2014 is the year that Apple gets fit, and it just published evidence of its intentions.
Apple put up a job advert for a "User Studies Exercise Physiologist" which could very well be tied to a little thing currently known as the iWatch.
There are a number of requirements for the role, including "Good understanding of physiological monitoring equipment, measurement techniques and interpretation of results."
However, the most interesting part comes at the end where Apple says the candidate will also need to apply knowledge to the "design of products and their testing/validation through user studies."
The job posting appears to have vanished but 9to5Mac managed to get a screenshot before it did.
On track
Apple's rumoured plans have been hitting the headlines a lot as of late. It has reportedly hired a sleep expert from Philips Research, and we've heard that the company has a health app called Healthbook in the pipeline for iOS 8.
Apple's ideal candidate for the new job will be carrying out research for "cardiovascular fitness & energy expenditure, including calories burned, metabolic rate, aerobic fitness level measurement/tracking".
The iWatch is still in a state of speculation - there's a chance that this new job could relate to nothing more than the iPhone and its fitness-friendly M7 chip.
But evidence of Apple's wearable plans is mounting up, and with both iOS 8 and the iWatch expected to arrive at some point in 2014, it looks like this is the year that Apple hopes to get us off the sofa and into the gym.
Does the iWatch even exist, and what do we know about it so far?
Which is the best Android phone for you? We've got the answers
Our verdict on the best Android phones - constantly updated
There's one key way in which Android is massively different from its Apple-branded smartphone competition - the number of phones out there running Google's hot mobile OS.
Samsung makes loads of them. Sony's cut the Ericsson ties but still is cranking out the Google-branded handsets. Then you've got Android-powered phones from Acer, LG, Huawei, Motorola, ZTE and many others, and while HTC has ceased the practice of releasing more phones than centipedes have shoes (they do wear them, you know) it's still one of the more prominent Android manufacturers.
The many variations in screen size, processor power, software features and design makes finding the best Android phone for you extremely tough.
Do you physically and emotionally need a QWERTY keyboard? Are you the sort of oddball who prefers the rough pressing needed to make resistive touchscreens work? If so, you won't find much luck here, as those technologies are sadly phased out of the Android world as buyers get enamoured by fancy, glossy capacitive touchscreens.
To help find the best Android phone for you, we've rounded up the best Android handsets out there today, rating the phones on hardware performance, OS upgrade potential and, of course, how shiny and nice they are to have and boast about to work colleagues.
So here they are - the best Android phones money can buy today. For many, many different reasons.
10. Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini
For those after some Samsung muscle but in a slightly more pocketable format, the S4 Mini's a result. It's had its display size chopped to just 4.3 inches - positively tiny in this age of 5-inch+ slabs - and although the resolution and internal power have also been reduced when compared with the S4 Large, the Mini's everyday performance isn't really compromised at all.
The 1.7GHz dual-core chipset is perfectly capable of handling both Samsung's software tools and the ever-increasing demands of Android, while it outdoes other phones in this mid-range price bracket by having 1.5GB of RAM onboard for solid app, gaming and multitasking performance.
Quick verdict
It's not quite a miniature Galaxy S4 in that it's been downgraded a little internally as well as externally, but the good news is the asking price has been chopped accordingly -- making it a low budget scorcher.
The Sony Xperia Z1 is another powerhouse of a phone. With a 20.7MP camera with G Lens technology, the ability to withstand rain, snow and sand and a superfast Snapdragon 800 processor running the show, it's clearly a great handset to have around.
It also comes in a variety of funky colours, has a pleasing build quality that helps justify the higher price to a degree and basically offers the best of the Sony brand in a smartphone.
We do have a few reservations insofar as the Z1 doesn't really carry the mantle the Xperia Z created; it's got a massively uprated camera and screen technology, but neither particularly wow.
Quick verdict
Don't think that this is anything less than a leading phone from Sony. It's just that the added thickness to accommodate the camera doesn't impress enough to plop it into the top five, and after the really great showing from the Xperia Z, we were a little disappointed.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is alive and kicking and breathes yet more life into a mobile form factor many thought would be dead on arrival, ramping up the specs and the size to give us a new monolith of mobile.
It may be big, but the 5.7-inch display is fantastic and the Full HD Super AMOLED technology makes everything pop from websites to movies.
What really impressed us with the Galaxy Note 3 though was its battery life and sheer speed under the finger. We're used to a day at best when hardcore using the device, but we got far past that without breaking a sweat throughout our tests.
Quick verdict
This is the best Galaxy Note smartphone to date, so if you're looking for a supersized handset with impressive power and a wide range of features the Galaxy Note 3 has got you covered.
