Category Archives: Apple

How Far Are You Willing To Go To Get Your Hand On That Shiny, Sexy iPhone 5?

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Posted by on in Apple, Mobile

Crazy long lines in front of Apple stores just for iPhone 5?  Tomorrow, it might be even crazier, to see more long line, for anywhere that got stock of iPhone 5 to sell?  I know, I should not be writing about people are so crazy of camping for a week or so outside of Apple store to get their hands on iPhone 5, because I was also crazy to pre-order iPhone 5 even though the shipment of this shiny, smart phone is being pushed back for 2 week long.  Nonetheless, at least I’m too lazy to go crazy to the point of worshiping the Apple God by camping outside Apple store.  Had never done so, and probably will never do so.  How come?  Siri isn’t even a real girlfriend yall!  Anyhow, I chuckled every time I read another article this week which mentioned the crazy things people would do to get their hands on iPhone 5.    Nonetheless, I must admit that there are some smart public stunts out there that have got the press talking about their stunts.  How about camping outside Apple store first to get an interview by the press of some sort so one can advertise one’s own business brand?  I think that’s smart for doing things on a shoestring advertising budget, but might generate huge, both online and offline, social buzz.  Anyhow, here are some of the articles — in relation to the crazy things that people do to get their hand on iPhone 5 — I would like to share with you right after the break.  Enjoy!!!

Afterthought:  Perhaps, I’m more hardcore than those who camp outside of Apple store.  I’m willing to wait patiently for the iPhone 5 to arrive at my doorstep.  It takes a lot of strength to do that.  I don’t even know if this is a sarcastic, self serving, arrogant admission or not, but it does sound super cool.

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Apple Begins Taking Pre-Order Purchases Of iPhone 5 Today

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Posted by on in Apple, Gadgets, Mobile
English: The logo for Apple Computer, now Appl...

English: The logo for Apple Computer, now Apple Inc.. The design of the logo started in 1977 designed by Rob Janoff with the rainbow color theme used until 1999 when Apple stopped using the rainbow color theme and used a few different color themes for the same design. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Apple begins to take pre-orders for iPhone 5 today.  At Apple website, Apple only allows 2 iPhone 5 pre-orders per person.  As usual, you can totally do a finance deal with Apple through Barclaycard credit card service.  At the purchase time, before you even add your iPhone 5 pre-order into a checkout cart, Apple would post a link to Barclaycard credit card service to allow you to sign up for a finance deal.  The deals are, at checkout, if everything you purchase on Apple at the time which is under $999, you don’t have to pay interest on the debt for 6 months.  Anything you purchase at the time is over $999, you don’t have to pay interest on the debt for 12 months.  If you’re already a Barclaycard credit card member who has an active Barclay credit card, you can totally use the promotional finance deals for iPhone 5 as long you purchase iPhone 5 with Apple (with Apple only) before October 18th.  The promotional finance deals for current Barclaycard member are the same as the new applicants for Apple/Barclaycard promotional deals (i.e., under $999 – no interest for 6 months, over $999 – no interest for 12 months).  Prices for iPhone 5 models are, $199 for 16GB, $299 for 32GB, and $399 for 64GB.  iPhone 5 only comes in black or white color, not much choice eh?  You still have to pay shipping fee, sale tax and so on at the checkout.  So, it won’t just be the listed prices of the iPhone 5 models that you have to worry about paying.  I almost forget to mention that you have to also weigh the prices of the 2 year contract that you want to sign up with which wireless provider.

