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.
According to Mobilized, Qualcomm will be porting its augmented reality environment to iOS devices even though Apple doesn’t use Qualcomm processors (though the Verizon iPhone/iPad and future iOS devices are expected to use Qualcomm baseband chips).
Apple likely isn’t going to drop the A5 for a Snapdragon, but perhaps there is more to the Qualcomm and Apple than currently publicly exists.
Developers will be able to write iOS applications using the toolkit, which has existed for a year on Android, starting in July.
Last Month, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo told an investor conference call that the Verizon iPhone would be a World phone. The CFO was also the first to reveal the Verizon iPad. Many think that the current Verizon iPhone’s inclusion of a worldphone-capable Gobi chip from Qualcomm is a preview into the future of the iPhone line.
While Verizon has sold fewer iPhones than some analysts expected, Shammo said he was happy with sales of the “six-month-old phone” that only works in some countries.
When the next iPhone model launches Verizon will be able to offer it at the same time as AT&T. Verizon’s version will also work in as many countries as AT&T’s iPhone, which has global coverage, Shammo said.
Some customers held off on buying the first Verizon iPhone because they were waiting for a model that supports Verizon’s high-speed wireless service, which runs on a new technology called Long Term Evolution (LTE).
Shammo said that even if the next iPhone does not support LTE, Verizon will have enough high-speed alternatives to sell.
That’s a pretty good clue that the next iPhone won’t be LTE, which Apple CFO Tim Cook all but revealed himself at the last earnings call:
We’re just going to get out of the way and watch this little clip for a Friskies iPad app noting that cats don’t seem to get upset after the 5 millionth time swiping at something and not getting it.
In case you don’t want to scratch up your iPad, the apps are also available for Android as well.
Patently Appletoday reveals a patent filed all the way back in 2009 that relates to Cloud music streaming with iTunes. Calling the service “seamless and invisible to the user,” Apple details how the service picks the location to retrive data whether it is local or stored on a server.
The device could stream media files from a remote source (e.g., a content server operated by a content generator or a content sales point). To play back a remote media files, the electronic device could direct communications circuitry to establish a communications path with the remote content source. Once the communications path has been established, the content source could provide the requested media item to the device. Once the device has locally cached a sufficient amount of the media item, the electronic device could begin streamed media playback.
So, that means Apple could decide to store the beginning of a song, for instance, locally while choosing to store the rest of the song in the Cloud. To the user, the song just plays instantly, but iTunes is saving local space by caching only a fraction of the song locally.
Another interesting passage:
The media items owned or accessible by a user could be stored in a user’s media library. The media library could be stored on any suitable device, including for example on a host device, on a remotely accessed server, in a cloud, or in any other suitable location. The user could store at least some media items of the library on an electronic device so that the user could locally play back the media items. The electronic device could include communications circuitry for remotely connecting to the media library and stream media items to the user’s device.
Would you believe me if I told you a year ago that the Apple police would have reverted its stance on the App Store nudity? Well they didn’t. Yes, some boobs are now OK, but undesirable Playboy bunnies are not. That didn’t stop Hugh Hefner, the founder and namesake of the Playboy empire, to find a clever solution.
The lawyers contend that AT&T is overbilling for data and they’ve run tests to confirm the data overcharges. Tests include buying a new iPhone, turning everything that would use data off and letting it sit for two weeks. They contend that 35 different data charges occurred during that time.
AT&T contends that the iPhone uses data without the customer knowing. Recently, Apple’s collection of anonymous location data, and subsequent exchange of tower signal strength knowledge was brought into the spotlight. Perhaps that system is a data usage issue – even when data services are turned off.
It will be interesting to see how this one turns out.
As noted by TUAW, you can now trade-in your iOS devices via Amazon’s Electronics Trade-In program. If you wanna get rid off your aging iPhone, simply mail in the device to Amazon in exchange for some Amazon gift card credits.
A sampling of other iOS device trade-in prices includes up to $114 for iPod classics, $235 for first-gen 16 GB Wi-Fi iPads and $162 for an 8 GB iPhone 3GS. That’s definitely way more than you’ll get if you let your old iPhone rattle around in a desk drawer after upgrading to a new one.
