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.
Apple has been slammed by Chinese environmental campaigners, who have ranked it last among 29 tech firms in terms of “responsiveness and transparency to health and environmental concerns” in China.
The Institute of Environmental and Public Affairs (IPE) said Apple had refused to confirm if suspected polluters were among the suppliers it used, and is also accused of avoiding taking responsibility for environmental problems associated with its products. Expand Expanding Close
Ping was Apple’s first attempt at the social networking but it pales in comparison to what they have coming. Hidden deep in the iOS 4.3 file system is a new folder titled “Media Stream.” Within that folder is some information about “Photo Streaming.” From the looks of different alerts and plists, it appears that Apple will let iPhone users set up “Photo Streams” that friends could “subscribe” to. Also, it looks like there will be some privacy preferences related to this, so you can choose who is allowed to view your “Streams.”
With Photo Streams, you will also be allowed to “invite” other users to view your pictures as you take them and upload them to a service. This service looks like it is connected to MobileMe, and we speculate that “Media Stream” can be directly connected to “Find my Friends.” We think Find my Friends will be another aspect of Apple’s social network, a part of a free MobileMe, where you can choose to view your friends’ “Photo Streams” all on that same map. Apple has a patent on something called iGroups relating to this. This would clearly tie into the Mac and iOS photo app’s Places feature. From looking at the SDK, it looks like “Media Stream” could very well also have a plugin counterpart, like AirPlay, in 3rd party apps.
From the actual operating system, not the SDK, we could only find references and graphics relating to the “Photo Stream” feature, not the “Media Stream” feature in general. We speculate that Apple is currently working on “Media Stream” and this is going to go way beyond photos in the future. We think Apple will expand this to music and videos, maybe like AirPlay between mobile iOS devices where you can watch or listen to your friends’ media and of course Apple will provide easy buy links to iTunes.
Speculating further, the Media Stream has to be stored somewhere, it isn’t just going to live on your iOS device. We believe this is where Apple’s Cloud infrastructure comes in. Apple will likely have a Kin Studio-type (I know!) of automatic upload feature that will allow you to tag your uploads for either private or public consumption (see video above).
Going back to Find my Friends, according to some people in the know, Apple has been working on Find my Friends for quite some time and has been ready to launch at a basic stage for some time. This would be what the name implies, a map with your friends on it like Google Latitude. It looks like Apple might be waiting on Find my Friends until their dream social network is ready to launch. Perhaps with a huge cloud focus.
Why iOS 5? Well the files are pretty hidden and not as informative as other features we’ve found like the iPad 2 having dual cameras and Photo Booth coming to iOS. We also feel iOS 4.3’s launch is nearing and Apple wants to get the service working with their new North Carolina data center; we wouldn’t doubt Apple’s social being heavily cloud-based. Check out some SDK screenshots after the break. Oh, and the Kin?
We recently reported that three new iPad SKUs popped up in Best Buy‘s online and internal inventory databases, and today we have received multiple tips claiming this SKUs are place holders for the Verizon iPad + MiFi bundle. Apparently, the incorrect price points were place holders too. Although this is unconfirmed, we believe Best Buy selling the bundles makes total sense given their relationship with both Verizon and Apple.
Apple has informed developers that the shiny new Multi-Touch gestures for the iPad will not be launching in the public release of iOS 4.3. They say these gestures are simply a developer preview, for now, to see how they work with the iPad’s third-party-apps. iOS 5, perhaps?
This feature will not be enabled in iOS 4.3 for customers, but we are providing this preview to gather input on how these gestures work with your apps.
Just yesterday Apple’s earnings report discussed iPhone 4 supply constraints, specifically in China, and today the iPhone 4 is “currently unavailable” in the China, Hong Kong, and Singapore online stores. We know their comments yesterday are not probably related to what is happening now, but it is still interesting. Anybody notice the iPhone 4 as unavailable in any other countries?
COMPUTERWORLD: Apple’s 91-day quarter yields some impressive numbers — take them apart a little and you get the kind of stats you can reel off at a dinner party without being seen as too utterly crushing a bore, for example, did you know there’s one iPhone being sold for every two people being born into this world today?
