Apple’s Updated iCloud Storage Plans

At the recent iPhone’s launch event, Apple has updated its iCloud page reflecting its price changes trimming the prices on iCloud storage plans and the top level being offered is 1 terabyte of online storage for $19.99 per month or £14.99 in UK.

At the WWDC event 2014, Apple debuted iCloud Drive, which is a cloud storage service and one can back up any kind of file with the capability of accessing it from anywhere through the internet connection. The service is built in Mac OS X Yosemite and iOS 8 wherein the iCloud Drive enables the user to back up important files, documents, photos which can be accessed from Mac computer, iPhone, iPad or PC.

Besides Apple, there are others who have been offering cloud storage. iCloud users will now get the opportunity of paying less on Apple’s online storage with the recent development of Apple’s updated iCloud page mentioning its price changes which are as follows:

- 5 gigabytes – free

- 20GB – 99 cents or 79p per month

- 200GB- $3.99 or £2.99 per month

- 500GB - $9.99 or £6.99 per month

- 1 terabyte - $19.99 or £14.99 per month

iCloud – Easiest Direct Choice of iOS Users

The earlier plans were offered at four levels with the 5GB being free while 10GB was $20 per year, 20GB for $40 per year and 50GB for $100 per year.For an abounding storage plans, Apple should be competitive in order to convince iTunes users to take advantage of the same though there are better deals through other storage sites.

 Sarah Mitroff, associate editor of CNET has made her comparison on storage plans with examples wherein Google Drive has been providing 15GB of free storage with charges of $9.99 per month for 1TB. Microsoft on the other hand offers 15GB for free with charges of $2.50 per month for user for 1TB though iCloud seems competitive when compared to sites like Amazon Cloud Drive and Dropbox.

iCloud seems to be the easiest direct choice for iOS users intending to store their content in the form of movies, music or any other files in the cloud which can easily sync their content with multiple iOS devices taking care that the contacts, appointments, reminders, photos, mail together with other items does not get disturbed across their iPhone and iPad.

iCloud to be More User Friendly 

Recently, iCloud got a black mark with the revelation that hackers had accessed certain accounts, releasing a number of nude photos of celebrity and though there was a denial from Tim Cook that poor online security was the outcome of the photo leak, the company did promise to improve iCloud’s security by sending alerts to users, should someone try to change their password or log into their account from any unrecognized device.

Apple on its part is striving to make iCloud more user friendly with a new iCloud Drive feature which will be working similar to Google Drive with same services as complete cloud storage site enabling the user to access directly in order to save as well as retrieve files, from and to the iOS device, a Mac, and Window PC which will probably be launched as part of iOS 8 on 17 September this year.

Apple iWatch – Nightly Recharging

Apple had not conveyed much with regards to battery life at the time of the announcement of its iWatch on Tuesday but the company has since informed that the same needs to be charged nightly since the battery life offers about a single day operation.

According to Apple spokeswoman Nat Kerris’ statement to Re/code, `there seems to be a lot of new technology packed in Apple Watch which people would love to use throughout the day. She further stated that they had anticipated that people would charge the device nightly which was why it was designed as an innovating charging solution that would combine their MagSafe technology and inductive charging.

Sources who interacted with John Paczkowski indicated that the company was not pleased with the present uptime of the Apple Watch while some informed that the watch’s battery life presently is a single day operation and that the company is striving to make some modifications for improvement, ahead of its launch. Basically a one day life of the battery is on par with the other touchscreen smart watches that are at the moment offered which include the competing Android Wear.

New Dimension in Communicating

Apple Watch comes with a new dimension to user in communicating with their circle of family and friends. Just a glance can convey who’s contacting you and the experience is amazing combined with different forms of notifications with their own unique functions.

It comes with a suite of apps which enables the users to remain active and helps to set calorie burn goals everyday as well as keeping track of the activity levels with a reminder to keep on moving. The need of words is much less since the digital touch features on the watch, provides a spontaneous form of connecting with other wrist to wrist users.

The Apple Watch has the potential of uniting the capabilities of fitness tracker together with an advanced sports watch in a single device which can be worn at all time. Besides, it can track a variety of other activities due to its capabilities of obtaining various kinds of data.

