This year's CES has shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that 2012 is going to be the year that the computer market at large is going to catch up with Apple. At least, it will in the world of ultra-light, ultra-portable notebooks like the MacBook Air.
If you take a journey back into the not-too-distant past, and ask people to give a breakdown of the makes and models of mobile devices they used before they made the leap across to a smartphone, I am pretty confident that a small number of handsets will appears in everyone's list who is of a certain age. If I go back approximately a decade, Nokia was probably the dominant handset manufacturer with the latest release being the must-have phone amongst school kids and business men alike.
If anyone wondered whether Apple's entry into the world of digital textbooks was a good idea, then they should feast their eyes on this not inconsiderable number - users have downloaded 350,000 textbooks in just three days.
If the speculation is to be believed, then Apple has plans in place to adopt and support the new 802.11ac specification across Airport base stations, Time Capsules, Apple TV, Notebooks and potentially the company’s range of mobile devices.
Phil Schiller and associates took to the Guggenheim Museum in New York today to hold a special event which couldn't have been further away from the traditional format that we grace Apple product launches for. In a smaller, stripped down event, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing introduced a strategy which was all about education. No specifications, aesthetics or launch dates for the media to speculate and report on, instead we saw a straight to the point presentation which featured innovation, new applications and a vision to change the face of education across the world, not for profit, but for the good of change.
To coincide nicely with the impressive educational announcements made today in New York, Apple have also released iTunes 10.5.3 which adds synchronization support for the newly announced interactive books.
Case manufacturers have a somewhat hazy past when it comes to predicting what upcoming Apple devices are going to look like. We had the iPhone 5 cases which promised a teardrop design for example, and we all know that didn't come to fruition.
With Apple said to be at the business end of producing the third installment to it’s iPad range, the question many analysts will be asking is, can rivals launch a serious challenge to the undisputed king of the tablet market?
You could be forgiven for just automatically assuming that every mobile device user owns a smartphone of some sort. For the last 4 years I have become so used to being engrossed in my iPhone and upgrading each year to the newest device that I sometimes forget to stop and actually realize that not everyone has made that transition yet from a standard mobile phone. To the non-clued up user who is looking to purchase a new cell phone, the world of smartphones could seem pretty daunting with devices offering pretty much the same core functionality, with the difference being the software which powers it.
Running out of patience with the iPad 3 and iPhone 5 rumors? Well, then you have come to the right place, as today has brought about some new speculative chatter, this time pertaining to the capabilities of the expected Apple TV set. In the last ten years, Apple has been on a rampage with the sole mission of revolutionizing and improving the music, mobile and portable device industries and it would take a braver man than me to say they have succeeded in doing so, and then some.
