Lots of people were rightly angry about Apple ditching Google data, but beyond that mis-step there were things to like: a more useful Siri (App launching plus the recognition that a world exists outside of the USA), shared Photo Streams, handy Phone app controls such as 'send to voicemail', and major improvements to Mail, Safari, accessibility and the Camera app.
iOS 7 release date
it looks like the new operating system might be running a little behind schedule. John Gruber believes that iOS 7 is "running behind", with engineers being pulled from OS X 10.9 to work on it.
We're expecting a September or October release date for iOS 7 in line with previous releases. We'll almost certainly see a reveal at WWDC in early June. Apple has promised to give devs "an in-depth look at what's next in iOS and OS X".
iOS 7 design
A greater synergy between hardware and software design is something Apple is looking to achieve as it moves towards iOS 7. That's according to the Wall Street Journal in late March 2013, which also suggests that Jonathan Ive is pushing for a starker and simpler design for iOS 7 - that reminds us a little of what Microsoft has done to the desktop in Windows 8.
But regardless of what Apple achieves, it's never really enough. As soon as you've sat there playing with the latest iOS, ideas pop into your head regarding what you'd like to see next.
However, most changes will be "pretty conservative" according to the paper's sources.
The rest of this article explores a dozen of the features we're clamouring to see in iOS 7. (And by 'clamouring', we of course mean 'asking really nicely'. C'mon, Mr Cook - pretty please?)
1. Hide Apple apps
Pretty much everyone we know with an Apple device has a folder entitled 'Apple'. This isn't filled with must-have apps from the geniuses at Cupertino, but all the junk Apple installs that you can't get rid off. To be fair, what each individual considers junk is different, and these apps—Compass, Stocks, Voice Memos, Passbook, and so on—have their fans; but is it too much to ask for a switch in Settings that will hide those we don't use?
2. Better app management
Change for change's sake is rarely a good thing. Recognition is key to satisfying experiences with technology. That's why we're not yelling at Apple to change how iOS home screens work. What we would like to see is improvements to app management: more screens; by default saving app data on delete; and an alphabetical list of installed apps, perhaps accessible from Spotlight.
3. Change app defaults
We're pretty certain this request would be met with wide-eyes from Apple CEO Tim Cook, swiftly followed by a full twenty minutes of belly laughing, but we want the ability to use non-default apps for important things like email and calendaring. Apple's own apps would remain the defaults, but you should also be able to pick your own in Settings.
4. Provide a guest account
It's extremely unlikely that Apple's ever going to enable multiple user accounts on iOS devices—they are, after all, designed as extremely personal computers. What is perhaps more realistic is some kind of guest account you could switch to when handing your device over to someone for a short while; something similar already exists on the Mac in OS X.
5. Change Siri's voice
OS X is blessed with dozens of high-quality voices that witter away to you in various dulcet tones. By contrast, Siri is Siri. In the US, you get a slightly robotic woman; in the UK, Siri's that bloke who did The Weakest Link for a decade. It'd be great if you could choose the voice your device uses to speak. (Possible exception: Yoda voice.)
6. Provide App Store demos
Apps and games might be cheap, but that doesn't figure cheapskates into the equation. Too often, people are unwilling to risk 69p on the latest release, forcing devs into irritating freemium models or making them clutter up the App Store with 'lite' versions of their output. Apple should just allow demos: 24 hours from first launch and then you buy or the app won't run. Boom.
7. Power up 'Do Not Disturb'
Fed up of getting woken up in the middle of the night by the marketing efforts of [redacted, but quite possibly a well-known mobile network] or Game Center fanfares? Do Not Disturb is a great feature that enables you to time when your phone will quit bugging you. But you can define only a single schedule, and we want to see alternative options for weekends.
8. Make locking location-aware
Locking is a great thing on iOS devices, making it at least a little harder for some scallywag to get at your data if they pinch your shiny Apple joy. But it could be more intelligent, locking on a location-aware basis, and not when you're, say, happily sitting at home on the sofa.
9. Improve the lock screen
There's something to be said for Apple's minimalism regarding the iOS lock screen, and it's mostly that it's too minimal. We're not sure we want to see Android-style widgets sprayed everywhere, but a little more functionality wouldn't go amiss. For example, artwork from a currently playing song is displayed on the lock screen, but there are no controls for pausing or skipping to the next track, until you double-press Home, which isn't hugely discoverable. And beyond notifications, nothing else shows up there at all.
10 Cut all iTunes ties
In recent years, Apple's made great leaps away from iTunes, and you can technically get away with never using the monstrous jukebox. However, there's still no way to easily get your existing music collection nor your photographs on to your device, and there should be. (Alas, with Apple wanting to push iTunes Match and the iTunes Store, there almost certainly never will be for the first of those.)
11. Make more icons dynamic
We're hesitant at arguing Apple's home screen icons should be more like Windows 8 tiles, but there's something to be said for dynamic updates when such things work well. With iOS, you get update badges and a live calendar. It'd be nice at the least if Apple made its own Clock and Weather icons dynamic.
12. Enable cross-platform installs
On a device, you now often see iOS-style banners on websites that when tapped take you right to the equivalent App Store app. But if you're browsing elsewhere, you have to email yourself a reminder and then install later. How good would it be if you were surfing on your PC, saw a great app and could install it across your devices without going near them, nor even to iTunes?
