iOS

I've been in New York City all week at the temporary Mobile Nations HQ working on some amazing stuff. We're not finished yet, which means I can't announce it yet, but I also can't wait to tell you all about it. In the meantime, here's some catch-up on the CrackBerry party, the Facebook event, and what Apple's up to with iOS 7 and the iPhone 5S...

MG Siegler instigated an interesting conversation on Branch today when he wondered out loud about Apple's plans for 2013. I've already posted several pieces on iMore about the potential for an April event, a potential summer release for the iPhone 5S, some stuff on the iWatch, bigger iPhone, and less expensive iPhone, and a bit about Jony Ive going hands-on with iOS 7. John Gruber added the following, which he's since posted on Daring Fireball as well:

Late last year Tim Cook reorganized Apple's leadership, placing Jony Ive in charge of not only hardware design, but all design across the company. This, of course, included iOS 7 and future versions of all of Apple's software products as well. Today, the Wall Street Journal's Jessica E. Lessin reports that Ive is, in fact, doing just that.

Apple has posted two new entries to their developer news page, the first warning developers they need to stop tracking people via UDID, and the second warning them they have to start supporting the double density Retina display, and 16x9 iPhone 5 and iPod touch 5 dip-lays, by May 1.

Apple has released iOS 6.1.3 beta 2 to developers. The second beta to what was originally numbered iOS 6.1.1, recent updates meant to address cellular connectivity on the iPhone 4S and an Exchange calendar bug on all iOS devices, caused the latest beta to get re-sequenced to iOS 6.1.3.

If you're a paid developer, you can grab it now through the usual channels.

More: developer.apple.com

Apple has just released iOS 6.1.2, their second minor point update, and as promised it fixes a bug that's caused network activity problems for Exchange calendar users.

• How to update iOS 6 over-the-air (OTA)

Absent fact, rumors run rampant. It's only natural. Secrecy breeds curiosity, and huge fall releases of almost every product in Apple's lineup leads to speculation about what, if anything, they have left for the new year. The broad strokes are probably obvious -- there'll be new phones and new tablets, but this year we're seeing renewed rumors of bigger and less expensive phones, and of watches and television projects as well. Like any year, we also have major newspapers publishing leaks, and financial analysts reporting nonsense. So what can be made of all of this?

Well, according to people who have provided accurate information to iMore in the past...

Louie Mantia, Dave Wiskus, Marc Edwards, Seth Clifford, and Rene Ritchie talk about the future of iOS design, from heavily textured themes and skeuomorphs to minimalism and digital authenticity, and the evolution of typography, icons, and more.

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