Tag Archives: Apple

iPad Mini: Media Event

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Here is a transcript of the recent Apple event in order, any remarks posted here are directly copied from hearing the event and is not a personal opinion. All links are located at the bottom.

iOS6 & Mountain Lion:
In under a month 200 million iOS Devices are running iOS6. (fastes software upgrade rate in history, apples words).
125 million documents stored in iCloud.
iMessage, since last year customers have sent over 300 billion messages, 28,000 messages a second.
Game Centre has over 160 million accounts
Photo stream: Customers have shared over 70 million albums so far.

App Store:
275,000 iPad apps, 35 billion apps downloaded so far, Apple have paid out over $6.5billion to developers

iBooks:
1.5 million books ready to download, 400 million books downloaded, new continus scrolling theme(allows you to scroll through a book), books are now in iCloud and you can download them again at any point, tap and share any favourite quote to facebook, twitter, email or you can copy, Now supports 40 different languages.

Mac:
Mac growth Year-on-Year 15%; out growing the PC Market by 7x and for the last 6 years; reason for this is that it has been #1 in customer satisfaction and reliability, #1 desktop and Notebook in the US.

MacBook:
Best selling MacBook is the 13″ MacBook Pro, new 13″ MacBook Pro; 0.75 inches thin(20% thinner); 3.57 pounds in weight(almost a pound lighter); No Optical Drive; I/O Ports Left(Magsafe 2, 2x Thunderbolt, USB 3/2, headphone, dual microphones) Right(SD Card Reader, HDMI Out, USB 3/2); Retina Display 13.3″ Resolution 2560×1600; Facetime HD Camera 720p(30 fps); Backlit Keyboard; Glass Trackpad; Under the hood: (Dual Core i5 or i7 Ivy Bridge Processor, Intel HD 4000 Graphics, 8GB Ram, WiFi & Bluetooth, up to 768GB of Flash Storage, 7 Hour Battery); Shipping with: (2.5GHZ Dual Core i5, 8GB Ram, 128GB Flash Storage); Prices Start from $1699 and Ships from 23rd October.

Mac Mini:
I/O: (Gigabit Ethernet, Firewire 800, HDMI Out, Thunderbolt, USB3/2, Audio in and out, SD Card Reader); Under the Hood: (Dual or Quad Core i5 or i7 Ivy Bridge Processor, Intel HD 4000 Graphics, Up to 1TB HDD or 256GB SSD, Up to 16GB Ram, WiFi and Bluetooth); Shipping with (2.5GHZ Dual Core i5, 4GB Ram, 500GB HDD); Prices start from $599 and Ships from 23rd October.

iMac:
5mm edge(80% thinner); Display 5mm thinner(45%); No Optical Drive; 2 Screen sizes(21.5 inch and 27.5); Fully laminated design; Plasma deposition process; 75% Less Reflection; Facetime HD Camera(30 fps); Dual Microphones; Under the Hood: (Intel Quad Core i5 or i7 Processor, Nvidia Kepler Graphics, Up to 32GB Ram, Up to 3TB HDD, Up to 768GB SSD, WiFi and Bluetooth); I/O Ports: (headphone, SD Card Reader, USB 3/2, 2x Thunderbolt, Gigabit Ethernet); Apple Fusion Drive: 128GB SSD, Fused together into one volume, Faster Reads and Writes, Works automatically, Faster Performance, 3x faster; Wireless Keyboard and Magic Mouse; Shipping with: (21.5″ Display, 2.7GHZ Quad Core i5, 8GB Ram, GeForce GT 640M, 1TB HDD); Prices Start from $1299 and Ships from November; 27.5″ iMac Ships December.

iPad:
100 Million iPads Sold in 2 and half years; iPad Counts for 90% of Web traffic on a tablet; iBook Textbooks are available to 80% of the High School core US curriculum; iBook Textbooks in 2500 US classrooms; iBook Author has new Fonts and Templates; 94% of the Fortune 500 companies are using or deploying iPad.

iPad(3rd Gen):
A6X Chip(2x faster than A5X); 2x Graphics Performance; Next Generation of IPS; 10 Hour battery Life; Front Facing Facetime HD camera 720p(30 fps); Cellular version supports LTE; 2x Faster WiFi Performance, 2.5GHZ and 5GHZ; New Lightning Charger; Black or White;

iPad Mini:
Silver and Black, 7.9″ Retina Display, A5 Chip, 5MP HD Rear Camera and Front Facing HD Camera; Same as above but Different display and colour options.

iPad Mini Options:
Wifi: 16GB($329), 32GB($429), 64GB($529); WiFi+3G: 16GB($459), 32GB($559), 64GB($659).