“Since launching in December 2009, the app has seen over 200,000 downloads, received one of the highest App Store ratings for any news app and dominated the news category, both in the UK and in many countries beyond,” the newspaper writes, describing positive reactions and strong reader retention for the app, which had cost £2.39 at the beginning. Expand Expanding Close
Apple’s iPad is seeing wide deployment in the big Fortune 100 companies, and Android tablets are ‘bizarre’, just two quiet take aways from last night’s record-breaking financial call.
“Today, over 80% of the Fortune 100 are already deploying or piloting iPad, up from 65% in the [previous] quarter,” said CFO Peter Oppenheimer. “Some recent examples include JPMorgan Chase, Cardinal Health, Wells Fargo, Archer Daniels Midland, Sears Holdings and DuPont.” Expand Expanding Close
UK rail passengers can now use their iPhones as train tickets thanks to a new app from Heathrow Express, which has launched the first app to enable people to receive train tickets directly to their iPhone in the UK, the first such app to be launched here. Expand Expanding Close
John Gruber over at Daring Fireball put together a rumor-roundup regarding the next-gen iPad’s display and everyone seems to be saying something different. Mac Storiesfound evidence for a 2048 x 1536 resolution display, Engadgetsays it will be “super-high resolution”. For what it is worth, we found some evidence that the iPad 2’s display will stick with the current one’s 1024 x 768.
Gruber spoke to his sources and is reporting that the iPad 2 does not have a Retina Display and believes that the display will have the 1024 x 768 resolution. Gruber would even “wager heavily” on this.
Interesting new revenue breakdown for Apple. Macs are growing like crazy but are just 20% of revenue.
Products that didn’t exist a few years ago? iPhone 39%. iPads? 17%. iPods (The lion’s share is iPod touch iOS) 13%. Throw a few percentage points in for AppleTV and iOS is comfortably at 2/3rds of Apple revenue.
Using its Skydrive Cloud servers, Microsoft is now allowing iPhone users to access, edit, and share their desktop OneNote application data on iPhone. Microsoft has long been talking about bringing their Office applications and functionality to the iPhone and this is the first indication of doing that (OneNote is part of the Office suite).
While the OneNote Mobile app naturally doesn’t have all of the functionality of the full OneNote 2010 desktop application for your computer, it’s optimized for your iPhone’s display and lets you handle the basics with ease. Use OneNote Mobile to create shopping lists and to-do lists, prepare for a trip or project, and take class or meeting notes without lugging around your laptop. OneNote Mobile is also great for collecting ideas and tracking project notes, capturing ad hoc information about stuff you need to deal with at home or at work, as well as tracking activities, wish lists, gift lists — anything you can think of.
MacRumorsreports that Best Buy’s inventory system is showing a White iPhone for delivery on February 27th. Also, White iPhones are showing up on Vodaphone in Europe and in Canada.
I’d wager that a majority of you have already made your iPhone 4 buying decisions but for those holding out for a White iPhone…there might actually be one coming. Maybe even on Verizon. Expand Expanding Close
You’d think that Apple moving the iPhone from Consumer Reports’ worst rated network to their best rated one would be cause for some CR celebration. Instead, they’ve come out against the Verizon iPhone as well (notably before even testing it).
The drawbacks? Those on line for the Verizon iPhone 4 will be locked in for at least 13-20 months before being eligible for an update, ensuring that the summer iPhone 5 and even iPhone 6 will be full on purchases, rather than update prices. They also mention the CDMA limitation of no calling and data at the same time.
Verizon has yet to issue their iPhone prices or upgrade plans specifically for the iPhone though they just did upgrade their general customer upgrades to 20 months before an upgrade, perhaps in anticipation of carrying the iPhone. Expand Expanding Close
This one may not last very long …or Apple might let it fly. AirView turns your iOS device into a receiver for your other iOS devices. Kind of like an AppleTV in your iPad.
Use this application to watch AirPlay video streams from another iOS device (iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad running iOS 4.2) on the same local network, or from iTunes.
Just launch AirView, then tap the AirPlay icon on the YouTube media player from another iPhone for example, and the video should start playing on AirView. This works with videos played in iTunes on a Mac or PC too.