The big differences I see when comparing iPhone 5 against iPhone 4S, one iteration back, are few.  The first big difference is that iPhone 5 has the latest processing chip known as A6, because the iPhone 4S uses A5 chip.  According to others, A6 chip has better performance and yet more energy efficience than A5 chip.  Perhaps, according to Engadget’s “Apple: A6 chip in iPhone 5 has 2x CPU power, 2x graphics performance, yet consumes less energy” article, A6 chip is a lot smaller in size, consequently allowing A6 chip to be more energy efficient.  The second big difference is that iPhone 5 is 0.37 inch taller, .07 inch thinner, and 0.95 ounces lighter than iPhone 4S.  The third big difference is that iPhone 5′s display resolution is higher than previous iPhone 4S and older models (i.e., iPhone 5 has 1136×640 resolution).  The fourth big difference can be an iffy, because I’m not exactly sure if this is the case — iPhone 5 supports 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard (the newer wireless standard which allows faster wireless data transfer/bandwidth speed across Wi-Fi network).  iPhone 4S and older models definitely do not support 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard.  On the same note, iPhone 5 supports both 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless bands, and older iPhone models only supports 2.4 GHz wireless band.  The fifth big difference is that iPhone 5 does not support existing Micro-SIM cards, therefore it only works with the new Nano-SIM card.  The sixth big difference is that iPhone 5 has better FaceTime camera which enables 1.2MP photos and 720p HD video; other previous iPhone models only support VGA-resolution photos and video.  The seventh big difference is that iPhone 5 won’t support 30-pin connector, because the new connector is much much smaller.  The eighth big difference is that iPhone 5′s battery lifespan of a single charge lasts longer in terms of browsing and standby time.

What do I think about iPhone 5?  According to other people, iPhone 5 isn’t that different than iPhone 4S and 4 in term of fashion, because iPhone 5 looks very similar to iPhone 4s and 4.  I can’t say I’m excited about having to see iPhone 5 keeps the same look of iPhone 4S and 4.  Nonetheless, iPhone 4S and 4 look really good from the beginning, therefore nothing can go wrong when iPhone 5 adopts the same polish look of iPhone 4S and 4.  So, I’m not terribly exciting, but I’m not disappointed either in term of iPhone 5 fashion.  There is one thing I must point out though, I don’t know how much I would like iPhone 5 for being taller than iPhone 4.  I guess, until Apple actually begins to ship iPhone 5 to pre-order customers, then I will know how much I would like iPhone 5 in term of being taller than iPhone 4.  Gotta feel it in your hand to know exactly how you feel about it, you know?  On other specs, I actually glad to see that iPhone 5 has better chip and is support 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard.  Other than what I had said I like about iPhone 5, I can hardly say iPhone 5 is any more exciting than the first iPhone or iPhone 4.  How come?  If you have iPhone 4S, you know your iPhone 4S is just as capable as iPhone 5.  If you have the first iPhone, wasn’t it that excited to be one of the first iPhone generation users?  You get the gist!

Source:  http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/12/iphone-5-processor/

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Apple TV & Airplay In Action

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Posted by on in Apple, Gadgets, Software

Check out Apple TV and Airplay in action.  The video right after the break makes me want to actually get a real camcorder or something similar.  The video was shot with iPhone 4 and it was somewhat shaky.  Unprofessional, I hear ya!  Yep, no good light setup too.  I guess, the Internet is a lot more tolerant for unprofessional videos like mine.  Thanks to that!  Anyhow, enjoy the video right after the break!!!

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Airplay Made Apple TV

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Posted by on in Apple, Gadgets
Apple TV

Apple TV

In case you don’t know, the latest Apple TV’s Airplay feature doesn’t work with some Apple devices.  Correct me if I’m completely wrong, I think MacBook Pro and Air laptops that debuted before 2011 cannot use Airplay.  Can’t talk about Mac Pro, because I don’t have one.  Furthermore, Airplay isn’t compatible with iPad 1 and iPhone versions that came out before iPhone 4.  Specifically, I had said Airplay would not be compatible with MacBook Pro and Air that debuted before 2011, but I’ve found out that Airplay can be used with iTunes regardless how Airplay isn’t compatible with Mac laptops that came out before 2011.  There is a catch though, Airplay can only work with iTunes on older Mac laptops if you’re running the latest Mac OS X Mountain Lion operating system.

I had to scratch my head when I played around with Apple TV, because I couldn’t fathom Apple’s refusal in making Airplay to work with older MacBook whatever (i.e., the ones that came out before 2011).  With older MacBook whatever, it would be that you lied if you told me about how you could find the Airplay icon on the menu bar.  Anyhow, my curiosity caught fire when I had iTunes on mid 2010 MacBook Pro used Airplay to stream videos onto Apple TV.  So, I was rather frustrated to see that Apple allowed iTunes on older hardware to use Airplay as long the older hardware could run the latest Mac OS X Mountain Lion operating system and yet refused to let anything else to work with Airplay.

