Articles about Apple

Windows Phone 8 has been available on the market since late-October, 2012. That makes it more than a year old in human time and quite a bit older in tech years. So far, I've been through two smartphones running the tiled operating system -- the HTC Windows Phone 8X (in an insanely gorgeous purple) and Nokia Lumia 920 (the boring "businessman-black" version as I like to call it). There is also a Lumia 520 nearby (in a nice shade of red), that I use from time to time to gauge how it gets along with Windows Phone 8 and various new apps.

I have been playing with three important handsets that are available under the Windows Phone 8 umbrella, in order to discover the benefits and the downsides of the platform as well as get an idea of the direction Microsoft wanted to impose for its latest attempt to make great strides in the smartphone OS market. On paper, the software giant only wants the best for Windows Phone, but in practice there are still a couple of bad points about its strategy that indicate, to a certain degree, smartphones are not really a priority for the Redmond, Wash.-based company.

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Today, Americans celebrate Thanksgiving and Hanukah, a rare occurrence they overlap. We reflect on the things we feel -- or should be -- grateful. Ahead of the holiday meal I served up "13 things for which Google gives thanks" and colleagues Wayne Williams and Alan Buckingham "5 things to be thankful for in Windows 8.1" and "5 products I'm thankful for", respectively. I would be remiss ignoring Apple.

The fruit-logo company is unique in techdom, inventing or reinventing several hugely successful product categories. Most companies have one- or two-hit wonders. Apple has a string of smash hits, like the rarest of iconic musicians. The Beatles come to mind, because of their 50th-anniversary and name shared -- you know, Apple Records. The many things for which the company should be thankful are obvious, so let's just dispense with those and get to items other list-makers, if there are any, likely will overlook. I present Apple's thankful things from least to most important.

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It's Thanksgiving day here in the states and, with the turkey not yet in the oven and football having not kicked off, I thought it appropriate to take a moment to give thanks. No, not for my family or for the chance to live my life the way I do, though all of those are on my list, but for tech products -- this is a technology news site, after all.

I've given careful consideration to this and looked at what I used most over the past year -- the products that got the most hands-on, that provided the best experience. I've whittled that list down to just five, and now its time to share, to give each a hearty thank-you. I'd offer them a bit of pumpkin pie if I could.

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U.S. Thanksgiving Day comes late this year for retailers, but makes more time for Google to count its blessings and to offer gratitude for them. Oh, they are bountiful, and there is still another month of them to come. The year 2013 will be remembered as one of the finest in Google history. The company has so much to be thankful for, I could have trebled the list.

But for succinctness, I whittle down to those things that mean more than others or that otherwise would be overlooked in the typical yearly review. The list goes from that for which Google should be least thankful to most. Gobble. Gobble.

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Using a peripheral to interact with your computer is so passé. Xbox One and Xbox 360 owners have the Kinect to dance in front of, and PlayStation gamers have a camera that can be used in much the same way. PC users can turn to the likes of Leap Motion if they like the idea of eschewing traditional forms of control, and an increasing number of smartphones can recognize eye and hand movements. Now it looks as though Apple is joining the party by buying 3D motion detection specialists PrimeSense.

This may not be a firm that sounds all that familiar, but you're almost certainly aware of the Israeli company's work -- Kinect for the Xbox. Yep, you read that correctly. Apple is buying the firm behind one of the most interesting and innovative features of Microsoft's game console. While no details of the purchase have been revealed, and no mention made of any money that may have swapped hands, PrimeSense has confirmed that the purchase is going ahead.

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One year ago, Apple was awarded a whopping $1.05 billion in damages from Samsung after the South Korean company was found guilty in a US court of copying elements from the iPhone and using them in some of its own handsets. Infringed features included how the devices displayed text and icons, the bounce-back response found in iOS, and the tap-to-zoom, one-finger-to-scroll, two-to-pinch, and zoom navigation features. The award was so high because the jury found that Samsung had willfully stolen design elements from Apple.

Earlier this year the US District Judge who presided over the trial, Lucy Koh, upheld close to $640 million of the damages that Apple had been awarded, but said that calculations made by the original jury had errors in it and ordered a retrial for the remaining amount.

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Take a look at your wallet. How many debit cards, credit cards and loyalty cards do you have? If it's anything like mine it is probably bursting at the seams with an inch or more of plastic cards. Reach the checkout in a store and you may well have ended up red-faced as you rummage for the right payment and loyalty card. With Coin, all of this could come to an end. The idea of a catch-all replacement that combines multiple cards into one is not new, but thus far solutions have taken the form of mobile apps. Coin is different -- this is a real card that acts as many.