The program, currently in beta, accepts other consumer electronics devices, not just Apple’s. Some product eligibility criteria applies…
Infinity Blade is the killer app Apple fans usually run on their iPhone or iPad to showcase the graphical prowess of iOS gadgets to their Android-toting friends. It’s arguably one of the best iOS games around and thus far the only title based on Epic’s Unreal Engine. Developer Chair Entertainment has kept the game alive with two big content updates. Today’s third and most ambitious update has brought us brand new multiplayer and survival modes in a 584MB download. You can fight your friends over the Internet via Game Center’s match-making feature, compare your respective scores, check out your unlocked items and so forth…
Gartner is out with their first quarter 2011 mobile phone market survey. The results bode well for both Apple and Google as both tech giants grew their respective share of the smartphone market estimated at 100.8 million quarterly units, almost double the 54.5 million units shipped in the year-ago quarter. Smartphones are eating dumphones’ lunch, too, accounting for almost one quarter (23.6 percent) of the 427.8 million quarterly handsets, an 85 percent annual increase.
Apple’s global handset market share is 3.9 percent based on sales of 16.89 million iPhones, up from 2.3 percent a year earlier. California-based team beat Research In Motion (13 million units), now ranked fifth, and is well ahead of first-tier handset vendors Sony Ericsson (7.92 million units), Motorola (8.79 million units) and HTC (9.31 million units). Samsung (68.8 million handsets) and Nokia (107.56 million phones) lead as the world’s #2 and #1 cellphone vendors, respectively.
While Apple doubled iPhone sales from the year-ago quarter, LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson stumbled. Apple is now chasing LG – which sold nearly 24 million handsets during the quarter – for the title of the #3 cellphone maker globally, which is no small feat knowing Apple avoids cheap dumbphones and only sell high-end devices. How did Apple and Google do in the smartphone segment?
Fans of the Yahoo! Messenger messaging platform can now enjoy video calling on iPad 2. The version 2.1 update, now available free from the App Store, is a universal binary that supports both the iPhone’s smaller screen and iPad’s larger canvas. The 21.7MB download has been optimized for Apple’s slate, iTunes description says, adding iPad-optimized layout plus voice and video calling on the device.
The program also features stronger anti-spam features letting you block one or all add requests from a single view. iPad 2 users don’t have a lot of video calling choices apart from Apple’s FaceTime and a few less fancy programs. Yahoo! Messenger is a very popular cross-platform communications platform, meaning iPad 2 people can now enjoy video calling with their PC and Mac counterparts.
China Mobile, the country’s largest wireless operator, confirmed today that it had “reached consensus” with Apple related to support for their fourth-generation TD-LTE radio technology in future iPhones. The carrier’s chairman Wang Jianzhou toldMarketWatch that his company will begin commercial trials of the 4G TD-LTE technology next year, but refused to provide a time-frame for a possible 4G LTE iPhone launch in the country.
China Mobile Chairman Wang Jianzhou said talks with Apple on launching the iPhone remain ongoing. He also declined to elaborate on exactly what has been agreed with Apple.
Interestingly, the executive said his company has detected some four million iPhone ownersrs on its network even though only China Unicom is officially carrying the handset in the country. This latest development doesn’t necessarily make iPhone 5 a 4G LTE-enabled device and here’s why…
The venerable Apple-branded music locker in the cloud is virtually a go as Apple has apparently signed a streaming agreement with record label EMI, CNET’s Greg Sandovalreported yesterday evening. Multiple industry sources told the publication that the remaining two labels are about to sign on a dotted line:
Apple has signed a cloud-music licensing agreement with EMI Music and is very near to completing deals with Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment.
Those talks could be completed “as early as next week”, sources say.
