ios

Currently, all iOS devices come with the Mobile Safari search provider set to Google. For most users Google works, and the thought of changing it will never cross their mind. For others who prefer to use Bing and Yahoo, changing the default search engine is preferred. This simple guide will show you how to change the default search engine on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. … Read more

Such is the way of technology. Just two years after its release, the iPhone 3GS may be deemed "too old" for Apple's next iteration of its mobile operating system, iOS 5.

Mobile phone blogger Eldar Murtazin, from the Russian site Mobile-Review, stated frankly in a tweet recently (via MacStories): "Just one comment. Apple iPhone 3GS wont be upgradable to iOS 5.x. iPhone 4 will."

The comment did not come with a follow-up on sources of the information and could very well just be an educated guess on Murtazin's part. Whether fact or fiction, … Read more

A fellow co-worker who's an unabashed iOS enthusiast passed by my cube yesterday and saw me playing on a table-top arcade machine sitting on my desk. He stopped, eyes drawn to the bright colors on the sides and the top, and the arcade graphics on the small glass screen. I explained that it was an iPad sitting in the iCade, a $99 self-assemble arcade cabinet with Bluetooth joystick.

Naturally, he wanted to try it out on a few games he liked. I explained that the iCade currently only works with Atari's Greatest Hits app, which admittedly has 100 games, but lacks arcade classics like Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and Joust--games that are, of course, made by other publishers. I also explained that it really only worked in portrait mode (or a slightly precarious but still-possible landscape mode, by using a groove on the outside edge).

He started to sour. Eventually, he walked away.

Of course, for arcade nuts and fans of novelty bar-top/desktop toys, the iCade is still a pretty awesome little treat. But until it can support other games--which Ion, the maker of the iCade, says will happen via a shared API--its appeal will necessarily be limited. I can think of dozens of games in the App Store that would be perfect for the iCade: Street Fighter IV. Death Rally. NBA Jam. Pinball HD. Tetris. Space Invaders Infinity Gene. The aforementioned Pac-Man. … Read more

Flight Control HD is an attractive, addictive game in which you play an air-traffic controller guiding an endless armada of incoming aircraft to safe landings (you hope!) at a crowded airport. Flight Control makes great use of the iPad interface, as you use your finger to trace a trajectory for each approaching craft, sending jets, seaplanes, helicopters, et al. to various runways and landing pads. The controls are incredibly simple and intuitive, which contributes to Flight Control's surprisingly rich, devilishly addictive gameplay.

The game starts out at a leisurely pace, but as aircraft enter from every edge of the … Read more

Admit it! Sometimes you are so mad, you just want to slam something on the floor, step on it, and then kick it a few times. I know a friend who did just that with his portable drive only to later regret losing data and hurting his big toe. If only he had had the IoSafe Rugged Portable, his data would have been safe. His toe's another story, however.

First introduced at CES 2011 with a bang (quite a few bangs, actually), IoSafe's Rugged Portable is the first mobile external hard drive that can really withstand serious beatings and abuse. The drive can handle drops, water submersion, dust, chemicals, and being crushed by a vise. I have personally shot at it with a shotgun--at a demo, not out of anger--and it didn't break.

This means that if you happen to drop it in the street and the thing gets run over by cars, chances are it will survive quite easily. As a matter of fact, the only situation it seems the Rugged Portable won't survive is extreme heat, which its brother the IoSafe SoloPro can handle. To make up for this, the Rugged Portable is about 15 times more compact and lighter. The drive is slightly smaller than a 3.5-inch internal hard drive and weighs about 1 pound. It's designed to be carried around, while the SoloPro is meant to be used at home only. … Read more

Go, Google's experimental programming language, is coming to the company's App Engine cloud-computing service--and a bit closer to reality in the process.

Google hopes to use Go to tackle modern programming challenges such as getting useful work out of chips with multiple processor cores. Getting new languages to catch on is difficult, though--it took Sun Microsystems years with Java, and its Fortress never really caught on widely.

But incorporating Go into App Engine could help make it more relevant, or at least easier to test out, by reducing the hassles involved in trying it. App Engine is a … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Google expects Chrome OS to be a success. But it's chosen its terms for success very carefully.

Google shares with many of its rivals a natural, reasonable ambition to measure success by market penetration. This week at the Google I/O conference here, the company was quick to tout that there have been 100 million activations of Android devices, that 310 different Android devices have gone on sale so far, and that Android users have downloaded 4.5 billion apps to date.

Though data-obsessed Google doubtless will count how many Chromebooks are sold, that isn't the measurement … Read more

CNET ran a story yesterday about BeamItDown Software, the start-up behind the iFlow Reader app for iOS, offering harsh words for Apple as it felt forced to shut down. In a note to customers, the Irvine, Calif.-based company said its demise was due to Apple's "mid-game rule changes that make it impossible for anyone but Apple to sell e-books at a profit on iOS."

I was struck by the candidness of the remarks and decided to track down BeamItDown's co-founder Dennis Morin for a follow-up interview. Morin has been an entrepreneur for a number of … Read more