Microsoft & OEM partner ASUS launches a full on frontal attack aimed squarely at the iPad. The advert attacks the iPad at its obvious and well known weakness that until now nobody has been able to point out with any significance. This ad I should say does a fantastic job of pointing out the lack of multitasking and glanceable information the iPad has. I won’t touch on the productivity topic because third-party developers and big name vendors have definitely stepped up and provided tablet optimized apps that add amazing productivity to the iPad. The important to note is that everything this advert points out on the Windows 8 tablet is built in out of the box. Making your point through humor just can’t be matched because it invokes an emotional attachment to the ad itself.

When I was kid and living in India, I had one stapler, which was made in USA. I liked its quality and from then onwards I wished I had access to made in USA goods. Of course they are not affordable for most of Indians. After migrating to US, I seldom saw made in U.S.A goods. Now it is almost close to zero. You go to any store, made in USA goods are not at all visible, even if they exist. Now I think we are going to see made in USA products happening more often, because Apple, the trendsetter, is bringing some. . Apple’s chief Tim Cook shared more about the Mac that they are building in the USA. He also said they are planning to move the entire production to onshore and are investing $100M for that. Cook says it is going to be the first Mac after 1994 to built completely in the U.S . Once they release it I will buy one definitely. “Be American, Buy American.”   Would you buy one, once they release it here?

Source: Mac User

There is no doubt that iOS is in desperate need of upgrading. It has been around too long in it’s current state. Android and more specifically Windows Phone have a much more intuitive and modern look. Apple even borrowed some of Androids notification goodness in iOS 5. Now it seems that Apple may borrow some of Microsoft’s Metro UI flava for it’s own in the upcoming release of iOS 7. 9to5Mac is stating that multiple sources are claiming the new interface and general design will be “very, very flat”. While other sources are stating that the new design "loses all signs of gloss, shine and skeumorphism"

Jony Ive, who is now in charge of the iOS design team is said to favor the Metro minimalistic style and bring elements of that UI into Apple’s new UI that should be previewed at the WWDC 2013. Macrumors has a pretty cool mockup of the new UI and I can already tell you I am not a fan. What makes the “flat” style work on Windows Phones is that it is now tunable to your own desire by being able to make the truly live tiles bigger or smaller and move them around at will.

If these formerly called icons could be more like Android widgets and have the scalability of Windows Phone I think it would be more of a hit. It is also being stated that the "new panels [that] swipe from the left and right side of an iOS device’s display."

So it could very well possibly be that iOS 7 falls flat in a good way, but Apple better have something more up it’s sleeve than the mocked up image or it could find it’s not so shiny new UI falling flat in a bad way.

The popular Android personal assistant has not come to the iPad and iPhone but I don’t look for it to replace Siri anytime soon. Even though I have a love hate relationship with Siri there is a deeper integration that with Google Search which is where Google Now is buried. First thing is to fire up your iOS device and head to iTunes and either download or update Google Search. Once downloaded and you fire it up, the Google Search screen is pretty boring. At the bottom of the screen there are some notifications that you can lift up (swipe) and will display multiple cards. The cards will appear based off your location results and selections for example with sports and teams. When you are done with a card you can swipe it the heck out of there. Which is kind of neat. I’m still working with Google Now for iPad but so far I am pretty underwhelmed and the Android experience with Google Now is much better.

Today’s Apple earnings call just ended. Apple CEO Tim Cook suggested no new products would be coming from Apple until the fall of this year and more would be throughout 2014. It is now time for everyone to give the same advice to Apple that everyone harpooned Microsoft with a couple years ago.

Competitors will not stand still and wait for Apple to reinvent markets anymore. They are not laughing off to their demise any suggestion that a new product is coming fro Cupertino that will shake the industry. Chief amongst the Apple competitors is Samsung. We all know Samsung is going to carpet-bomb the heck out of the Galaxy line of phones and pretty sure they’ll dominate sales figures all year. Add in the rest of their electronics lineup and Apple’s apparent delay in releasing new products and Apple might just find themselves introducing products later this year to a decidedly unwelcoming or even worse, apathetic market.

I’m stating right here that 2013 will indeed be the year of Samsung. Get ready for your new electronic overlords.

