Apple is a strange company you either love them or hate them… One thing that nobody denies is that they make great and well designed products, the latest of which is the iPad. This is already on sale in the US and will start to become available at the end of May beginning of June [...]
Apple is a strange company you either love them or hate them… One thing that nobody denies is that they make great and well designed products, the latest of which is the iPad. This is already on sale in the US and will start to become available at the end of May beginning of June in other countries.
The demand for the iPad is so high that Apple have been having to continually revise international launch dates and extend US shipping dates. Though it is possible to buy iPads in the Apple stores in the USA.
So what is this new Apple iPad phenomenon are we seeing the same sort of euphoria we saw with the iPhone? Is all this interested justified or is this just a brick doomed to failure? Read on to find out what I think in our first comprehensive look at the iPad… Continue reading »
When the iPhone was launched there was really two competitors in the Smartphone market: Windows Mobile and Blackberry. Blackberry was aimed very much at email and the corporate market, whilst Microsoft’s Windows Mobile was for the techno savvy. Along came Apple with the iPhone and the App Store and iTunes and voila we have a [...]
When the iPhone was launched there was really two competitors in the Smartphone market: Windows Mobile and Blackberry. Blackberry was aimed very much at email and the corporate market, whilst Microsoft’s Windows Mobile was for the techno savvy. Along came Apple with the iPhone and the App Store and iTunes and voila we have a mass market consumer product.
Apple decided to control the system as much as possible with single carrier agreements, a very closed development environment, allowing you only to load apps and music via the App Store and iTunes.
The ‘New Kid on the block’ is Android which is exactly the opposite. This has been adopted by T-Mobile, Sprint, and in a few days time Verizon Droid. The “I Don’t” advert for Droid highlights the restrictive features of the iPhone Platform. Continue reading »
Yesterday hot on the heels of the iPhone OS 3.0 roll out was the introduction to the AppStore of a number of OS 3.0 specific applications. One of the first of these is Gokivo from Networks In Motion in the US AppStore. The main points of interest in this app are: Turn by Turn Navigation, [...]
Gokivo subscription navigation for the iPhone
Yesterday hot on the heels of the iPhone OS 3.0 roll out was the introduction to the AppStore of a number of OS 3.0 specific applications. One of the first of these is Gokivo from Networks In Motion in the US AppStore.
The main points of interest in this app are: Turn by Turn Navigation, and a subscription pricing model.
Turn by Turn voice navigation has been banned by Apple up until the release of OS 3.0 when we heard from a number of the mainstream navigation brands saying they would have an app for the iPhone. Well Networks in Motion seem to have the first one.
With the subscription pricing it costs $0.99 to buy which is quite reasonable, but then to actually use it you need to pay $9.99 a month. Not good if you want to use it every day, but not too bad if you are going on vacation and want it for a couple of weeks.
Networks In Motion is a well respected provider of Navigation solutions, particularly on mobile phones in the USA where they power the Verizon VZNavigator and a number of other white label navigation applications.
With integrated contact navigation and live traffic services this looks like an excellent start to navigation on the iPhone. There are a few things that need to be found out about how the app works, are the maps downloaded or delivered over the air… More details will follow.
The Networks in Motion press release follows: Continue reading »
So having looked at the hardware for the new iPhones it is time to look at the software. For quite a while now the new iPhone OS 3.0 software has been in Beta and despite NDAs pretty much everything leaked about the functionality that would be included. A couple of things that didn’t leak (or [...]
iPhone OS3.0 software
A couple of things that didn’t leak (or were not paid any attention) were items like Video, Voice Control, Access to Accessories, Voice memos, and the Nike+ interface.
For me the main features of the new OS3.0 software are:
- Copy and Paste
- Security
- Faster OS
- Video capture and editing
- Access to accessories
- More bluetooth protocols
- Personal Area Networking
- In App Purchase
- Push Notifications
- Access to Maps in the application
- Access to the iPod Library
- Streaming Video
- Compass support
