iOS 7 Released 18/9/13

Today Apple have released the latest version of their mobile devices operating system, iOS 7. It is available for millions of iOS devices through the 'Software Update' page on the General section of the Settings app.

iOS 7 is completely redesigned from iOS 6, which had previously followed the UI look from each previous version of the mobile operating system. iOS 7 takes a new approach of simplicity, layering and a new colour palette. All of the Apple apps, Camera, Messages etc. are also completely redesigned.

The new design minimises intrusion and hopes to give the user the information they exactly when and where they need it. For example FaceTime is full screen, as the conversation you are having is the focus of your attention.

The redesigned Photos app looks really good. It automatically groups your photos in 'moments' based on the time and location that the photos were taken. Other changes include the Control Centre which you can pull up from the bottom of the page to turn things like bluetooth and wi-fi  on and off. Also included in Control Centre is brightness controls, music controls and a torch (flashlight).

For more information see Apple's webpages: http://www.apple.com/uk/ios/

128GB iPad

Apple have announced that their iPad with Retina display (what we call the iPad 4th Generation) will be available with even more storage capacity from 5th February 2013. The new size is 128GB, as you probably guessed from the title of this blogpost! There was no fanfare or an Apple special event to break the news, just a simple press statement, but then the product remains the same. The new size is available in both Wi-Fi only and Wi-Fi+Cellular options. The costs in the USA are $799 for the Wi-Fi only and $929 for the cellular option.

A whopping 128GB flash drive takes the iPad with Retina Display into new territories. This doubling of storage capacity from 64GB to 128GB, and coupling an iPad with Retina Display with the Apple Wireless Keyboard brings it into competition with a MacBook Air, which is $999, to use US dollars for a direct comparison. And the $999 MacBook Air is only equipped with 64 GB flash storage!

Both the MacBook Air and the iPad + a wireless keyboard give you the option to quickly and accurately type emails, documents etc. for work. But the iPad has a lot more to offer for play. The multi-touch interface works brilliantly with games and creative apps, and also for showing off your photos. It's a tough choice to make if you have $1000 to spend on Apple products!

More and more complex applications are being released for the iPad too. Companies such as Autodesk and WaveMachines Labs take the iPad format very seriously with their AutoCAD WS and Auria apps respectively. Both companies are quoted in Apple's press release of acknowledging that their customers will benefit from a larger storage option on new devices.

Is this enough storage to tempt buyers away from tablets with expandable memory? Can you foresee ever using up 128GB, thats a fair few apps, photos and films. But the with the 4G LTE high speed it is quick to download a large file, so it's probably very useful. Let us know in the comments below what you think of the this addition to the iPad product line up.

iOS 6

The Apple World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) earlier today included the announcement of iOS 6. iOS 6 is the sixth major version of the Apple mobile operating system which rus the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. There are hundreds of new features but some of the major new features are listed below.

• Maps - All new Apple Maps including Turn-by-Turn Navigation and Siri integration.
• Facebook integration throughout the OS
• FaceTime over a cellular connection
• Improved Safari including better iCloud integration
• New options for controlling alerts, including "Do Not Disturb" mode
• Shared Photostreams
• Passbook - for a paperless ticketing system

iOS 6 will be coming to iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod Touch 4th Gen, iPad 2 and the New iPad this Autumn.

iPad & 4G in the UK

The Advertising Standard's Authority are investigating Apple surrounding the advertisement of the new iPad, the BBC reports. The new hardware is capable of connecting to a multitude of wireless connections, Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G LTE. The most impressive of this list is the 4G technology. Apple distinguish their two versions of the iPad's connectivity options as:

1. iPad (Wi-Fi)
2. iPad (Wi-Fi + 4G)

However in the UK there are currently no 4G network providers, this is covered by a small note at the bottom of the page which lists networks operating a 4G service, and states which countries these operators are providing coverage to (USA and Canada). 

See the Apple store page yourself and feel free to comment below.

Teachers Apple... Mac - iPad Textbooks

Apple have a long history of supporting the education system. Their latest project aims to revolutionise the textbook. All students, from starting school to gaining a PhD, use text books. These textbooks haven't changed for a long time... until now.

