Although Apple pushed out iOS 5.1 along with the release of the new iPad earlier this month, it didn't really bring any earth shattering changes to delight the iOS user community. One of the additions that Tim Cook and his team talked about is the fact that they have removed the option to double tap the Home button on the lockscreen to display a camera shortcut button in favor of permanently displaying a camera icon that reacts to a swipe up gesture.
The lack of Messages app alternatives on Cydia could be either due to the fact that biteSMS and others have pretty much covered all bases and are extremely functional, or it could have something to do with the amount of work involved in creating such an app. Whatever the reason, the guys over at Handcent haven't been deterred and have released their HandcentSMS app through the Cydia store which they believe can unlock the messaging potential of a user’s iPhone. HandcentSMS is an entirely free, very powerful and highly customizable alternative to Apple's native app which handles both SMS and MMS messaging services.
Users of a Mac, or even a Windows-based PC, will be aware of the fact that you can flick between running apps by using the command/Alt and Tab buttons together. A quick press of these two buttons will flick to the last viewed app and back again. However, if you hold the buttons down together, a nice little view is overlaid on the screen which shows all of the running apps and allows the user to toggle between them all and choose one quickly. An iOS developer known as coffeejayyy has decided to make an iOS implementation of that feature and has called it CmdTab, available in Cydia now.
The official iOS App Store from Apple changed the way consumers think about and purchase software in a similar fashion to how the launch of the iTunes music store revolutionized the online music industry. The App Store was born in 2008 and has grown at a rapid rate over the last few years as millions of users tap into it on a daily basis to download and install apps spanning across multiple genres. Only recently Apple announced that the App Store had served up over 25 billion downloads since its inception, bringing proof if anyone needed it of the phenomenal success of the store.
If internet users actually took a few minutes to sit back and take stock of the amount of information they extract from the world wide web on a daily basis I think they might actually be a little taken aback. The majority of individuals use the internet to learn and acquire information as well as seeking out and watching videos of cute puppies on YouTube. With sites like YouTube and Vimeo, search engine giants such as Google and free information hubs like Wikipedia; the internet really does have something for everyone and it is a very rare instance that you can't find an answer to something you are looking for.
Apple's iPhone, along with rivals on the market, is rocking a shiny LED light, which serves primarily as a flash for the camera. However, it doubles up rather nicely as a torch, and is especially useful at helping locate things lost under a chair or couch.
It seems that the better devices get, the more demanding consumers become. Barely a week has passed since the release of the new iPad, and yet already it seems much of the blogosphere is focusing its attention on the next iPhone.
The iPhone is one of those devices which is always going to be popular across a wide class of consumers. On one hand it is an intelligent smartphone device powered by one of the world's most advanced operating systems that will appeal to buyers who crave a phone capable of handling their hectic schedules. On the other side of that coin are the users who care more about what it looks like, and the name attached to it, the ones who will always favor form over function. Fortunately for Apple, the iPhone provides enough bang for the buck to cover both sets of consumers and is one of the main reasons why it is so popular worldwide.
With Apple bringing forth a 4G LTE-compliant iPad last week, most of the on looking tech world saw such an implementation in the next iPhone as something of a foregone conclusion.
Angry Birds has been to iOS and Android what Call Of Duty has been to consoles over the the last few years. Those crazy, unstoppable birds have flown as far as PC, Mac, Facebook and Google Chrome in their never-ending quest to defend the nest.
