Apple : iPhone 5S may celebrate its independence in July |
- iPhone 5S may celebrate its independence in July
- OS X 10.9 to bring more iOS features to the desktop?
- In Depth: Love Tetris? Then check out these iPhone and iPad block-stacking games
- In Depth: Digital-age dodos: 10 things tech is rendering redundant
| iPhone 5S may celebrate its independence in July Posted:  As we draw nearer to the start of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June, reports of what the Cupertino company is bringing to the table have been escalating. It just so happens that rumors about the iPhone 5S have been plentiful these past few weeks, with many sources pointing to the updated smartphone making a showing at WWDC. We've already heard Apple may be readying the iPhone 5S for a summer launch, with some sources indicating the iPhone 5 successor is already well into production. Those claims became a little more grounded on Monday, when marketing materials for Japanese telecommunications company KDDI leaked possible pre-order and release dates for the iPhone 5S. Summer blockbusterAccording to the leaked documents for KDDI's au wireless service, pre-orders for the iPhone 5S will begin on June 20, with the smartphone arriving at some time in July. The leaked info also indicated the iPhone 5S will feature a 13MP camera, a fingerprint reader, and iOS 7, which are all certainly specifics we've heard touted at least once before. French website Nowhereelse.fr uncovered the paperwork, with Apple Insider pointing out docs like this are used by the staff at official carrier stores as cheat sheets of a sort. The June 20 pre-order window certainly jibes with what we've heard previously, and fits in with the timeline of an announcement of the 5S at WWDC during the week of June 10-14. Releasing the iPhone 5S relatively soon after the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 rather than later in the year would help Apple keep pace with its rivals, but rumors about iPhone release dates are about as common as the phone itself. Until some more concrete evidence arrives, we won't be waiting for the summer winds to blow in the iPhone 5S. |
| OS X 10.9 to bring more iOS features to the desktop? Posted:  The release of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion saw Apple move its Mac desktop more towards the iOS experience and, if rumours are to be believed, that trend is only going to continue with 10.9. The new operating system will reportedly be bringing a lot more "power-user" characteristics that draw on some of the iOS core features. One such characteristic is a new multitasking panel similar to the swipable menu found on iPhones and iPads when you double-click the home button, as well as the ability to pause background apps and run full-screen apps on different monitors. Apple to the coreA new Safari browser is also expected, redesigned under the hood to improve overall speed and efficiency. However, it doesn't look as though the OS update, which we may see alongside the MacBook Pro refresh at WWDC 2013, will be a major overhaul like those we've seen in the past. There's also no further word on whether Siri might be speaking up on OS X 10.9, though it's previously been reported that Apple is looking to bring the feature in to its Mac ranges. Apple has codenamed the new operating system "Cabernet." Can we read anything from this? Perhaps it means the OS will get better with age. Or maybe it just means we won't have anything to "wine" about when we finally get our fingertips on it. |
| In Depth: Love Tetris? Then check out these iPhone and iPad block-stacking games Posted:  From the moment Tetris escaped its original home, an obscure Elektronika 60 in Moscow's Dorodnicyn Computing Centre, it became something of a phenomenon. There can be few games as immediately recognisable, addictive and enduring as the block-stacking classic. Tetris originated from creator Alexey Pajitnov's childhood fascination with traditional puzzle toys, and the game's similarly elegant simplicity ensured it a place among gaming's greats. Like other classics, it's easy to understand: pieces you can move and rotate fall into a well; make solid horizontal lines and they vanish; the game's over when the pieces reach the top. But also, Tetris is tough to truly master, allowing you to refine your technique over time. The basic nature of Tetris also ensured that it found its way to countless platforms. The MS-DOS version spread Tetris to the west, but the true genius moment in Tetris history was in being bundled with the original Game Boy. The little monochrome version captivated the world; from that point on, there was no stopping it. The Tetris juggernaut arrived on home consoles, handhelds, keychains and even the original click-wheel iPod. Of course, it's also found on iOS. EA's now had two cracks at bringing Tetris to the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, and the original effort wasn't convincing. A problem with Tetris from an iOS standpoint is the game's reliance on responsive digital controls as the game speeds up. On-screen swipe equivalents never stood a chance. For the newer version of Tetris (69p, iPhone; £1.99, iPad), the swipe version remains as Marathon Mode, but we prefer One-Touch. This mode shows locations into which the current piece can fit. A timer counts down (and speeds up as the game progresses) and you tap a location to confirm, or tap elsewhere to get more options. Purists might baulk at such a radical departure from the original controls, but we reckon the iOS revision gives you the strategy of Tetris without the frustration of imprecise touch controls. There's also the puzzle-oriented Galaxy Mode where you dig down through junk, although it's a touch too reliant on power ups to achieve the best times - and the power-ups are, naturally, bought with In-App Purchases. With Tetris being so popular, it should come as no surprise the App Store's littered with clones, which are typically brazen in their approach, only occasionally doing something slightly different (for example, adding the odd non-standard shape), presumably in an effort to not be sued.
