iOS - page 137

Today BYOD and the consumerization of IT aren’t just buzzwords on the horizon, they’re fact of business life and have begun transforming the workplace for millions of professionals. Many solutions exist to deal with managing user-owned mobile devices and integrating them to varying degrees with corporate resources and shared data – something that the explosion of cloud products is helping to drive. Many enterprise cloud solutions (public and private) exist to meet these demands while ensuring data management and security.

Unfortauntely, cloud solutions aren’t limited to the workplace and consumer cloud products including Apple’s iCloud, Dropbox, Box.net, Google Docs and many others have become staple parts of our daily lives. That’s great news for all of as consumers. It gives us access to our files and data anywhere at anytime on almost any device. But consumer cloud technologies pose a big headache for IT professionals who are responsible with keeping business and workplace data both readily available and appropriately secured.

There are many grid cameras in the App Store, but Grid Lens by Bucket Labs caught my eye because it adds a little bit of fun, something you don’t see often in camera apps.

Apple’s concept of the App Store works well for consumers. Search for whatever apps you want or need and buy or download them with one-click shopping in iTunes of the App Store app on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. That system starts to break down when it comes to iOS devices in the workplace, particularly for companies that create internal apps that need to be rolled out to a large number of users. It can become even more complicated when dealing with employee-owned devices because IT may never see the iPhone or iPads that are being used and therefore need a specific set of apps.

The best option for addressing this need is the concept of an enterprise app store – an app that users can install from a central location on their corporate network that will allow them to peruse a selection of apps developed by their company’s IT department as well as business apps from Apple’s App Store.

Apple’s decision to shun Flash Player for its iOS devices has been well documented over the years. But with the iPhone nearly five years old now, it’s no surprise third-party developers are offering up their own solutions for accessing Flash on our iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads.

One of those developers is Skyfire Labs, which is behind Skyfire for iOS — a web browser that allows you to watch Flash videos without unauthorized jailbreak tweaks. Here’s how to get started with Skyfire.

It seems as if everyone and their uncle are building iPhone apps these days. As a result, the competition is getting fiercer and fiercer by the day, and it’s becoming tougher to stand out amongst the crowd.

That said, there are a ton of apps that just don’t “cut the mustard” and the user experience suffers because of that lack of care and quality. David Sparks, the man behind the popular MacSparky blog, said the following about what he calls “speculative developers”:

If you want to develop apps, take your time and make something awesome. Make it fast. Make it beautiful. Make something you’re proud of. Don’t make 60 crappy apps: Make one really good one.

I couldn’t agree more, but when you’re faced with the haze of substandard apps that claim to be able to deliver the goods, how can a developer get their app noticed — and adopted — over the long-term?

The latest Cult of Mac Deal may have the solution to that problem.

Often the first and biggest question that confronts any company developing a new mobile presence (or revamping an existing one) is whether to focus on developing a native app or a mobile web site. While each approach has its pros and cons, one way to decide may be to look at how users are accessing content on their mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad.

Unfortunately, the latest news from comScore is that users are evenly split between using a dedicated native app or using a mobile web browser to access content – making that criteria alone useless when it comes to developing a mobile strategy.

EA has launched Battlefield 3: Aftershock in the U.S. App Store today, providing first-person shooter players with the opportunity to enjoy online multiplayer gaming for free on their iOS devices. However, it’s not quite the Battlefield 3 release we were expecting.

This is the timer-tastic Repeat Timer Pro, a two-dollar multitimer for iOS.

Meet Niko, star of a cute-character platformer for iOS that involves the usual amount of bouncing, running, hopping and collecting things.

During the past few weeks, one quote from Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography has bounced around the tech and mainstream media. It’s the quote where President Obama asked Jobs about Apple manufacturing jobs that had been shipped oversees and Jobs responds “those jobs aren’t coming back” – words the President decided to ignore during his State of the Union speech last month. Instead, Obama called on tech companies to bring those jobs back.

With all due respect to the White House, it seems pretty likely that those jobs aren’t coming back. Anyone that doubts that needs to reread the first New York Times piece on Apple’s manufacturing partners. The U.S. simply cannot match the manufacturing capacity in China and elsewhere. Get over it. Those jobs are gone but that doesn’t mean Apple and other tech companies aren’t creating new jobs right here at home. In fact, Apple and other tech company have create an entire to category of jobs and filled half a million of them with American workers.

Forgetting a password to any service is frustrating, especially if you’re itching to download the latest Angry Birds update. But when it comes to your Apple ID, it’s actually very simple to change or reset your password on your iOS device.

Here’s how to do it.

One of the best accessories you can purchase for your new iPhone is a little device that allows you to control your television and other audio/visual gear from your smartphone. It means you don’t have to search around for that lost remote, get up to change the channel, or keep replacing the batteries in all the remotes already littering your home.

The VooMote Zapper combines a universal remote control with a well designed app that allows you to control all of your equipment in every room using nothing but your iOS device. And it’s available now at Apple retail stores nationwide.

A big challenge for businesses and organizations is cost management, particularly in the current economic climate. Many companies are trying to maximise their budgets – one of the big factors pushing the BYOD trend. Where BYOD isn’t feasible, however, businesses may still have the need to support mobile professionals – and need to do so as cost effectively as possible.

