iOS devices refer to any of Apple’s hardware that runs the iOS mobile operating system which include iPhones, iPads, and iPods. Historically, Apple releases a new iOS version once a year, the current version is iOS 10. Here is the complete list of iOS 10 compatible devices.
“With iPhone and iPad being tested or deployed in almost every Fortune 500 company, Apple continues to scale across enterprise with nearly 30,000 companies globally developing and distributing iOS apps for corporate use by their employees,” Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller told AllThingsD. “The FIPS 140-2 certification and STIG approval demonstrate our ongoing commitment to deliver a secure platform to our enterprise and government customers around the world who deploy iOS devices on their networks.”
Following reports earlier this month that the Defense Department was in the process of approving iOS 6 for nonclassified communications and widespread use by government agencies, Bloomberg reports today that Apple has officially been granted approval for use on U.S. military networks.
The Pentagon already approved Samsung devices powered by the company’s Knox security software and BB10 ahead of today’s approval of iOS 6.
In February the US Defense Department confirmed plans to open its networks to 100,000 new devices from Apple and Google by February of next year. At that time the Pentagon said its networks had about 470,000 BlackBerrys, 41,000 Apple products, and 8,700 Android devices.
A number of U.S. agencies switched from BlackBerry to iPhones over the last year, while earlier reports indicate Samsung is attempting to attract more government and corporate customers with a new team of security experts and former RIM employees as well as a water and dust proof variant of its flagship S4 dubbed the Galaxy S4 Active. Today’s security approval will increase the number of agencies allowed to deploy iPhone and iPads on government networks for nonclassified communications.
During a presentation with advertisers, CW Network president Mark Pedowitz announced that the network would be expanding its content offerings to new multimedia devices. This strategy will include a spot as an app on the Apple TV set-top-box’s home screen.
It’s a dedicated CW app that will work like our Xbox and mobile and tablet apps – no cable authentication required, full episodes of our shows available next day after air, ad-supported.
Notably, as noted in the above quote, the CW content will be ad-supported.
CW currently streams its content to software on Microsoft Windows devices such as the Xbox. Apple recently added Hulu Plus and sports content to the Apple TV, and the current generation Apple set-top-box has sported YouTube and Netflix integration since launch.
Pebble, the popular Bluetooth smartwatch that raised over $10M on Kickstarter before shipping to backers in January, today announced the release of an updated SDK and APIs that will allow iOS and Android developers to create apps for the platform. Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky had this to say about the updates:
“The tremendous response we received from Kickstarter backers validated our belief in the value of a smart watch as a wearable computer, but also in the value an open platform brings to truly personalizing the watch to their daily activities”, said Eric Migicovsky, Pebble’s founder. “This new investment will help us build out the Pebble development ecosystem and deliver on Pebble’s extraordinary potential.”
The updated Pebblekit SDK will now allow developers to create third-party apps that will be able to send and receive data to apps on the Pebble smartwatch. The updated SDK will effectively allow developers to build new apps for the platform, for example, taking weather or news information from an iOS or Android app and displaying it on the watch. Previously devs were limited to implementing the basic functions of Pebble.
Research firm IDC is out with its latest numbers for Q1 2013 today tracking worldwide smartphone shipments by OS and OEM noting Android and iOS combined accounted for 92.3% of all shipments during the quarter.
IDC noted that Apple and Android shipments combined increased year over year approximately 59.1% with a total of 199.5 million units shipped worldwide during Q1. That’s up from just 125.4 million a year ago. Apple is clearly a large driver of the growth with the report pointing out that iPhone had its “largest ever first quarter volume.” However, despite that, Apple also saw a decline among usage of iOS compared to growth of the industry as a whole, allowing Android to keep its top spot by OS and Samsung to remain number 1 by OEM.
