CyberLink at CES 2012 introduced the latest version of their pouplar media player PowerDVD 12. We got a first time look at the software and we can tell you Cyberlink has gone into tremendous lengthens in making  this a worth while purchase. Some of the cool and new features you will see in our video walkthrough is the very impressive DLNA feature set, that allows you to not only share content from PC to tablet or phone with the Power DVD app. But all the ability to share content from all you device be it Android, iPhone, iPad and more via the app as well as PC. So you can load content from you iPad and Play on a Xoom tablet or PC and vice versa.

Also the up scale feature from 2D to 3D is solid and gives you full control to maximize the degree and depth of 3D content. This applies to Blu-ray movies as well as, photos and content recorded on your own camera. Also a good amount of social integration that allows you to easily download photos from Facebook in batch format and access YouTube content directly from the play.
CyberLink has successfully added a host of features that makes PowerDVD 12 look like a very inviting offering. Till we get time to fully review it  in the coming weeks. Please enjoy our walkthrough video.

Our favorite Swedish headphone manufacture have just announced the latest iPhone and iDevice speced headphones the t-JAYS Four. work with iPhones, iPads and iPods, offering up 10mm drivers, a 360 MEMS microphone and a three button controller The t-JAYS Four are available in black and will retail for $129 shipping in Nov.

Features

- Fully compatible with Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod; Answer / Hang up / Play / Pause / Skipping / Previous / Volume.
- Voice control.
- Ergonomic design with the ability to carry the cable
in two different directions.
- Microphonics-reducing cable clip.
- High-quality MEMS microphone.
- Dividable cables.
- Kevlar reinforced cables.
- 5 pairs of silicone sleeves in different sizes.
- Carrying case.

PRESS RELEASE

Jays pushes the boundaries with sophisticated t-JAYS Four for iPhone

Swedish Jays continues to develop the Mobile Music concept with the expansion of the t-JAYS series. The new model, called t-JAYS Four, features Jays proprietary and highly-praised sound quality, in a simple exterior casing complete with high quality microphone and remote control three-button keypad to ensure perfect compatibility with Apple iPhone, iPad and iPod. The launch of a-JAYS Four for iPhone earlier this year was a definite success, offering a clear upgrade in sound and function for users of Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iPod. With the launch of t-JAYS Four, Jays, once again, pushes the boundaries of sound quality and functionality. Perfectly matching the Apple suite of products, t-JAYS Four offers the user an ergonomic and musically authentic earphone, complete with the t-JAYS 10mm TCD driver, that delivers the best possible sound. The MEMS microphone delivers a 360-degree uptake with noise reduction. This unrivalled product spec has already made t-JAYS a musicians favourite that can be seen on stages worldwide.

“Equipping t-JAYS with a three-button control, as we did with the ground breaking a-JAYS Four iPhone, is a a natural step in our ambition to become the market leader in Mobile Music for the discerning user” comments product manager Peter Cedmer. “Once you realize the benefits of t-JAYS and how amazingly they work with Apple products there is no turning back. We launch t-JAYS Four for iPhone in black, provisionally in November 2011, or as we say, when it’s ready.”

- Fully compatible with Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod; Answer / Hang up / Play / Pause / Skipping / Previous / Volume.
- Voice control.
- Ergonomic design with the ability to carry the cable
in two different directions.
- Microphonics-reducing cable clip.
- High-quality MEMS microphone.
- Dividable cables.
- Kevlar reinforced cables.
- 5 pairs of silicone sleeves in different sizes.
- Carrying case.

Box is offering 50GBs of free storage inside its cloud for iOS users — just like it did for TouchPad owners back in June. Anyone who downloads the latest version of Box’s app for iPad and iPhone will receive their massive lot for data storage after registering a personal account (existing accounts can join in on the fun as well). Box will be bumping upload capacity from 25Mb to 100MB per file and adding airplay support.  It is a crazy good deal I  think all iOS user should jump on. The promotion starts 12am on OCt 14th and will run for 50 days.

Source Box

With the passing of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, a memorable figure in our society and culture today. You are bound to find many tributes about the tech pioneer. Here is one that does catch the eye is is highly creative.

19 year old Graphic design student from Hong Kong Jonathan Mak Long Create this simple but effective tribute to the late CEO of Apple.

The image, the Apple logo with the bite changed to a profile of Jobs, to his Tumblr blog. Known as Jonathan Mak, he initially received about 80 notes on the image. Then word came this past Wednesday that Jobs had died, after a long battle with cancer. Mak reposted the homage, which this time caught fire on the Web, attracting an almost immediate response of 10,000 likes and reblogs on his Tumblr site and surging to 180,000 — in one day.

Have I become cynical in my old age? Maybe my fanboyism to Android has grown out of hand? Or maybe Apple have just given their worst unveiling since the Newton. I concede that Steve Jobs who, to be fair to the guy, was one of hell of a sales person, is now absent from centre stage but it is no excuse. The very worst aspects of the ‘Apple machine’ seemed to combine together to deliver what was quite frankly a massive let down for all involved.

