iOS

Thanks to new data from ComScore, I must now revise the tale I planned to tell my daughter when she's older about the early days of the smartphone wars.

Until yesterday, it was shaping up to be quite an epic--with Apple turning from David to Goliath, only to be slain by a populist little green robot...and in the process the battle completely trampling a nearby BlackBerry bramble while the fair maiden Symbian remains trapped in a European tower far, far away.

But now it turns out that the little robot may not make such short work of its foe as was previously expected. … Read more

Doodle Buddy is a free, no-frills, ad-supported drawing and doodling app with playful stamps and backgrounds that will appeal to kids.

Doodle Buddy's "finger-painting" interface lets you draw with swipes and taps. A row of tappable icons on the bottom of the screen lets you undo your last action (multiple times), erase your current drawing (you can also shake your device to erase), and choose from several different tools: a drawing tool (brush, chalk, glitter, smudge, or eraser, all with adjustable sizes), a stamp (with dozens of built-in stamps, from animals to smileys to speech balloons, each … Read more

Videos demonstrating what appears to be an early development version of a white iPhone 4, as well as a version of iOS with multitasking and search features that differ from existing models, has cropped up on the Web today, showing hints of directions Apple could have taken, or might yet take with its features.

The two videos come from Vietnamese site Tinhte, which is the same outlet that got a hold of the iPhone 4 ahead of its official announcement. Engadget picked up on them this morning, noting that the phone is running a build of iOS aimed at testing … Read more

Another once-exclusive iOS app has now joined the Android family. The Sonos Controller app lets owners control any of the Sonos network audio streamers in their home.

Originally announced in February (it's arriving a few weeks after its originally intended March delivery date), the Sonos Controller is a free download from the Android Market. It's designed to be compatible with any smartphone running Android 2.1 or later with a screen size of HVGA (320 x 480), WVGA (480 x 800), or WVGA (480 x 854). Android tablets are not officially supported at the current time.

Anyone who's familiar with the Sonos Controller for iPhone will find the Android version to be all but identical, though the latter offers voice search--a nice upgrade over the iOS version. The Android app will no doubt be welcomed by Sonos owners (or prospective owners) who were looking for control options beyond the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Mac, and Windows software controllers that are currently available. But Sonos' Apple-centric fans also have two reasons to celebrate:… Read more

Reports surfaced earlier today claim that Apple has changed its ranking algorithms for the App Store, shifting how applications make it to the top of the heap where they are more likely to pick up sales due to the extra visibility.

The change, which was picked up on by third-party analytics providers like Flurry last week and passed on to blog Inside Mobile Apps, is said to add other factors to an application's placement in the top sections of the App Store, besides raw download numbers alone.

Citing several applications that made dramatic jumps without a major update--including Facebook, … Read more

Apple has released an update to iTunes, which in part addresses a couple of prominent hanging issues that iOS users have experienced when using the program with iPhone and iPad devices. In addition the update fixes a problem in which video previews in the iTunes store skip during playback.

The update (version 10.2.2) should be available via Software Update, but is also available as a 75-78MB standalone download for OS X and Windows systems. If you do not already have iTunes installed, the latest version can also be downloaded from the iTunes Web site.

The full list of … Read more

A couple of days ago, some long-awaited iPhone hardware news finally hit the Web. No, it's not the iPhone 5 (which some are saying won't be released until fall). The big news out this week is that the white iPhone 4 will finally become available as soon as by the end of this month.

I have to admit that the white iPhone 4 looks pretty cool, but I can't imagine anyone waiting to take the plunge to buy an iPhone based on the color of the device. Is it just me? If anyone reading this has been waiting for the white iPhone 4, let us know in the comments.

This week's apps are an audio-enhancement app that gives your music 3D surround sound and a snowboarding game that might be the best in the App Store.… Read more

Shortly after Apple introduced new parental controls for in-app purchases on iPhone or iPad games, the company is being slapped with a lawsuit that says it hasn't done enough.

Earlier this week, Garen Meguerian of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit against Apple that says the company's policy for in-app purchases doesn't go far enough to prevent children from buying currency or points inside apps and games. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern California, requests class-action status and asks for unspecified damages and legal fees.

Meguerian brought the suit after his 9-year-old daughter downloaded … Read more

It's been just over a month since I got my iPad 2 on launch day. For the most part, I absolutely love it. More often than not, I find myself reaching for it at times when previously I'd open up my MacBook. It's totally filled a void in my tech life I had not known existed, and for that I am grateful.

However, unlike my MacBook Pro, the iPad is curiously missing what I think is a must-have piece of functionality. Why doesn't the iPad support multiple users? I asked a few colleagues around the office what they think are the reasons for such a gross omission and far too often I got responses like, "But the iPad is such a personal device," or "They just want every household to buy one for each person living there."

Regarding the first excuse I immediately call foul. Yes, the iPad is a personal device, but it's no more personal than my MacBook Pro--which has no issues with giving my wife or me that deliciously satisfying cube-rotation animation when logging in and out. When I think "personal device" I think of, say, a toothbrush. Since the iPad is not a toothbrush (yet), it should let my wife and me maintain separate identities or system states so we don't continuously need to log in and out of e-mail accounts, Facebook, Twitter, and the like 20 times a day. Sure, iOS was originally conceived for a phone, but the iPad is not a phone that I carry around in my pocket.… Read more