Apple showcased many new and intriguing features with the grand unveiling of iOS 6, the sixth edition of the company's famed mobile operating system, and one of the ones we're looking forward to the most is the Passbook feature. Apple et al have done a stellar job in reducing general pocket fodder over the years, and Passbook will only aid the progression further by allowing vouchers, boarding passes, loyalty cards, coupons and the like to be stored away digitally, and utilized with minimal fuss.
The time is fast approaching for Tim Cook and his cohorts to adorn that Moscone Center stage and introduce the world to the sixth-generation iPhone, which in turn will more than likely bring with it an immediate release of iOS 6, the company's next major revision of their mobile operating system. Registered members of the iOS dev program are now regularly using the fourth beta of iOS 6 in an attempt to familiarize themselves with the new features and improvements which Apple has pushed out, as well as trying to find and report any bugs that may exist.
If you are one of the many who religiously follow the release of any iOS device and are sitting patiently waiting for Apple to announce the next-generation iPhone, then it has been pretty much agreed upon that you don’t need to wait much longer. It is widely expected that the Apple media event that is planned for September 12th will be iPhone-centric and possibly introduce the new device for sale approximately nine days later.
Yesterday, Apple seeded iOS 6 Beta 4 to developers. It features a bunch of tweaks throughout the OS and its included apps, removes YouTube* as a stock app, and now, we’ve learned that Apple has added new cities from North America and Europe to its Maps app’s 3D feature. Check out the details after the jump.
With every passing day we are getting closer and closer to an eventual announcement and release of the next-generation iPhone. With the iPhone 4S being released in October of last year and the traditional Worldwide Developers Conference release date already passed, it looks likely that we can expect a similar launch time for Apple's next iPhone. Although I still expect an October announcement, there are some outlets adamant that we will see some activity during the month of September, but that obviously remains to be seen.
With the on-going development of iOS 6, the production of the next generation iPhone and the rumored smaller iPad, as well as the imminent release of OS X Mountain Lion, Apple has been really scrutinized lately be a Russian researcher who found a way to bypass the in-app purchase process in apps available via the official App Store. The bypass procedure, involving an intermediary server and two iPhone certificates undoubtedly caused an internal headache at Apple and prompted almost immediate action.
Having only announced iOS 6 last month at the WWDC event, the Cupertino company is already meandering its way through the betas, and if you've a developer account, you can now download iOS 6 beta 3, linked to at the very foot of this post.
Remember last month's comparison between mobile OSes, where we compared iOS 6 with the existing Android 4.x ICS and Windows Phone 7.5 Mango platforms? Well, in the time that has passed since then, we've since learned some newer official information about iOS 6, along with the upcoming versions of the other two mobile OSes. So now, a new chart has been concocted which compares and contrasts iOS 6 with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and Windows Phone 8.
If you’re an iPhone owner since 2007, the introduction of iOS 6 may represent what seems like the passing of an old friend as Apple cast out the old and brought in the new with the replacement of Google Maps with their own mapping system. A large group of users are willing to embrace change and really have no opinion on the situation, but with Google providing a tried and tested comprehensive mapping experience, some are understandably skeptical about the whole affair.
Whenever Apple announces a new major build of iOS, it is always seeded to registered developers in the first instance, with the theory being that they can test out their apps for compatibility and ready them for the final build and also file bug reports which they find with Apple. In that sense, Apple tends to treat their registered developers as there own tried and trusted software testers, something that has worked out well historically.