The iPad is changing the way student's conduct their studies. With the iPad you can carry around as many books as you need, without any increase in the weight of your bag. The Amazon Kindle store and Apple's iBook store both stock thousands of books. But these are just digital versions of paper books. With the hardware in the iPad the humble book is suddenly capable of so much more. This is why Apple have created a new standard for digital Textbooks, and it's built into iBooks 2, which is free on the App Store:


In these new text books you there are embedded 3D images, embedded photo gallery's and video content. They also give feedback on the multiple choice questions you get at the end of a chapter. For a preview of these features click here.

To create text books for the iPad Apple have created a new software package: iBooks Author.

Emoticons on iOS: Emoji Keyboard

Everyone uses the classic smiley face :-) or winking ;-) but on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad you could be showing your emotions in a lot more detail! These faces look great on the retina display too.

To enable the Emoji keyboard follow these quick and simple instructions below!

3rd Generation iPad Announced

As per the rumours the Apple event earlier revealed their latest iPad to the world.

This 3rd generation iPad features an incredible screen, a retina display. This was widely predicted as the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S both currently include retina displays. It should be noted that it is a huge achievement to create s retina display on the scale of the iPad. It has 4 times as many pixels as the iPad 2 screen, which means it has a larger than number of pixels than a 1080p HD TV! (Speaking of TV, there is a new Apple TV, subject of a further blog post).

This extra screen needs some extra power from the graphics processor. So Apple have created the A5X chip to the the new iPad. It includes a quadcore GPU.

Also predicted prior to the event, the new iPad will connect to new 4G LTE networks for much faster connections than 3G.

The storage capacities, form factor (9.7" screen) and colour options, remain the same. But the camera improves from a 0.3 MP camera to 5.0 MP camera including the advanced optics developed for the iPhone 4S. This is a huge step forwards and makes the iPad a handy camera to have, instead of a casual snapper. The camera records 1080p HD video too.

To compliment the upgraded camera there are new apps, including iPhone and an update to iMovie. These all run on an update to iOS 5 called iOS 5.1.

Have we already seen the iPad 3?

It probably crossed your mind too that this press invite picture for Apple's went on 7th March 2012, could well be an iPad 3...

The screen does appear to be a particularily high resolution, but without a comparison it is difficult to say. This is where Gizmodo come in. Gizmodo have tried to recreate this image with an iPad 2 and the difference in the screen resolution is immediately apparent when viewed side by side. A copy of their comparison image is shown below. The full story is on their webpage: Is the iPad 3 hiding in Plain Sight. They have also speculated as to why no home button is shown, but I guess we'll have to wait an see...

Click photo for full size - Photo from Gizmodo

iPad 3 Announcement Expected 7th March 2012

It is widely expected that Apple will unveil a new iPad, suspected to be called iPad 3, on 7th March 2012. Apple have called a press conference in San Francisco, Engadget reports.

So far the rumours of what the iPad 3 will bring seem to strongly suggest that an iPhone 4 spec retina display, which has a theoretical pixel count greater than that of full 1080p HD when scaled up to the 9.7" screen size of the iPad and the iPad2. The press image below certainly lends it self to unveiling a new high specification display. Only just over a week to go till the launch...

Image from Engadget.

Mac OS X Mountain Lion's Messages Beta

If you are excited by today's Mac OS X Mountain Lion announcement and can't wait till the summer to experience some of the apps then you are in luck! Apple have released a beta version of Messages. Messages brings you the iOS iMessage feature to your Mac. You can communicate to and from Mac's and iOS devices and even include attachments such as pictures and HD video.

You can start a conversation on your Mac and then continue it on your iPhone whilst on the move. All of your iOS devices can receive your new message notifications. You can even go from messaging a contact to joining them in a FaceTime call, to speak to them face to face.

Download the Messages beta here.

Mac OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview

Apple have announced that their next version of Mac OS X will be called Mountain Lion. It will be released in the summer of 2012. For those of you who are Apple developers you can download the developer preview today.

The new feature list is heavily influenced by iOS as many predicted and Mac OS X Mountain Lion will include dedicated Mac apps for Notes, Reminders and iMessage. All of which work with iCloud. There will also be a notification centre, which can be accessed via a trackpad gesture, to centralise notifications of new iMessages, emails and notifications from third party apps. Lots of the iOS features within apps, such as the share button will be included so you can tweet from within apps, just like on the iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad.

For more information see Apple's Mountain Lion Preview.

Google Maps Style Improvements

Google Maps has become the standard for mapping in the last few years. Their maps are accessed by people all across the globe for accurate and up to date maps of the world.