Therefore, we're only interested in block-stacking games that do something unique, rather like Dream of Pixels (£1.99, Universal). On the face of it, you might question our judgement, since Dream of Pixels looks an awful lot like an upside-down Tetris; in reality, it's Tetris in reverse, with you using the familiar shapes to take chunks out of a menacing cloud, which ends your game if it gets to the bottom of the screen. However, what appears to be a cunning riff on Tetris in reality plays very differently, and interesting bonuses and game modes ensure Dream of Pixels is a must-have for action-puzzle fans. Of the remaining titles in our selection, there's Tetris in the DNA, but also crossover with match games. The key differentiator from the likes of gem-swapper Bejeweled is that our choices all take place in an endlessly refilling well.
Some efforts simplify the basic block-stacking premise: Shibuya (69p, iPhone) has only a single column, and you must rapidly create chains of two or more like-coloured blocks. Meanwhile, Unify (£1.49, iPhone) returns shapes that spin and move, but has them come at you from two directions. Fortunately, Unify's limited to stubby rectangles with two coloured pieces (a system Puyo Puyo fans will immediately recognise), and instead of forming complete lines, you're tasked with grouping four identically coloured squares, which subsequently explode. At first, this is simple, but once the game speeds up and gives you a half-dozen colours to track, it's like combining stripped-down Tetris with juggling.
Mini Meteors (£1.99, iPad) is equally frenetic, albeit in a different way. It's more or less a straight copy of the Nintendo DS title Meteos, with coloured blocks rapidly falling into the well. You arrange three or more in a row or column, at which point they abruptly ignite and take off, carrying the blocks above them. If the make-shift rocket is too heavy, it'll stall and fall, although you can give it extra power by rearranging the blocks in mid-flight. If you're into more sedate fare, grab Slydris (£1.49, Universal) and Drop7 (£1.99, Universal). The former has you re-arranging lengths of horizontal blocks in a well. With each move, more fall from the top, and so you must think ahead and create chains that give you breathing space.
Drop7 demands maths skills along with spatial awareness and planning. Instead of shapes or blocks, you drop numbered discs into the well, and should the number on any disc match how many are in its row or column, it'll explode. That might not sound that straightforward, but Drop7 has the same pickup- and-play brilliance and tough-to-master sneakiness as Tetris, although it certainly gives a work out to a slightly different part of the brain. Our final two games also take block-stacking away from the purely abstract, although they rely on letters, not numbers. SpellTower (£1.49, Universal) has rows of letters cleared by making words, Boggle-style. Tower Mode is laid back (a static grid and no pressure), but Puzzle Mode adds a new row for every word you create. By the time you get to Rush Mode and its relentless timer, you'll be yelling at the screen, demanding to know why there are so many unusable letters huddled together.