The accelerometer can measure the total body movement and its custom sensor can measure the intensity through the tracking of the heart rate. Besides this with the help of the GPS and Wi-Fi of the iPhone it helps to track how far one has moved.

Device to be Launched in Early 2015

The battery life of this upcoming entry seems to be somewhat unclear since the product has not yet been finalized and ready to be launched. It was revealed by Apple that the wearable device would be launched somewhere in early 2015 but refrained from commenting further on this issue.

With regards to hardware and the pricing, Apple seemed to be vague on the matter and while the watch would probably start at $349, the cost breakdown on how much various model would be offered was not specified. Since its starting offer would be $349, there is a possibility that the high end models would escalate to a five figure price level.

 The Apple Watch luxury edition comes with hardened 18 karat gold while its existing 18 karat gold watches are offered for more than $10,000 in the market.

Is Steve Jobs's amazing iPhone is too small for Apple?

At the time of introducing the first iPhone, Steve Job’s had stated that they have designed something that will be wonderful for the user’s hand. That phone cam with 3.5 inches screen, designed to fit in the palm of the hand and made to be easily operable with fingers from only one hand. At that time Job insisted that the company has been able to design a perfectly balanced gadget unlike the phones from Google, which were not only based on Android Operating system but also came in large size. Job stated that it will be difficult of people to operate such big phones and probably no one will ever buy them.

With the increasing changes in the smart phones, is it possible that he might have been wrong? Samsung electronics is doing very well in the market is in terms of selling over sized phones. Now flowing with the change even Apple is expected to launch iPhone 6 in two different sizes. One phone will have 4.7 inches screen and while the other one will have 5.5 inches screen.

Apple has been amazing in terms of the promotional campaigns for their products. At the unveiling of their iPhone 5, they stated that it was a common sense to have a half-inch-larger screen along with a slender width phone. They stated that the user will be able to drag their single thumb from one corner to another and there will not be any need for them to get their second thumb involved.

Apple has been seen many times to take backtrack in terms of their original mindset. Steve Jobs and Jony Ive, the design chief, after a thorough research determined that 9.7 inch screen is the most ideal for web browsing, watching video, and sending emails. During the 2010, fourth quarter earnings call, Steve jobs made the following arguments:

• Compared to a 10 inch iPad, a 7 inch tablet will always been considered of half size. The benefits that one can receive from a 10 inch tablet are more than the half sized tablet. Since the screen size is measured diagonally, the smaller screen tablets are only 45% of their 10 inch iPad.
• Resolutions doesn’t make difference- Increasing the resolution is no solution as per Jobs as the other tablets have various limitations on tapping and pinching etc.
• Irreplaceable smartphones- One can’t replace the mobility of smart phones with a tablet. These 7 inch tablets are too big for smart phones and too small to compete with an iPad.

Contrary to the view points of Steve Jobs, post his death in the year 2012, Apple unveiled their own 7.1 inch iPad mini. These small tablets sold out like hot cakes when compared to the opinion of Jobs, who expected them to be DOA. Even though the overall revenue generated from selling of iPad was lesser then expected but it was still a surprise for Apple.

With the increasing screen size of iPhone, it will become harder for iPad mini to sell out. Now looks like apple is working towards a 12.9 inch tablet which is completely against what Job stated in 2010, he had said that a 10 inch screen is good enough to create a good tablet.

Apple to Unveil its Long Anticipated Products iPhones and iWatch

Apple is in the process in unveiling a set of the long anticipated products namely the two iPhones with larger screens together with a wearable computer which has been nicknamed the iWatch. This smartwatch would be the first brand of updated product unveiled under Timothy D. Cook who has taken the reins as Apple’s chief executive three years ago after the death of Steve Jobs.

It is expected to be offered in two sizes with a combination of functions such as health together with fitness monitoring as well as mobile computing tasks like maps displays. It will be offered with a flexible screen and just like the new phones, will support technology, enabling users to pay wirelessly for products.