The Iphone 4S, does this change everything again, again? No. Granted it is a nice little refresh to the iPhone 4 but it is just that, a refresh. Had Apple unveiled it as a budget alternative to the Iphone 5 then it would have been all hugs and kisses, and I would have commended them for taking another leaf out of Android’s book. However as a stand-alone device the 4S is a woeful attempt to upgrade the Iphone, even I (someone who would rather pickle my left ear than buy an IOS device) was disappointed. I wouldn’t have minded so much if they had announced it as an incremental upgrade and at least mentioned the Iphone 5, but no. Not a sausage. How long until the Iphone 5 is launched? It could be next year, or it could be before christmas seeing as they have blown their previous launch pattern to smithereens. Thanks for making us wait 15 months, getting us all hot and bothered about it, and then leaving us to stew for god knows how long more.

The 4S itself is a nice little phone (little being the operative word) but it doesn’t contain 15 months worth of upgrades. Even IOS5 seems to me more interesting than the new device and I am a hardware fanatic. Apple can vomit up technical specifications and graphical benchmark results all they want on stage, but when push comes to shove I would rather hold a new (bigger) device in my hand than poke my finger at a piddly 3.5” screen and slobber over graphics which make little or no difference to 99% of my smartphone usage. The only games I play on a regular basis are casual, light addictive games, often involving irritated avian characters and their porcine rivals. I don’t sit on the train playing a hardcore game which requires me to concentrate and gawk at graphics whilst draining my battery in 3 hours flat. And I make it my business to play the latest games as I review most of them but still spend less than a few hours on most ‘hardcore games’ and I enjoy them on a 4.3" screen, not a 3.5" tiddler. Oh, did I mention it’s dual core? Much like many phones I could mention which have been out for almost a year. The camera is now 8MP with 1080p video capture, something which we have all seen before, but wait it has two antennae. Wonderful.

Iphone 4S aside, Apple also announced IOS5, or to rephrase that showed us a bunch of stuff they have already shown us, an iPod Nano with BIGGER ICONS! And some Ipod Touch’s which are now in white, splendid. I won’t even bother slating IOS5, but I do wish to mention SIRI, if only in brief. Voice control has been around for years, and it is a nice concept but in practise it fails in 9 out of 10 situations. It is so easy to type something into google, or to open your SMS or Email that voice commands make the whole process more difficult. Unless you are in the car, or are sitting alone at home, then it makes you look ridiculous and never works due to background noise. Also, more often than not, when I send an email I generally don’t want to announce it to everybody in the vicinity, heck that’s why I email instead of calling someone. But I have faith in Apple zombies everywhere, if Apple say it is the future then I look forward to walking into an office and seeing blurry eyed executives yelling corporate secretes into their phones whilst the one dodgy bloke in the corner asks SIRI where the nearest lap-dancing bar is.

All in all it was a disappointing day for tech fans, and it leaves me wondering if Google and Samsung are going to do the same thing at their little get together next week? I think releasing the Samsung Galaxy S2 with a new 3MP front facing camera, and a choice of two new lock screens in the UI of ICS would just about bring them up to par with Apple. I think it is unlikely, and I am confident that Apple will have to release a new device before next summer or risk falling even further behind Android, ICS running on quadcore in 2012 anyone?

I now understand why they chose not to broadcast the event live, can you imagine how boring it would have been for us poor unsuspecting civilians?

Through Apple’s Reuse and Recycle Program, Apple is offering $200 for your old iPhone. off course it depends on the condition. Now this is the white iPhone and 16GB for it in perfect condition. While the black version is $180. So if you are luck, you can get a new 16GB iPhone 4s for nothing as long as your old iPhone 4 is mint.  Considering the new iPhone 4s is available at Starting at $199 with 2yrs for the 16GB version. Check out the rest of our iPhone 4s coverage here

We saw the leaked about 30 mins before the start of the conference. Apple has just announced the iPhone 4S. On the outside the 4S looks exactly like its predecessor, but on the the inside its got an updated camera app, running iOS5, An A5 dual-core cpu, 7x faster than previous iPhone on gaming. Same 3.5" Retina display. Data can now download up to 2x as fast. Theoretical max performance used to be 5.8 up and 7.2 down — now doubles to almost 14.4Mbps down. HSPA+ device. as well as CDMA A Worldphone.

Will sport a New 8MP camera records at 1080p, with a wide f2.3 stop. Taking pictures in 1.1 sec

The iPhone 4S, comes in Black and white, 16GB for $199, 32GB for $299, and 64GB for $399. 64GB

Pre-orders start Oct7th for a OCt 14th release date.

IOS5 enhancements

Mail enhancements: PC-free. “We have a lot of customers who want to use the iPad or iPhone as their only device.” Well, now you can, and it ain’t too shabby. “These are just ten of the new features in iOS 5.”