Luckily, I got iPad 2, and it worked just fine with Airplay.  So, if you have iPad 1, you would be out of luck!  As I explored Apple TV a little more, I found out that iPhone 4 would work with Airplay just fine too.  I concluded that Airplay made Apple TV.  Sure, Apple TV did have other features such as Home Sharing, but these other features could be found on any Mac.  Home Sharing required iTunes to stream from Mac to Apple TV, and so Apple users would be limited to iTunes content only.  Airplay changed the game as users could just either mirroring or stream 1080p resolution videos from Apple devices to Apple TV, consequently pretty pictures would fly on whatever big screen TV.

To tell the truth, if your big screen TV can be just as smart as a computer, you probably have no need for Apple TV unless you’ve really wanted to stream some videos from iPad 2 or so.  For me personally, Apple TV has saved my dumb TV as it got no brainiac features as other smart big screen TVs.  Nonetheless, I don’t care how smart my TV can get if I can’t use Airplay, therefore I have to say Airplay is the only feature I like most on Apple TV.  Oh, I forgot to tell you that you can definitely play video games on a dumb big screen TV through Apple TV’s Airplay.  Cool?

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Apple Needs To Implement Stronger Authentication For iCloud; Google Can Be A Great Teacher On This!

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Posted by on in Apple, Internet, Web Services

Before Mac OS X Mountain Lion roared its way into the market, iCloud was already a stir.  After Mac OS X Mountain roared its way into the market, iCloud is even a bigger stir.  iCloud is now more integrated into Mac OS X ecosystem evermore than before.  iCloud is better now as it allows so many more apps to have the option of saving data in the cloud.  One example would be TextEdit.  If you open up TextEdit on Mac OS X Mountain Lion, you would see a finder gladly greets you and asks you if you want to create a new document in iCloud or on the Mac itself.  This way, TextEdit clearly presents you the option of saving data in the cloud.  Many more apps on Mac OS X Mountain Lion are implementing this approach for iCloud too.

It’s great that iCloud is evermore readily available for many more apps on Mac OS X Mountain Lion, because it’s definitely a convenience for Mac users to be able to save data on the cloud for syncing and safekeeping (i.e., to recover when local data cannot be recovered).  Nonetheless, can one’s data be secure on iCloud?  Just recently I had read “The Dangerous Side Of Apple’s iCloud” Forbes article, and this daunted on me that if one isn’t too careful — one might save important information in iCloud and such information can totally be leaked by being hacked as iCloud’s password protection isn’t exactly strong at the moment.  Unlike Google which has 2 step password verification, iCloud only requires a user to enter password once to access iCloud data.  To add the insult to an injury, although iCloud does encrypt the data during the transit of data and on the iCloud itself, the encrypted data can still be decrypted easily as long the evildoer has the correct password which can be used to unlock the data from iCloud.

Then there is another issue of trust.  Can we trust Apple to be honest enough to not take a peek at our data?  Sure, the data are encrypted on iCloud, but is there a way in which Apple can ensure us that their employees won’t try to decrypt our data at will?  Perhaps, this is a concern for using any third party cloud service and not just only with Apple, because once the data reside on the cloud — such data are truly beyond our control (i.e., no longer in the control of the data owner).  Nonetheless, I think when one encrypts the data before sending such data onto iCloud, one might be able to sleep better even though one knows Apple is way more trustful than some unknown and untested third party cloud services.  This is why, one needs to keep TrueCrypt in mind even when Apple does assure one that iCloud is encrypting all data on Apple’s iCloud servers.

To end this blog post, I must say iCloud is a lot more attractive than ever before.  I definitely think iCloud is worth it, because it’s so integrated into Mac OS X Mountain Lion and onward (i.e., I hope it would be so integrated into Mac onward).  Knowing that you can always recover your data from the apps that are supported by iCloud is definitely a peace of mind when it comes down to that one extra layer of data redundancy.  You never know how unreliable the state of your data are until your data become unrecoverable, and by then everything is just too late.  Obviously, even with iCloud, one can never have too much data redundancy, therefore it’s still wise for one to backup their Mac to an external hard drive with the usage of Time Machine, regularly.  This to ensure and insure one in the case of having one’s iCloud account being wiped out by a hacker — just as how Forbes had mentioned how Mat Honan had his iCloud account wiped out by a hacker.  To really end this article, I wish Apple actually implements or at least giving Mac users a choice of implementing 2 step password verification, just like how Google is doing it now.