The recent 2011 update is compared to 2009 on Google's Lat Long blog, the images are below.

New York is a good demonstration of how the map is easier to read as the main roads are shown narrower.

This is most dramatic change is in Sydney, where there is a large concentration of main roads. The colours used in the map are toned down, and as a result more information can be displayed. This increases as you zoom in, where labels appear and are resized at every zoom level. The images below show London's South Bank.

And zoomed in London South Bank University shows the names of individual buildings. Try it yourself in the embedded map below.

View Larger Map

So how did an internet search engine become so dominant in the world of cartography?

Angry Birds Infographic

Angry Birds can cause addiction, and for Rovio, huge profits! This info graphic explores the Angry Birds stats!

 
Infographic by: AYTM Market Research

You can now even play Angry Birds within Google+!

AutoCAD WS

AutoCAD WS is a FREE online CAD editing tool from Autodesk - and it's received an exciting set of updates. There are limitations though, but that is to be expected from a free web based app. This really shows the power of web 2.0. You can modify and amend your drawings almost anywhere, which is a new and novel idea in the CAD industry. The main feature lacking is full support for 3D across all the various AutoCAD WS platforms. For more casual users Google SketchUp's free version is the way to go, it's support for 3D drawing and quick textures is ideal for home use.



Autodesk are market leaders in Computer Aided Design (CAD) Software and their flagship product, AutoCAD, is probably the standard for engineering, architecture and manufacturing. AutoCAD typically runs on a specific computer and any work that needed doing to a specific drawing would have to take place on that computer. For those that aren't aware of AutoCAD you could draw parallels from Adobe's Photoshop suite:

• AutoCAD / Photoshop / Expensive specialised product.
• AutoCAD LT / Photoshop Elements / Stripped down product with just what you need and lower cost.
• AutoCAD WS / Photoshop Express / Even further stripped down product based online

So AutoCAD WS is a web based product that allows you to view and edit your drawing files online and on the go. Just like Adobe's Photoshop Express iPhone app there is an AutoCAD WS smart phone / tablet app for iPhone, iPad  and Android devices. The latest features include the ability to manipulate layers within a drawing. You can also enter lines at a specific length which was a particularly big downfall of the original 2010 release of AutoCAD WS. Another new feature of AutoCAD WS is that you can connect it to your existing online storage solutions such as box.net. Here's a short video showing off these new features:



There is also now a Mac App which works with the online service and also provides support for offline editing. The AutoCAD WS Mac App can be downloaded for free from here.



AutoCAD WS is also fully integrated into the latest version of AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2012.

iPhone Caps Lock

The iOS operating system for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch features a great touch keyboard. It predicts what you are typing on the fly, enabling quick auto-completion with the space bar, auto-capitalisation of the first word and built in spell checker. However, entering in capitals has always been a bit of a hassle. "Shift" "E" "Shift" "X" etc just to type EXAMPLE.

There is another way! The little known feature that you can enable a "Caps lock" option from the Keyboards settings. When typing you just double tap shift, it glows blue, and all your text IS TYPED IN CAPITALS.

To enable caps lock go to Settings > General > Keyboard > Enable Caps Lock.

Enable Caps Lock Option

Shift highlighted blue to show caps lock 

WhatsApp

WhatsApp is one of several cross-platform smartphone applications which provides text and multimedia messaging. The difference between your 'normal' SMS and MMS system is two fold. Firstly WhatsApp, and the like, use your smartphones data connection to send and receive messages at no cost other than your data tariff. Secondly, there are several functionality improvements over traditional messaging.

WhatsApp includes group messaging, delivery reports, photo and video messages, all for nothing and extremely quickly. Whatsapp can also be used on tablets running Android or the iPad which can't recieve SMS messages.

The catch is that you need a data connection, something that you may struggle with in some areas. Another catch is that after spending the one off download cost (for the iOS devices the UK price is 59p, US ¢99) you may only have a few contacts to use the service with. WhatsApp uses the mobile numbers of your contacts, which is a great time saver. And auto-adds new users to your 'favourites' tab.