Siri- The intelligent assistant: “Compose and dictate email right to Siri. Set timers. Look up contacts, create notes, search the web, search Wikipedia. It’s absolutely blow-away. Well, who is Siri? Just ask!” Siri: “I am a humble personal assistant.”

iCloud_ Backup: daily backups from your iOS devices, “easily restored right from iCloud.” I’m not so sure about this one, I kind of like owning my backups, you know? Next: syncing contacts, calendars, mail — an ad-free me.com mail account. Find My iPhone is part of iCloud

iTunes Match service — again, review from past announcements. Granted, it’s not out yet, but you’ve probably heard about it by now. “It scans and matches your library against our 20m songs, we’ll upload what we don’t find, we’ll stream…” wait, did he just say stream? I don’t think he meant to say stream.

It looks like the Apple Store jumped the gun and posted up picks of the iPhone 4S, which looks like an iPhone 4 running iOS 5. The Japanese Apple site posted the image and has since been taken down. with an expedited release date of Oct. 14th. No word on LTE, or what network other than the safe assumption is coming to AT&T & Verizon. We still have about a half hour to go. So we should get confirmation of this soon.

iPhone 4s Press image VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

PRESS RELEASE

Apple Launches iPhone 4S, iOS 5 & iCloud

iPhone 4S Features Dual-Core A5 Chip, All New Camera, Full 1080p HD Video Recording & Introduces Siri

CUPERTINO, California—October 4, 2011—Apple® today announced iPhone® 4S, the most amazing iPhone yet, packed with incredible new features including Apple’s dual-core A5 chip for blazing fast performance and stunning graphics; an all new camera with advanced optics; full 1080p HD resolution video recording; and Siri™, an intelligent assistant that helps you get things done just by asking. With the launch of iPhone 4S also comes the launch of iOS 5, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system with over 200 new features; and iCloud®, a breakthrough set of free cloud services that work with your iPhone, iPad®, iPod touch®, Mac® or PC to automatically and wirelessly store your content in iCloud and push it to all your devices.

“iPhone 4S plus iOS 5 plus iCloud is a breakthrough combination that makes the iPhone 4S the best iPhone ever,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “While our competitors try to imitate iPhone with a checklist of features, only iPhone can deliver these breakthrough innovations that work seamlessly together.”
iPhone 4S comes with iOS 5, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system, which includes over 200 new features including Notification Center, an innovative way to easily view and manage notifications in one place without interruption and iMessage™, a new messaging service that lets you easily send text messages, photos and videos between all iOS 5 users. iOS 5 will also be available as a free software update for iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS customers allowing them to experience these amazing new features.*

iPhone 4S also introduces Siri, an intelligent assistant that helps you get things done just by asking. Siri understands context allowing you to speak naturally when you ask it questions, for example, if you ask “Will I need an umbrella this weekend?” it understands you are looking for a weather forecast. Siri is also smart about using the personal information you allow it to access, for example, if you tell Siri “Remind me to call Mom when I get home” it can find “Mom” in your address book, or ask Siri “What’s the traffic like around here?” and it can figure out where “here” is based on your current location. Siri helps you make calls, send text messages or email, schedule meetings and reminders, make notes, search the Internet, find local businesses, get directions and more. You can also get answers, find facts and even perform complex calculations just by asking.
iCloud is a breakthrough set of free cloud services, including iTunes® in the Cloud, Photo Stream and Documents in the Cloud, that work seamlessly with your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac or PC to automatically and wirelessly store your content in iCloud and push it to all your devices. When content changes on one device, all your other devices are updated automatically and wirelessly.

iPhone 4S includes an all new camera with the most advanced optics of any phone. The 8 megapixel sensor has 60 percent more pixels so you can take amazing high quality photos with more detail than ever. iPhone 4S includes a new custom lens, a larger f/2.4 aperture and an advanced hybrid IR filter that produce sharper, brighter and more accurate images. The Apple-designed image signal processor in the A5 dual-core chip is built for performance, and coupled with the features built into iOS 5, makes the camera one of the fastest on any phone. With iPhone 4S, the Camera app launches much faster and the shot to shot capability is twice as fast, so you’ll never miss another shot.

New features in the Camera and Photos apps give you instant access to the camera right from the lock screen, and you can also use the volume-up button to quickly snap a photo. Optional grid lines help line up your shot and a simple tap locks focus and exposure on one subject; and the new Photos app lets you crop, rotate, enhance and remove red-eye, and organize your photos into albums right on your device to share them on the go. New iOS 5 features include built-in Twitter integration and iMessage, so you can instantly share your photos via Twitter directly from the Photos app and send photos via iMessage to individuals or groups. And with iCloud’s innovative new Photo Stream service, a photo you take on your iPhone is sent to iCloud and automatically pushed to your iPad, iPod touch, Mac or PC. You can even view your Photo Stream album on your Apple TV®.

iPhone 4S can also now record video in full 1080p HD resolution and with the new video image stabilization feature, you can take richer, smoother videos. Other iPhone 4S video camera improvements include increased sensitivity, sharpness and an increased ability to capture video in low light conditions. With the new iMessage service in iOS 5, you can now instantly share videos with family and friends.
iPhone 4S has the same beautifully thin glass and stainless steel design that millions of customers around the world love, while being completely redesigned on the inside. Apple’s dual-core A5 chip delivers up to twice the processing power and up to seven times faster graphics than iPhone 4, all while maintaining incredible battery life—now up to 8 hours of 3G talk time.

