Software, Smartphone | featured news

Apple just unveiled a bunch of new iPhone and iPad features coming this fall in iOS 6, but no big surprises. The biggest new feature, as expected, is an entirely new Maps experience. Apple has taken over its maps back-end from Google, including a gorgeous 3D "flyover" mode, crowdsourced traffic information, Siri integration and turn-by-turn directions. (Public transit directions, a nice feature of Google Maps, seem to be missing. Perhaps Google will launch its own iOS Maps app now?)

The biggest new feature, as expected, is an entirely new Maps experience. Apple has taken over its maps back-end from Google, including a gorgeous 3D "flyover" mode, crowdsourced traffic information, Siri integration and turn-by-turn directions. (Public transit directions, a nice feature of Google Maps, seem to be missing. Perhaps Google will launch its own iOS Maps app now?)

Made-in-China mobile devices are clicked on every continent. The same isn't true of Chinese mobile software, which is mostly aimed at domestic users. One company that reckons it has a product that crosses continents is UCWeb, a developer of mobile browsers that has gone head-to-head with Tencent's mobile platform in China.

Facebook's $1 billion acquisition of photo-sharing start-up Instagram has shifted the spotlight to the newest phenomena in mobile apps: uploading personal videos from smartphones.

Did "sexting" just get safer? Maybe, but probably not. A free and increasingly popular iPhone app called Snapchat allows users to take a picture, send it and control how the message is visible – between 1 and 10 seconds.

Microsoft, struggling to dent the dominance of Apple and Google in the smartphone market, is aggressively courting app developers for its Windows Phone.

As AT&T gets ready to launch a new wave of Windows Phones to the pubic, independent analysis of Microsoft's app store reveals more than 80,000 applications have been submitted.

Ranked No. 16 in the iTunes App Store's "Top Grossing Apps" is an app called "Girl With Clothes." Released March 13, we have some inkling about why this app is such an overnight success. It's probably the monster $160 price tag -- though the vague promise of "intense sexual content" probably doesn't hurt, either.

Ever find yourself frustrated with how smoothly Siri seems to work for the folks in Apple’s commercials but not for you? A New York man has filed a class-action suit against Apple, saying that the company has been “misleading and deceptive” about what the iPhone 4S virtual assistant can do.

As unlimited data plans fade away, services and applications are being designed to help users manage their consumption.