And it’s only for jailbroken devices with a front-camera. The $7 RecognizeMe by Apocolipse unlocks your phone by matching pre-recorded images of your face against the front camera feed. Simply holding the device in front of your face for a couple of seconds should automagically unlock it. Check out a cool video demonstration below… Expand Expanding Close
Toshiba made a lot of noise by announcing a new four-inch LCD display last week. It would have been dismissed as yet another phone LCD product if it weren’t for its 367 pixels-per-inch density. Yes, looks like Toshiba has outclassed a 326 pixels-per-inch Retina Display on iPhone 4 running at a 960-by-640 pixel resolution. Engadget had a chance to spend some time with Toshiba’s new display at SID 2011, recording the above video demonstration for your viewing pleasure.
OmniVision Technologies, Apple’s prime supplier of CMOS sensors for iOS gear, has outed a new image sensor today. The OV5690 module has a slimmer profile, a valuable treat for tiny gadgets where space is at premium. The OV5690 isn’t just a five-megapixel camera in a smaller package. According to OmniVision, the module touts improved image quality with full HD 1080p video capture at thirty frames per second. Both features make the OV5690 a prime candidate for next-gen iOS devices…
All those surveys about corporate America embracing iPads? They’re accurate. Here’s a shocker, though: Most are missing or neglecting the fact that businesses are clueless about putting Apple’s shiny gadget – or tablets as a product category – to a productive use. According to a recent Digital Research survey, more than half of the businesses interviewed said they didn’t have a tablet strategy even though they were handing out tablets left and right to their employees. Talk about the consumerization of the enterprise. That’s just tip of the iceberg, though.
Right on time… Digitimes reports that Apple has lowered GSM and CDMA iPhone 4 production ahead of the September launch for the fifth-generation iPhone – “iPhone 4S.” The report says that “Apple has lowered its expected shipment volume of iPhone 4 for the second quarter of 2011 from 20 million units, to 17.5-18 million units consisting of 16 million units of the 3G version and 1.5-2 million units of the CDMA version.”
The report also says that the “iPhone 4S” will include an 8 megapixel camera developed by OmniVision and Largan Precision. Production of this new iPhone is said to begin in August, which is not far off from Reuters’ late July claims from a few weeks back. The iPhone 4S will also include an A5 dual-core processor, as we reported last month. The phone might also include T-Mobile and Sprint support – but will lack any major design changes. Another report says that the 4S is unlikely to carry LTE – that’s likely coming in 2012.
The purported iPhone 5 case that gained popularity over the last few days has been removed from trading site Alibaba. The case obviously brought a large amount of attention to its manufacter so we don’t think the case was removed by choice. Prior to the iPad 2’s official announcement in March, many iPad 2 cases found on Alibaba revealed key features like its thinner design and FaceTime video cameras.
Those iPad 2 cases ended up being removed from Alibaba with the help of Apple’s legal team. We’re not going to say for sure that Apple was behind the removal of the above iPhone 5 case, but it makes sense. Adding evidence to the legitimacy of this iPhone 5 case are purported iPhone 5 camera parts. These camera parts demonstrate a relocated LED camera flash, which is also noted on the above iPhone 5 case sample image.
According topaidContent, Apple is planning on exhibiting at the upcoming BookExpo America trade show, a first for the company. Apple will be sending an iBookstore employee Scott Simpson and their show presence is said to be significant based on a large booth in a prime location, next to publishers Random House, Disney Book Group and Macmillan. Apple won’t be selling anything, but their presence is meant to boost their position in the e-reading space and raise visibility of the iBookstore and iPad as an e-reading device.
UPDATED [May 18, 2011 1:00pm Pacific]: The original story has been updated with a quote from a spokesperson for the event confirming Apple will be privately meeting select books publishers rather than exhibit at the show.
Patently Appletoday reveals a trademark today by Apple for the word “Noteworthy” which they postulate is a new OCR app that could be released in iOS 5. One use would be taking an image and turing it into a document like Google’s recent Docs app does.
We’re not entirely surprised, but were nevertheless taken aback by the news that Scott Wilson’s iPod nano watchbands will be sold at Apple’s retail stores later this week. For those who have been sleeping under a rock lately, Scott Wilson is the brains behind the LunaTik and TikTok concept projects.