Improving on the innovative stainless steel external, dual-antenna design of iPhone 4, iPhone 4S is the first phone to intelligently switch between two antennas to send and receive. iPhone 4S now supports twice the download speed with HSDPA of up to 14.4 Mbps and iPhone 4S is a world phone, so both CDMA and GSM customers can now roam internationally on GSM networks.**

Pricing & Availability
iPhone 4S comes in either black or white and will be available in the US for a suggested retail price of $199 (US) for the 16GB model and $299 (US) for the 32GB model and $399 (US) for the new 64GB model.*** iPhone 4S will be available from the Apple Online Store, Apple’s retail stores and through AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless and select Apple Authorized Resellers. iPhone 4S will be available in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the UK on Friday, October 14 and customers can pre-order their iPhone 4S beginning Friday, October 7. iPhone 4 will also be available for just $99 (US) and iPhone 3GS will be available for free with a two year contract. Siri will be available in beta on iPhone 4S in English (localized for US, UK and Australia), French and German. iOS 5 software will be available on October 12 as a free software update via iTunes 10.5 for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch customers.
iPhone 4S will roll out worldwide to 22 more countries by the end of October including Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
*Some features may not be available on all products.
**Carrier roaming policies apply. HSDPA availability and network speeds are dependent on carrier networks.
***Qualified customers only. Requires a new two year rate plan, sold separately.
Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and

The hour is at hand, and today on Oct. 4th 2011, all the rumors are coming to a screeching halt. At 1pm we will be Liveblogging Apple’s iPhone event. Where you know the company will be detailing what it has planed next for the iPhone. In the last 24 hours if have gotten rumors of an exclusive iPhone 5 to Sprint. A $99 iPhone 4 and an iPhone 4S. an iPhone showing up with T-mobile’s AWS network chip. Please let the craziness stop, I am sure you are tired of seeing proposed iPhone 5 cases, and fake mock-ups. The Speculation has gone rampant and you really cant trust an single analyst or business report. Because we don’t know, until Apple spills the beans.   So come back here at 1pm and check out our live blog of the event. To see what truly will happen with the iPhone

Well the wait is over and all the iPhone rumors can end. Apple has set the date for its iPhone press conference at the company’s Cupertino headquarters. They are giving us a clear message here, and its all about the iPhone. Now the only question left, is this about the iPhone 5 or the iPhone4S. we shall see and we will you more from the event on the 4th of Oct.

The IDAPT i4  universal charging station can charge up to 4 different mobile devices simultaneously, giving you a clean and virtually cordless charging station. Featuring our patented interchangeable tip technology, the i4 is compatible with over 4,000 different devices including: iPad, iPhone 4, BlackBerry,Mini-USB devices, Micro-USB Devices, Nintendo DS, PSP, digital cameras, GPS systems, and Bluetooth products.

From our use the IDAPT i4 worked as expected, it was easy to interchange the tips by using the release buttons.  and the LED indicator chows when devices is charging (red), charged(green). There is also a USB port to charge devices that don’t have corresponding tips. In all the IDAPT i4 is easy to use and a breeze to set-up

IDAPT i4 Universal Charging Station VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

***Giveaway****

We are giving away this iDPAT i4 and its easy to win

Contest starts now and end Friday July 29th by 11.59am

Contest entry eligible to US residents only

“Leave a comment with the post or video and you are entered to win”

Please note: This is not an attack on Apple. This is just the most fitting example!

Lawsuits. They seem to be lurking around every corner these days. Jump onto Twitter and the first thing you see is the news that a mobile OEM has sued another for patent infringement. Patents are their to make sure companies can secure their own IP and make sure that rival companies cannot copy them in order to further their own success. This makes sense, and it is a good system within most markets. However in the technology market, especially the mobile technology market, it is becoming a tourniquet around the arm of technological capitalism and is stifling new technologies.

Without wanting to sound too much like an ageing hippie; money should not be the be all and end all, what about the consumer? Obviously firms such as Apple and HTC cannot, and will not, cease from aiming to make as much money as possible, they are businesses and that is the aim of a business, make as much profit as possible. This cannot change, however the manner in which patents are created, and then subsequently infringed upon can. I am going to use the obvious example of HTC vs. Samsung, and I am going to write this without the stigma of my Android fan boyism.

Apple have got a huge patent portfolio and have innovated in many brilliant ways. However several of the patents they are own are thoroughly ludicrous. Apple are accosting Samsung because their Galaxy S line of phones bear a resemblance to the iphone, and I do not deny that there are obvious similarities. Yet does this mean that Apple has the right to any device with a metal, or metalesque (you cheap skates Samsung…), bezel? The right to any UI with icons placed in a grid on the home screen? The patented materials are astonishingly vague!

