or feature packed as it is now, but we were still blown away by being able to play block based games on the latest Motorola flip phone or set polyphonic ringtones on our Nokia. I will always remember bounding through the school gates on a Monday morning with my Nokia 3310 in hand, excited about showing classmates the 'Snake' game which came built in with it, feeling a sense of pride that I was one of the few to have a mobile telephone at school.
Whether you love or loathe Google's mobile operating platform, one of the great positives of Android is that, since it's open-source, literally everything can be customized and tweaked to the nth degree.
One of the many new things to come out of Apple's recent iPad 3 event was the release of an iOS version of iPhoto. Rumored to be on the horizon for what feels like forever, iPhoto on an iPad, especially one with a Retina Display, just makes so much sense that it hurts.
Every time when it looks as though the jailbreak development community is about to hit a saturation point, someone seems to come up with a new and inventive tweak which hasn't been done before, bringing some pretty unique functionality to jailbroken devices. Once upon a time the stock repositories which provide the content on Cydia were updated at least a couple of times a week with excellent and innovative tweaks and extensions which dramatically improved the user experience of an iOS device. However, with Apple including new features in every update of iOS, and the community pretty much exhausting the tweak options, we have become used to seeing mediocre offerings appearing in Cydia with a gem appearing every so often.