Sources:

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Apple Needs To Do Away With Dictation And Let Siri Takes Over On Mac OS X Mountain Lion

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Posted by on in Apple

Dictation is a new feature on Mac OS X Mountain Lion.  It’s supposed to be one of those features that I would love to use since I write a lot.  Unfortunately, I can barely use Dictation on Mac OS X Mountain Lion on my MacBook Pro.  How come?  Well, let say it’s not yet up to my expectation.  In fact, it is far from pleasing me.

I don’t think I speak that badly in English, because my English accent isn’t bad at all.  Nonetheless, Dictation has constantly failed to dictate what I’m trying to say.  For an example, when I say feature it types out future.  When I say comma to tell it to write a punctuation mark comma into a sentence, it might type out a word of entirely different beast altogether.  Nonetheless, Dictation does work out alright sometimes.  I notice when you want a punctuation mark in a sentence, you’ve to pronounce the punctuation mark out entirely for Dictation to type out a punctuation mark.  It does make sense until I guess you really want a word comma in place of the punctuation mark comma, because Dictation may just as well type out a punctuation mark comma since it dictates that whenever you pronounce a punctuation mark in its entirety — it means you want a punctuation mark and not a word that spells out the punctuation mark.

I kind of feel there is something lacking about having to use shortcut key [fn] to tell Dictation that I’m done writing and wanting to take a break from Dictation.  I guess it’s the same problem as what I had mentioned previously.  Dictation might not be able to discern between a key command and its dictation function.  Perhaps, when you say I’m done talking to you Dictation, Dictation may as well dictate and type out what you have said — but not to actually understand that what you have said is a command to tell Dictation to turn off itself.  To enhance user experience, I guess Apple might have to enhance Dictation in a way that the users don’t really have to tell Dictation that they’re done using Dictation for the time being by clicking on [I'm Done] call out button or using the shortcut key [fn].

Using Dictation with a headphone which has a microphone might be better than otherwise.  I noticed that when I used Dictation with the MacBook Pro’s internal microphone, Dictation did poorly.  Perhaps, Dictation requires the users to speak really clear, and the internal microphone from any Mac might not be able to pickup a user’s voice as well as the headphone’s microphone.

According to MacLife’s “How to Use Dictation in Mountain Lion” article, Dictation does have more than few dictation commands that you can speak to actually tell Dictation to dictate such commands in a document.  One example would be “all caps” — when using this command, Dictation will turn whatever you speak into an all capitalized written text.  This is a great strength of Dictation, but this also reveals Dictation as a crude prototype.  Perhaps, I’m too critical of Dictation since Siri is around?  After all, Dictation isn’t that different from Siri in the perspective that it does have the need to phone home (i.e., upload what the users say to Apple’s servers before Dictation can write out what the users have said onto a document).

Anyhow, in conclusion I think Dictation can be improved further.  Nonetheless, Dictation does provide an alternative way for writing a document.  People like me though may not yet fully embrace Dictation for the reasons I pointed out previously.  Plus, people like me may write better when we type, because when speaking to Dictation it does feel like we talk more than write.  With this I meant, some of us might be able to form better sentences for a document when we type and not otherwise.  In the end, I still think that it’s rather strange for Apple to create Dictation as entirely a different feature when Siri is around.  After all, Dictation isn’t exactly 99.99% accurate in dictation.  In a way, I think Apple might as well combine Dictation and Siri into one for Mac OS X Mountain Lion, because Siri can bring Siri’s own useful features plus Dictation feature to Mac users.  Furthermore, I think with Siri as Dictation and more — the developers don’t really have to worry about two different things altogether (i.e., Dictation and Siri) when they create apps for Mac ecosystem.

Source:  http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/how_use_dictation_mountain_lion

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