If Samsung had made a phone with the intention of cloning the iphone: copying the design and the UI in an attempt to sell it off as an iphone then they deserve to be sued. But they have not done this. Smartphones all look fairly similar nowadays, with the majority sporting a candy bar design with at least one hardware button on the front. It is very difficult to thing of any device that does not share some features with the iphone, it’s rather like trying to design a laptop, it will have a few design similarities with the Macbook/Macbook Pro. Unless you decide to make your smartphone out of sweet cheese then these similarities are inescapable, admittedly the Galaxy S has quite a few similarities, but they are just similarities it is not a “rip off” of the iphone. People are not going to buy the Galaxy S thinking that it is an iphone, just as people are not going to buy the Galaxy S purely because it looks a bit like the iphone. People are buying the phone because it offers them a brilliant Android experience, and this brings us to the very crux of the issue.

Apple are effectively suing Android through Samsung, HTC and all the other OEM’s it is targeting at the moment, and the reason is obvious, these lawsuits are manifestations of Apple’s unease within the smartphone market. Android is on the up and up, dominating over 50% of the US smartphone market and Apple is scared. Simple as that, and rather than innovate and overcome this competition they have decided to hide behind a wall of patents and hope that in the ensuing chaos Android gets a few wounds. An interesting move from the company who claim everyone else fails innovate and just copies them, have you seen IOS5 ?!

All the mobile OEM companies need to stop for a second and think about the consumer. We get nothing out of you brutally and pedantically enforcing, often quasi archaic patents, in order to create some turnover and damage competition. Innovation and fresh thinking generates huge turnovers for companies as well as benefiting the consumers. I know we will never live in a world when we, as the consumer, come purely first, But hey, a guy can dream. And in way of a shield against any IOS fan boys, have a good look at IOS5 and then Android and then try and argue that Apple is the victim of copy cat companies.

A lot of smartphone talk these days seems to center around apps – the iPhone is the best phone because it has the largest app store, the N9 is dead in the water because it doesn’t have many apps yet, BlackBerry is a waste of time because it has a small app store, and so on. But how important are apps really? Or, more to the point, is such a plethora of apps really necessary?

The average number of apps the average user installs is between seven and nine. Of these, the basics typically include Facebook, Twitter and a weather app. Some people have others either for work or pleasure, but certainly no one is installing hundreds and hundreds.  All About Symbian article explains, most of the top ten apps installed on the iPhone are natively included in Symbian phones, so the need for that app on Nokia phones evaporates. Similarly, the Nokia N900 has no Skype app, because Skype is fully integrated into the phone so users can get contacts and make and receive calls and IMs without an app. Conversely, the iPhone is extremely limited in its features straight out of the box and so is much more reliant on developers to fill those gaps.

Taking a look through the app store, though, what we see is that of the hundreds of thousands of apps, many are just free crap that are of no use nor interest to most people. There is no shortage of fart or joke apps, many apps are duplicated, others are wallpapers and themes and others are just mobile browsing bookmarks like the Guardian app. In other words, there is a huge number of possible apps to install but it is very much the minority that is worth installing.

Going back to the N900, it doesn’t need mobile bookmarks because it has the option to save a bookmark to any of the multiple desktops. Themes can be downloaded from the native repositories and wallpapers can be downloaded from any website and installed easily thanks to the fact that no proprietary software like iTunes is required to install them.

In any case, apps are largely there to allow a phone to do what it can’t do natively. Therefore, the real question of a device’s status should not be the number of apps it allows, but the number of apps it needs. In other words, the more a device can do by itself, the less the user needs to scroll through endless lists of apps to find something they want to do. Windows Phone 7 negates the need to download any Office software because it already comes bundled in. The Nokia N8 doesn’t need any photo or camera software downloaded because it’s pre-installed and the N9 will be landing with native Twitter, Facebook and RSS clients, so they will not need to be downloaded either.

Moreover, aside from a handful of apps useful to specific people based on their work or lifestyle, it’s fair to say most users spend most of their phone time on social media of some kind, web browsing, the camera, and calls and texts. If a phone can do all those things immediately then that will be more convenient for the user.

When talking about phones and app stores there seems to be a heavy emphasis on quantity of apps rather than quality. I would rather have a selection of 500 useful, quality apps than 250,000 apps of which 249,000 are garbage. I don’t want to wade through fart apps and joke apps and repetitions just to find an app to locate where I have parked my car for instance.

Apple popularised the idea of an app store and created the concept of the app race, chiefly because it was winning it and it can hand out impressive numbers about developers. The truth is, though, that it is utterly meaningless. There will be very little indeed in the Apple App Store that isn’t in the Android Marketplace, or a suitable equivalent in Nokia’s Ovi Store. I would wager money betting that no one has viewed every app in the App Store, which just highlights that having such a large number available really just makes it harder to find what you want, especially if you don’t happen to know the name of the app to do a direct search.

