Posts Tagged
apple
I’m used to reviewing apps. I’ve reviewed quite a few over the past months, and I plan on reviewing many more. I purchase each application that I end up reviewing (as well as many others), so I spend a lot of time in the App Store.
Using the App Store has been more painful than I would first imagine. If you only use it every once in a blue moon I’m sure that it’s fine, but for someone like myself, Apple’s marketplace is sorely lacking. Today I want to look at what the App Store could improve upon in order to create a compelling, enjoyable experience.
When the iPhone 4S was announced, Apple also introduced quite a few other products including Cards, which made everyone tilt their heads slightly to the left and say, “Huh?” It didn’t make a lot of sense to most people, but to me, I got it. I tweeted this right away:
New Cards app for iOS. My mother will buy this today, guaranteed. Make your own greeting cards on your iPhone.
Apple has sold greetings cards for a long time now through iPhoto, but this will take it up to the next step. Get ready to see lots of Apple cards in your mail this holiday season.
On October 4th, freshly-appointed Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage to headline his first Apple event, and announced the release of the iPhone 4S and iOS 5. Under all of the exciting features that were covered that day were a few new Apple-designed apps. Apple doesn’t publish its own apps for download on the App Store very often, and when they do, the apps tend to be small companion apps and utilities (Remote or Find My iPhone) or productivity apps (Pages, Numbers, Keynote). But on that day, Apple announced a few full-featured, standalone apps. One of those was Find My Friends.
When I sat down to spill out my heart about Find My Friends, I wasn’t sure whether to review it proper or to simply share some thoughts, given that the app was developed by Apple. After some time, however, I decided to give it the review treatment, because I think that there are distinct pros and cons that should be considered in the context of other apps with similar functions. For those of you who weren’t able to watch the announcement and demonstration, allow me to recap some of the features first.
It’s true that we review a lot of productivity apps over here on iPhone.AppStorm. There are apps that offer a new form of syncing, apps that keep your to-do lists in different ways or boast a new interface that the developers believe will help you get things done. Wading through the App Store can be hard, and Apple is here to help with your need for a to-do app.
Meet Reminders, the brand new app that is included with every install of iOS 5. With advanced features and a familiar interface, Apple is hoping that Reminders will be simple enough to be used by anyone, but powerful enough to be used by everyone. Have they produced an app worthy of being placed on every install, or did they forget to make Reminders worthwhile? Read on and find out.
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For Apple fans, and tech-minded observers all over the world, yesterday’s announcements were met with mixed reactions. Some saw the natural progression and advancement of the ground-breaking iPhone 4 as inevitable, in hindsight, while others were dismayed at the conspicuous absence of the much-rumored (and hoped for) iPhone 5. Whatever your perspective, Apple made one announcement that really excited me (Hint: it’s not the release of Cards).
The unveiling of Siri, the personal assistant built into the iPhone 4S, is something that I believe will have significant ramifications for the future of computing. I can’t wait to actually try it in action! Today I’ll look at some of the amazing features of Siri, and include some thoughts on its significance.
It came too soon.
We’ve known for a long time now that Steve Jobs has been in failing health, but in the years since he went public with his illness, we’ve seen the iPhone, iPad, MacBook Air, Mac mini and even more, all coming from his ideas. He never let his medical issues slow him down, even though a lesser man may have given up and decided to live out their days on a beach somewhere, waiting to die.
That wasn’t him, and that’s not the man we’ll remember.
I’ve always admired Steve Jobs and his vision for the world, and always found him to be a fascinating man. It’s no exaggeration to say that I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for his contribution to society. It was just August that we said goodbye to him as the CEO of Apple, and I feel it’s appropriate today to link to the post I wrote on that day now. We’ll never get Steve back, but we’ll also never forget his legacy.
Steve Jobs: A Thank You
The iPhone has already seen a fair amount of attempts at apps that provide you with word processing capabilities on the move, but none of them have really offered a solution that’s very compelling. Some lack basic features such as text formatting yet run butter-smooth, whist others offer too many features that ultimately leave the iPhone’s 3.5-inch screen far too cluttered and bloated plus suffer from horribly slow and laggy performance issues.
Apple has long offered their own office software suite on the Mac, and then launched it for the iPad when the stallion of a tablet was released. Now, Apple has updated their iPad offering to make all those iWork for iPad apps universal — meaning the iPhone finally gets some iWork action. It was a long requested feature, so how does iWork for the iPhone stack up against the competition? In this series of reviews, we’re going to find out, starting with Pages.
Ever since the iPhone was first released, all of the talk has been about who’s going to win the smartphone wars. Originally, it was a 3-horse race between RIM, Android and iOS (With Windows Mobile following along somewhere in there), but now it looks more and more like RIM is out of the picture, or will be soon. That’s unfortunate, because even though I’m no longer a BlackBerry user, it’s best for everybody that RIM stays in the game.
But why? Wouldn’t it be better for Apple to crush the competition and become the No. 1 OS in the land? No, not really. The more competitive the market is, the more innovations will come out for consumption, and the better we all will be as a result. Don’t believe me? Let’s hash it out after the break.
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Almost exactly one year ago we took at look at the brand new Apple Store app for iPhone, which allowed you to browse, find and make appointments at local stores as well as actually purchase products right from your phone.
Recently, Apple upgraded the app with a few new features. Today we’re going to take a renewed look at the app to see what you can do with it and whether or not it deserves a spot on your home screen
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Apple tech blogs have been talking almost ceaselessly about Apple launching a cloud-based music streaming service. Given that they’re the top seller of music on the planet and largely responsible for the digital music revolution, you’d think that Apple would be the company most suited to take on such an endeavor.
So where is it? Is this another mini-iPhone incident where rumor sites are just leading us along without any solid leads that it’s actually going to find out? Let’s explore.
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