Apple remains on course for a slew of new product introductions this year, and as investors slowly regain confidence in the firm (stock is rising on the Frankfurt exchange at this time), new iPhone contract manufacturer, Pegatron, has raised its order book to cater for an anticipated 12-15 million CDMA iPhones this year. Expand Expanding Close
Our friend Chris from the iFixYouri iPhone repair shop points us to a shady Chinese part supplier website claiming to have the scoop on the next-gen iPad’s specs. The first is the iPad 2’s screen resolution. The site claims it’s a whopping 1920 x 1280, which is certainly hard to believe from a developer scaling standpoint. Expand Expanding Close
It’s no surprise that Best Buy will be selling the Verizon iPhone 4 eventually, as they sell the AT&T version, but Apple and Verizon announced that Verizon iPhone sales would only occur at Apple and Verizon retail and online stores at launch. Today, the Verizon iPhone 4 showed up in Best Buy’s internal inventory database meaning the Verizon iPhone 4 may be available at Best Buy at launch or soon after. Information about Verizon’s data plans is not yet available. Another shot is after the break.
ReadWriteWeb reports that according to two high profile app developers, around 90% of iOS device users are running iOS 4.0 or above. The first developer, Bump, says 89.73% of its users are on iOS 4.x, 10.25% are on iOS 3.x, and 0.02% of users are running iOS 2.x- the first iOS to support the App Store and third-party applications. Bump’s user-base is a very good indication of the iOS version breakdown, in general, with 25 million downloads across and iOS and Android.
The report also spoke to an engineer at Loopt (location-based social networking app) who says their figures are similar to Bump’s “but with even a little more of its users on iOS 4.” These new statistics represent how incredibly fragmented Android is as only 0.4% of Android users are running the latest release of the operating system. If any developers reading this want to share their iOS version breakdown, feel free to comment or contact us.
AdAge reports that although News Corp. and Apple are working together on The Daily iPad newspaper, the service will not utilize Apple’s iAds but instead use the New York-based Medialets as the provider. The report also claims The Daily will run on an App Store-based subscription model, and News Corp. will be charging $0.99 per day to view The Daily’s content (not $0.99 per week?). A two week free trial will be available for those who want to give the paper a run before subscribing and this may represent Apple adding some free-trial features to their App Store. This is something they have been reluctant to do for some time.
Some new details about the actual newspaper have also emerged with a top Virgin America marketing executive stating:
We saw it in the development stage and thought it was highly innovative in terms of their use of imagery.
The Daily is said to utilize a traditional “multi-story front page” with magazine style interfaces for the viewing of news reports. This sounds just like the leak from the other day. The Daily will also welcome Multi-Touch and you’ll be able to swipe, pinch, and rotate through different parts of the articles, including many videos from across the News Corp. empire. The Daily was said to be launching this week but has since been delayed into next month.
Since the release of iOS 4.3 beta last week, I have been testing out the iPad’s new Multi-Touch gestures and have tried my hardest to not touch the home button. With these new Multi-Touch gestures in play, Apple is rumored to be testing prototypes of iPads and iPhones without the hardware home button. Some people say Apple would never remove the home button but some think it’s a particularly interesting idea. In my use of an iPad “without a home button” I can attest that the button is absolutely not needed.
Even in beta form, Apple has done a phenomenal job with their implementation of the new Multi-Touch gestures. In many cases, using four or five fingers is quicker than reaching over to hit the home button. The pinch to the home screen gesture just feels more natural; like it should have been that way since the beginning. Back to the discussion about betas. Apple has been seeding betas of iOS for a couple years now and for the most part, early betas have been unstable and unreliable. The first beta of Apple’s new Multi-Touch gestures is the opposite though. They have been smooth and absolutely reliable every time. It should only get better in future betas and in the golden master version. Expand Expanding Close
With all that new graphics power tucked-away inside the next-generation iOS devices, here’s a huge dose of speculation to brighten up your day — that Apple’s next iPod touch will be boast a glasses-free 3D screen. And that’s got to be something to worry Nintendo, who will introduce its Nintendo 3DS this week. Expand Expanding Close
I’ve been wondering what you’d find out if you took the number of iOS devices sold and then divided the number of App sales so far by that figure — and guess what — the answer’s sixty. Expand Expanding Close