So if apps were created to fill the gap, then the next step is a device emerging to fill those gaps natively. And while Apple hasn’t noticed this, it is precisely what is happening. With Microsoft having Twitter, LinkedIn, Skype and Facebook integrated in the phone there will be a reduced need for the apps. With all the IM protocols natively supported on the N900, there is no need for Fring or Nimbuzz because MSN, AIM, Yahoo!, Skype and Facebook chat can be set up without third-party software. The N9 is all about natural interactions with a phone, hence the lack of a home button, and part of this process is removing the necessity to install apps for certain tasks. So now instead of opening Facebook, closing Facebook, then opening Twitter and closing Twitter, you just have to swipe your finger to see notifications, Facebook, Twitter, RSS and weather all in one view. Instead of needing to install Joikuspot, the phone can be used as a Wi-Fi hotspot natively.

The bottom line is the more a device can do by itself, the less we need apps. The vast majority – in fact I’d say ‘all’ – users only install a relatively small amount of apps, and most people would prefer a device to do the things they need without an app. This would make phones smarter, more useful, and more attuned to the needs of the user.



Yesterday saw Apple unveil iOS5, the next update for the iPhone and iPad, and as usual there was much anticipation surrounding the event. I remember last year, before the iOS4 update, thinking that Apple would either announce things that would have the OS catch up to the competition – widgets, navigation, multitasking etc – or it would continue in its own fashion, so I was disappointed but not surprised to see that very little really changed in the software, especially regarding widgets and the ‘we don’t trust the user to close things and we don’t want them to realise the battery is terrible’ multitasking. This year brought more than disappointment, though, for it saw Apple continue with its special brand of advertising – copy the competition and claim it as unique.

Firstly, let’s look at those numbers they proudly mentioned.

“To date we have sold over 200 million iOS devices.”

Okay, good starting point. Nothing wrong with that figure at all.

“That makes iOS the number one mobile operating system, with more than 44% of the market.”

Surely not. 200 million iOS devices? Nokia sell over double that each and every year. Odds are the marketshare mentioned is US-specific, because worldwide Nokia is number one as a handset market with 24%, while Apple has 18%, and of the 400+ million handsets sold from Nokia the majority are running Symbian, which has a world marketshare of 25%, compared to iOS’s 18%. So no, iOS isn’t the number one mobile operating system unless you look at a very specific demographic. The problem with this is that the USA makes up a very small percentage of worldwide mobile phone usage, which is precisely why Nokia has small impact there but is the world’s largest handset manufacturer. By focusing only on the USA for the keynote, Apple demonstrated a false opinion that the American market is larger or more important than the rest of the world, even though the cellular market, in terms of data speed and carrier relations/tower sharing, is much behind that of a lot of Europe.

“We’ve created a whole new category of device with the iPad.”

No, the iPad is an internet tablet, which Nokia invented with the 770 in 2005 – which, incidentally, also supported Flash. The iPad is a massive iPhone, rather than something specifically designed for the internet in the way the 770, N800 and N810 were, and the N900 continued.

With that cleared up let’s look at the, ahem, “new” features.

Notifications. These had to change, anyone who has used an iPhone will be more than happy to state how annoying and obtrusive the current notifications are when watching a video or playing a game, so a new method was expected. What wasn’t quite so expected though was the blatant Android rip-off that has been implemented in iOS5 – the pull-down status bar with a list of what you missed. Yes it’s nice and easy, but WP7 has a nice and easy version too, as do Maemo 5 and Symbian, both of which can also be bolstered with a widget. What makes it worse is Apple’s typical noise: “We have built something that solves some of the current problems.” – No Apple, you have stolen something that solves the issue, you haven’t really “built” anything.

Notifications are also visible from the lock screen (like Symbian and Android) and you can access them from the lock screen (like Android and Symbian with the Bubbles app). There is one distinguishing feature here, though: iOS doesn’t let you clear all the notifications, so you need to manually close them. In other words, Apple stole the usefulness of Android’s design and then removed one of the most important and convenient parts. Way to go Apple…

Twitter integration. This is good, sort of. You sign in through Settings and then the details are saved, even to apps that want to use it with permission. This allows you to tweet links, map locations, photos and the like from the OS. Sounds great, and it is, although it’s odd that Facebook isn’t given the same treatment. And while this is a nice inclusion, Twitter isn’t as integrated as WP7 will make it in the Mango update. Oh and Twitter contacts in your address book can be updated, like they can in Android and Symbian, but it doesn’t actually take advantage of you having Twitter friends like WP7 does.

Another bold statement follows:

“Safari is the best mobile web browser out there.”

I’ve used Safari on the iPhone. To put it bluntly, it’s pretty crud. I won’t talk about the lack of Flash, the actual usability lacks in my opinion. Put this up next to the N900’s MicroB and Safari gets a good kicking – MicroB plays Flash, it lets you copy text and images, it renders pages like your desktop computer, and it’s much easier to navigate. Safari on the iPhone feels like a baby browser, MicroB is the real deal. Going back to Flash for just a second, how can anything be deemed the “best” when it doesn’t let you access the whole web?