Coins have a tendency to weigh down your pockets, but this Coin is a single lightweight unit. The card features an integrated display which you can use to view the last four digits of a stored card along with the expiration data and CVV so you, and the person you hand the card to, knows which of your stored cards you are using. You may well have used a mobile app that replaces loyalty cards, and Coin is taking this idea to the next level.

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While Microsoft has its own mobile operating system with Windows Phone 8, the company generously supports its competitor's products too. After all, with its own OS having such a small user base comparatively, it would be insane not to.

Back in June, the company's flagship non-OS software, Office 365, was released for Apple's iOS to the surprise of many. Today, while less of a surprise, Microsoft announces some major changes to its cloud-storage SkyDrive app.

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I use, and love Windows 8.1. Although I was never a huge fan of Windows 8, the changes in the upgraded OS have won me over and I could never imagine going back to an older version of Windows. For that reason, tablets like Surface really appeal to me, but I can’t see myself replacing my iPad with Microsoft’s slate any time soon.

The 4th gen iPad I own is a constant companion that I use for everything -- work, entertainment, social networking, and so on. There are some areas where I know using a Surface would be better (by "some areas" I really just mean "work"), but when I do upgrade, I’ll be going for an iPad Air (sorry Microsoft). This is why:

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I'm a Surface Pro user; that I won't deny. I also own an iPad -- it's an old iPad 2, but it still does the job. It may not have the fancy 'more pixels than you can see without the aid of a microscope' display of newer models, but it's perfectly functional. However I'd still pick the Surface over Apple's tablet for just about everything. I'll admit I was tempted by the idea of an iPad Air when it was launched, but after thinking it over a little, I decided to stick with the old model and continue to enjoy my Surface Pro.

But the time will come when I am in the market for a new tablet. Having had my attention flagged by the iPad Air, it would seem that it would be a toss-up between the Surface 2 (Pro or regular) and Apple's offering. However much I think about it, I still find myself falling on the side of the Surface. Why? Several reasons:

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Every year in the United States, on the fourth Thursday of November, we gather with our families for Thanksgiving -- a holiday for, of course, giving thanks. Typically, we share a meal of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and various other side dishes. The men watch Football while the women and children watch the parade. It is surely a wonderful day that evokes positive emotion.

Then, at midnight, Black Friday begins and we throw all of that out the window. Consumers, still woozy from tryptophan, line up at stores to buy mass-produced products. Only hours removed from giving thanks, they trample their fellow man in a mad-dash to save a few dollars. Sadly, people actually die as a result. With that said, here are the top 10 most wanted Black Friday products.

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Google Glass is still being tested by a limited number of lucky users, and Apple’s rumored smart watch remains ever elusive, but wearables is clearly one of the fastest growing areas in technology, so it’s inevitable that an exhibition would be set up to showcase it.

The Wearable Technology Show will be held on the 18th and 19th March 2014, at the Olympia Conference Centre in London, and include three dedicated conference rooms, over 70 sessions on fashion, sports and fitness, health, M2M, live product demos, a developer hackfest and a business startup track.

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Mr. Cook,

Apple has a big problem. The news media and technorati treat your company like Microsoft. Can you say "has-been?" For nearly 15 years, the company that Bill Gates built could do no right. Every seeming innovation met fierce criticism. Today, tongues wag about how Apple has lost its way under your leadership and how the days of innovation are over.

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There's nothing stopping tablet owners from making use of mobile websites, but apps are where it is at. Gmail has a perfectly serviceable website, but the app does make many tasks easier to perform. Today, Google takes the lid off a completely redesigned version of its iPad app which has been designed to make it easier to do more, whether you choose to work in landscape or portrait mode.

Despite the fact that this release is, based on version number at least, a small move forward -- this is version 2.7182 -- there are a lot of changes, some cosmetic, some functional. Landscape mode benefits from the addition of a new navigation bar that can be used to switch between accounts and categories. This is essentially an iPad friendly version of the tabbed inbox that has been introduced online.

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I own an iPad, and despite not rushing to buy a Surface, I actually quite like Microsoft's slate. A couple of days a week I work on my iPad (mostly remote accessing my PC via Parallels Access) and it's not a great experience. I know I'd get a lot more done if I was using a Surface Pro 2 instead, but Apple's tablet is far better in other areas, so for me it wins on balance.

Yesterday, on the Surface blog there was an article headed "What's new in Surface Pro 2". It was a detailed look at what Microsoft has done to improve the latest generation of its slate and I found it fascinating. Partly because it was an interesting read, but also because it was the sort of thing Apple would never do.

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