iOS

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

commentary Apple is a hardware company. It makes phones, tablets, music players and computers, operating systems for them, and marketplaces to buy media and apps to run on them. Apple has the only effectively functioning vertically integrated consumer electronics ecosystem, a loosely-walled garden that makes technology outside the Apple world feel gritty, raw, and uncoordinated. This is the result of Apple's solid execution on its strategy, and one of the keys to its ongoing success.

The Web, meanwhile, is a Wild West of open standards and available-to-any-device content services and apps. The Web makes hardware unimportant, in theory, so … Read more

Lost in all the hype--and some would say disappointment--over the announcement of Apple's new iPhone 4S is one question: at whom is the new device aimed?

To be sure, it offers a nice set of features that make it a significant step up from the iPhone 4: Siri voice controls, an 8-megapixel camera, a faster dual-core A5 CPU processor, an 8-megapixel camera, and HSPA+ support. It's also a dual-mode world phone, and the new 4S has a new antenna that may improve call quality.

To be sure, with the 4S, Apple is going after iPhone 3G and 3GS owners, as well as those who have never bought one of its smartphones. But one question worth asking is, are those features enough to convince iPhone 4 owners to upgrade? … Read more

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

Apple has unveiled the next iPhone at long last, and with it comes iOS 5, which we first learned of in June. We got demos of 10 of the 200 additions and enhancements, including the hotly anticipated over-the-air system updates, new message notifications, and group messaging. The iOS 5 update rolls out on October 12.

Deep voice integration through the Siri app (beta) was revealed at the iPhone 4S launch event today. This is the deep voice integration we expected, and in addition to handling text composition and replies, reminders, and meeting requests, it also reaches for a more conversational tone in its voice search. Questions like, "Do I need an umbrella today?" yields results like, "Yes, it sure looks like rain." A new icon of a microphone will soon join the virtual keyboard.

While all the new features bring happy tidings for Apple fans, many have already existed on Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone operating systems. That's not necessary a knock on Apple; all the platforms eventually ape each other's best features, and remember how long it took Apple to enable copy/paste on its original iPhone? What it does reveal is that Android, and even Windows Phone and BlackBerry, are applying real pressure.

Here's a look at how some of Apple's major iOS 5 updates line up with those on rival mobile platforms. We've included dates and the names of Apple's new features when available.… Read more

On October 12, Apple will have a new version of the iPod Touch to sell, priced at $199 (8GB), $299 (32GB), and $399 (64GB).

The bad news is that the 2011 hardware is seemingly identical to last year's iPod Touch. You get the same front (VGA) and rear (720p) camera, same processor, and same 3.5-inch Retina display. Aside from a new white color option, the iPod Touch hardware is essentially unchanged.

The good news? Well, the iPod Touch is the least expensive (contract-free) way to get iOS 5. The base iPod Touch model (8GB) has dropped from $229 down to $199. … Read more

It was the live event that killed the Internet.

Well, that may be an exaggeration, but Apple's iPhone event Tuesday morning seems to have taken a serious toll. Across the Web, tech news sites were lined up (literally, in the sense of reporters queuing at Apple's headquarters, and figuratively) to live-blog the event.

Yet, as hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of people logged into sites like CNET News, Engadget, Mashable, All Things Digital, and others, news from the event was hard to come by.

CNET's live coverage was down from the beginning. Mashable's sputtered at … Read more

Apple said today that 18 billion applications have been downloaded from its App Store.

The company said it sees more than 1 billion app downloads a month. It has paid out more than $3 billion to developers.

Apple has built a growing business with its app store, in which it takes a 30 percent cut of the revenue generated by developers.

(CNET's live blog of the Apple event)

Despite the surge in demand for Android, Apple's iOS still holds the lead among mobile platforms, at least according to the latest data from Net Applications.

In a survey of the mobile landscape for September, iOS hit a new record with a 54.6 percent share of the market. That's up from 53 percent the prior month and 42 percent a year ago.

Trailing behind Java ME, which is typically used in feature phones, was Android with a 16.26 percent share. Though in third place, Google's mobile OS has seen a rise from a year ago … Read more