How far is iOS behind Android? According to IDC it accounted for 17.3% of the market in Q1 compared to 75% for Android. Of course this is likely taking shipments (not sales) into account and also doesn’t represent tablet usage that we know iOS continues to dominate. Expand Expanding Close
Today, Mophie introduced a bigger, badder iPhone 5 battery case called the Juice Pack Plus ($120) which contains a 2100mAh battery pack. That’s 120% of the iPhone 5 battery’s size and can double its life. The cases come in White, Black and Product (Red). Mophie previously had a 2000mAh Juice Pack Plus for iPhone 4/4S ($57)
Google today launched its much rumored messaging service live on stage at its I/O keynote and announced the service would be coming to multiple platforms later today. While some thought the service would be dubbed “Babel,” Google instead rolled out a standalone app called simply “Hangouts” that will be making its way to iOS, Android and Gmail on the desktop.
Google execs provided a demo of the app running on Android , but also gave us a glimpse of the iOS version as pictured above. The demo mostly focused on showing a list of conversations (not contacts) as well as one-on-one and group messaging, photo albums stored in the cloud, and the ability to start text conversations and video calls with contacts in one tap.
Belkin today announced that it is launching a new TV receiver for iPhone and iPad specifically designed to work with the Dyle Mobile TV service which provides live local broadcasts through a growing number of accessories for mobile devices. We’ve already seen some Dyle TV receivers for iPad, like this one from Elgato, as well as the technology baked into select Android devices on MetroPCS, but Belkin is the first big name iOS accessory maker to launch a receiver for iPhone and iPad.
For now, Belkin is making a 30-pin version of the receiver available:
Weighing less than six ounces and less than half the size of a deck of cards, the Belkin receiver with Dyle mobile TV is a compact and portable accessory that easily fits into a pocket or small purse. To enable, simply plug the accessory into the iPhone or iPad’s 30-pin connector, extend the flexible titanium antenna for maximum reception coverage and launch the Dyle TV app, currently available for free in the App Store.
The free Dyle TV service is currently available to 37 major markets across the US. You can check out a full coverage map to see what networks are available in your area here.
As noted over at NeoGAF, EA has recently updated its website for the popular Frostbite engine to list details regarding a new version of the development platform for mobile devices dubbed “Frostbite Go”. While there aren’t many details, the page confirms that EA has plans to bring the engine to both iOS and Android, something that was previously rumored based off job listings for Frostbite.
One of our most exciting current projects is called Frostbite Go, a mobile division empowering EA game developers with Frostbite’s proven excellent workflows and features to bring true Frostbite experiences to all major mobile platforms.
Runtime in Frostbite supports a highly scalable model in order to appeal to the diverse array of platforms available on today’s market. Efficiency in both our runtime memory and runtime performance are both key factors to enabling code and data systems to deploy content to diverse targets from XBOX360 and PlayStation 4 to iOS and Android.
The Frostbite engine is best known for powering EA’s Battlefield and Need for Speed series, and back in January a job listing hinted that EA has plans to bring the engine to Mac OS X as well.
Seems EA sees iOS as a more viable platform than the Wii U.
Nearly three years after the device first launched, GigaOm points us to a recently filed class action lawsuit that claims Apple’s iPhone 4 has a defective power button. The lawsuit claims that a defective flex cable typically causes the on/off switch to fail shortly after the device’s one year warranty has expired. It also claimsApple is aware of the problem, which is costing users around $149 to fix off of warranty.
Apple of course still sells the iPhone 4 through a number of carrier partners as its low end, $0 down iPhone option.
