As we detailed in another post earlier this week, Apple’s new iOS 6 beta features a nifty new status bar that changes color to match the app you’re currently running. We provided a number of screenshots that showed the status bar in three different shades of blue, and in silver — colors the status bar never displayed in iOS 5.

So how does the status bar determine which color to use? Well, it’s actually pretty simple.

Wow! Apple just unleashed a thunderstorm of new products and software on the world. Our heads are still spinning trying to keep up with all the new awesome features but we’ve managed to compile a list of everything Apple just announced at today’s WWDC keynote so you know all about the goodies coming your way. Take a look and see what you might have missed.

Apple’s unveiling of its next major operating system, iOS 6, is right around the corner. Scott Forstall and Co. are expected to announce the new OS to developers at WWDC next week. Very little is actually known about iOS 6, but there have been some rumors that made headlines over the last few months.

iOS 6 looks to be an evolutionary upgrade from iOS 5, rather than a revolutionary jump forward. Here’s what we expect to see.

The chances of iOS 6 being anything like this video concept by Joost van der Ree are pretty slim: we already know most of what to expect in iOS 6, and across the board, it looks like an app — not feature — focused update.

But who cares? This still looks great. We’re not so sure about the redesign of the Notification Center to pull down under the home screen — this seems counter intuitive — or the need for a “Mission Control” for finding running apps — the existing task switcher is an expert feature unused by most people which works just fine for poiwer users — but we do love the major innovation of this mockup: “Flipcons”, which show all your app updates and notifications as an overlay that pops out of each individual app on the homescreen.

None of this stuff will be in iOS 6, of course. But maybe some of it will come via jailbreak, and if it doesn’t, there’s always iOS 7.

Source: YouTube
Via: Redmond Pie

Apple offers a number of search engines for iOS users, including Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft Bing. According to a new report today, Apple will be adding Baidu search engine support for iPhone owners in China as early as next week. The feature will likely be announced alongside other iOS 6 announcements at WWDC.

Baidu is basically the Google of China, owning 80% of the market there while Google only owns 17%. It’s not surprising that Apple would want to support the largest search engine in the iPhone and iPad’s fastest growing market. Not to mention that this is another move that pushes a certain company farther away from iOS.

At this point, the consensus of everyone from the smallest Apple blogs to the venerable Wall Street Journal is that Apple will dump Google as its Maps provider in iOS 6 in favor of its own, in-house technology that will bring, among other enhancements, 3D mapping to the mix.

Apple’s move has caught Google not just off-guard, it’s put the search giant into a total panic. Need proof? Look no further than Google’s debacle of an emergency announcement today, in which they unveiled “the next dimension of Google Maps.”

During this announcement, Google coincidentally announced their own 3D Maps solution… coincidentally enough, just five days before Apple’s expected to unveil theirs. Oh, and they showed it working on an iPad instead of an Android tablet… and their app was so hacked together it crashed numerous times during the presentation.

Can anyone say “rushed?”

Google sent out invites to certain publications this morning for a mysterious Maps event that will be taking place on Wednesday, June 6th. With the plea to come see the “next dimension of Google Maps,” the company plans to show a “sneak peek” at upcoming features for its mapping technology.

Sure, the event sounds interesting, but the fact that Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference is taking place 5 days later really adds fuel to the fire.

Apple is expected to unveil iOS 6, the next major iteration of its software platform for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, at WWDC in two weeks. Not much is known about iOS 6, other than the new Maps app and the possibility of a more metallic look. Many have been speculating about what Apple could introduce, and we at Cult of Mac have a few ideas we’d like to see come to fruition.

The iOS jailbreak community has been innovating at a quicker pace than Apple for years. Jailbreakers had multitasking first, tethering first, iTunes WiFi sync first, and so on. There are many jailbreak concepts currently available for iOS 5 that we’d love to see Apple implement in iOS 6. That’s not to say that Apple will adopt all of these concepts, but we expect at least a few to show up in a way that only Apple can make happen.

The core apps and features in Apple’s iOS operating system have looked largely the same since the original iPhone made its debut back in 2007. Put certain iOS 5 apps — Calendar, Contacts, Maps, YouTube — alongside those from the original iPhone OS and you’ll notice hardly any difference.

However, Apple could be gearing up to make some changes in iOS 6 that will introduce a fresh new look to the iPhone. This summer we could be waving goodbye to that traditional iPhone blue that has adorned iOS apps for the past five years and saying hello to sexy silver.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8fJjt068s6s

Coming on the heels of Facebook’s $1 billion Instagram acquisition, but otherwise pretty much out of nowhere, the social networking giant just released a brand new Camera app called Facebook Camera… and it’s so much like Instagram that you have to wonder if Facebook bought the up-and-coming app just so it could put a bullet through its head before it became a real threat.