Now, the new update brings Safari Reader, which is located in the status bar and if you tap it it removes everything but the story text. Pretty neat, but let’s not ignore the fact that if you double-tap text in a browser already it focuses only on the text, so nothing exactly revolutionary. It’s then said that you can email not just the link but the contents of the page – now, this is good news but MicroB let users do this back in 2009. The only real difference is when you are reading a multi-page article, Reader will put it into one streamline view, which is a nice touch. The other thing added is a Read It Later function, so you can save a page to read later – much like, say, bookmarks on every other browser, or Read It Later on Firefox which can be used on Maemo 5 and Android and then picked up on the computer.

Then comes tabbed browsing. About time, Opera started doing this how long ago? Firefox was released on Maemo 5 in 2009 and that came with tabbed browsing too. Welcome to the past Apple, we missed you.

iOS5 also brings reminders. Yes, every other OS also has reminders. The only difference really seems to be you can set a location reminder, so when you leave a certain place you’ll be reminded to do something. A nice touch, not sure how often people will use that and it seems pretty minor, but Apple are masters of that. It also syncs across devices, much like pretty much every other OS, which let you sync your Google Calendar across devices and computers.

The camera has also got an update. This should be interesting, given how outrageously limited the camera currently is with no settings to speak of. What’s new? There’s a camera icon on the lockscreen, and you can use the volume key to take a photo, but only in the camera app itself. Compare this to WP7 where the dedicated camera button will wake the device so you can take a photo at a moment’s notice, or Nokia’s having long had dedicated camera buttons while the volume buttons zoom in and out, much more intuitive and akin to a real camera, whereas the iPhone has the user fumbling, trying to keep it steady with one hand while the other pokes the screen. In the update, if you tap and hold a certain part of the image it will automatically adjust the settings to maximise that section, and you can edit photos from the device – so the iPhone still lacks massively in the camera department, with anaemic settings options and no option to set different modes manually. There are just 6 letters and 1 number to consider here: Nokia N8. And every other device that lets you edit photos on the device itself.

Mail got an update, you can now search the contents of a message. Once again, the N900 was offering this in 2009, and you can flag messages, which other phones already let you do. And there’s a dictionary built in too, like Windows Phone 7 except Apple’s actually lets you hit ‘define’ to get a definition. Apparently people use words they don’t know the meaning of – is that an insight into the average iPhone user?

The new keyboard is pretty neat, just grab it and drag up and it splits in half, with each half on either side of the screen for easy thumb typing. This is a nice addition, but once again Android already had it. It’s really only useful on tablets though, as it’s not difficult to type with your thumbs on a phone already.

Next is “PC-free”, for people who don’t have computers. Before you get too excited, this is what the rest of us simply call “wireless”, and is anyone else troubled by the announcement that now you can use your phone without a computer? I don’t know about you guys, but I have yet to own a phone that needed to be connected to a computer to set up. There are also now over the air (OTA) software updates. This is new to Apple, but Maemo 5, Symbian and Android already offer it.

Game Center is then introduced, basically explaining how many games the iPhone has (100,000) and how many users (50 million) and how it’s more social now, as well as letting you play turn-based games.

Then there’s iMessage, which is Apple’s take on BlackBerry Messenger. Basically iPad and iPod users will get the same messaging service, and messages will be synced across all your devices. iMessage will know when someone is eligible for iMessaging.  This seems to be a carbon copy of Skype’s IM, if you have Skype open on your phone and computer both get notifications, just as if you’re logged onto MSN in multiple locations. So this again isn’t something new, it’s just Apple’s foray into IM. What is much more appealing is WP7’s new feature of noticing who you are talking to regardless of how – Facebook, Skype, SMS etc, and putting it all in one conversation thread. The “new” messaging service also offers delivery and read receipts, like my Nokia 3210 was doing almost a decade ago.

Part of the PC-free deal also means you can wirelessly sync your iTunes – just like WP7 syncs to Zune and Android wirelessly syncs too. Another ground-breaking initiative from Apple.

That’s the keynote talk about iOS5 in a nutshell, and what it really shows is Apple’s lack of creativity in the mobile market. In 2007 it changed the phone game with the design of the phone, but it has never been ahead software-wise. The first iPhone did less features than the Nokia N95, and it still lacks some of those basic but important features. It took 3 years just to allow folders and wallpapers. Video calling has been around for many years, so Apple gave it a new name and limited how it could be used and sold it as something new and revolutionary in FaceTime. While other phones were allowing widgets, Apple refused (and still hasn’t budged on this). While Symbian allows live multitasking and retains the crown as the battery king, Apple still doesn’t really allow multitasking (app pausing isn’t the same thing) and still has terrible battery life. Other systems allow eBooks to be read, so Apple gave it a new name and a fancier interface and once again called it something new.

