Innehållsförteckning för #165 från AppleMagazine

PLENTY OF REMOTE CONTROL FUN TO BE HAD We're big fans of toys - especially ones that make the most of the very latest technology. As Christmas looms and your younger (or perhapes not-so-young) compile their wish lists, or even as you consider what you might want to buy for yourself, all manner of newly-launched toys are appearing on the horizon. One of them is the Sphero Ollie - and we'd like to reassure you that it's more than just another remote controlled toy. You'd be forgiven for thinking that it was, to be fair. On first spying this curious toy, we must admit that we thought it looked rather unassuming. Of course, many astonishing toys are like that these days, but even so, we found it hard to imagine…

It was a little over a year ago that Dong Nguyen was living with his parents in Hanoi, spending his days working away, programming location devices for taxis. One holiday weekend, he made a mobile game that was supposed to have a simple concept while presenting a challenge, sort of like the Nintendo games he had grown up with as a child. The goal: to fly a weird-looking bird between pairs of green pipes. The quicker the user tapped his screen, the higher the bird would go. Flappy Bird was born. On May 24, 2013, the iOS App Store took the game live. Nguyen did not charge for the game, instead making it available as a free download. The hope was that it would bring in some revenue from ads…

NEW RELEASE CLOSES THE GAP YET MORE BETWEEN DESKTOP AND MOBILE Apple's annual developers' conference -the Worldwide Developers' Conference (WWDC), to provide its full name - is always worth keeping an extremely beady eye on, such is its history of debuting so many of the products and software updates that have been instrumental in the history of the Cupertino giant. Mind you, even if you never cast your eye anywhere near the technology blogs each June, you'd soon hear from others about what has been announced. In short, the WWDC most definitely is not of sole interest to developers. Sure enough, one big announcement was that of OS X 10.10 Yosemite, the follow-up to last year's OS X 10.9 Mavericks. What's the overall effect that's been achieved with the software…

WHY THE FAIRER SEX IS IN LOVE WITH iOS Have you ever wondered how the various smartphones and tablets on the market fare among the sexes? Perhaps you've pondered whether it's the iPhone that really rocks a girl's heart, or instead a rival from Samsung or Nokia? Are certain devices seen as inherently 'feminine' or 'manly', and if so, why? If these questions have ever intrigued you, then you may be interested to read the recent evidence suggesting that women really are in love with Apple and !Gadgets. Cachecleaning firm KS Mobile conducted a study into the gender biases towards various phone manufacturers, and found that Apple was the preferred mobile handset provider for 45 per cent of women polled. There wasn't any location bias to this, either - across…

WHY AND HOW THE CUPERTINO FIRM IS SO MUCH 'GREENER' TODAY Look at the headlines bandied about today, and you could be forgiven for thinking that Apple has only ever been as green as the fruit that gives it its name. We are, of course, talking about the legendary Cupertino firm's relationship with the environment. Just consider the annual shareholder meeting earlier this year, at which CEO Tim Cook - in what a writer for the Mac Observer described as “the only time I can recall seeing Tim Cook angry” - staunchly rebuffed the suggestions of the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) that the company was wasting its time on paying lip service to such a thing as “environmental sustainability”. The NCPRR memorably questioned Apple's connections to “certain…

APPLE TV, SET-UP BOXES AND SO MUCH MORE Pretty understandably, whenever the online rumor pages mention Apple - which, let's admit it, tends to be quite often - it's almost always an !Gadget or Mac device that's being referred to, or perhaps the software for either of those. How frequently is Apple TV named? To be fair, the answer might just be “more often than used to be the case”. The last three years, after all, have seen steadily increasing attention paid to the Apple TV by the boys at Cupertino. Enhancements have been made to both the hardware and content offered to boost the popularity of the media streamer, and although it hasn't yet transformed into the complete standalone Apple television that had been hoped for in some quarters,…

POTENTIAL EXCITING IMPLICATIONS FOR iPHONE AND iPAD USERS EVERYWHERE It's fair to say that when the Financial Times reported the news that has illuminated the technology pages over the past week - that Apple was primed to purchase the iconic headphones manufacturer Beats Electronics - there were more than a few raised eyebrows. Indeed, as impressive as the Cupertino firm's cash reserves are, that cool $3.2 billion outlay is still nothing to sniff at. So... what's going on? Of course, there are the naysayers... those who say that Apple CEO Tim Cook must have gone mad to give the nod to this particular deal. But first, let's have some background. Beats Electronics was founded by two of the music industry's most legendary figures, rapper Dr. Dre and music producer Jimmy…

ENTERTAINMENT, HEALTH, DAY-TO-DAY ASSISTANCE AND SO MUCH MORE Think back to the last time you couldn't get your home Wi-Fi to work, your iPad browser crashed or your in-car GPS sent you down the wrong road. It's so frustrating when technology goes wrong, isn't it? Yet, that very anger ably demonstrates just how crucial it really is to all of our lives. Great technology -and in today's age, technology really is great - is so impactful as to go almost unnoticed in nigh-on every area of life. The frank truth of the matter is that for every inconvenience or frustration that technology has caused us down the years, it has done so much more to make our lives easier, more fun and just better. After all, we wouldn't be so…

