The new products Apple have just announced, well all I can say is WOW!
The iPad mini looks good, it’s size is just about right for those who want a small mini tablet for email and calendar functions etc just like a PDA! And even the price isn’t too bad. People can experience an iOS device with a great screen and touch surface for a much lower price than the larger iPad. I won’t bother with one of course as I already have 2 iPad’s and see no need for a smaller one at this stage but the idea of using one for an in-car media player suddenly springs to mind as I write this!
The new iMac is a very nice piece of kit, the ultra thin screen looks really good and would be even better if it was retina but even still with the power and options on the new model desktop users should be more than happy! Not to mention the cheap as Mac Mini which can be used as a server or a small media PC in your loungeroom. Again the in-car idea springs to mind!
I’m a little peeved at the annoucement of the new iPad 4 model complete with A6 chip, 4G (LTE) and lightning connectors. I just got my iPad 3 only a couple of months ago and would surely have waited for this one especially as it compares with my new iPhone 5 feature wise. Even so the next iPad surely should have some even better features. I can understand the update especially to bring it into line with the launch cycle of the iPad mini. I can see Apple releasing both at the same time with comparable feature sets but different sizes in the future.
The new iBooks sounds interesting as well as the sharing features, I was recently miffed at the fact that a book I purchased on iBooks was not also readable on my Macbook Pro when in fact Apple promotes the ability to share your content amongst all your iDevices but seemingly forgot about this at the time!
It really looks like Apple is on the warpath marketing wise and is really pushing out the product the last 18 months, with an uptake of their mobile OS known as iOS with a recent major upgrade over 600 million devices recently upgraded to iOS 6 in the last 2 months… amazing!
What will the next 18 month have in store for us from Apple?
Seriously Apple your not going to make a dock for the iPhone 5?
Cmon things like that are a cash cow for you Apple, $40 for a piece of plastic that cost you $1 to make?
Guess I’m going to have to find an aftermarket one, I like being able to sit my phone into a dock on my desk during the day where I can see it and use it easily. Check out the wood and lego docks people have made themselves so far.
Whilst it took me awhile to track one down, as stocks are limited and the online reservation system is like a daily lottery and as always the house mostly always wins. I got an email from Apple saying one was ready to pick up this morning so off I went.
Upon opening the box at the Apple store, I checked the phone’s finish for any of the defects reported by other purchasers online. The Genius loaded in my new nano-sim and I went through basic setup of the phone to confirm it was working and took it home. There I unboxed it and took a closer look and took of the plastic shipping protectors front and back and I’m suitably impressed by the features, look and feel of this phone. The longer screen didn’t feel strange in my hand at all and apparently Apple went to great lengths to make sure this would be so and was a major factor in the overall dimensions.
After loading up my config and files etc I started to explore some of the new features and play with some of my familiar apps but then I had to get it to download all my music from iCloud and then I tried out the new designed earbuds. What can I say WOW! they have really designed some great sounding earbuds and these are stock! The bass is clear and powerful with the high end crisp and not overbearing. I normally use Klipsch or Ultimate Ears as my choice of earbud and these easily keep up with much more expensive buds. You can also buy these online for under $35 from the Apple store here.
I had a play with Siri, my previous phone the iPhone 4 does not have Siri but my iPad 3 does so I had used it before. I’m looking forward to using Siri a bit more day to day as I carry and use my iPhone all the time and I’ve taken the time to set up various contacts with the necessary info Siri can use so it should make some functions easier.
Getting back to the overall design, the new screen size coupled with the Retina display looks just fantastic and some 720 videos in full widescreen format with that display just looked fantastic. Having the extra row of icons on each home screen is welcomed but takes some getting used to. I think perhaps the icons need to be made a tad smaller as it looked a bit crowded. Email and Twitter/Facebook on the larger screen is also easier to use. I’ve noticed not all apps have been updated for the new display yet and center on the screen or stretch where needed so this isn’t really an issue at this point. The new aluminum back is much better than the glass back of the 4 and 4s model and gives me more confidence I’m not going to smash my phone if I accidently drop it. However the slightly lighter weight, the change in size makes it feel slightly heavier than a 4 but also lighter at the same time if that makes sense.
The headphone jack has been moved to the bottom alongside 2 speakers and the new lightning dock connector. The move of the headphone jack is a welcome change and I always found it awkward with the cable sticking out of the top rather than the bottom. This should make dock designs much nicer.
Speaking of this new connector “Lightning” which has been the suject of a lot of critisism and controversy and I can honestly understand why Apple changed it now I have one as it’s easier to insert, works upside down and is much smaller which makes it easier to make the phone thinner as much as smaller. The change has made some people very angry as they will have to buy adapters and new accessories which is understandble but you have to draw a line in the sand somewhere and I guess 2012 is it. The old connector was bulky and a pain in the butt to connect sometimes especially with aftermarket accessories. I like the new connector and I like being able to stick it in upside down!
There is an A6 chip in this beast which is noticeable when loading the camera, speaking of which is 8mp on the back camera and 1.2mp on the FaceTime front facing camera. I’ve yet to take any decent pictures with it but from all reports I’ve seen it’s pretty good. There has been a small issue of purple haze around some outdoor and extreme lighting conditions but these shall remain to be seen.
