-What's good?
Brian Tong here and welcome to the Apple Byte, where everything good and bad inside the world of Apple.
It's been a pretty quiet week on the Apple front, but there's been a lot more happening outside the world of Apple.
Now Google I/O 2013 kicked off in San Francisco focusing on a lot of new development tools and services that are directly competing with Apple.
Google as an exclusive to their own hardware
and they showcase their new app called Hangout which is a cross platform messaging service that can be used with iOS and android devices.
It's available now for free on the iPhone.
And what also makes it unique is that if you're plug into Google services, it brings group video chat.
And yeah, I know, there's spring.
It isn't as tightly integrated.
And this is something FaceTime users had been waiting a long time for.
Now Google also showed off significantly improved voice recognition and Google now will support more information cards for movies, TV
shows, and public transit, pitting it directly against Siri.
And the big one, we all know how Apple maps and Google maps have been going at it.
Well the Googs also previewed their rework maps that will iOS with a cleaner new UI that goes edge to edge with tablet versions like the iPad, taking advantage of the larger screen real-estate.
Now it will integrate Zagat restaurant ratings into the app, and it will include real time dynamic rerouting for traffic and transit options while you're driving.
Now this is probably the biggest announcement
that affects most of you, the Apple Byters, and I'm excited for it at summer release.
Now, I know you're all waiting for some sort of news from Apple, but this one will probably hold you over for a little bit.
We talked about iOS going with a flatter design a couple of shows ago, and the team at Simply Zesty took information from the latest rumors, and built this awesome video concept showing off what a flatter iOS 7 might look like.
It incorporates cleaner look and a flatter design.
I'm just gonna enjoy some of this.
Oh
and even Widgets.
Oh, yeah.
I feel that tune-- this song is kinda catchy.
All right guys, let's follow-up with the story from last week, and it looks like the 50 billionth app was downloaded and the lucky app was paper from the team at 53.
Apple also included this fun little thanks to announce the milestone, but the name of the winner hasn't been announced because I will track them down.
And for those of you that have been waiting for over 4 or 5 years
to finally message with your friends on Blackberry messenger.
Well, Blackberry announced that the BBM app for iOS and android is coming this summer, so now you can message with your one buddy that's still using a Blackberry.
And we need to make a correction from last week's show.
There's a story where I mentioned how a bid of 600 and $5,000 for coffee with Tim Cook was equivalent to 12,010 jack-in-the-box tacos.
Well, even Trevor Burnett wrote in with, "That's like $50
a taco." I know.
It was a total brain spark, and many of you pointed out that it would actually be 1,210,000 tacos at 50 cents per taco.
So I just wanted to say, I'm sorry.
I'm human.
And see, not all Asian people are good at Math.
-Me too, Brian.
-It's good to know I'm not alone.
All right, let's do a quick giveaway.
I'm excited to hook you, the Apple Byters up with this sweet aluminum frame case called
the AL13 from my buddies at M, that's the name of the company.
Now this frame comes in different colors.
It's real sturdy.
And it adds a classy design element to your phone.
It comes with a screen protector and the packaging is pretty insane.
So we're giving away a total of 5 in either blue or gun metal for the iPhone 5. Now all you have to do is send me a tweet at BrianTong or an email to the AppleByte@CNET.com, and tell me, who is the Apple Beta tester we identified from last week's show.
And I randomly
pick 5 of you.
All right, that's gonna do it for this week's show.
Keep sending us your questions and I'll get to as many as I can.
I'm Brian Tong.
Thanks for watching.
We'll catch you guys next time for another Byte of the Apple.