We all know how brutal Foxconn is  with its employees, but every once in a while a disgruntled “staffer” will leak information about the climate inside the tech manufacturing giant for Apple. While this is just rumor and unsubstantiated,  The Register cites a report in China Business that anywhere from 5-8 million unidentified handsets where rejected by Apple and sent back. It’s not clear what version of the iPhone it was, whether the iPhone 5 or 4S, but at an estimated cost of $200 bucks each, Foxconn is going to have to take a huge hit worth up to $1.5 billion.

Now, there is no doubt the total hit would be that much for Foxconn as most of the components should be able to be reused. It is said that the rejected iPhone were sent back “due to appearance of substandard or dysfunctional problems.”.

With Apple stocks up 6% to 405 this morning, rumors even as shaky as this cannot help the 800 pound gorilla much.

Apple is big business as everyone knows and investors and analysts have ben trying to get the inside information on their products for years. However, not all leaks should be taken as fact until Tim Cook stands on stage and shows us otherwise. So with that, a French Blog today was able to get some exclusive pictures of what they are calling the next iPad 5’s front cover and bezel.  We know there has been rumors that Apple would but their 9.7 inch tablet on a diet and reduce it’s overall footprint. So here is some proof that what we think might happen, could very well indeed…happen:

Now, the next question is, will the next iPad come with iOS 7?

Looks like the iOS 7 rumors are in full swing and today we have some tasty tidbits suggesting that iOS 7 is being delayed and that Apple is pulling OS X 10.9 engineers to help sort it out and get it back on track. iOS 7 which is supposed to be a complete overhaul from basically the same UI introduced in 2007 with the first iPhone. These engineers are also said to have “some sort of polarizing filter” to hide their phones from spying eyes.

All around the internet, rumors are suggesting end of 2013 for the roll out. So does that mean Apple rolls out a new OS on an iPad? The iPhone 5S, the ho hum upgrade from the iPhone 5 is said to be in production in the second quarter and release in June or July. Obviously we will not see iOS 7 on that device. So does Apple then roll out iOS 7 on an iPad? Then update the iPhone 5S and previous models? That doesn’t make sense either. It would seem more logical to roll out iOS 7 on the iPhone 6 which would not be expected until 2014 with a mid year iPhone 5S. So is Apple letting info out that they are putting more engineers on it to break the ice that it will not be out until 2014?

I have been using the iPhone for several years not since the end of Windows Mobile and my patience for lack of innovation is dwindling. I have been satisfied temporarily because of the Evasi0n Jailbreak released for the iPhone 5 up to iOS 6.1.2. Getting my Cydia on and diverting UI frustration with hacking has been fun up until Apple plugged the hole in iOS 6 with their latest release of iOS 6.1.3 which renders the current Jailbreak useless. However, since this OS update from Apple really was more for maps in Asia and plugging the security hole for jailbreakers, there is no reason to update. There is said to be several exploits being held back for future iOS updates that have some substance instead of burning them up on weak updates like iOS 6.1.3.

Digressing a little further from iOS 7 rumors and my thoughts with hardware, I am still underwhelmed. I am hoping that iPhone 5S fixes the camera issues and perhaps makes good on a larger iPhone 5S and brings a new lower cost iPhone version with more colors and less expensive build quality. I think the build quality on the iPhone 5 suffered when they lightened up and it does not have that same feel as the 4S did. Further, the larger length screen did not make that big of difference for that I thought it would. I use voice to text more often now because the width of the screen is really restrictive for larger people’s hands. I understand Apples theory of one handed operation but I just don’t think it is as big a factor as perhaps it once was. I don’t look for anything but a slight upgrade on the iPhone 5S but perhaps another hardware and form factor update on the iPhone 6 will usher in iOS 7 as well in 2014.

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Mistakes happen. That is a universal certainty and I’m really not one for conspiracy theories so I’ll just count this as a human mistake. The mistakes aren’t just a matter of copy and pasting the wrong info though. This Wirefly smartphone OS comparison chart has errors that deal with each OS signature feature. Who doesn’t know that Android has a notification center? Sure it is referred to as the notification shade but still everyone knows it’s the same thing. Just like everyone knows that FaceTime is Apple’s integrated video chat service. Windows Phone 8 has NFC and has had it since day one. I have a hard time seeing such major errors not being noticed but like I said I’m not a big fan of conspiracy theories.

Source: Wirefly