Overall so far I’m very impressed with the phone as a whole. The new features in iOS 6 also add to the overall positive experience I’ve had so far. I have however noticed a few little issues here and there such as the phone sometimes not being recognised in iTunes first time, and battery life seems a little more excessive than my iPhone 4 so far but I’ll give the phone a day or 2 to settle into my normal usage pattern and then re-assses this.
I wasn’t impressed when I asked about a cover for it at the Apple store to which I was told they will be available in November. Luckily I had purchased a cheap bumper case for it on Ebay a few days earlier which will suffice for now. The new lottery reservation system sucks the big one royally I must say. The old system of putting a select number of phones up for reservation each day on a first come first serve basis was much better cause at least you knew if you got one or not. In fact their overall stock control policy is far from ideal. Whilst I think their marketing is fantastic and obviously works, their arrogance at allowing stock out in a trickle to keep the hype going is an ethos that will probably bite them in the bum in the long term.
Stay tuned for part 2 which will come in a few days after the initial shiney impressions wear off.
Which means it’s Apple’s media event day, or as we all like to thin iPhone 5 launch day!
Actually for us in Australia its the early hours of Thursday morning. First think I’ll be doing that morning is watching the keynote address to see all the big news.
Speculation has been rife and many leaked photos and videos so it’s going to be interesting how much of all that turns out to be hype or truth!
So what are you looking for in the new iPhone? I never went to the 4S as I considered it not to be enough of an upgrade. Here’s my wish list:
Larger screen – Not sure if I like the look of the new screen, it’s longer not wider.
Near Field Chip – Hoping to store my digital passes onto the one device.
Retina Display – Loving my iPad 3 screen, can’t wait for larger hi res screen on the iPhone.
iOS 6 – Been testing a beta of this, coupled with new phone should be awesome.
Increased capacity – I use mine to store a lot of music, iCloud and music match isn’t quite there yet.
Headphone jack at the bottom – makes sense!
Increased durability – metal back should be better, no more shattered backs!
Guess we’ll all be back here in 2 days to comment about all the new features released. Then the fun begins on watching the stock hunt as it gets released and sells out.
I’m wondering if Apple will continue its practise of a slow controlled release of stock to keep up the demand/hype. It certainly works in marketing terms but it’s a pain in the ass when you have to shop around half of Melbourne to find stock!
Yes I know I said I was back, and yes I am but I’ve been so busy with work/life stuff that I just get no time to spend updating this blog much.
But I’m here now so stop yer nagging!
Seems there is going to be a new iPhone in town!
No not the iPhone 5, they are dropping the model number just like the “New iPad” this year it will be just known as the “New iPhone”.
All reports so far point out to a larger screen, smaller dock connecter, 2 tone look amongst many other new features. It’s looking like a September 12 announcement with a September 21 launch date.
Just scored myself a new iPad a couple of weeks ago, and i’m running iOS 6 Beta 3 on it along with my iPhone 4 and it’s just magic and a huge improvement over the iPad 2 as far as speed and graphics go. It’s been interesting to have Siri on board the iPad even if she did mistake something I said for the word “bitch”
Speaking of iOS 6 and OS updates, who has updated to OSX Mountain Lion yet? I’ve been using the beta’s for a few months and found it pretty good in testing but the public release seems nice and stable and is everything they said it would be.
I’m back after a long hiatus, yes it’s been awhile!
It indeed has been a crazy time, work and personal commitments have kept me busy and the motivation to keep updates going was just not there.
But I’ll try to keep things updated a bit more.
So what’s been going on? LOTS!
We saw lots of Apple things happening, indeed the IT sector has been buzzing like never before with the OS wars, the tablet wars, the smartphone wars, patent wars and lots of new shiney gadgets and fuzzy feel good marketing to make us part with our hard earned dollars.
I’ve yet to update to a new iPad 3, although I’ve seen how good they are and Apple doesn’t disappoint!
It will be interesting to see what the next iteration of the iPhone will bring. Rumours suggest a larger screen, faster, more storage and more internal gadgets to make us want one.
Apple is expected to rapidly deploy support for the new 802.11ac specification this year, adding so called “Gigabit WiFi” to new AirPort base stations, Time Capsule, Apple TV,notebooks and potentially its mobile devices.
The new 802.11ac standard achieves much faster wireless networking speeds than the existing 802.11n specification (in use on the latest Mac, AirPort and iOS devices) by using 2 to 4 times the frequency bandwidth (from 80 to 160MHz), more efficient data transfers through sophisticated modulation, and more antennas (up to 8; existing standards support up to 4, while Apple’s Macs currently use up to 3).
While not yet finalized as an official standard by the 802.11 Working Group, progress on the new 802.11.ac standard is occurring faster than previous efforts in wireless networking have.
Multiple suppliers have already issued chipsets supporting 802.11ac for consumer grade applications. Key Apple component maker Broadcom announced chips supporting the standard earlier this month at CES.
