iOS

Guided by the steady hand of co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs, Apple has created some of the most influential and boldly designed consumer technology products of the modern era--everything from computer hardware and software to category-defining music players, tablets, and smartphones.

No, the company's run hasn't been perfect: Apple's striking but overpriced G4 cube Power Mac comes to mind, as does the toylike clamshell iBook and the buttonless Shuffle. … Read more

Android has taken a more commanding lead over iOS in the U.S., research firm ComScore is reporting.

According to the company, Android secured 43.7 percent of the U.S. smartphone OS market during the three-month period ended August 2011, jumping 5.6 percentage points from the 38.1 percent market share it had at the end of May. Apple's iOS platform came in second place with 27.3 percent market share at the end of August, ComScore said. In the three-month period ended May, Apple's operating system secured 26.6 percent of the U.S. smartphone … Read more

One of the lesser-known facts to emerge about the iPhone 4S yesterday is that it is the first phone to launch with Bluetooth 4.0, the latest version of Bluetooth. Not many products are available with Bluetooth 4.0 just yet--in fact, two of the most recent products to ship with Bluetooth 4.0 are also from Apple: the MacBook Air and the Mac Mini. Bluetooth 4.0 is backward-compatible with all other versions of Bluetooth, so you can pair existing Bluetooth headsets with the new iPhone without a problem.

So what's so special about it? According to Mike Foley, executive director of the Bluetooth SIG (Special Interest Group), the key new feature of Bluetooth 4.0 is its low-energy technology. This lets device manufacturers replace proprietary sensor technology with Bluetooth, which is a more widely adopted standard. An obvious example is in the health and fitness category. Most pedometers, heart rate straps, and blood glucose monitors are designed to only talk to a specific wristwatch or control unit. If these same devices had Bluetooth 4.0, they could speak to any Bluetooth 4.0 device, be it phone or computer, without requiring an intermediary.

"It's an extremely optimized version of Bluetooth," Foley said. "It enables an entirely new class of product into the Bluetooth world." … Read more

Siri, the new voice technology unveiled yesterday that's coming to the iPhone 4S, may not be such a new idea for Apple after all, at least according to a 1987 concept video showing a vaguely similar system designed for tablets.

Andy Baio over at Waxy posted a video of Apple's "Knowledge Navigator," a concept video put together for the Educom computer trade show in 1987, to be delivered alongside the keynote of then Apple CEO John Sculley.

The video, which cost Apple some $60,000 and six weeks to create from start to finish, features a professor going about comparing research notes and studies, as well as collaborating with others over video chat on a foldout tablet device running an older version of the Mac OS. Included is a plethora of concepty goodness, from touch screens and video conferencing to translucent removable memory that looks like it's straight out of "Star Trek."

But the glue that holds it together is the artificial intelligence assistant: A smooth-talking man who is a dead ringer for Bill Nye, the science guy, has complete conversations with the professor and is able to pull up charts and data based on plain language requests. It was more advanced than the Siri technology we saw demoed yesterday, but there are clearly some shared ideas. … Read more

The Internet almost split today under the duress of a billion users clicking around for the latest and greatest news from Apple's "Let's talk iPhone" keynote. But as the dust settles on the iPhone 4S reveal and the announcement of iOS 5, users are also finding themselves of split opinion about what they saw. Like most who tuned in to CNET's obsessive coverage, I'm slightly disappointed at what I saw. Not because it wasn't amazing (it wasn't) but because of all of the missed opportunities for Apple to gain ground in the … Read more

This probably shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, given that iOS 5 is arriving in consumers' hands next week, but Apple today gave developers a final copy of the software they can use to fine-tune their apps for compatibility.

Apple posted the gold master of the software on its developer site following this morning's announcements. Worth noting is that existing developers cannot install it as an over-the-air update, and they must use one of the recent developer betas of iTunes from the past two months.

The release today comes just after the date range predicted by … Read more

This article was originally posted June 6, 2011, and updated on October 4, 2011.

Along with introducing the new iPhone 4S, Apple gave a brief look at iOS 5 at Apple's "Let's Talk iPhone" event (full event and iPhone 4S coverage here) this morning in Cupertino, Calif. Tim Cook opened the event, but he turned to Scott Forstall, Apple's senior vice president of iPhone software, to show off highlights of a promised 200 new features in iOS 5. Available for free, iOS 5 will be compatible with the iPhone 4S, the iPhone 4, the iPhone 3GS, both versions of the iPad, and the third- and fourth-generation models of the iPod Touch.

In today's event, we saw a recap of features originally debuted at WWDC including the new notification system, Twitter integration, and Reminders, but also some new features added to the list with Find My Friends, Cards, and Siri, a voice-controlled assistant that will only be available to iPhone 4S users. iOS 5 will officially become available over the air for free starting on October 12. … Read more

If you were among those who bet your office mates that Apple wouldn't come out with an iPhone 5 today, congratulations, give yourself a high five, you win. But if you were on the losing side of that bet and were sure Apple would unveil a truly new iPhone with a new chassis and a number 5 in the name somewhere, you're probably shaking your head a little.

That's it? The iPhone 4S? We waited these extra months for that?

There is some good news. If you own an iPhone 4, you may be less tempted to upgrade and more willing to hold out for the true iPhone 5.

We know that for some Apple fans anything new is hard to resist, and a lot of you will probably want the iPhone 4S anyway. But maybe this quick roundup of what we missed will change your mind.… Read more

At today's Apple event, a new iPhone was announced. Surprise, surprise: the iPhone 4S is a modest upgrade, at least in terms of design. However, it shares a benefit with its larger iPad 2 cousin: significantly improved graphics.

It's no longer a secret or even an aspiration: the iPhone and iPod Touch are now the most popular gaming handhelds on the planet. The Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita are, at best, hopefuls trying to steal away Apple's newfound crown. So, how does Apple's latest iPhone hold up the mantle as the reigning gaming handheld du jour?

In short: by continuing to do what it does best.… Read more