As with Samsung's attempts at scaling down size, performance and the cost of ownership to you the punter, HTC's miniaturised HTC One reduces both size and internal performance a little to bring it in at a more affordable level than the original flagship.
The dual-core Snapdragon 400 processor, 1GB of RAM and smaller, lower resolution 4.3-inch display are compromises, but HTC's polished software and exemplary hardware design skills make this a strong contender regardless.
It has the same victory points as the large HTC One - the brilliant Boomsound audio output and front-facing speakers, the Ultrapixel imaging sensor for cracking photographs and particularly fine low-light performance, plus HTC's classy aluminium chassis is here once again.
It doesn't feel cheap, but it is a little bit cheaper. Win-win.
Quick verdict
The same quality exterior design as the full size HTC One, with internals that have only a little less punch. And a 4.3-inch display isn't exactly small, making it ideal for people after decent power in a more modest form factor.
The Moto G rocks up with a 4.5-inch 720p display, punchy 1.2GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM and pure Android 4.4 KitKat on board.
Add to that a 5MP camera, the choice of 8GB or 16GB of internal storage and connections such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS, and you've got a pretty decent mid-range handset. But wait...
... take a look at the price tag and you'll be astounded by how little the Motorola Moto G will set you back - £130 SIM-free, or £120 on PAYG, it's a steal.
Quick verdict
If you're looking for the best budget smartphone on the market then look no further, for the Android 4.4 toting Moto G gives you more than enough bang for your buck.
But could this be the final time the two sign the papers?
It looks like Apple won't opting for its own GPUs any time soon, as it's just inked a deal to keep Imagination powering graphics in future iPhones and iPads.
Apple and Imagination have extended their partnership under a multi-year deal that will keep the two working closely together on future devices.
There have been persisting rumours that Apple has been working on its own in-house graphics, and it's certainly plausible that Cupertino could eventuall find its own solution.
But for the iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2, we know for sure that Apple will still be buying off the shelf.
Mozilla has certainly been busy lately. Not only has the company built its own mobile OS, but it's also working on an Android launcher and has just unveiled a screen grab of it in action.
Mozilla describes its homescreen replacement as a way to 'discover the content you want in any moment.'
It's powered by EverythingMe, another homescreen replacement, which makes smart folders based on your interests and suggests apps that you might want to use at appropriate times.
Based on the image shared by Mozilla, the Firefox launcher is very similar to EverythingMe, albeit with a more red panda friendly colour scheme.
It knows which apps you want before you do
The folders at the top of the screen are presumably smart folders, automatically grouping all your social apps together in one and all your music apps together in another for example.
Below that there's a prediction bar, which suggests apps that you might want to use based on where you are, what time of day it is and other variables. So in this case, as it's morning, the bar suggests an alarm clock and weather app.
The launcher also promises a personalised web experience which combines the Firefox for Android web browser with the contextual app searches of EverythingMe, with the aim of bringing you the most relevant results every time, whether you're searching your phone or the internet.
It remains to be seen whether this 'smart' launcher will be able to compete with the plethora of Android homescreen replacements that are already available, but with the might of Mozilla it certainly stands a chance.
Two new images claiming to be of the HTC One 2 have surfaced, giving us our first clear look at the front of the device and revealing some deviations from the design of the HTC One.
The photos, found by Russian site MobilTelefon.RU, show a phone that looks remarkably similar to the HTC One. It's the same shape and has the same metal speaker grills at the top and bottom.
But there are a couple of differences. First up the bezel around the screen looks thinner than the One, giving it an almost edge-to-edge appearance.
The other change deals with the navigation buttons, on the HTC One they are below the screen but these new images suggest the HTC One 2 will have them on-screen.
The similar overall design and on-screen buttons both tally with previous rumours we've heard, plus moving the buttons on-screen would make sense anyway, as it would allow for a larger, 5-inch display without increasing the overall footprint of the handset too much.
Seems legit
So in that sense the photos seem like they could well be genuine and they certainly look convincing enough. But on the other hand it wouldn't take a Photoshop master to make such minor modifications to an HTC One image.
Curiously one of the images doesn't feature the navigation buttons at all, which suggests they can be hidden when not in use, even when on the homescreen.
That would make sense too, but rather than obscuring the bottom of the phone's wallpaper the images suggest that the wallpaper actually gets resized to accommodate the buttons, which seems somewhat less likely and raises a red flag as to the authenticity of the pictures.
Hopefully we should know soon enough whether this is the real face of the HTC One 2, as it's rumoured that the flagship phone will be revealed at either MWC or a late March launch event.
