The AppAdvice Week In Review: The End Of Aperture, 'iPhone 6' Duo And Shark Week
June 29, 2014
This week featured plenty of news from Apple, Google, and Microsoft. The following are just a few of the stories we covered during the week that was.
The Big Three Stories of the Week
1. Not all iPhones are created equal
Increasingly, it looks like Apple will unveil two new iPhone models this fall. Size may not be the only thing separating the long-rumored 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch "iPhone 6" smartphones.
The larger of the two could ship with a sapphire crystal display, as opposed to the slightly weaker Gorilla glass found on the 4.7-inch model. Additionally, the 5.5-inch variant may be the only one that features a camera with optical image stabilization.
Want lots of storage? Only the larger smartphone will offer users models featuring 128GB of internal storage.
Can't decide which one to buy? Sept. 19 is getting ever closer.
For other iPhone 6 stories published this week, see: Video Claims To Show Apple's ‘iPhone 6,’ and AppAdvice Daily: Rumor Has It An 'iPhone 6' Duo Is Coming This Fall.
2. Google readies new battle plans against Apple
At this week's I/O developer conference, Google unveiled a number of new products, including two that will directly compete with Apple.
As Brent Dirks reported, Android Auto is a lot like Apple’s CarPlay, and is designed to bring the mobile OS to in-car entertainment systems.
Relying heavily on the voice-activated Google Now feature, users will be able to access Google Maps and other features like text messages. Cars supporting the OS will be available sometime before the end of the year.
Android TV will run on set-top boxes and also focus on gaming. It's Google's latest attempt to crack the living room. The Android TV, which will also launch later this year, will compete with the Apple TV, Roku, and Amazon's Fire TV.
3. Same photos, same applications
On Friday, it was revealed that Apple is ending development on Aperture and iPhoto for Mac.
In a message to 9to5Mac, Cupertino explained:
With the introduction of the new Photos app and iCloud Photo Library, enabling you to safely store all of your photos in iCloud and access them from anywhere, there will be no new development of Aperture. When Photos for OS X ships next year, users will be able to migrate their existing Aperture libraries to Photos for OS X.First announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) earlier this month, Photos is a new application coming with iOS 8 this fall and OS X Yosemite in early 2015. With Photos, videos and photos are now stored in a new iCloud Photo Library. These files are accessible across multiple devices. Under the current system, Photo Stream, shared photos must be stored on each device. As a long-time Aperture user, this news doesn't come as much of a surprise. Apple has long neglected Aperture. At the same time, Adobe Lightroom has steadily gained fans and market share among professional photographers. We'll probably hear much more about Photos for OS X later this year when Apple releases OS X Yosemite to the public, although the actual software isn't expected to arrive until early 2015. For further consideration
Viral Video of the Week If you aren't getting excited for Discovery Channel's annual Shark Week, you will be after watching this video: http://youtu.be/7o70X8bRlsc Shark Week begins on Aug. 10.
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- Apple Rumored To Begin 12-Inch MacBook Air Production In Q3 2014
- Opera Releases Surprise Update To Opera Mini, Brings New iOS 7 Design And More
- Microsoft's New Surface Pro 3 Trade-In Scheme Targets MacBook Air Owners