If anything, iOS5 shows that Apple is running out of steam and ideas for software. Borrowing so heavily from Android and other systems is a stark message to consumers that it doesn’t really know how to differentiate itself, that the success in 2007 was because the package was pretty and that’s all the iPhone has ever really had going for it. At no point has an iPhone user managed to demonstrate what that phone can do that various others can do, including much older devices. When you break iOS down, as a software system it is little more than an app launcher. Peter Skillman, Nokia’s new smartphone design chief, was quoted in in September 2010 saying “If a user wants to walk from the kitchen to the dining room in her house, she simply walks through.  It does not work like that in mobile–you have to go through the front door to get to the kitchen.  iPhone has a home button which works like a go-back-to-front-door button.  This is not a model that human beings are used to.  People are spatial.” Microsoft have worked to utilise a new model (even outright stealing the ‘front door’ analogy in the Mango conference), but Apple has done nothing. The home screen remains as static and boring as it ever did, widgets remain elusive, and it’s still a case of closing one, opening another.

I don’t expect iPhone sales will dwindle from this, if anything the user experience will be better than it has been on the iPhone to date, but I hear quite regularly people saying the iPhone is boring, hasn’t changed enough, isn’t matching the competition, that Apple takes existing features and give them a new name. The latter hasn’t really been done much this year (excluding iMessaging and PC-free), which in itself just goes to show how little has really been implemented. So I wouldn’t be surprised to see consumers getting more frustrated with Apple – the company that changed how we use mobile phones in 2007 but, despite good sales and a pretty package, has seemingly let go of the pulse since then, just making existing things a bit prettier than they are elsewhere – and thus spending their money on other operating systems, notably the ones that actually are advancing mobile technology. Apple today made noise about OTA updates but hasn’t even introduced turn by turn navigation, the former being something that should have been implemented at least 18 months ago and the latter is something that is increasingly important and offered elsewhere.

I was never really convinced Apple belonged in the mobile market – the adverts are all great, but picking up a device and trying to do something (‘hey, where are the camera settings?’ or ‘no sorry I can’t Bluetooth this photo’) didn’t match the hype. With iOS5 continuing this trail of disappointment, I’m now firmly convinced Apple have entered a market they don’t know what to do with. And before the fanboys chime in with sales figures – that’s not the point, if it were, you’d all be using Android and Symbian, considering they’re the top worldwide operating systems, or using Windows PCs because that’s the most popular. While iOS5 was supposed to make a mockery of Windows Phone’s Mango update, it’s actually ended up with Apple borrowing a number of features. What the other companies need to learn from this is that marketing really pays off – if, for instance, Nokia made fun adverts about how much more Symbian does than other systems, it would probably get more sales. Rather, Apple is stamping out in commercials how the iPhone does this and that, so consumers think that the other companies don’t, else they’d mention them.

This article has deliberately not mentioned the iCloud unveiling because it is a separate entity to iOS, however what I will say is that while Jobs and co. made a great effort to talk up iCloud and how it syncs everywhere at once, they neglected to mention that this is precisely what a cloud service is – Google does it, Dropbox does it, SkyDrive does it. However, iCloud only syncs the last 1,000 photos, to save battery apparently, while SkyDrive uploads everything and DropBox will take what you throw at it within the space you have. Perhaps when the rose-tinted sheen has worn off, people will look back at iOS keynotes from 2008 and realise them for what they are: taking existing things, giving them a fancy name and shiny design and claiming them as revolutionary.

I love my Zune HD player. That PMP drew rave reviews for sound quality from critics throughout the industry, but MS failed to capitalize on it. I can’t remember ever seeing print or TV ads for my beloved Zune, but for the blasted iPod? They were everywhere I turned.

Needless to say, I am still a little bitter about that.

They had a chance to have a horse in the race with the iPod but unless it was Windows or an XBOX, they could care less, and now the Zune is in limbo, future uncertain.

I have a HTC EVO 4G which has served me well and am looking to upgrade. I am leaning towards a Samsung Galaxy S2 but upon watching the Mango conference the other day, it had me intrigued.

Has MS realized their mistake in not heavily promoting their non XBOX and Windows products? I don’t know – how much advertising do you see for the Windows phone outside of tech blogs?

Meanwhile, how many celebs do you see with iPhones in the paper?

Slacker Premium radio services is the next step in music entertainment on-demand.  Priced at $9.99, Slack Premium gives you all the features of the $3.99 radio plus; unlimited skips, no ads, ability to cache stations, news radio & song lyrics. The user on Slacker Premium services now has unlimited access to 8 million songs on demand, the ability to skip back, and the ability to create your own playlist of any song or artist.  So our aim here is to see how effective Slacker Premium is, can we create an unlimited playlist of my favorite songs and cache that to my Smartphone for a flight to Brazil? Lets see what happens in the review

Verdict: They are many aspect to Slacker’s On-demand service that have evolved they way we listen to music. The combination of radio and & MP3 player present with Slacker’s new offering. From the ability to create listen and customize your own playlist. To the vast amount of song available at your finger tip, it hard not to see how well Slacker’s Premium On-demand services bring a change to the already slate arena on internet radio.

If I have one complaint , it would be the instability of the app build, I have noticed some crashes and hang-ups. Which should be resolved in an update.  So far Slacker as created a service that provides you with the music you love at your finger tips, as you discover new music on the go. Besides if also free to try out for a month