IBLOG SPACE

Apple has reportedly confirmed to developers that it has “no plans” to bring Siri, the voice-controlled personal assistant service available on the iPhone 4S, to any older device. Arguing that developers would attempt to implement unofficial access to Siri on iPhone 4, iPad 2 and other earlier iOS devices, one coder contacted Apple with a suggestion that it release a paid upgrade for users to get official Siri support, Michael Steeber reports. Apple’s response, however, was clear on the matter. “Engineering has provided the following feedback regarding this issue” the reply began, “Siri only works on iPhone 4S and we currently have no plans to support older devices.” The news will come as a disappointment to those owners of earlier iOS products that hoped Apple would extend the current Siri beta to cover their hardware, rather than use it as a unique selling point of the iPhone 4S. “iPhone 4 Users and iPod touch 4th generation users pay a fee of 19.99 to upgrade to a ‘special’ build of

Adobe is reportedly preparing to announce it is ditching Mobile Flash development, with no further plans to push Flash Player for mobile devices. The decision, revealed to ZDNet by sources close to Adobe, will mean an end to the ongoing argument over whether Flash support on smartphones and tablets is a benefit to end-users or a hinderance, something which saw Adobe and Apple lock horns on a number of occasions. Moving forward, Adobe will concentrate on Flash on the desktop and using Adobe AIR and HTML5 for mobile deployments. “Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations. Some of our source code licensees may opt to continue working on and releasing their own implementations. We will continue to support the current Android and PlayBook configurations with critical bug

Today both NVIDIA and ASUS have revealed two new products, both of them coming together here in one product: the Eee Pad Transformer Prime, a 10.1-inch display toting Android tablet with NVIDIA’s newest prized processor: the quad-core Tegra 3. The ASUS Eee Pad Transformer is the second Android tablet to have been released by the manufacturer, the first being the break-out hit original Transformer, and here in the Prime we’ve got a tablet that’s twice as powerful, in more ways than one. This tablet will be the first Android device on earth with a quad-core processor and has already been seen to be crushing benchmark tests before its official unveiling today – this is already clearly the most powerful Android device on Earth. This tablet, like its predecessor, is able to be used as a standalone tablet or as a tablet-like device with its mobile keyboard dock. On the front of the device you’ll find a 1.2 megapixel camera for video chat and on the back is an 8 megapixel camera with a lovely

The Kobo e-reader, which currently competes with Amazon’s Kindle and the Barnes & Noble Nook, may be getting a boost soon with new backing from Japan’s version of Amazon, a large e-commerce operator called Rakuten. The Japanese company is purchasing Kobo for $315 million and intends to rapidly grow its user base around the world. Kobo’s founding company, Canadian-based Indigo Books & Music, which owns 58 percent, will receive $140 to $150 million from the deal, while Rakuten will receive 100 percent of all issued and outstanding shares of Kobo. This will bring Rakuten a line of e-readers, tablets, software, and a 5.6 million user base spread over more than 100 countries. Rakuten claims to be one of the world’s top three e-commerce companies by revenue and will be adding 50 million potential Kobo customers from around the world. Kobo will become a wholly owned subsidiary that will continue to operate as a standalone company under CEO Michael Serbinis in Toronto. Kobo recently i

JBL today released the OnBeat Air, a new addition to its family of versatile iOS-compatible speaker docks that works with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Earlier this year, the company released the OnBeat with support for the iPad 2 and now they’ve added Apple’s AirPlay technology to the mix for wireless music streaming. The JBL OnBeat Air speaker dock features adaptable docking clamps that can securely hold your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch in both landscape and portrait orientations. The devices can connect to the dock either wirelessly through AirPlay or via a 30-pin dock connector. With AirPLay, you’ll be able to stream music from your iTunes collection to the OnBeat Air no matter where it is in your home. The speaker dock includes an IR remote control that lets you conveniently navigate your iTunes songs and videos from a distance, while its tabletop design makes it convenient for gaming, watching movies, or video chatting through Apple’s FaceTime or Skype. The OnBeat Air also fe

Apple is seeding the iOS 5.0.1 update early to select users through the AppleSeed program. Two beta versions of the update have already been released to developers and now the company is sending out an email to certain customers based on referrals from AppleCare, inviting them to participate in a pre-release update program. It appears that these select customers are those who have complained about battery life issues in iOS 5 and the iPhone 4S. A long discussion thread has been growing since last month on Apple’s support site regarding iPhone 4S battery draining issues with some customers being contacted directly to install a diagnostic tool to help Apple engineers determine the issue. However, customers who participate in the early release program will not be able to downgrade to iOS 5 and must wait for the final release of iOS 5.0.1. Apple says that there’s only a small number of users that have experienced the problem and that the final iOS 5.0.1 update should resolve the battery is