According to the lawsuit, “thousands of iPhone 4 users have suffered” from the issue that Apple allegedly knew existed before manufacturing and selling the device. The problem has never received a lot of mainstream media coverage or a response from Apple, but the lawsuit notes that a support forum on Apple’s website boasts over 800K views since first popping up in January 2011. Expand Expanding Close
Earlier this month we told you that Verizon-backed ItsOn, a company building software for carriers that provides users with dynamic pricing plans on mobile devices, was planning on introducing a new mobile service that takes advantage of its software. Today ItsOn has officially announced Zact, a mobile service that provides flexible, adjustable data plans that allows users to pay for only what they use, customize voice, text, and data plans in real-time at any time, and share data on an unlimited amount of devices: Expand Expanding Close
Research firm Canalys is out today with its latest report tracking worldwide smart mobile device shipments for Q1 with Android accounting for almost 60% of smart mobile devices shipped by OS. That’s compared to a 19.3% share for Apple and approximately 18.1% for Microsoft. Keep in mind Canalys’s report also includes notebooks, in addition to tablets and smartphones, which account for the majority of Microsoft’s share. When looking at tablets alone, Apple continued its lead with 46.4% share in the quarter, although Canalys warned Apple “lost share to its Android-based rivals for the third consecutive quarter.”
Though Apple continues to lead in the tablet space with a 46.4% share, it lost share to its Android-based rivals for the third consecutive quarter. ‘Spearheaded by Google and Amazon, the commoditization of the tablet market has happened far quicker than that of the wider PC market,’ said Canalys Senior Analyst, Tim Coulling. ‘Profit margins are being squeezed and vendors without a low cost structure will find it hard to compete. A solid range of must-have accessories and a software and services strategy are vital as vendors will increasingly need to make revenue around their devices.’
When it comes to smartphones, the report has Android at roughly 75.6% of shipments with around 32% of those shipments coming from Samsung. We know Apple sold around 37 million iPhones in the quarter but, as always, we warn that the stats from Canalys don’t include shipped vs sold data. Expand Expanding Close
Yesterday we decided not to run with a story published by Bloomberg that Pegatron’s forecasted 25 percent to 30 percent drop for second-quarter revenue was due to “falling iPad mini demand.” It seemed a little far fetched that an Apple supplier would be giving up specific information on product demand, something we know suppliers in Apple’s circle typically remain tight-lipped on. Today CEO of Pegatron Jason Cheng has confirmed our suspicions in an email to Fortune claiming that Bloomberg reporter Tim Culpan made the iPad mini angle up.
While quoting an analyst’s expectations for iPad mini demand in Q2, Bloomberg’s Tim Culpan offered the following quote from Pegatron Chief Executive Officer Jason Cheng as proof:
A decline in revenue from the iPad Mini “is more on demand, while price has been stable. Not just tablets, also e-books and games consoles, almost every item is moving in a negative direction.”
Pegatron chief Jason Cheng says he wasn’t referring to iPad mini specifically, but rather all of its products including all tablets and game consoles, while noting that “clearly refused” to answer Culpan’s questions related to specific products. Here’s what he had to say about the Bloomberg piece: Expand Expanding Close
According to a report from Nikkan, production of displays for Apple’s next iPhone will begin in June. The new screens will be sourced from Sharp, LG, and Japan Display, the same trio that have supplied screens for the iPhone 5.
Sharp also begin in June the mass production of the next model for the liquid crystal panel of the (multi-function mobile phone) smartphone that Apple is planning on. Appears to have embarked on production readiness of consecutive holidays from May Kameyama Plant No. 1 of Apple smartphones LCD dedicated plagued by sluggish occupancy rate since the beginning of the year in (Kameyama, Mie Prefecture).
There might not be many of us yet with a pricey 4K TV set, and even less 4K content to go around, but today Denon is launching its latest line up of ‘INCOMMAND’ network-connected AV receivers that now support 4K pass-through and upscaling. The new Made for iPhone certified AVR-X4000 includes AirPlay support, access to SiriusXM, Spotify and Pandora for subscription holders, and an iOS app for remote control of the receiver’s streaming features. Other specs include: 7 HDMI inputs and 3 outputs, 125 watts for each channel, and Audyssey DSX, Dolby Pro Logic IIz and DTS Neo:X decoders for surround sound. The AVR-X4000 will sell for $1300, while additional models with scaled back feature sets are now available for $450, $650, and $900 through Denon.
