If you use your iPad for the purpose of reading news and magazines, you haven't adequately done your tablet justice until you've used Flipboard. A stunning, innovative interface makes keeping up with the latest content a real joy, and if you like reading books as well skimming through the content of Flipboard, you'll be pleased to know that the app has just added a Books category which integrates with Apple’s iBookstore.
We've known for quite some time that Ryan Petrich is probably one of the hardest working and most productive developers in the jailbreak community, but if we need further proof regarding that notion; a wave of tweaks were released in Cydia bearing his name. Although a lot of the developer’s packages often land on his own private repository for testing purposes, a number of them were pushed out to the main repo for everyone to take advantage of. One of the simplest releases, but one that a lot of users may find useful is the UpsideDown package that pretty does exactly what the name suggests.
Aside from the issue with Maps not quite living up to the high standards of consumers, the iOS 6 has been fairly incident-free thus far, but while it may have been adopted in record numbers, a major bug has been discovered with the new Apple mobile software. Although it is said to have been amended in iOS 6.0.1, those on 6.0 could be susceptible to a bug in the AV Framework which causes podcasts and audio streams to download more than once, potentially leading to significant data overages for those downloading over a cellular connection.
The release of the iPhone 5 has, by and large, gone without major incident. The Antennagate scandal of two years ago with the iPhone 4 was regarded as the biggest tech fail of that particular year, and while the battery issue plagued a few iPhone 4S handsets back in October 2011, the software-related Maps app has been the only real issue this time around. With that said, not everybody has had such a great first two months with their shiny new device, and while a couple of complaints have arisen with regards to scratching of the anodized aluminum, some have had to contend with the altogether more pressing issue of poor Wi-Fi performance.
Since its inception, the iPhone's camera has gotten stronger and stronger. While the hardware has improved to the point whereby the iPhone is now the most popular point-and-shoot on the market, the actual app has remained largely unchanged. There's nothing wrong with it, so to speak, but if you like to make casual edits as you go along, it certainly comes up short.
Although iOS is one of the faster and more fluid mobile operating systems out there when it comes to viewing UI animations, it seems that jailbreak fans do seem to love a good Cydia package that gives the impression that the system is performing faster that it actually is. In the past we have had tweaks such as ClockWind that existed to boost animation speed, so users perceive it to be faster than it actually is, and now we have a tweak called Accelerate that is claiming to be the revival of iOS, although we aren't to sure that it was in such a state that it needed revival.
Since the release of iOS 6, the flaws of the Maps app have stood out like a sore thumb in an operating system which, otherwise, is fairly polished. When it first made its appearance along with the iPhone 5 back in September, people were tripping over themselves to pour scorn on an implementation which was supposed to be the center piece, but following an apology from Apple CEO Tim Cook by means of an open letter, the issue has petered out as consumers have sought alternatives.
Navigating through apps is probably one of the most important aspects of using software on devices like the iPhone or the Galaxy S III. Being able to move to new interfaces, use the features within the app and then navigating back to where we came from is extremely important, but we sometimes take for granted how this is achieved. Android fans generally appreciate the dedicated back button that exists on devices but iOS fans generally need to rely on developers incorporating the navigation methodologies or hope that an app is built around a navigation controller that automatically applies a back button to go to the previous location.
Whenever a new iOS device releases into the wild, Apple works hard to ensure its software its up to scratch, and any lingering bugs are identified and eradicated post-haste. Aside from the obvious issue of iOS 6 Maps, the release of the latest and greatest mobile firmware from Apple has been relatively incident-free, and having released iOS 6 beta 1 to developers only ten days ago, iOS 6 beta 2 has now been released.
The iPhone 5 has now been with us for approximately seven weeks but if you thought you were going to be sitting at the cutting edge of smartphone technology for a substantial period of time, then a report coming out of China could pour some cold water on that thought. A story coming from the Commercial Times is suggesting that Apple have no intention of resting on their laurels when it comes to updating and upgrading their iPhone hardware and could be planning on initiating a trial production run of iPhone 5S handsets as early as next month.