Another gigantic game is on the horizon and set for the last month of this year, that being Star Wars: The Old Republic, and news today surrounds those who have already pre-ordered the game for early arrival, those people so dedicated to Star Wars, that is, that they’d have a heart attack over the idea that they’d be amongst the first to start exploring the universe for their very own in this new MMORPG. Creators of the massively multiplayer online role playing game SW:TOR have let known already that pre-ordering players will get to start the game earlier than the rest of the population starting December 20th, 2011, what they haven’t let known until now is how long that early access will last. This week we’re to understand that the amount of time you pre-orderers get to play the The Old Republic before the general public is completely dependent on when you’ve redeemed your pre-order code. The early opening of the game will be staggered across five full days amongst those who’ve pre-ord

Evernote has posted a tip today on how to use its note-taking service with Apple’s new Siri intelligent voice-assistant feature on the iPhone 4S. Siri is still a beta service at the moment and doesn’t integrate with third-party apps, but you can make it work with Evernote for convenient hands-free note dictation and here’s how. You setup Evernote as a contact in your address book and use your incoming Evernote email address, which you can find by logging into your Evernote account and looking in the Settings area. Once this is setup, you simply launch Siri and say “Send email to Evernote” before saying the content of your note. Siri will then send the email to your Evernote account, which will automatically store the email as a new separate note. This technique should work with other third-party apps such as Remember The Milk that also provide a way to submit entries via email.

Ubisoft announced today a new peripheral for the Nintendo Wii called the Drawsome Tablet. The device lets users draw on the tablet using a stylus to interact with games. It appears similar to THQ’s uDraw device, but is said to be a way for Ubisoft to test the market for Nintendo’s upcoming Wii U console. The overall form factor is very similar to the uDraw with a drawing surface, a place for holding the WiiMote, and a stylus, but the drawing surface is larger at 6.5 by 5 inches and it also lets players insert an image behind the surface for tracing. Players can also save and share files via a SDHC card slot. Additionally, it supports up to four players in a way that’s similar to how the Wii U has been demoed. One player uses the special peripheral while the other three uses the regular WiiMote. This similarity makes sense since Ubisoft has revealed that it expects the Drawsome Tablet to be a testing ground in developing for Nintendo’s upcoming Wii U console. The device will be availabl

It’s time for the next big version of one of the most popular web browsers on earth, Firefox 8, and though the drop in OFF setting for ad-ons are certainly the most talked-about feature for the system thus far, we’ll be going through the whole big couple of handfuls of new features one by one. What it appears Mozilla is trying to do here is make the web browser as friendly, interactive, and involving as possible to make sure you use it and nothing else to watch the web. Tabs up, apps down! What you’ll see here is a mix of old and new, but mostly it’ll be new. I just want everyone to get a grip on what it means to use Firefox in its entirety. Tabs One of the coolest features you might never notice if noone had told you about it is the apps tab. What you can do here is the Apps Tab. You have a new option for webpages that you keep open all the time – such as Gmail, for example. What you can do now is pin this page as an App Tab, its representation as a tab then minimized to only the icon

Apple notified customers today that it has reached a settlement on the class-action lawsuit pertaining to faulty T-shaped MagSafe adapters on the MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks. The lawsuit was filed back in 2009 following several instances of the adapter becoming frayed and becoming a fire hazard. In a separate case, the strained MagSafe adapter was said to have caused a major fire at a home in Connecticut. Apple has since redesigned the MagSafe with a new L-shape that puts less stress on the cable. The company has also been providing a  replacement program  for old MagSafe adapters, but has updated the program’s support documents today to reflect changes from the class-action settlement. The settlement applies to customers that purchased a replacement adapter within the first three years of owning a MacBook or MacBook Pro that came with a T-shaped adapter. Those customers that purchased the replacement in the first year of ownership could get a cash payment from Apple of $79. Seco