Pre-orders start from October 26th and Ship from November 2nd.

Apple iPad Mini Event Video
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Mac OSX Software

iOS 6 Maps: Did Apple Fail?

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Recently Apple launched its new Mapping system in iOS6 which replaced Google maps. Since the launch Apple has come under fire over the new service because it has returned false or missing data.

With many rumours floating about that the new service was having faults I took upon myself to do my testing; I found that in some places the maps had missing images and the 3D mode wasn’t all that it is was cracked up to be. If you was to search for The Eiffel Tower in Paris you will see that the image is flat and missing the point.

Hopefully these bugs will be fixed soon; Apple have offered alternatives in the App Store which include services like Bing, Waze and Google Maps. With the this in mind did Apple fail? or did they allow themselves to become withdrawn into the battle with Google and just drop maps because they felt the service was far to superior?

Many users have been left feeling let down by the service and they have reverted their handsets back to iOS 5 so they are able to use Google Maps agin.

In hindsight I believe Apple should have stuck with Google Maps because it worked and didn’t return false data but what will Apple do? Will they fix the issues or Will they revert back to Google Maps and calibrate with all companies involved to make an even richer experience with all platforms?

iPhone 5: Want Vs. Need

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Today the Apple iPhone 5 goes on sale and as always the usual fans are itching to get their hands on the device. This year Apple claim this is “the biggest thing since the launch of the iPhone” and that you can do so much more than you have ever done before.

The New Specs include:

4 inch Retina Display
A6 1-1.20GHZ Dual Core Processor
4G LTE (on supported carriers)
8MP Rear Camera – 1080p up to 30FPS
1.2MP Front Camera – 720p up to 30FPS
Storage Choices 16, 32 and 64GB
New Overall Look in Black/Silver or White/Silver
Battery Life:
8Hrs Browsing Time – WiFi 10Hrs
8Hrs Talk Time
10Hrs Video Playback
40Hrs Music Playback
All New 30 Pin Lightning Power Adapter

The starting price for the iPhone is £529 ranging up to £699 depending on what storage you require.

Do You Really Need to Upgrade If You Have The iPhone 4S?
The short answer to that is No and the only reason for saying that is because there are not many differences between the phones. You will still be able to use the iOS 6 software along with all it’s new features, minus a few features that are only dedicated to the iPhone 5 handset.
If you decide to keep your iPhone 4S handset you can choose a cheaper option by either purchasing Apple Care or Suitable Mobile Phone Insurance. Apple Care will cost you around £61 for 1 year protection and this will cover hardware and labour costs but this does not cover accidental damage or theft. Personally I would suggest getting mobile phone insurance as this will cover all costs including damage, theft, hardware and labour but bare in mind each insurance broker will have excess fee’s and limitations per year to each policy. Mobile phone insurance will set you back around £5.99 a month with an excess fee of £100 per claim with a maximum of 4 claims a year or some will let you pay yearly to get cheaper costs.

What will an iPhone 5 cost?
If you are on Pay As You Go you will need to pay the full price for the phone along with your monthly top up amount.
If you was on Pay Monthly you would need to pay a small fee for the phone depending on which monthly service you choose, here in the UK to get the iPhone free you would need to pay £66 a month for 24 months which will you back in total £1,584 over 2 years (price of 3 handsets), bare in mind this will cover the cost of the phone plus your service plan.

Overall the iPhone 5 is a good phone but to be honest Apple did not make many changes and most of the changes were just cosmetic. To the average consumer this won’t make any difference to their experience and wouldn’t really care about a tiny upgrade.

In the end it is users choice but with anything it is Need Vs. Want.

Mobile App Credits are Pointless!

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Since the introduction of in-app purchasing many developers(mostly gaming) have used this as marketing tool to make money from their app.

