It was only yesterday morning that the Microsoft team held an event at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and announced that the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, essentially a prerelease version of Windows 8, would be made available immediately for public download. Windows 8 was described by Microsoft was "Windows reimagined", which sounds awfully familiar to the "Inspired by iPad, reimagined for Mac" tagline that Apple are muttering with their Mountain Lion OS.
If you're an Android user and a fan of custom launchers, well, I have some good news and bad news. The good: TSF Shell, a standout custom launcher which demoed back in December to critical acclaim, has finally been released. The bad: they want a mind-blowing $17 (yes, that's seventeen dollars) for it.
The guys over at OnLive Inc. have been a busy bunch of individuals, bringing us the iPad launch of their OnLive Desktop application a few days ago, and today releasing the Android version of the software which is now available in the Android Market. A lot of you may hear OnLive and relate it to the ability to stream video games without the need for a PlayStation 3 or an Xbox 360, and you'd be right. The company are also responsible for that gaming platform but have also extended their cloud services further in recent months.
Although I am personally not a regular user of an Android device, I was shocked to read some statistics which showed that only one device currently ships with the latest version of Android, which is 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich installed, and that only approximately one percent of Android devices in existence actually have ICS installed. With a Google Executive hinting that Jelly Bean could be ready for prime time this fall, it seems that Android 4.0 may not even make it onto the majority of devices.
E-reading has become a hugely popular pastime over the last few years - largely attributable to the release of devices such as Amazon's Kindle and Apple's iPad tablet.
Here at Redmond Pie, we spend a great deal of time looking at the very best apps and games for Android and iOS in particular, but admittedly, most of them are centered around perfect productivity and catchy physics.
Last year, company by the name of CutYourSim caused a mixture of excitement, confusion, and subsequent disappointment and cynicism when it released a permanent unlock procedure - only for the service to be abruptly halted once Apple caught wind of what was occurring.
The Apple rumor mill can usually be described, at best, hit and miss. Sometimes we are amazed at how early some rumors begin and then ultimately turn on to be on the money. Other times, however, speculation turns out to be as far away from reality as possible. The conjecture which seems to be brought up and regurgitated the most seems to provide it with some legitimacy, and that is definitely the case with the mystery surrounding the possibility of a small iPad unit.
Whether you're eager to get the freshly released Windows 8 Consumer Preview installed but don't have DVDs at hand, or if you'd prefer to not use such an outdated method of installation, we'd recommend that you install by creating a bootable USB stick with the ISO. When the Windows 8 Developer Preview was released, we wrote an extensive guide covering just how to do this by using the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool. So, to go about preparing the bootable USB step, follow the steps in the guide with the Consumer Preview ISO of your choice.
Ubuntu is one of the best Linux distros available in our eyes, and at least one member of the Redmond Pie team uses it as a means of building a home-made Time Capsule for backing up a Mac. On a slight tangent, let us know if you'd like to see a tutorial on getting that up and running!