Of course, Wilson’s not the first as Griffin beat him to market with iPod nano watch straps, but looks like he wasn’t kidding when he raised a million dollars on Kickstarter. Here’s how Wilson commented the development in an interview with FastcoDesign:
A lot of people just don’t have the instincts to know whether it’s going to sell, so they just don’t want to gamble. But to see it globally accepted across 50 countries, that’s not much of a risk. I bounced it off of different contacts at different retail channels, and they all decided that it needed to be in that 34.95 to 35.95 sweet spot.
Apple will be carrying the designer’s watchbands at their retail stores later this week. The LunaTik in silver and red will retail for $79.95. The TikTok in black and white will be sold for $39.95. According to Willson’s survey, more than three quarters of iPod nano buyers (76 percent) had purchased the miniature music player because of the watchband. Go figure. Here’s a neat reminder of how the iPod nano watch came to be in the first place…
Hey, have you heard about this new iPhone? The one codenamed “N94” and coming up…soon? Well analysts are catching on with information you’ve likely heard before. FBR Capital Markets puts what you’ve heard in the blogosphere down for institutional clients
Apple’s iPhone 5 will be manufactured in the third quarter, hinting at a possible launch of a new version of the iconic smartphone later this year, a financial analyst firm said Tuesday. The iPhone 5 will include an 8-megapixel camera and a single baseband chip that will work on both GSM and CDMA networks.
The iPhone 5 will use an 8-megapixel CMOS sensor from OmniVision, with Sony being a possible backup sensor supplier next year, FBR said in the research note.FBR also expects Apple to move away from Intel as a possible baseband supplier, instead buying integrated CDMA-GSM communication chips from Qualcomm. “Our contacts have confirmed to us that Qualcomm is replacing Intel as the baseband supplier, selling an integrated CDMA/WCDMA baseband.”
We’re hoping to hear more about a low cost version of the iPhone in coming weeks that is just starting to make the rumor rounds now.
The above chart, so-called “tree view”, renders the primary mobile phone brands in terms of operating profits, excluding loss-making vendors. Yeah, the large orange rectangle is Apple. You can also see that Apple, Research In Motion and HTC combined generated three quarters of total profits during the first quarter of 2011. Yup, just three vendors controlling 75 percent of handset profits. Even more astounding, the achievement is based on just 16 percent of the volumes for the smartphone vendors. Asymco’s Horace Dediu explains that all phones will eventually become smartphones:
I don’t see non-smart devices being interesting to vendors in the near term. Each additional dumb phone added to a portfolio will decrease a company’s operating margin. The market dynamics are such that I think non-smart phones will disappear entirely from branded portfolios in 3 to 5 years.
Apple is, of course, the most profitable handset vendor of the three. The Cupertino team has managed to capture a whooping 55 percent of total profits and one fifth of total revenues during the first quarter based on shipments of just five percent of all of the handsets that had been sold during the quarter.
Apps specifically created for iPad’s larger canvas are key for iPad’s growth, sources say.
Pictured above: The universal Find My iPhone app designed both for iPhone and iPad.
Nvidia CEO Huang Jen-Hsun blamed slow sales of Android slates to a multitude of factors ranging from the lack of expertise at retail, sub-par marketing, higher price points and software. Extending the opinion, Asian sources from notebook vendors warn that lack of content is to blame for weak demand for Android slates. It’s the software, stupid, they argue, reportsDigiTimes.
The sources pointed out that most of the applications that are executable on Android 2.x are turned out to be un-executable on Android 3.0, while any application that can run on iPhone can be directly transfer to iPad for execution. Since there are only limited applications specifically designed for Android 3.0, it has significantly lagged demand of Android 3.0-based tablet PC.
“Apple would have achieved a much bigger market share than it already has if the player decided to wait”, the source admitted. Android 3.1 should resolve all those issues when it becomes available in the second half of this year, the source concluded. Most apps designed for Android 2.x smartphones apps either don’t scale well or “turn out to be un-executable on Android 3.0”, the source noted, blaming poor demand for Honeycomb tablets on a limited number of tablet-specific software experiences. Apple, of course, is employing quite the opposite tactics focused on promoting apps tailored to the iPad.
