iOS – Page 5 – Kev's Development Toolbox

October 4, 2011

Apple’s new iPhone annoucement this morning

To be honest I’m only mildly curious, but not really interested at all. cnet have live coverage here. Rumor has it the new phone will look pretty much like the iPhone 4, so nothing exciting there. Hope they do have something amazing up their sleeve to announce, because the rumors so far don’t sound that impressive. Like I said a couple of days ago, it sounds more like an iPhone 4.1.

4G data support? Er, yeah, everyone else has had that for the past couple of years. When this goes on sale there’s going to be people wandering about saying ‘wow! look at how fast the data is!’. Yeah, just like my phone was 2 years ago. And if it’s only 21Mbps HSPA+, that’s so yesterday too – there’s already phones shipping with 42Mbps HSPA+ support. Come on Apple, you’re slipping. Let’s see something amazing.

What would make me buy one? Flash support. Java support. Not gonna happen. So not gonna buy one.

October 3, 2011

New iPhone announcement tomorrow

I get the feeling that the iPhone 5 will not be much more than a incremental refinement of the iPhone 4. From the suspected changes, it doesn’t sound like anything more exciting than some me-too technology catch ups, like support for HSPA+ for faster data speeds and voice recognition. Nothing that you can’t already get on other phones.

Has Apple slowed down it’s iPhone and iOS development? If there’s nothing more than these changes coming then this next iPhone is nothing more that an iPhone 4.1 really. Not that I’d want one anyway. The day I buy an iPhone will be the day it supports Java, and that’s not going to happen anytime, if ever.

August 30, 2011

Could an Amazon tablet make it big time for non-iOS tablets?

Rumor has it that Amazon is planning an Android based tablet, with a price somewhere between $249 and $299. Given the failure of HP’s entry into the tablet space with the WebOS powered TouchPad, Amazon may be gambling in a market currently dominated by Apple and it’s iPad. However, given Amazon already is the leader in eBooks and eReader hardware with it’s wildly successful Kindle, this could be the stepping stone to further success with a more fully featured tablet, rather than the one trick eReader.

To be successful the price could make or break Amazon’s new tablet – HP cancelled their TouchPad because it wasn’t selling, but when the price was lowered to $99 to clear stock it flew off the shelves. This must have been some surprise to HP since more recently an HP exec has said that they may be thinking of resurrecting the dead device for another attempt, presumably starting off at a lower price point.

August 29, 2011

Can Samsung get Apple’s case dismissed using examples in SciFi as ‘prior art’

This is an interesting story to keep an eye on: Samsung are claiming that examples of tablet-like computers in SciFi films like 2001 mean that there are examples of ‘prior art’ and therefore Apple’s lawsuit is invalid. I hope they win. I’m tired of hearing about Apple’s lawsuits, they’re becoming as bad as Microsoft and Oracle.