The written musings of a long-time Apple //e and Macintosh tech nerd. Opinions are my own.
What’s the latest on the iPhone 5S rumor mill? Thursday, June 20.
Thursday, June 20 is rumored to be the day that Apple will hold a “town hall” meeting to unveil the iPhone 5S.
June 20 is still a ways off, so take it with as much salt as you can.
[Via iDownloadBlog.com…]
[Photo courtesy of VentureBeat.com…]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRt5qagkGBU]
Not that long ago I was talking about Auxo, a jailbreak tweak for iOS devices that replaces, some say enhances, Apple’s implementation of multitasking on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
A new concept video has been posted that builds on what Apple has done and blends it with the card based multitasking analogy that was developed by Palm for webOS. We all know that I have a soft spot for Palm and webOS, so I encourage you to check out this concept video. Let’s hope that Apple takes it, and what the Auxo folks have done, and builds in some to those ideas into iOS 7.
Here’s a look at what multitasking cards looked like on Palm’s Pre running webOS.
[Via iDownloadBlog.com…]
A few days ago, Apple released an updated version of their Podcasts app for iOS. That app not only got me listening to podcasts again, but may foretell of the coming changes to iOS 7 and beyond.
If you will recall, back in October of 2012, iOS chief Scott Forstall was pushed out of Apple’s inner circle, and the company. You get to pick the reason; whether it was his personality, his management style, his vision for iOS, or his refusal to publicly apologize for the problems with Apple’s Maps app – a disliked replacement for Google Maps. Whatever the reason, CEO Tim Cook ejected Forstall and put long time Apple hardware designer Jonathan Ive in charge of both hardware and software designs. Known for his sleek and simple designs, we where left wondering how that might impact iOS.
With the new Podcasts app, I think we’ve gotten our answer. The new Podcasts app is still familiar, but looks much better. Gone are the design elements mean to mimic real life items. So the goofy reel-to-reel screen, that I kinda liked, are gone. The new interface is flat, clean, and colorful, but not in the big splash of color kind of way that Microsoft has taken up with Windows 8 and Windows 8 Phone Metro look and feel. I like the new feel.
So what does this mean for iOS and future versions of Mac OS X? I think we’re going to see a lot of small changes to Apple’s user interface, or UI, design language. The tan leather and stitching we see in the Calendar app probably won’t be there much longer. The charcoal grey linen backdrop that appears in the iOS Notification Center and the Mac OS X login screen may or may not go away too. And personally, I hope the annoying Music/iPod app interface on the iPad goes away too. I really find that wood trim effect so annoying that I very rarely ever use the Music app on my iPad.
What I don’t expect to happen is a complete redesign of iOS and Mac OS X this year. This will be an iterative change spanning over many months. I feel that while UI changes are important to keep the look and feel of iOS and Mac OS X on par, I think it is more important for Apple to be looking at ways to add new features that users will find helpful and a delight to use, and to continue the hard work of further integrating iOS, Mac OS X, and iCloud. (Making iCloud easier for application developers to work with is also high on my list, but probably won’t be addressed this year.)
Yesterday, Google released and update for their popular Gmail app for iOS.
The updated email client now allows you to swipe left and right while reading messages to move to the next or previous message. Additionally, once you select one message in your mailbox, a new “edit” menu appears at the top of the screen giving you quick access to archive, delete, or more options.
If you are a Gmail user with an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you will want to install this new version of the app. The ability to apply Gmail tags to messages from my iPhone is the one features that I wish Apple’s stock mail app had.
But there is one other reason that you will want to consider installing the Gmail app for iOS if you use Gmail heavily, Google is gradually dropping support for “push” email notifications. In the future, the only way to get push Gmail notifications of new messages is to switch to the Gmail app for iOS or switch to an Android smartphone.
Earlier today, Apple released iOS 6.1.3, a security and maintenance update of iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
iOS 6.1.3 fixes the lock screen bug that was introduced in an earlier version of iOS 6. The update also includes minor fixes and updates for the Japanese version of Maps.
You might recall that iOS 6.1.3 started out life as iOS 6.1.1 back on February 6th. A number of serious bugs where discovered in iOS 6.1, 6.1.1, and 6.1.2, forcing the originally planned iOS 6.1.1 to become 6.1.3.
iOS 6.1.3 is available now for current model iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch models. To upgrade your device OTA, go to: Settings > General > Software Update.
Apple has also released Apple TV 5.2.1 update for second and third generation Apple TVs.
Take this with a grain of salt, because I’m putting this in the ‘rumor’ category, but…if a supposedly ‘leaked’ video is real, Google’s next assault on the iOS ecosystem will be the up until now Android exclusive Google Now digital assistant.
“Google Now, an Android-only app that aims to provide users with “the right information, at just the right time”, is coming to iOS, if a leaked video is to be believed. Google reportedly posted this promotional video to YouTube accidentally.”
As you might imagine, the Google video was quickly pulled from YouTube, but you can watch the video below.
[Via MacRumors.com…]
I’m a stock iOS guy. I don’t jailbreak my iPhone. (Go #TeamPure!) I don’t tweak it. I do install apps, games, and utilities. But my every day go to apps have always been the stock Apple apps: Mail, Safari, Calendar, and Siri. Until today.
Starting today, I’m going to try out some third-party applications as my every day go to apps. Why? you might ask? Well, I’ve been reading a lot about how Apple is being ‘out Appled’ by Google. In other words, Google is getting much better at hardware design faster than Apple is getting better at software and services. That doesn’t really mean much to us common folk, but it has inspired me to try out and use new software and that is a good thing.
On my iPhone and iPad 3, Mail has been replaced by Gmail, Calendar by Fantastical, Safari by Chrome, and Siri by Google Search. I also installed Google Maps in addition to Apple Maps, but honestly, I don’t use either maps app on my iPhone very often for it to make a difference.
I though about using Pandora, Spotify, Amazon Cloud Player or Rdio to replace iTunes but I didn’t want to switch to a streaming service because I don’t want to run my iPhone’s battery down any faster than it already does.
I’ll run my experiment for 2-4 weeks and then post my thoughts about things here.
If you have a favorite app that replaces a stock Apple app, let us know and post it in the comments section below.
“I want to be clear here: automated backups can be very bad news. If you restore your tweaks without going through Cydia, and an update breaks a single tweak, you won’t have a fun time attempting to find the incompatible package that crashes your phone at startup.”
[Via iDownloadBlog.com…]
With the iPhone 4S battery and Exchange Server recurring meeting bugs behind them, looks like Apple is trying to get back to the business of development of the next regular software upgrade of iOS 6.
Yesterday, developers were notified that iOS 6.1.3 beta 2 was available for testing. As previously reported, this version is suppose to focus on Maps enhancements (for Japan only?), and will include a fix for the iOS lock screen bypass bug.
[Via BGR.com…]
Yesterday, Apple rolled out iOS 6.1.2. This updated is intended to address the Microsoft Exchange bug that has been well documented.
Unlike previous iOS 6.1.x updates, iOS 6.1.2 is available for current model iPhone, iPad, iPad mini, and iPod touch models.
I’ve read conflicting reports on whether or not iOS 6.1.2 addresses the lock screen bypass bug. I’ll have to test to see if the issue was resolved after applying iOS 6.1.2.