iOS ... TheMag?
Written by Matthew JC Powell Thursday, 15 July 2010 01:51
A month or so back, when Steve Jobs kicked off Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference — the largest gathering of Mac developers in the world, you could count the number of times he used the word “Mac” on the fingers of one hand. In fact, even if you were a rather clumsy lumber worker you could still do it, provided you had one finger left. That’s right. In a keynote address lasting an hour and 52 minutes, he said the word “Mac” only once.
The iPhone and iPad and their operating system are the hot topic at the moment, for users and developers alike. There are perhaps five times as many people running the touch-enabled version of Mac OS X as there are using the mouse-driven one, and that has happened with breathtaking rapidity. It only makes sense that Apple wants to stay on top of that and manage its growth.
However, for those of us whose businesses are leaning reasonably heavily on the Mac — say, for instance, just off the top of my head, someone trying to launch an online magazine with “Mac” emblazoned in its masthead — it’s a little worrying. Just a little. We (OK, I) would rather like it if Apple would start talking about the Mac a bit more.
Things to know about iPhone 4 and iOS 4
Written by Matthew JC Powell Thursday, 15 July 2010 01:52
It was fantastically convenient of Apple to announce two different products with a 4 in the name at the same time. And for bonus points, for one of them to have the name that the other one would have had if only it hadn’t changed the name. So it is that the iPhone 3GS is replaced by the iPhone 4, while the iPhone 3.x operating system is not replaced by iPhone 4, but rather by iOS 4. That way when people talk about “iPhone 4” there’s always just a few seconds of clarification necessary to ensure that both parties are talking about the same thing. It’s a coup de grace.
Let’s not actually bring the notion of an “iPhone 4G” into it, because that’s next year’s confusion. For now, understand that the hardware is iPhone 4 and the software is iOS 4, and the software will run on iPhone 3G and 3GS and any iPod touch other than the very first iteration — within certain limits.
iPad rumour scorecard
Written by Alex Kidman Thursday, 15 July 2010 01:35
In the lead-up to the announcement and release of the iPad, rumours abounded about everything from its name to its tech specs to even its very existence. Which turned out to be well-informed and which turned out to be fanciful? Check out our scorecard.
iPhone GPS apps: which one is right for me?
Written by Alex Kidman Thursday, 15 July 2010 01:50
GPS is one of those iPhone features that used to warrant a line as an inclusion in sales brochures, but never much serious consideration. Apple’s initial stance on the technology was that it was fine for location-aware applications, but the only bit of mapping you could do with it was via Google Maps and your 3G or GPRS connection. Functionally speaking, that wasn’t quite good enough to make GPS alone a genuine selling point for the iPhone. In the past few months, with Apple lifting the GPS navigation restriction, we’ve seen a number of GPS clients pop up on the App store. Unlike your average $1.19 App, though, these are neither cheap nor small, and choosing which one to buy isn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision.