Smartphones have come in several shapes and sizes, some being big, bright and curved with some having their own apps and some have none at all. Some of the smart-watches work with just Android whiles others on iOS and Android and there are also others which track fitness.

Growing Market for Fitness Tracking Gadgets

Apple will be entering a growing market for fitness tracking gadgets as well as smart-watches with its first wearable computer from Fitbit, Samsung Electronics and Nike together with two of its larger phones and will be fighting against Samsung whose big screen Galaxy smartphones had taken the sales away for the last few years.

Smart-watches could be slaves to smartphones since they are capable of operating through Bluetooth accessories and can offer an on wrist way of interacting with things without checking the phone all the time. Presently, phones are capable of managing the relationship between smart-watches and several other things as well as locations though the wearable have more scope for better performance and maybe in the near future we could be living in a world which would be well connected where smart-watches would have the potentials to work with them and also save extra strain on our phones.

Hardware & Software – Near Field Communication

Apple’s wearable or smart-watch would probably have an improved and a smarter way of conserving battery life or recharge on the go, or even an effortless and fast means of functions though some sources seems to be apprehensive over this issue. It could be that battery life on these types of devices is not quite ready to take the next plunge.

Since wearable need to be worn all the time, it would need recharging and the less they seem to be worn, the sooner they may end up as discarded stuff. The wearable device and the smartphone will consist of hardware and software which technology called near field communication - NFC that enables devices to impart information wirelessly within a short distance and which would make paying for products with a phone, less complicating.

With Apple’s hub of Health and Healthkit, it will give way for shared and exchanged health tracking data between accessories and apps providing information on health and fitness more continuously with improved software coaching that would be worth beyond basic fitness bands. The expected wearable will be debuted very soon and the watch is unlikely to be available in stores next year according to some sources while the price of the new device is not yet known.

iWatch to Feature Flexible Display/Wireless Charging

Reports from The Wall Street Journal revealed that a curved OLED screen for the Apple’s wearable iWatch will be coming up with a flexible display panel which would be protected with a cover made of sapphire and wireless charging and the company’s larger model of iPhone would be offered a one handed mode for easy use.

Further reports revealed that the iWatch would be coming in two separate sizes with its focus on health/fitness and mobile computing task enabling users to make purchases with NFC support. Its flexible display has been considered as `unique’ and Apple will be settling with wireless charging after their experiment failed with solar charging.

According to some source, Apple’s iWatch is said to be one of the its latest most ambitious project with a large amount of time and money invested into the health and fitness sensors in the device which will bring in much more accuracy than the existing fitness devices.

Different Health Related Metrics

It was suggested that the iWatch would be measuring a variety of different health related metrics right from the steps taken and sleep quality to blood pressure. Moreover it is also said to take advantage of HealthKit which is a set of APIs that Apple had introduced along with iOS8 which will integrate with prevailing health devices and apps, providing data to a central location.

It will also be relying on Handoff, a continuity feature enabling users in seamless transition task from one iOS or Mac device to another device. Regarding the iPhone 6, reports claim that the two new models of 4.7 and 5,5 inches would be offered with updated software for larger displays with the optional one handed mode making it easier to type and control.

The iWatch as well as the new iPhone are expected to be integrated with one another with the `Handoff’ functions of iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite and these devices are reported to have near field communications technology for e-wallet mobile payment options.

In Two Different Sizes – Men & Women

Reports have also be circulating that Apple’s wearable device will not be available in the market till 2015 in spite of Apple’s plans to unveil the iWatch at its media event on September 9 this year. This gap between the introduction and the debut of the iWatch would be giving Apple sufficient time to finish work on the device and also provide an opportunity for developers in creating new apps which would be suitable to the smaller form factor.

It is also rumoured that the wrist worn device would be offered in two different sizes intended for both men as well as women with multiple reports suggesting that the iWatch would be missing the holiday shopping season and would be available in the market in early 2015 though customers would not have to wait for long for the latest iPhone since the same would be made available soon after the media event on September 9.

Much is expected to be revealed at the event which kicks off at the Flint Centre in Cupertino, California at 10 am Pacific and 1 pm Eastern. Live coverage of the event will be provided by official AppleInsider app for iPhone and iPad