Still, it's good training for Puzzlejuice (£1.49, Universal), which doesn't stray too far from the truth when it states it will "punch your brain in the face". It merges Tetris and SpellTower with Unify's colour-matching - complete rows of squares and match coloured blocks to transform them into letters, which are removed by dragging out words. Add power ups and you've got a creation that pays homage to Tetris, match games and word games, while merrily ensuring steam will shoot out of your ears at regular intervals. We're a little bit surprised the developer didn't bung some shooting and sports in there for good measure! |
| In Depth: Digital-age dodos: 10 things tech is rendering redundant Posted:  Technology is the great transformer, and the pace of change is accelerating: Google's running robot cars, you can own your own helicopter and you can access all of the world's information from a device you keep in your pocket. But technology is a destroyer too. It can destroy entire industries or remake them entirely, render everyday objects obsolete, and change the way we shop, entertain ourselves and communicate with one another. Let's discover the items and ideas that technology is rendering redundant. 1. BezelsIn the 1950s, television sets were more bezel than screen: for every twelve inches of screen you'd have seven feet of bezel. Over the next decades screen technology improved but bezel technology didn't, and even relatively recent flat-screen sets came with enormous black bezels around their LCD panels. Today, though, bezels are an endangered species: space-saving LED panels mean that even the biggest HD TVs come with barely a whisper of bezel, and small-screened devices such as smartphones and tablets are getting edge-to-edge displays too. Bye, bezels! 2. Cables
It's taken a bit longer than we'd like, but cables do appear to be on the way out: wireless soundbars such as the Sonos Playbar replace the traditional spaghetti junction of home entertainment cables; most smartphones sync - and in the case of recent Nokias, charge - without wires; network storage is going wireless; and TVs such as Panasonic's TX-L42DT65B can even stream media to iPads. We're not completely cable-free yet - that day is still some years away - but we're definitely heading in the right direction. 3. Discs
Bill Gates said Blu-Ray would be the last disc format the world would ever see, and it looks like he was right: from iTunes tracks to Netflix subscriptions we're getting more and more media delivered digitally instead of on shiny plastic discs. Instead of packaged software we have apps, instead of CDs we have MP3s, FLAC and AACs, and instead of DVDs we have downloads. Discs of all kinds are going the way of C90 cassettes, 8-track cartridges and wax cylinders. 4. Desktop PCs
Sales of laptops overtook desktops back in 2008, and this year's numbers show a sustained decline in the overall PC market too: tablets are doing to PCs of all kinds what laptops did to desktops. Desktops won't disappear altogether - recording studios love their Mac Pros, while gamers will never tire of shoving ever more powerful graphics cards into chassis - but the future of everyday computing is mainly mobile. 5. Video cameras
Camcorders are being squeezed on two fronts: on one flank there are the smartphones, which these days are offering rather good HD recording, and on the other flank you have the digital SLRs that do video too. Smartphones have already replaced compact cameras for many of us, and their ever-improving video capabilities mean camcorders are likely to become increasingly niche products for prosumers and pros. 6. Landlines
For ordinary people, landlines don't make sense any more: if we want to talk to you we'll call the phone you carry with you everywhere, not the phone that lives on a little table in a building that you're sometimes inside. For consumers landlines are only necessary because you can't get ADSL without one. 7. Privacy
One day we'll look back on the pre-internet era with amazement. "You mean you weren't on camera all the time?" "No, and nobody was tracking everything I read, said or thought either." Our smartphone-packing, social media-sharing world enables companies (and if you're feeling paranoid, governments) to amass truly extraordinary amounts of information about us: who we are, what matters to us, where we go, what we buy and who we like to communicate with. God knows what it'll be like when everyone on the train's wearing Google Glass and the skies are thick with camera drones. 8. Netbooks
They came, they drove Windows PC pricing into the ground, and they're off again: according to analysts at IHS, the netbook will be extinct by 2015. IHS's Craig Stice says that the arrival of the iPad and its imitators lead to a "massive loss of interest in netbooks." Netbooks peaked in 2010, selling 32 million units, but IHS predicts that in 2014 the number will fall to around a quarter of a million and "00.0 million" in 2015. 9. 3D Glasses
We've said it before: 3D TV is a failure, and it's largely due to those silly specs. Multiple surveys commissioned by the BBC say that more than 50% of people can't stand the damn things, and it seems that while 3D TVs are selling in reasonable numbers people aren't actually using them to watch 3D content. 3D TV currently has two possible futures: either glasses-free 3D will save the day and make 3D properly mainstream, or we'll forget all about it and go for Ultra HD instead. 10. PolitenessPeople in supermarkets keeping their earbuds in when the assistant scans their shopping; smartphone addicts checking social media instead of listening to the people they're with; idiots soundtracking bus journeys with their phones' tinny speakers; complete strangers calling each other terrible things on Twitter; people blocking your view with iPads - iPads! - when they decide to record gigs... these things have become so ordinary we barely notice them any more. We've known for many years that getting behind the wheel of a car turns some people into ignorant, insufferable arses. Sadly it seems that for some people, switching on a gadget has a very similar effect. |
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