There’s been a leak of a relatively long list of what appear to be code names for devices manufactured by HTC this week, with several of the names having been made and released already and a whole lot more looking rather new with no assignment given to them as of yet. This list was passed to PocketNow a few months ago and was held due to concerns over legitimacy. Now that more than a few of the names have since appeared on real-life devices in the wild, the time for publishing has come! Look at this wacky list below. What lies below is a set of names that have either been assigned to devices already or will likely be attached to devices in the future, each of them code-names for devices that will later be re-named to better suit the market. The names we’ve seen before are either bold or are linked to our review of said device, complete with correct market-ready name attached. Note here also that PocketNow has their source noting that now all of the names will necessarily be used, bu

It’s time to tap the update button, ladies and gentlemen, on your MeeGo-toting Nokia N9, because PR1.1 is ready to go, and it’s got one heck of a lot of presents coming along with it. This device is Nokia’s current king of mobile – if you don’t count the Lumia, that is, and this update to version version 20.2011.40-4 brings the pillowy, brightly color, magic machine all sorts of new tricks. Imagine yourself with music controls on your lock screen, color filers for you camera, and the ability to close an application by simply pulling it downward with your finger! This update will be coming to you N9 holders over the air over the next few days and weeks, so keep on tapping away at your Menu, Settings, Applications, Manage Applications until it pops up for you. What you’ll be getting in this update includes, but is not limited to, the following list of items. - NFC tag reading to instantly interact with NFC tags - Music controls on lock screen - Photo and video shooting with color

It’s well known that iOS 5, Apple’s current iteration of its mobile operating system includes a camera application and functionality built in – what you might NOT have known is that there’s a hidden feature in there by the name of Panorama. While such a tiny feature might not strike the fancy of your everyday average mobile device user using, for example, Android, here in iOS such a revelation can be life-changing. What this official Panorama mode signifies is more than just the ability to capture long areas of space with your iPhone or iPad 2, it shows that Apple doesn’t always keep its tiny secrets hidden – let the searching continue! Of course to find this feature, you’re going to need to jailbreak your device, and for those of you unfamiliar with that term, it means hacking is involved. The vast majority of iPhone users have never even considered hacking their device because doing so doesn’t show as much promise for a great time as never having to answer to an Apple Genius does,

This morning we’ve been passed some clarification on the rules and regulations within the Verizon Double Data deal announced yesterday including the length of the deal, eligibility, and on which devices will work with the data. The announcement of the deal came alongside the release of the reviews of the Motorola DROID RAZR, a device that’ll be released on Verizon’s 4G LTE network on the 11th of this month. Have a peek below at the official updates. The information following comes from directly from Verizon and can be taken as hard facts, no doubts included. Along with this information comes the assurance that Verizon always encourages you the customer to check out your data plan for the best and most well-suited plan for how often and for what you use your device – Data – The Choice is Yours. Direct from Verizon: - all new customers who purchase a 4G smartphone are eligible for the double data plans - existing customers who have upgraded their service or purchased a 4G smartpho

UK Samsung Galaxy Nexus fans have some bad news about the ship date of the smartphone in the UK. According to the Amazon listing for the smartphone, the date has slipped from the November 17 launch we already heard about to December 2. However, the official launch date is still the same with no official announcement of a change. No changes have been noted by Samsung or carriers in the UK officially. There is a chance that the slipping launch date is for Amazon only, but that seems slim. In the US, we still haven’t been told of an official launch date. Leaks are still pointing to that November 17 date. We know the phone will be a Verizon exclusive for at least a while. At this point, we have to wonder if the delay in getting anything official about the launch from Verizon has something to do with the fact that Samsung might not be sure exactly when it will launch.

Tidbits on the HTC Edge, the rumored quadcore smartphone that could potentially catapult HTC back to the top-spot in Android devices, continue to emerge after yesterday’s leak. In addition to the NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor – running at 1.5GHz, supposedly, and paired with 1GB of RAM – the Edge will supposedly include NFC, according to BGR. That’s to go along with the 4.7-inch 720p HD S-LCD 2 display with optical lamination. Optical lamination, for those who have allowed themselves to fall behind in their mobile display technology reading, involves bonding the LCD panel itself to the cover glass. Seen on the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, the end result is a display that appears to be almost floating just under the surface of the phone, with no air-gap and no chance of dust making its way, frustratingly, in-between the two layers. The overall phone is a mere 8.8mm thick, according to these new sources – an improvement on the roughly 10mm mentioned yesterday – but one of the ways HTC has achi

A rumor is going around that UnwiredView says comes from trusted sources. According to the rumor, a new follow up to the Nokia N8 will be landing this spring. According to the sources the smartphone will still run Symbian and the big upgrade will be the addition of a camera with optical zoom. I like the idea of optical zoom on a camera phone. I’m not so interested in the thought of Symbian though. The new phone will be the Nokia flagship and will have a 3.5-inch WVGA Clear Black display with Gorilla Glass covering the works. The processor inside is said to be a 1GHz CPU and the device reportedly packs in 512MB of RAM. There is an indication from the sources that the device will launch at MWC in February. The catch to that rumor is that at MWC Nokia will have a lot of Windows Phone Mango devices there and an unveil of this N8 successor might upstage those Mango smartphones. It’s more than a little curious that a new flagship device would be using Symbian when the OS is on a phase o

There were some fears that with Google looking to close the purchase of Motorola Mobility soon that Google’s openness might suffer. Google CEO Eric Schmidt has reiterated that the purchase of Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion will not change the way Google handles or operates the Android OS. The fear from partners was that they would have to compete with Google for licenses and updates. Reuters quotes Schmidt saying: “In general, with all of our partners, we told them that the Motorola deal will close and we will run it sufficiently and independently, that it will not violate the openness of Android…we’re not going to change in any material way the way we operate.” When asked about the allegations made by Steve jobs and retold in the biography about Jobs that Android stole iOS ideas, Schmidt simply said: “I’ve decided not to comment on what’s been written on a book after his death. Steve is a fantastic human being and someone who I miss very dearly. As a general comment, I t

If you are, an avid reader one of the things that is most appealing about the Amazon online bookstore is that you can buy the book and then read it on a multitude of devices. The Kindle Cloud Reading app will let you read on computers, smartphones, and other devices including tablets. Amazon has announced a new supported browser for the Cloud Reader app. The HTML5 Kindle Cloud Reader app is now supporting Firefox. To start reading, Firefox users just need to go to http://read.amazon.com using the browser on their computer or device. This is the latest app from Amazon to use HTML5. It will synchronize the user’s library and track the last page read so you are on the same page no matter the device you use to read. It will also sync bookmarks, notes, and highlights too. Readers can also use the Kindle Cloud App to buy and browse new books. The Cloud Reader is now available on Safari for iPad, Safari for desktop, Chrome, and Firefox 6.

Consumer Reports repeatedly bashed the iPhone 4 for issues it had with the antenna. Later when the iPhone 4 hit Verizon, Consumer Reports went back for a second helping of turning people off on buying the phone. Naturally, the iPhone 4 still sold in droves. With the new iPhone 4S on the market Consumer Reports has laid hands on that smartphone and is singing a different tune this time out. CR is recommending the new iPhone 4S. The publication announced today that the Apple smartphone is among its new recommended handsets. Consumer Reports performed special reception tests on the iPhone 4S, the same tests it performed on the iPhone 4. The 4S does not have the same antenna reception flaw the iPhone 4 suffered from. Consumer Reports does take the time out to say it still doesn’t recommend the iPhone 4 because of the antenna flaw. The 4S also did well in the battery tests that the company put the phone through. CR says that the phone did fine in its battery tests, even though some own

If you were an old school gamer, I would wager that back in the day you spent many a quarter playing Asteroids at the arcade. A company we have talked about in the past called Tobii has a new game that reminds me of the classic Asteroids game that is called Tobii EyeAsteroids. Tobii has in the past offered up a laptop that can be controlled by the eyes only. It has also shown off a computer accessory called PCEye that adds eye tracking to your monitor. The new arcade game is a full size stand up cabinet meant for arcades rather than a home. Each of the games is priced at $15,000 and there are only 50 available. Looking at the game there are no controls, everything is controlled using the eyes. The goal is to keep asteroids from hitting the Earth. Players claim that the lag between the decision to target an asteroid said the came firing on the asteroid is virtually non-existent. The first of the games will be installed in Dave & Buster’s Times Square in NYC. It will be there fo

The Logitech Squeezebox line of media players has been around for a long time now. Logitech is always looking to add the ability to stream more content to the device. Today Logitech has announced the latest addition to the Squeezebox streaming service. The latest addition is MOG access. MOG is a subscription music service that has a library of on demand music with no commercials. The Squeezebox players now support access to the complete MOG catalog. Users can search the catalog of 13 million songs and over a million albums to find the music that is just right for their mood. Users can also build their own playlist using the MOG app on the Squeezebox. There are also listings for new artists and for editor’s pics as well as stations for specific artists. MOG is available on the Squeezebox right now with a download at Mysqueezebox.com. Subscriptions start at $5 monthly and a free 14-day trial is offered. The Squeezebox has had Spotify access since January.

This is gross and cool all at the same time. Apparently, scientists have been able to genetically modify rice that can be grown in fields that is able to produce a specific human blood protein called Human Serum Albumin. This is the most important protein on human blood and is often given to people that have suffered massive amounts of blood loss. The scientists say the protein could be harvested for the rice to help people suffering from blood loss without needing a human donor and without having to screen the blood protein from diseases. According to scientists involved in the program, there is a need for 500 tons of Human Serum Albumin yearly. The protein can be mass produced for use in hospitals with no need to purity it from whole blood donations. The scientist on the program were able to improve the rice over different generations of their genetically modified creation to increase the amount of human Serum Albumin in the rice. After the successive generations, the desired pr

A whistleblowing iOS app developer has seen his license revoked after revealing an Apple bug that could allow trojan software to infect iPhones and iPads. Coder Charlie Miller manages to get his test app – which uses a flaw in Apple’s code signing policies to subsequently contact a remote server and potentially allow a hacker to suck photos and contacts from the device, along other things – through Apple’s App Store approvals process, Forbes reports, but after revealing the issue was ejected from the iOS Developer Program. The termination came just hours after Miller made the loophole public, and according to Apple is “effective immediately.” The company’s justification is the fact that the exploit was hidden inside a stock ticker app shell, and contravenes the section of the App Store agreement that forbids a developer from using such a system to “hide, misrepresent or obscure” software. “I’m mad … I report bugs to them all the time. Being part of the developer program helps me do tha

The thing I hated most in high school was learning the periodic table. Remembering all those elements and their symbols was not a good time. The students that are having to learn the periodic tablet today have three new elements they need to memorize. These new elements are all super heavy and can only be lab created. The three new elements are 110, 111, and 112. The elements are darmstadtium (Ds), roentgenium (Rg), and copernicium (Cn). The elements are large and unstable. That instability means that they break down quickly into other elements. Apparently, the names of the elements were chosen by consulting with physicists around the world. Copernicium was discovered in 1996 in Germany when zinc and lead were smashed together. The name comes from a Prussian astronomer that died in 1543. Roentgenium was discovered in 1994 and was named after German physicist Conrad Roentgen. The same folks that discovered the Roentgentium discovered Darmstadtium. Darmstadtium was discovered in 199

LG has unveiled a new projector that home theater fans will really like. The new projector is the big and powerful CF3DAT. This 3D cinema projector has the power to throw a 200-inch image and supports 2D and 3D content. The projector is very bright with 1250 ANSI lumens in 3D mode. That makes the projector about six times brighter than other premium projectors. The projector supports full 1080p resolution and it uses Film Patterned Retarder display technology. The FPR tech in the projector means that it can be used with normal polarized 3D glasses rather than the more expensive active 3D glasses. That will make fitting the entire family with glasses much cheaper with the CF3DAT. The projector is bright enough to be used in large living rooms, museums, auditoriums and other venues. The CF3DAT will be offered in Korea and the global version is the CF3DAA and it will venture outside of Korea is in the first half of 2012. The CF3DAA will not come with a TV tuner. Pricing is unknown at

So far, WebOS has failed at every turn. The operating system failed at Palm when the company tried to put it inside a new smartphone. HP paid big money for Palm after that failure to the tune of $1.2 billion just to get WebOS. HP turned around and tossed the OS onto a tablet only to see it fail miserably and leave the market after only about a month on sale. The only mild success that WebOS has recorded was when the HP Touchpad tablets went on the sub-$100 fire sale. There are rumors circulating again that HP is considering selling off WebOS. According to Reuters, the deal could bring in hundreds of millions of dollars. HP will undoubtedly be left with some negative equity. There is little chance that it will get the $1.2 billion back in a sale of WebOS that it paid for Palm. Apparently, the appeal that some firms are seeing in WebOS is the patents that come with it more than a desire to put the operating system into another product. Names that are connected with the purchase rumo

ASUS’ Eee Pad Transformer Prime, the second-gen Transformer, may have its launch pushed back into December, so as to arrive running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich according to the latest rumors. Google has agreed to help ASUS develop ICS for the Tegra 3 based Transformer Prime, DigiTimes‘ supply chain sources reckon, in an attempt to persuade the company not to shift its focus to Windows 8 tablets instead. Google had previously been ignoring Taiwanese brands, the sources allege, giving little assistance in upgrading Android 3.2 Honeycomb tablets to the new 4.0 release of the platform. However, with Windows 8 tablets on the ASUS roadmap – among others – for the second half of 2012, it seems the search giant is looking to ways it can cement loyalty. That loyalty is much needed, given Honeycomb tablet sales have been relatively underwhelming so far in comparison to, say, Apple’s iPad. Android lead Andy Rubin confirmed last month that there are approximately 6m Honeycomb tablets in th

Ford unveiled the MyFord Touch system with a lot of fanfare a couple years back. The system is an extension of sorts to the very popular and cool Sync system that Ford has in many of its vehicles. The problem with MyFord Touch from the user perspective was that the software was glitchy and the design made it very hard to use when driving. The MyFord Touch system was so maligned that it cost Ford a lot of points in the important J.D. Power rankings. Ford is trying to improve things and has announced a new software update for vehicles with the system. The software will be rolled out to 250,000 Ford vehicles that use the MyFord Touch. Unlike most of the updates to the Sync system where the user has to plug a flash drive into their computer and save software to the drive themselves, Ford will be sending this software update out on a flash drive. The flash drives will ship out to all 250,000 owners that have the system. The owners will also be able to roll into their local dealer and h

Spotify for Windows Phone 7 has arrived in the Marketplace, and we wasted no time in breaking out the Nokia Lumia 800 and trying out the streaming music app. Announced yesterday, the app supports synchronized playlists with the desktop client, Spotify People friends updates, sharing via social networks and – most important for mobile use, perhaps – offline playback. Check out our video demo after the cut. The app supports playback over WiFi and 3G, and you can choose whether to stream at regular or high quality. Offline playback is done on a per-playlist basis – tap the playlist and there’s a simple “Download” toggle at the top – with sync over 3G optional; you can also long-press on a playlist and pin it to the Start menu, make it collaborative (so allowing others to add tracks), share it via Twitter or other social networks, publish it or delete it. Playback controls are added to the lock screen, as shown above. Spotify on Nokia Lumia 800 demo: Search is supported, but if y

Perhaps the biggest video game launch of the year has finally happened with COD Modern Warfare 3 getting into game geek hands after what seemed like a wait of forever. Other than the crowds at many locations to get hands on the game, other issues have cropped up with the launch. Once of the biggest launch issues happened with the Call of Duty Elite service. This Elite service adds a social aspect to the game and allows the players to track statistics about their play. According to Activision, the sheer number of players that where trying to register and login to the service at the same time caused some serious issues. Some players were unable to login. Activision notes that players unable to login don’t need to reset their password. Activision also notes that the player’s Elite data is still being recorded and will be saved in the service once they can log in. Activision said that it had teams working to increase the capacity for the service to prevent the issue. If you had proble

Apple has updated its iOS “Apple Store” app [iTunes link] with support for EasyPay and Personal Pickup, the company’s new, streamlined ways to buy shiny Apple kit. As expected, EasyPay allows users of the app to scan product barcodes in-store, read reviews on their iPhone and then charge the items directly to the credit card associated with their iTunes account. Meanwhile, Personal Pickup is a new array of services available to those using the app to buy new hardware and accessories. Instead of defaulting to delivering those purchases to your home or office address, shoppers can instead request to pick up their order from an Apple Store. The company is aiming to have orders ready for collection within an hour from the point of payment. Finally, there’s a new tracking service within the app, giving shoppers eager to follow the progress of their online order a straightforward way to do so. It also allows you to see records of previous orders. Personal Pickup and EasyPay are only a

Huawei looks likely to be the next Android OEM to agree to Microsoft patent licensing, following Samsung, HTC and others in paying the Windows creator. Huawei’s CMO described the negotiations as “in progress” the BBC reports, as the company chases “very aggressive targets” for the next five years. “Over the next three years we are aiming to be in the top five smartphone makers” Victor Xu said, “and in the top three in the next five years.” To do that, Huawei will focus its new smartphones more closely on the individual markets they’re expected to sell in. That will include three new “design centers”, the first in the UK, to create devices suited to the European consumer. The initial range will be “more vanilla” says studio lead Mark Mitchinson, but “going forward we will be developing products that are much more advanced in their look and feel.” The company follows HTC in hoping to develop its own brand and move out of the shadow of ODM deals with carriers and other brands. Huawei