From time to time we like to play a game called Ask The Internet. "Hey, internet!" we say. "What starts with A and is, like, totally doomed?" The answer is always "Apple" – but we can’t help wondering whether this week’s WWDC, the most interesting one in years, is going to quieten the howls of doom somewhat.
And that wasn’t the only news this week: Samsung’s giving Tizen to TVs, Valve’s going VR and Amazon’s unveiling something that’s apparently amazing. It’s been a particularly alliterative Week in Tech.
No iWatch, no problem
The star of Apple’s annual WWDC wasn’t Craig Federighi’s hair: it was iOS 8, the latest and greatest version of Apple’s mobile OS. There’s stacks of interesting stuff including third party keyboards, huge improvements to messaging, a really clever feature called Continuity that moves seamlessly from mobile to Mac and back again, and a new app called Health. No sign of the iWatch just yet, but we reckon we spotted plenty of not-so-hidden hints.
OS ten ten point ten
The news that Apple is calling OS X 10.10 "Yosemite" caused a flurry of "how to pronounce…" Google searches, but the named-after-the-place-not-the-cartoon-character operating system is much more than a name lots of people can’t say. There’s ammunition for Apple fans and foes alike, from the excellent iOS integration to what looks awfully like Windows Vista’s Sidebar.
Amazon’s amazing phone
To the amusement of everyone on Twitter, Amazon has debuted a video that looks awfully like its customers are seeing their sexy bits for the first time – but the out-of-frame object isn’t man or lady parts; it’s Amazon’s incoming 3D smartphone. We’ll see the Amazon phone for ourselves on June 18, but you can chortle at the video right here and right now.
PSP RIP
Alas, poor PSP. The trusty PSP is off to the great gaming graveyard in the sky, with Japanese shipments facing the final curtain this month. It was a lovely bit of kit but it suffered from two fatal flaws: it was awfully expensive, and it wasn’t a Nintendo.
Another nifty Nexus
Tech news has a long tradition of printing rubbish blurry shakycam shots and asking "is this the new New Thing?" while readers squint at a torx screw from an alleged iPhone case – but this Nexus 8 leak is a lot less blurry and a lot more interesting as a result. The Nexus 8 will be like a Nexus 7 but one louder, and it’ll probably have improved performance too. More at Google IO later this month.
Samsung’s only Tizen
Samsung has been showing off its Tizen-based Smart TV interface, offering a "sneak peek at something big". An SDK for developers is coming in July and Samsung promises that its Tizen TVs will play nice with other Tizen kit such as the Gear smartwatches and the Samsung Z smartphone. Is this the beginning of Samsung’s move away from Android?
Valve’s VR headset virtually unveiled
Pictures have surfaced of Valve’s new virtual reality headset, which immerses you in imaginary worlds where all kinds of far-fetched things might happen – such as the release of Half-Life 3. But it apparently isn’t for the likes of you or us: Valve’s VR plans are focused around helping other headset developers such as Oculus Facebook.
Read up on PlayStation’s Oculus alternative, Project Morpheus
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