In addition to reaching networking speeds above 1 Gigabit (about three times as fast as 802.11n networks can manage), 802.11ac promises better networking range, improved reliability, and more power efficient chips, thanks to parallel advances in reducing chip size and enhancing power management.
Apple popularizes WiFi with AirPort
While Apple wasn’t the first company to sell wireless devices, it was first to bring the technology into the mainstream beginning in 1999, when Steve Jobs dramatically demonstrated Apple’s initial AirPort technology onstage at the July Macworld Expo as “one more thing” after showing off the company’s new consumer iBook notebook.
Jobs pretended to hold his new iBook notebook up to provide a clear view for the camera operator, but he then continued to use the web as he walked across the stage to the delight of the audience that suddenly realized the new notebook had a wireless connection.
While Intel and others were promoting wired home networking schemes using landline phone wiring, Apple quickly brought WiFi into common use with support for AirPort across its Mac desktop and laptop line and its new AirPort branded base stations, making secure wireless technology both affordable and easy to use.
The WiFi technology Jobs demonstrated was second generation 802.11b; an earlier 802.11 version had previously been developed but only offered a tenth of the speed, making it less than practical for mainstream users. At the same time, 802.11b wasn’t formally ratified until September of 1999, making Apple’s inclusion on the iBook a forward-looking innovation. It also made the iBook the first mainstream computer sold with integrated WiFi.
In January 2003, Apple launched AirPort Extreme, its brand name for the improved 802.11g standard. While backwardly compatible with 802.11b devices, the new AirPort Extreme base station and compliant computers could now achieve wireless networking speeds up to five times faster. The 802.11g standard wasn’t formally ratified for another six months after Apple released its first implementation of it.
Apple sneaks out 802.11n
In September 2006, Apple offered a sneak peek at Apple TV. It seemed immediately obvious that Apple would empower this using the new 802.11n standard, but it was widely doubted at the time that Apple could release support for the much faster new version of WiFi before the standard was ratified.
However, in January 2007 Apple announced that Apple TV did indeed use 802.11n, alongside new AirPort base stations also supporting a draft version of the still unfinished specification. The company also acknowledged that it had secretly included support for the fast new “draft n” specification in all of its previously released Core 2 Duo Macs.
Due to accounting concerns, Apple planned to charge a nominal $4.99 fee for distributing the drivers needed to activate this unadvertised hardware feature on recent Macs. After a hailstorm of caustic criticism, Apple dropped the fee to $1.99, and subsequently included the drivers into the next version of Mac OS X for free.
The 802.11n standard wasn’t formally ratified until October of 2009, nearly three years after Apple began rolling it out. By May 2008, Apple was recognized by NDP Group as having a 10.6 percent share of WiFi base station sales, and AirPort Extreme was named the top selling 802.11n router in the US.
AirPort advances since 802.11n
The new 802.11ac isn’t expected to be fully approved as a finished standard until late next year, but Apple is poised to adopt it well before then. Since the initial rollout of 802.11n Macs, AirPort base stations and Apple TV in early 2007, Apple has incrementally advanced support for new facets of the 802.11n specification and has also developed new practical applications tied to wireless connectivity.
In 2008 Apple launched support for 802.11n base stations and clients operating in the 5GHz band at the launch of Time Capsule. In this frequency band, WiFi devices can double their bandwidth allocation to a wide 40 MHz to allow faster networking speeds, nearly doubling the theoretical maximum. For existing Macs, this boosted top speeds from 130 to 300 Mbps.
In 2009 Apple enhanced AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule products with support for simultaneous 2.4 and 5GHz band operation and guest access.
The following year, Apple launched iPad with support for both 802.11n and 5GHz networks. iPhone 4 followed with support for 802.11n, although it could not connect to 5GHz networks.
Last year, Apple’s Thunderbolt Macs silently incorporated support for three send and receive antennas, enabling them to achieve a top data rate of 450 Mbps on 5GHz networks with wide channels.
Apple also enhanced its AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule last summer, increasing their range and radio power output and adding support for new Mac’s triple antennas while extending simultaneous operation to automatically use both 2.4 and 5GHz bands.
Software applications for WiFi
In addition to hardware advances, Apple has introduced a variety of technologies that focus on WiFi networking, including Bonjour-discoverable disk and printer sharing from AirPort Extreme base stations, AirTunes wireless audio distribution introduced alongside AirPort Express, and Mac OS X Leopard’s Time Machine backups designed to work with Time Capsule.
Last year, Apple introduced AirPlay as a replacement for AirTunes, enabling iTunes and iOS devices to wirelessly stream both audio and video to Apple TV. AirPlay Mirroring on iPad 2 and iPhone 4S enable those devices to export their primary video display to an HDTV via Apple TV.
In Mac OS X Lion, Apple introduced support for AirDrop, enabling nearby users to share files without configuring a WiFi network.
The tremendous speed gains possible with 802.11ac will continue to make Apple’s wireless technologies from AirPlay to Time Machine faster and more efficient, virtually erasing any advantage in using wired network cabling in most cases.
Well it’s New Years Eve here in Australia and just over an hour left of 2012.
