Latest Gadgets, Tablets and Smartphones
When iOS 4 first launched, a few features were held back from older versions of the iPhone. The same has happened with iOS 5 although the list of unavailable features isn’t as dramatic as seen in earlier versions of the OS.
First the good news. From what we understand, iOS 5 works great on older hardware such as the iPhone 3GS. Notifications work well and the scroll down notification pane is fully functional with no lag. Twitter integration is also available for 3GS owners.
Apple iCloud was finally announced yesterday. The new service aims to put all of your content in the cloud and make it an invisible process to move files between each of your Apple devices.
When buying a track from iTunes for example, you can buy it on your iPhone. The track is then loaded to iCloud and any other logged in device such as an iPad, iPod touch or a Mac each have the song downloaded automatically.
Apple has announced iOS 5 along with all the features that it brings to the iPhone, iPod and iPod touch. The iOS 5 release date will be sometime in the fall of this year although no specific date has been mentioned. As for compatibility, it will work on the iPhone 3GS, 4, iPod touch 3rd and 4th gen as well as the iPad and iPad 2.
Take a look below to see what new features are coming to iOS 5:
The screenshot below may or may not be iOS 5. A subtle difference you’ll see in the image is the twitter notification bar that is showing just under the status bar. We’ve heard a few times before that Twitter will be integrated in to iOS 5 and what we see could be the way notifications for Twitter are received.
Apple has filed a rather unique patent that makes use of infrared transmitters to interact with the iPhone. What the patent shows is an IR sensor installed at a venue and when the camera picks up the sensor, the device can either access information about where a user is, or have features disabled.
Just ahead of WWDC2011 that kicks off in the next few days, we are beginning to hear pricing rumours of the new iCloud service. Insiders have hinted at the initial offering being free which will later on be changed to a $25/year pricing plan. It isn’t clear how long the free period will last. It could be a month, 90 days or perhaps even longer.
The iPhoneIslam team has recently uploaded a video to Youtube that shows an iPad 3G making voice calls, sending text messages and using FaceTime.
The software hasn’t been launched yet although the team say that it’s coming very soon.
Apple has announced that iOS 5, Lion and iCloud will all be announced at WWDC this year. The event is being held on June 6 at 10:00am.
Each of the new software and services will be announced in the keynote presentation by Steve Jobs as well as other Apple execs.
Extending the Touchscreen is a thesis project by Michael Knuepfel. The project provides working examples on how an iPad or iPhone touchscreen can be extended beyond the normal usage. The system uses conductive materials to help the user interact with an application or device in more depth than what normally can be achieved.
The Vodafone VIP Recharging Truck has been built to travel to festivals in the UK and provide a source of free power for Vodafone customers. One of the problems when attending a festival is that your phone battery is likely to die before the event finishes. As many people still want to text and capture pictures, this truck comes in handy as it can charge up to 2000 smartphones at the same time.
The charging system provides power to charge a phone at the same speed you’d be able to charge it at home. It is expected that this summer, 72,000 smartphones will be charged by this truck.
iRemoco is an RC helicopter that is controlled by an iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. The kit comes with a radio device that connects to the 30 pin dock connector on your iOS device. When connected, you load up an app and can then be used to fly an RC helicopter around with either two on-screen analogue controls, or by a single control and motion to move the helicopter around a room.
The app also can be used to switch between three different frequencies so that up to three helicopters can be used at the same time.
Samsung has announced a new display that measures 10.1 inches and crams 2560×1600 pixels on to the screen. The display has a DPI of 300 and comes close to the DPI of the Retina display used in the iPhone 4. The new screen will be on display on May 17-19 at the SID Display Week in the LA Convention center.
The technology used on the screen is LCD and with that pixel density of 300 DPI, it allows more clarity in small text which makes reading, browsing and over tablet based activities a little better.
