Late last month, Apple rolled out the iTunes Music Store to twelve new European countries. Now they’ve done the same for the iTunes Movie Store, so if you’re Bulgarian, Czech, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Slovakian, Slovenian or from Cyprus, hey, go nuts!
[via MacTrast]
Care to see just what Apple means when they talk about Android’s fragmentation problem? Check out this incredible chart put together by Michael Degusta. Not only are most Android phones out of date, but almost half of the smartphones on this chart have never been up-to-date with the latest version of Android OS, even at release!
Comparatively, every release of iOS has been backwards compatible for at least three years. No wonder the iPhone developer community is so strong: devs and users alike can count on almost every iPhone owner being on the current, most bug-free version of iOS!
In a classic example of the ‘tipping point’, a research firm which once advised enterprises they need only support Windows, now urges companies embrace Macs. “Stand in the way of Apple users,” the firm says, “and you will eventually get run over.”
One thing that many seem to forget about Apple’s new voice recognition assistant is that it’s still in beta. Although Siri is available to iPhone 4S users in Australia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States, you can’t expect a seamless experience.
While many have still been impressed with the feature since its release, others are too quick to criticize it. A report from British tabloid The Daily Mail today brands Siri a frustration that has left Scottish users “bamboozled” because it cannot understand their accent.
Adobe has today launched a set of new applications for its Carousel photography service that allow users to gain access to their images, and edit them, from their Mac and iOS devices. Both applications are free and are available now in their respective App Stores.
Let’s face it: Chess is pretty geeky. Then again, so is the iPad (c’mon, it is). Blend the two though, and you’ve got…well, let’s just say that playing chess on an iPad at your local coffee hangout is a Wookie’s fingernail-width less geeky than insert-hyperbolic-geek-stereotype-here.
Who cares though; with its portability, large screen and potential to reach all 600 million chess players around the world, the iPad is the ultimate gadget for playing electronic chess, and the free Social Chess app is the way to play.
Apple is issuing another reset of iTunes Match for tomorrow, October 27th. The wipe applies to developers that have been beta testing the service for the last couple of months.
Beta testers are asked to disable iTunes Match on their iOS devices and computers for the reset tomorrow. All saved libraries will be erased. Apple is expected to launch iTunes Match to the public very soon.
Steven VanRoekel, the new Chief Information Technology Officer for the United States, says smartphones and apps have raised the bar for citizen expectations of their government.
The second person to hold the CIO post, after nearly a decade at Microsoft VanRoekel headed to the FCC. There, he launched Apps.gov and ran a public contest for a Mobile Broadband Testing app that earned him a phone call from late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
The iPod is essentially Apple’s typewriter: a piece of technology that reshaped society completely, then was made redundant by its descendants. However, the iPod’s birth a decade ago launched a legacy that can’t be ignored, no matter how hard you try.
PBS will be airing a new, hour-long documentary next week about the life of Steve Jobs, and unique to the program will be rare interviews with His Steveness himself, including a never-before-broadcast interview from 1994 where Jobs expounds upon his life’s philosophies.
The program will be called “Steve Jobs – One Last Thing” and will air on your local PBS affiliate on November 2nd at 10:00pm. Here are some more details of what to expect.