0
comments:
Is the best Windows laptop really a MacBook?
Posted by
Unknown
at
1:23 PM
Anyone who owns a MacBook Pro knows that it's a fairly reliable machine for running Apple's Mac OS X operating system, but new research shows that it's also apparently a great choice for Windows 8 users.
PC troubleshooting site Soluto published a list today of the most reliable Windows laptops, and ironically enough a non-Windows laptop, the mid-2012 13-inch MacBook Pro, made it to the very top.
Soluto collected data from 150,000 laptops beginning on January 1 of this year and analyzed each device looking for crashes, blue screens and other telltale issues.
The results showed that a MacBook Pro with Windows installed is the most reliable choice when it comes to avoiding those problems.
Getting Windows clutter-free
Soluto published its list of the most reliable Windows laptops in its April 2013 PC purchasing guide, according to PC World.
The PC service firm even offered up a possible explanation as to why the MacBook Pro is so reliable when running Windows: users who install Windows on an Apple computer are getting a vanilla version of the operating system that isn't bogged down by manufacturers' own proprietary software and applications.
That just goes to show that all those shiny extras that OEMs throw in on factory-new computers really can harm a device's efficiency.
Of course, there's work to be done to install Windows on MacBook, including buying Windows, setting up Boot Camp, then installing Windows, but if you're looking for the OS on an Apple product, we think Soluto would give the thumbs up.
Acer Aspire V3 comes in second
The second-most reliable Windows laptop proved to be the Acer Aspire E1-571, which costs a third the price of the MacBook Pro.
After that came the Dell XPS 13, though Soluto did mention that almost a third of XPS 13 users wiped their hard drives and started from scratch with a clean version of Windows, which may help explain its high ranking.
Soluto reportedly took multiple objective factors into account when determining the most reliable Windows laptops, including the number of running processes on each machine and the number of crashes each week.
TechRadar asked Apple to comment on the MacBook Pro's efficiency at running Windows 8, but the company has yet to share anything with us.
0
comments:
Touch webOS phone that could have been sees the light of day
Posted by
Unknown
at
1:20 PM
It's 2011 and the team at webOS has a decision to make: delay the QWERTY Pre 3 or an all-touch phone called the WindsorNot?
webOS Nation, which recently spent some time with the WindsorNot in prototype form, narrates the history of the phone that lost and provides a thorough look at the webOS 3.x handset that was once glimpsed in a pulled promo video.
Spec-wise the phone is close to the Pre 3, down to the 1.4Ghz Qualcomm processor and 800 x 480 screen, though looking at the WindsorNot feels like seeing an ancient artifact for the first time, one that was chucked in the mobile graveyard and forgotten until someone decided to brush the dirt off.
Not that the Pre 3 faired much better.
More blips!
A few things that aren't going extinct are our news nugget blips. Check 'em out.
Today Nokia unveiled the latest addition to its Asha lineup. The QWERTY-packing Nokia Asha 210featurephone comes in both single SIM and dual-SIM flavors and brings entry level functionality at an extremely attractive price point.
Nokia Asha 210 single SIM version
Combining a 2.4" LCD screen of QVGA resolution (320 x 240 pixels) with a four-row full QWERTY keyboard, the Nokia Asha 210 is targeted at younger users that do lots of texting and have a limited budget.
Nokia Asha 210 is the first handset to feature a dedicated WhatsApp button, which gives you quick access to the instant messing app that comes preinstalled.
The Asha 210 comes with Wi-Fi connectivity and a dedicated Wi-Fi on/off hardware toggle. Sadly the feature phone lacks any fast cellular network support like 3G or LTE, settling for dual-band GPRS/EDGE. Local connectivity is covered by microUSB and Bluetooth.
The Nokia Asha 210 offers a 2 megapixel camera at the back, but there's no front-facing snapper. The handset has a 3.5mm audio jack and while its internal memory is limited to just 64MB, there's a microSD card slot for expanding it by up to 32GB.
Nokia Asha 210 dual SIM version
The dual-SIM version will also come with support for Easy Swap, meaning you can exchange the secondary SIM without powering off the handset.
The Nokia Asha 210 is going to be available in yellow, cyan, black, magenta, and white when it goes on sale (sometime in this quarter). The estimated retail price for the Nokia Asha 210 is around $72
0
comments:
Google X phone goes through the AnTuTu benchmark, flaunts Android 5.0.1
Posted by
Unknown
at
12:59 PM
The purported Motorola Phone X might be called simply “Google X” as an AnTuTu score card suggests. The card, which emerged today, gives us a glimpse of what to expect from the first Google flagship designed by Motorola.
Additionally, the benchmark reports that the device is running Android 5.0.1. This gives everyone a tiny bit of hope that the next Android iteration would be ready for prime time at Google I/O 2013 in May.
The benchmark score is 15479, which is far from breathtaking, considering the Galaxy S4 scores 24716 in its quad-core variation. Could Google and Motorola opt in for the more affordable, but slower versions of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips, like the 400? Maybe, since the search giant is famous for selling devices with the Nexus brand for more than reasonable pricing.
However, there’s a very strong possibility that the screenshot is faked. Who knows! The closer Google I/O gets, the harder the mysterious (Motorola / Google) X phone rumor mill will spin, so don’t forget to put salt on those rumors as needed.
0 comments: