Top AppAdvice News And Apps Of The Past Week

The last full week in October wasn’t nearly as eventful as the first three. Still, there was some news. Here are five of the best. Location Services Bug Suspected To Be The Reason Behind iPhone 4S Battery Life Issues / Read Full Story Since the launch of the iPhone 4S, countless Apple fans have been complaining that their handset can barely make it through the working day without needing a quick, hurried recharge. The tech specs for Apple's fifth generation iPhone disagree, though many are now suspecting that a bug in iOS 5 is responsible for the handsets' rapidly-depleating battery life. In a report recently published by the Guardian, the issue is discussed in depth. Some suspect that the iPhone's Location Services are to blame, and that the handset simply offers too many location-based features (like Reminders, Weather, Siri et. al.). One Web and Java consultant is even quoted as saying: "Two years working with dedicated GPS units taught me to be extremely careful with GPS settings: [it] kills battery very fast." You could go about countering the battery life issue by switching off the location features of these location-based apps, but then there's little point in owning the world's best smart phone if you can't take advantage of everything it has to offer. Whatever Happened To The 7” iPad? / Read Full Story The Steve Jobs biography has uncovered quite a lot about the late Apple co-founder and how he went about creating products. One of those, the iPad, was mentioned quite a bit, as Mac Rumors was one of the first to recognize. Among the findings is how Jobs and Apple’s Jonathan Ive spent a great deal of time together testing a number of iPad prototypes each based on size. The process began with Jobs and Ive figuring out the right screen size. They had twenty models -- all rounded rectangles, of course -- in slightly varying sizes and aspect ratios. Ive laid them out on a table in the design studio, and in the afternoon they would lift the velvet cloth hiding them and play with them. That's how we nailed what the screen size was," Ive said. The first – and current - iPad has a 9.7” screen. However a smaller 7" model, the so-called “iPad Mini” has long-been rumored. Mac Rumors contends that one of those twenty models mentioned was almost certainly this model, which it calls Apple’s “runner-up choice that made it to late prototypes.” Apple Needs To Get Out Of The Man Cave With Its iOS App Designs / Read Full Story It’s no secret that Apple spends a lot of time designing the look of their iDevices. Whether it is the iPhone 4S (which is really just the iPhone 4 with better guts inside) or the iPad 2, it’s obvious Jonathan Ive and his team are perfectionists at heart. Apple’s attention to detail, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to extend to its recent app designs. These, in my opinion, just plain suck. I’d love to see Scott Forstall’s house, although I already have an idea what excites Apple’s Senior Vice President of iOS Software. As such, I envision room after room of leather and wood paneling. While this combination may look great in a “man cave,” on an iDevice, not so much. Apple Television Development Being Led By iTunes Creator? / Read Full Article Apple is well known for making things better. Whether it's devices or just our daily lives, Apple has been able to improve how we do the things we do, and what we use to do them. The iPod was not the first digital music player. Nor was the iPhone the first smartphone. The same goes for the iPad not being the first tablet computer. See a pattern? Apple has taken great ideas like the digital music player, smartphone, and tablet computer, and completely redefined them, and they aren't stopping there. Much as we predicted, Bloomberg reports that Jeff Robbin, who helped create the iPod and iTunes, is leading an internal development team in creating an Apple television, according to "three people with knowledge of the product." In Steve Jobs' biography, Apple's late co-founder was quoted talking about the television.

"I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use. It would be seamlessly synched with all of your devices and with iCloud. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it."

Currently, Apple TV is the closest thing to an Apple television. However, some may argue that only having access to YouTube, Netflix, iTunes content, and media you already have on your computer is hardly television. If these reports are true, then it's safe to say TV manufacturers like Samsung and Sony will have something to worry about. Imagine an Apple television with software akin to iOS and OSX, able to be controlled with Siri, with built-in access to your media from iCloud or iTunes Home Sharing, and with a beautiful screen like Apple's LED Cinema Display. Why Does Siri Have A Female Voice? The Answer May Be In The Womb / Read Full Article Many people have been asking the question: Why is Siri’s voice female? The conclusion, after some scientific studies and focus groups, may go all the way back to our mothers, and when we were in the womb. An article released by CNN states that there is some biology involved in not only the decision to make Siri’s voice female, but also many other computer voices. Scientific studies have shown that people generally like the sound of a female voice versus a male voice. Stanford University Professor Clifford Nass said: "It's a well-established phenomenon that the human brain is developed to like female voices." Nass suggest this preference for the female voice starts as early as the womb. In studies, fetuses were shown to respond to the mother’s voice much more than to the father’s.  

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