Despite the common presumption that Apple solutions are more expensive, the iPhone offers companies unique advantages when it comes to keeping costs down – and those advantages aren’t likely to be found in Android devices.

A recent survey of mobile carrier execs by Deloitte highlights some of the major concerns over the next few years. Chief among them is losing control of the mobile industry and market space to platform developers – namely Apple and Google. As Galen Grumen points out for Infoworld, this scenario actually gives Apple more power than Google because Apple controls the entire iOS ecosystem, from operating system to hardware to app and media sales.

This situation has mobile carriers worried. Carriers in Europe have actually gone so far as to consider developing their own smartphone platform to compete with iOS and Android in the hopes of enough success to maintain bargaining power against the demands of Apple or Android manufacturers. But the big question is whether or not this is good for consumers and business customers.

While Apple has previously dismissed the idea of porting its entire Mac OS X operating system to ARM-powered mobile devices, the Cupertino company has at least been working on it. That’s according to one intern who worked with Apple’s Platform Technologies Group — a subdivision of the CoreOS department — for four months back in 2010. But does it really mean anything?

A study by The NPD Group, a leading market research company, provided us with some interesting Q4 statistics. On the obvious side of things, the number of smartphones sold in Q4 were up, with Android and iPhone accounting for over 90% of those sales. While you probably didn’t need a study to tell you that iOS and Android lead the smartphone market, I bet you weren’t aware that Android was actually a favorite among first time buyers.

Haliburton’s decision to choose iOS as its new mobile platform was made after “significant research” indicated that iOS “offered the best capabilities, controls and security for application development,” according to a leaked memo published by AppleInsider.  These capabilities, collectively known as mobile device management (MDM) features offer a solid framework that can be used to apply a number of security policies like complex passcode requirements and that a device’s data be encrypted.  MDM features also include the ability to IT departments to restrict access to iOS features (say installing apps or taking photos) and to monitor devices remotely.  Of course, they also include the ability to remotely wipe a device if it’s lost or stolen.

One excellent facet of MDM in iOS 4 and iOS 5 is the ability to monitor a device.  There are a wide range of states that management software, including the Profile Manager service in Lion Server, can collect about managed devices.  This includes seeing what apps have been installed, ensuring OS updates are rolled out, and being able to tell if a device has been jailbroken.

While all this may sound a bit like big brother, if you’re a major energy company with operations in dozens of countries, security can be a major issue.  Of course, I could say the same thing about a medical practice needing to maintain privacy compliance.

In what appears to be a watershed moment for Apple’s iOS, a leaked memo published at AppleInsider indicates the one of the world’s largest energy companies, Haliburton, will be transitioning to the iPhone as its exclusive smartphone of choice. That comes as a huge opportunity for Apple and iOS, and a huge blow to RIM.

According to the memo, the move will take place over the course of the next two years, but will be a complete transition from one platform to another with no plans to continues to support BlackBerry devices once the transition has been completed.

Those handy weather widgets commonly found on Android-powered devices aren’t available to iOS users, thanks to Apple’s tight control over third-party software. But you can find some weather apps in the App Store that will display the current temperature on your home screen using the “app badges” feature built into iOS.

My favorite is called Fahrenheit. Here’s how to get it set up and get the temperature displayed on your home screen.

Microsoft has been pretty noncommittal when it comes to creating business tools for the iPhone and iPad.  The company has dipped its toes in the iOS pool with consumer-oriented release of My Xbox Live and an iOS port of its Kinectimals virtual pet game.  That’s in addition to an app that lets users access files stored in Microsoft’s cloud-based SkyDrive storage and a version of OneNote.

Although we still haven’t seen any firms signs of Office coming to the iPad beyond the handful of reports last fall, Microsoft is taking the iPad and iPhone seriously enough to include mobile apps for the devices for its Dynamics CRM 2012 suite as noted by ZDNet and 9 to 5 Mac.

Crash analytics firm Crittercism released a new study this week, claiming that iOS applications crash more often than Android applications. After monitoring over 215 million apps across a wide range of different platforms, the report concluded that iOS 5.0.1 had the highest rate of application crashes. iOS in general also had more app crashes than its top competitor Android. These are interesting numbers that contradict the long held belief that iOS and the apps that run on it, are more stable than that of Android’s. So why such a large number of crashes on iOS?

Where To?, the popular discovery app for the iPhone, has received its latest update today, introducing support for another five navigation apps, and a number of handy new features including support for multiple images for each place listing, more reviews, and new categories.

A rumored Apple television set has received just as much — if not more — attention than the company’s upcoming iPhone 5 in recent months, but the questions we’ve all been asking about its specifications have been answered… by Best Buy.

The retailer has been issuing surveys to its customers to obtain feedback on potential new products and services, but many were surprised to find details on a 42-inch “Apple HDTV,” which will apparently be available for $1,499.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgfknZidYq0

Samsung’s bashing of iPhone users is becoming a regular occurrence. Its latest swipe came during yesterday’s Super Bowl, when it ran a commercial for its new, super-sized Galaxy Note smartphone, which sports a huge 5.3-inch display and includes a stylus.

Yes, “it’s got a pen!” 

As of this point, the current version of iWork for Mac has absolutely no iCloud functionality, while the iOS version fully supports it. This tends to be frustrating when moving files around, as it makes what should be a straightforward process into a disaster. In this video, I’ll show you how you can upload your documents directly to iCloud, to make file sharing much easier.