In spite of the iPhone’s in-your-face success, it still lacks one feature most other smartphones embrace as standard – the ability to run more than one application at a time, with the unused process hiding in the background. Apple has long said it doesn’t want its pride and joy to use PC-like background processes, seeing them as a battery-suck and a security liability if left running unseen. Push not enough To that end, it has made very public efforts to instead allow the iPhone to quietly receive notifications from the network for some

A small British company has announced the arrival of its new PMP and is claiming the gadget has enough firepower to outflank Apple’s miniature range. The Sonix7 Media Pro sells for a pinch over £100 and features a 3.2 inch TFT screen with touch capabilities, while boasting a battery life of 30-plus hours for audio and 20 hours for video. British-designed and proud The company is very proud of its British roots and feels that in the current economic market, the Sonix7 is perfect. "Value for money is what people demand in today’s economy,"

When Apple CEO Steve Jobs launched the iPhone at Macworld 2007, he famously borrowed a quote from ice hockey great Wayne Gretsky: "’I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it’s been.’ That’s what we try to do at Apple." Now more than ever, Apple needs to live up to that philosophy – and at its World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) on Monday 8 June, it has the perfect opportunity to do so. Here’s how we believe that Apple should do it… 1. The triumphant return of Steve Jobs Steve’s

For RIM, the iPhone is a Johnny-come-lately; BlackBerry is celebrating its tenth anniversary this week at the company’s Wireless Enterprise Symposium and there’s plenty to celebrate says co-CEO Jim Balsillie. "In the first nine years we sold 25 million BlackBerrys and in the tenth year we sold 26 million; we sold more in our tenth year than the first nine [together]." The big difference over those 10 years isn’t just specific features, but the fact that BlackBerry is now a platform "and it’s put tremendous responsibilities on the whole

Micro-blogging sensation Twitter is rarely out of the news these days, but this week’s rumours that it was to be bought by Apple has meant that everyone has been ‘tweeting’ about the future of the site. It turns out that the website is not for sale, however, according to co-founder Biz Stone. Speaking on US talk show The View, when Stone was asked about the Apple buyout he replied "no", explaining: "We’re just getting started. The company is two years old, we have so much to do, so much product stuff to fix, and so much growing to

Apple looks set to loosen the rules on iPhone applications that contain adult content with iPhone 3.0 set to feature parental controls. The news follows Apple’s banning of a newspaper’s aggregator app developed by Makayama, due to the fact that it contained pics of The Sun’s infamous topless Page 3 ladies. Apple seemingly had no problems with the rest of the content on the app from a number of other major newspaper publishers such as the New York Times and Frankfurter Algemeine. iPhone parenting The forthcoming Apple iPhone OS 3.0 is set to

Apple has recently employed games industry veteran Bob Drebin, best known as the man responsible for the GameCube’s graphic processor. The hiring of Bob Drebin has set yet more tongues a-wagging in the games industry, as it follows the news that Apple is also employing 15-year Microsoft veteran Richard Teversham, tempting him away from his post as senior director for insights and strategy in Microsoft’s Xbox division. Make no mistake, these are vitally strategic hirings for the Cupertino computing giant. So much so that esteemed business organ Forbes speculates that

An iPhone application that brought music remixes, news and concert footage to Nine Inch Nails’ fans was banned from Apple’s App Store recently, after the computing giant deemed its content unacceptable. The application, which also featured GPS tracking to help link up fans in local communities, was rejected by Apple due to an expletive found in the NIN’s track/album The Downward Spiral. Apple’s Downward Spiral Trent Rezner, lead singer and stalwart of the band replied to the rejection on his blog, saying that: "You can buy The

Apple and Twitter are reportedly in serious negotiations over a possible $700 million sale of the social networking site, with the deal set to be announced in June if successful. Of course this is all based on speculation from a source close to ValleyWag, which states that he’s been recruited by Apple and says the two are locked in talks over a potential sale. The figure of $700 million (around £460m) comes after Twitter turned down $500 million plus shares from Facebook in the past, but apparently a source close to Twitter says Apple’s offer would be hard to turn

A new Federal Trade Commission inquiry is looking into the close ties between the boards of Apple and Google, with the two tech giants sharing a number of directors. Notably, Eric E. Schmidt, chief exec of Google, and Arthur Levinson, the former chief executive of Genentech. "The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 prohibits a person’s presence on the board of two rival companies when it would reduce competition between them," notes the NY Times. Google versus Obama Understandably, the FTC, Apple, Google and Genentech have all declined to comment on