HOW YOUR iPHONE IS FAR FROM JUST A PRODUCTIVITY TOOL When you reach into your pocket and pull out your iDevice, what do you think you're holding? Is it a mere phone or tablet, good for phoning and/or emailing friends above all else? Or do you particularly prize your iPhone or iPad as an Internet-ready device, perhaps using it to watch YouTube or Vimeo footage? Of course, there are loads more potential applications for the humble iDevice, some better known and less unusual than others. But if there's anything you might have noted about those we have suggested above, it's that they're a little... how shall we put this... sedate. They don't get the pulse going too much. However, there's a reason why iGadgets are so ubiquitous - they really…

THE VALUE OF AN INTERNAL EDUCATION INITIATIVE The late Steve Jobs, as anyone who has ever been in the employ of Apple in recent years will tell you, was a misfit. Such is the very nature of genius - you can't teach it. That's the commonly received idea, anyway. In truth, even Jobs had certain tangible values by which he took Apple by the scruff of his neck to previously unbeknown success, during both of his spells with the company. With that in mind, could something of his genius - even just a semblance - be put in a bottle, for the benefit of future generations of Apple leaders? It may not be an easy task to create a new Steve Jobs or seven, but that doesn't mean that you…

FACTORS POWERING THE MOBILE FITNESS REVOLUTION The summer is a tricky time for many of us. No, we aren't referring to all of that money you blew on watching the United States' admittedly impressive show at the soccer World Cup, or even the need to slap on the sun cream or duck for cover in the continuing heat waves. What we're referring to, is the fact that this is the midpoint of the year and your New Year resolutions might not be working out as you'd have hoped. After all, what's probably the trickiest New Year resolution of all? Something even tougher than getting that longed-for promotion or even patching up relations with the mother-in-law? We are, of course, talking about getting fit. If you're like anyone else, you've probably…

LEAVE YOUR CASH AT HOME - JUST PAY WITH YOUR iPHONE Most people think about either the iPad or the iPhone when they think about Apple, but those are far from the most popular items they sell. After all, many people already have phones and tablets, so the market for new purchases is not that large. Instead, it is people's purchases of the smaller stuff that brings in money hand over fist for Apple. Whether it is via iTunes or the iBook store, it is the buying of products that Apple didn’t actually manufacture - but nonetheless sells via its different platforms - that has made the company grow into the giant that it is today. iTUNES CERTAINLY MAKES LOADS OF MONEY... iTunes? You might be thinking that those songs…

Many teenagers today would scoff at the idea of buying a compact disc that contains an entire album on it. As for the idea of a cassette tape, or a large black disc that requires a needle to be run along some grooves to hear the music, well that sounds positively Mesozoic. The shift to buying music by the song, rather than by the album, is just one of the many iconic changes that iTunes has brought to the way in which we listen to and consume music. Looking back at its meteoric rise, it seems impossible that the juggernaut that is iTunes has only been on the road for 13 years. HOW iTUNES BEGAN Steve Jobs met with executives from Sony and Warner Music. Those execs had a plan…

...AND SO MANY OF THE GADGETS THAT CAN HELP If you asked the random person in the street some 10 or 15 years ago about the latest in technology, this being the pre-smartphone (and certainly pre-iPhone) age, they might have been much more likely than now to cite in-car satellite navigation systems. In the year 2014, it wouldn't exactly be right to suggest that such systems have bitten the dust, but they have certainly evolved, now often coming in the form of an app on the aforementioned mobile handset. Head to the iOS App Store and click 'Navigation' among the list of categories, and you'll be presented with all manner of relevant apps for getting you on your way somewhere, from popular free apps like Google Maps, Waze Social GPS,…

USING YOUR iDEVICE 'ON THE GO' Anyone who has been on holiday anywhere, ever, for even the shortest period of time, knows how easily things can go wrong. Maybe you've got a string of anecdotes of your own to tell. Perhaps you have tales of missed flights, hotel check-in problems, an inability to access your work emails from Barbados, and more besides? To be fair, though, any issues you may have experienced in recent years 'on the go' might not be quite so profound as those that you will have encountered just a few decades ago. These days, it seems that even the remotest parts of the world aren't too far from a Wi-Fi hotspot or seven, and that's without even considering how monumental an impact the smartphone and tablet…

iWATCH AND SEVERAL NEW iPHONES ANTICIPATED In-between the major launches by companies like Apple and Samsung that get us excited so much, there are various established ways of getting a sense of what may be coming as far as new products and software are concerned in the next few months and years. You may look to the rumors pages, for example, where there will invariably be references to oblique “sources familiar with the situation”, suggesting that the next iPhone, iPad or other Apple product will have “this” feature or “that” feature. There may also be mentions on these websites of supply chain leaks, or someone on an Internet forum may have come up with all manner of outlandish ideas of features that the next iPhone is “sure” to have. Some…