Initially this allows the developers to offer apps for free and have some form of revenue stream.

Here is a prime example of an app that uses this method. The app comes in two versions, one with ads and the other without – obviously the one without ads isn’t free… You have credits that you use throughout the app and once those credits have depleted you have two choices, wait for the app to generate free credits or buy some more through the app – I know which one I would choose because I have patients.

If you have purchased the app, it will be a big kick in the teeth because the credits can cost around the same price as the app.

Buying these credits are not mandatory – big waste of money if you ask me. Patients is key and you could play the developers at their own game.

Specifically I am aiming this towards gaming apps, as an avid mobile gamer I have never purchased credits – why do I need to pay when the game will generate credits throughout the day? Pointless!

As I said patients is key and if you want to save money then don’t give into the in app money-making demon!

Ad Supported Operating Systems

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A few years ago software giants Microsoft and Apple were toying with the idea to make an ad-supported operating system that allowed their customers to upgrade to the latest software at no extract cost but it meant you had ads showing throughout the day. According to some sources, they have stated the ads would have rolled on a 10 minute interval and it would appear near you clock.

Now, let me point out the biggest flaw in this concept… You need the internet to even have ads running and if you have the internet, you run the risk of leaving your system potentially open to more attacks than normal. All it takes is some smarty pants to override the ad API and it could be used to take your personal information or what your browsing throughout your computer.

I can see why this concept came to light, many users don’t want to pay the high prices for operating system upgrades because in some cases it can set you back around £100 or more each time, depending on the software vendor it could cost you less. In a practical world this concept would have paid off for the vendors because software upgrades would increase and the revenue obtained per install would leave them with a higher profit margin.

There is one thing that needs to be highlighted and that is the chances of the software vendor launching two versions of its software, ad-supported and no ads. In todays application world this is seen widely on mobile applications where you pay a small price to remove the ads but personally I don’t think this would work in operating system environment purely because the upgrade prices would be around the same price as buying it ad free.

Overall the concept is tangible but to the average user they will just dismiss the concept and pay full price for the upgrade, which means the concept is flawed. Depending on the ratio of paid and ad-supported installs it might not generate the right profit margins to cover overheads and other running costs to make it worth while.

WorldCard Mobile

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WorldCard Mobile is a world leading contact application that integrates many outstanding functions to manage your contacts. The best function by far is the ability to read a business card and being able to add as a contact just by using your mobile camera.

This application uses OCR technology to read the business card, if you haven’t heard of this term before it is preferably known as Optical Character Recognition which means it reads letters from a photo and processes it into a text format. If you would like to learn more about OCR technology there will be a link at the end where it will explain further in more detail.

WorldCard Mobile is developed by PenPower Technology LTD a leading software development company with over 11 years experience, PenPower primarily focus on Handwriting Recognition, Voice Recognition and OCR Business Card Recognition. Most of their products are available on many leading marketplaces like the Apple App store and the Google Android Market and it can also run on a variety of leading mobile devices.

I would defiantly recommend WorldCard Mobile to anyone as it one the best Mobile based contact organisation systems around, on a personal note I have been using this app for around two years and it walks all over the built-in contact manager.

Screenshots:

For more information on WorldCard Mobile or PenPower Technology find the links below.

WorldCard Mobile iPhone App Store
What is OCR Technology?
PenPower Technology LTD
WorldCard Mobile

iOS Apps Security issue

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If you knew apps like Facebook and Dropbox had security issues would you still use them?

According to several news sources the security issue is purely down to poorly managed security procedures, for example login details held within a plain-text file. Putting this aside from a programming standpoint it is not uncommon for developers to store user details in a text file purely because it allows easy maintenance for them and also allows the app to work more fluid. Even with that in mind you can see the ultimate flaw, data encryption is key.

There are a couple of things you can do to prevent this, when logging into any application do not allow it to remember your login credentials because straight away that will do two things; give full application access and it will create a text file with your details stored in it. The other thing you can do is after you are finished with an app log out fully and close it off I know this may be a pain because you have to log back in every time, but if you are security conscious then this method won’t cause much distress.

In time App developers will fix this flaw, it isn’t anything major and also nothing to get really worried about.