In the next release of iOS, iOS 5, Apple will be including a new App called iMessage. It appears to be largely based on these instant messaging stlye apps, but with the restriction that it will only allow communication between Apple mobile devices running iOS 5. It may be too late by Autumn to get users onboard for iMessage, particularly with WhatsApp gaining users all the time and Facebook's latest 'Message Centre'. Facebook Messages cater's for group conversation over your data contract. Facebook's advantage is not only that it is crossplatform on smartphones like WhatsApp is, but accessible from any desktop or laptop PC as well, allowing the most flexible form of digital contact. Laptop to smartphone - desktop to desktop - smartphone to multiple devices. The icing on the cake for Facebook is that they have over 500 million active users.

For more information on WhatsApp, check out www.whatsapp.com, for iMessage try http://www.apple.com/ios/ios5/features.html and everyone knows where Facebook.com is!

Apple News Roundup

Ok, today is very exciting as their are 3 (yes 3!) big Apple announcements! This blogpost gives you a brief overview and points you in the right direction for more info. In the next few days a more detailed analysis and opinion will be posted.

1. iOS 5
iOS is Apple's mobile operating system for the iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad. iOS 4 is the current version for the latest devices. iOS 5 will bring over 200 new features including an upgraded camera control, better management of notifications and even sync over Wi-Fi. With Wi-Fi Sync you never have to plug your iPhone in to sync with iTunes again.

Courtesy of Apple

2. iCloud
iCloud replaces MobileMe for mail, contacts and calendars (you keep the same email address) but it brings with it so much more. With iCloud you can store all your documents, photos and music online and then access them from any of your iDevices or computer.


3. Mac OS X Lion
Lion will be the next version of Mac OS X and you will need the App Store (included in Snow Leopard) to download it. In the US it will cost $29.99 - which is a bargain. The new OS will include support for full screen apps (it's about time) and an Auto save function which is similar to Time Machine.

More details and analysis coming soon! For more information on any of these announcements, check out www.apple.com.

iWork for iOS vs QuickOffice

iWork from Apple is a suite of office applications for the Mac, Pages (word processor), Numbers (spreadsheets), and Keynote (presenations). It's also available for iOS devices, now including the iPhone. The concept looks extremely impressive and promises complete integration with the desktop version of iWork application and even Microsoft Office applications. In practice I would be surprised if the compatibility was smooth as formatting and fonts often prove a challenge in these situations.

File transfers are via MobileMe's iDisk (subscription required) or iTunes file sharing (connection required). In order to make the best use of the app, integration with online services is a must, and for Apple to only offer their own premium service is a disappointment. An alternative is QuickOffice. It's a similar price to Pages or Keynote or Numbers but can work with the same Microsoft Office file types for each of the equivalent programs (Word, Excel & Powerpoint). QuickOffice has issues with fonts and formatting but only because it doesn't have the vast number of files that Word, for example, as behind it. For creating documents on the go and working on them later it's great. Particularly as it integrates with cloud storage services such as Google Doc's, Dropbox and Box.net. You can even manage the files on the device via your web browser if you are on the same Wi-Fi network. This flexibility is a preview of the Post-PC era.

More information from Apple about Pages
More information from QuickOffice for iPhone

iOS 4.3

Apple have released iOS 4.3 for the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPod Touch (3rd & 4th generation), iPad & iPad 2. Note that iPhone 3G has been dropped from the updates now, this leaves iPhone 3G owners a bit put out as their software seems increasingly slow and buggy since updating to iOS 4. The new update includes better AirPlay options, iTunes Home Sharing and Personal Hotspot.

iTunes Home Sharing lets you listen to content from your iTunes library anywhere around the house through the Wi-Fi connection on your device, similar to streaming on an Apple TV.

Personal Hotpost is similar to the existing Internet Tethering option only it allows the sharing to happen over Wi-Fi and to up to 5 devices in total (3 through the Wi-Fi connection).

iOS 4.3 also offers a significant boost in speed for javascript handling on these mobile devices.

For more information: http://www.apple.com/ios/

iOS 4.2 on the iPhone 3G

Apple have updated their iPhone operating system, iOS, to 4.2. This latest version advertising many new and exciting features. However, not all the new features work on all devices but Apple don't make it very clear which features work with which device. On their webpage: http://www.apple.com/ios/ they state: "Not all features are compatible with all devices. For example, multitasking, AirPrint, and VoiceOver are available on iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and iPod touch (3rd generation and later). AirPlay and Game Center are available on iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and iPod touch (2nd generation and later)."


This blog post aims to clarify the available features for everyone. The table below shows the features and their compatibility. As you can see the iPhone 3G doesn't really benefit with any new features although the iPhone 3G does get a speed boost with the new update.