In a conversation with a Google employee who is working on the Glass project, Frederic Lardinois was informed that they are adding more-complete iPhone compatibility to Glass “very soon”:
Glass, the Google employee told me, will soon be able to handle these features independent of the device the user has paired it to (and maybe even independent of the Glass companion app).
While Glass will happily work with any iPhone over Bluetooth or use any Wi-Fi connection to get online, iPhone users are currently unable to get turn-by-turn directions through Glass – one of its killer features. Those direction are pretty useful while you are navigating a new city and they do show off the power of location-based apps on Glass, but the software will currently balk if you ask it to give you directions while it’s connected to an iPhone.
For Android phone users, Glass owners have to run a companion app on their connected phone to enable all of Glass’ functionality. However, it is unclear how complete feature parity is going to be achieved on the more-restricted iOS.
JP Morgan has put together an interesting case for Apple launching its new plastic iPhone as a mid-market device rather than a low-cost one, suggesting that Apple may price the phone at around $350-400.
The case, which AllThingsD describe as “pretty compelling,” is based on Apple’s approach with both iPod Nano and iPad Mini … Expand Expanding Close
GTVsource has discovered that at least some versions of the ASUS CUBE offer Airplay functionality right out of the box, a somewhat surprising find given that Google is known to be working on an open alternative to Airplay.
The explanation is that the CUBE software is based on ViMu Player, which incorporates Airplay as an experimental feature. Airplay functionality is currently limited to video – still images and music don’t yet work. Click More for video demo … Expand Expanding Close
In what strikes us as one of the less-likely rumors about the low-cost iPhone, Digitimes is claiming that Apple plans to ship only 2.5-3m units in the first quarter, citing un-named supply chain sources.
Speculation currently circulating in the iPhone supply chain in Taiwan indicate that Apple plans to launch an inexpensive model targeting emerging markets with initial quarterly shipments of only 2.5-3.0 million units to test market response … Expand Expanding Close
Apple has just released a new iOS .1.4 software update for the iPhone 5 that includes an updated speakerphone profile. That’s really it as far as public updates but Apple often updates some stuff behind the scenes including some bug fixes and security updates. The 11.5MB update (kinda big for just a profile, no?) is for iPhone 5 only and can be downloaded directly at the following links:
CNETreports Adobe demonstrating an early prototype of a version of Lightroom for tablets, designed primarily to act as a companion app to the full version … Expand Expanding Close
The iPhone and iPad have already been cleared for use by a number of US government agencies, and in February the US Defense Department confirmed plans to open its networks to 100,000 new devices from Apple and Google by February of next year. Today, The Wall Street Journal reports the DoD is about to grant two more important security approvals that could increase the number of agencies allowed to deploy iPhone, iPads, and Samsung Galaxy devices:
The Defense Information Systems Agency, or DISA, the agency that sanctions commercial technology for Pentagon use, is set to rule that Samsung’s Galaxy line of smartphones, preloaded with Samsung’s Knox security software, conforms with the Pentagon’s so-called Security Technology Implementation Guide, according to people familiar with the approval process. That would allow it to be used by some Pentagon agencies for things like sending and receiving internal emails, according to these people.
Separately, DISA is expected to rule that Apple’s latest operating system, iOS 6, conforms to a different security-requirement guide, these people said. That would allow iPhones and iPads to be used by military agencies for nonclassified communications, like email and Web browsing.
The report from WSJ explained Samsung has been steadily increasing its attempt to break into corporate and government markets by hiring a new team of security experts and former RIM employees to reach out to Western governments and corporations: Expand Expanding Close
T-Mobile customers who download the official Major League Baseball app At Bat 13 before June 30th will get free streaming access to the MLB.TV Game of the Day, as well as live & away radio broadcasts and highlights from home & away games around the league … Expand Expanding Close