Many millions of people worldwide were looking out for the announcement of the iPhone 5 and were left a bit deflated when there was no iPhone 5 but a newer iPhone 4 modeled on the same design of the iPhone 4.

Apple didn’t re-design the iPhone 4 because quite frankly, the iPhone 4 is the best looking and designed iPhone to date. It’s so good that Samsung and other companies are copying the design of the iPhone 4, like they did with the iPad and iPad 2 to increase their sales.

For anyone thinking there isn’t a lot of new features in the iPhone 4S, the iPhone 4S is evolutionary not revolutionary, here is a breakdown of the new features…

• iOS 5 – greatly overhauled to enhance speed, enhance notifications and a lot more
• Dual-Core  A5 chip, making the device much faster
• All new 8 megapixel camera with better CMOS (almost double the pixels over the iPhone 4′s 5 megapixel camera), f/2.4 aperture and face detection
• 1080P HD Video Recording as standard
• New Notification Message Center and iMessage
• iCloud support allowing you to have all your data in the cloud
• iTunes Match allowing you to have all your music in the cloud
• Siri. The intelligent assistant that helps you get things done. All you have to do is ask
• iPhone 4S supports ALL networks GSM and CDMA in a single phone
• AirPlay as standard
• iPhone 4S is the first phone to intelligently switch between two antennas to transmit and receive, so call quality is better. It also doubles the maximum HSDPA data speeds from 7Mbps to 14.4 Mbps. Which means faster connections, faster loading and reloading, and faster downloads.

The biggest enhancement that everyone will see on a daily usage is the A5 processor as Apple explain “Two cores in the A5 chip deliver up to two times more power and up to seven times faster graphics.2 And you’ll feel the effects. Fast. iPhone 4S is quick and responsive, which makes all the difference when you’re launching apps, browsing the web, gaming and doing just about everything. And no matter what you’re doing, you can keep on doing it. Because the A5 chip is so power-efficient, iPhone 4S has outstanding battery life.“

If you still doubt the A5 chip will enhance the iPhone 4S then “The dual-core A5 chip delivers up to two times more processing power, which makes iPhone 4S even more responsive. Pages load quicker. Gameplay is better. And everything just feels faster.“

So there might not be an iPhone 5 available this year, but these are significant enhancements over the iPhone 4, very similar to the enhancements seen from the iPad 2 over the original iPad.

To compare some of the iPhone 4S features, see the table below

Will many previous iPhone customers upgrade?  I think it will be similar to how many iPad 1 customers upgraded to iPad 2.  Eventually when your mobile phone contracts are up for renewal then many will go for the iPhone 4S.  The die-hard Apple fans will undoubtedly upgrade within the first 3 months of launch.  For anyone upgrading the main enhancements will be the Speed of the dual core processor, the enhanced camera and video recording and perhaps Siri.

Steve, R.I.P and enjoy your time looking down at us all from the great iCloud in the sky.

Oh sheesh! I turned on the iPad and then was up for the next hour watching Twit.tv and the coverage they had as a news breaker.

Now I know why I couldn’t sleep, with something that big brewing.

The writing has been on the cake a long time. Steve’s resignation has been expected due to the pancreatic cancer he had and his liver transplant all within the past 7 years, and the more recent leave of absence suggesting that more health problems might be a foot (or existing ones materialising), but it still comes a shock to the best of us.

Steve also has his autobiography coming out, originally due in 2012 it’s apparently been moved forward to November 2011.

Steve has been visionary throughout the entire Apple process, although Steve is resigning as CEO he is going to still going to be around at Apple as Chairman, but just won’t have the day to day involvement in shaping products that he’s enjoyed for over the last decade.

In the past year (2010) Apple has sold nearly 15 million iPads and a staggering 100 million iPhones.  Compared to Apple’s closest competitor for iPad clones, this is a staggering amount.

The new iPad 2 is one third (1/3) thinner, comes in white or black (yes white!) and shipping March 11th 2011. It comes in familiar models, same storage, same price as original iPad:-

Battery
The iPad 2 has the exact same battery duration as the first edition iPad, basically 10 hours of battery life or 1 month standby time

Display

• 9.7-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen Multi-Touch display with IPS technology
• 1024-by-768-pixel resolution at 132 pixels per inch (ppi)
• Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating
• Support for display of multiple languages and characters simultaneously

Performance
The iPad 2 comes with the new A5 processor that is twice as fast as the original iPad.

Two powerful cores in one A5 chip mean iPad can do twice the work at once. You’ll notice the difference when you’re surfing the web, watching movies, making FaceTime video calls, gaming, and going from app to app to app. Multitasking is smoother, apps load faster, and everything just works better.

Superfast graphics with up to nine times the graphics performance, gameplay on iPad is even smoother and more realistic. And faster graphics help apps perform better — especially those with video. You’ll see it when you’re scrolling through your photo library, editing video with iMovie, and viewing animations in Keynote.

Covers
The iPad 2 will come with “Smart Ocvers” which bends and wraps around the iPad and allows you to use the iPad 2 as a typing stand. Smart Covers come in five polyurethane colors for $39 plus five leather colors at $69.

iOS
iPad 2 will ship with iOS 4.3 (not iOS5 like some people were suggesting). Enhancements include improved Safari performance with Nitro JavaScript that sits on top of iOS. iTunes Home sharing of videos straight to the iPad or iPhone using it as a video playback device with streaming via AirPlay.

Video and Cameras
Video out support for full HDMI output at 1080p will work with all apps. Two cameras (front and rear) the rear camera can shoot 720p video.

• Back camera: Video recording, HD (720p) up to 30 frames per second with audio; still camera with 5x digital zoom
• Front camera: Video recording, VGA up to 30 frames per second with audio; VGA-quality still camera
• Tap to control exposure for video or stills
• Photo and video geotagging over Wi-Fi

TV and Video

• Video mirroring and video out support: Up to 1080p with Apple Digital AV Adapter or Apple VGA Adapter (cables sold separately)
• Video out support at 576p and 480p with Apple Component AV Cable; 576i and 480i with Apple Composite AV Cable
• Video formats supported: H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format

Shipping

• Shipping March 11th!

1. Reduce my expenditure on the iTunes AppStore – £607.19 to date
2. Embrace the Mac OS more (which ultimately will mean I break (1)
3. Keep up on my RSS feeds for checking the latest news
4. Watch more Tech Podcast videos (that’s been falling lately)
5. Try and convince work to migrate to Mac’s
6. Try to resist buying the iPad 2G when it’s available in March
7. Use my iPhone battery extenders more by taking them with me wherever I go
8. Fully embrace the Mac AppStore when it’s released
9. Chuck out all of the Christmas food that hasn’t been eaten
10. Oh and the popular one on everyones list….lose some more weight!

Go and drink yourself silly, eat lots of mince pies and enjoy the festive season! Go break open those presents and start playing with your iPhone’s, iPad’s, iPod Touch’s and Games Consoles!

Thanks for all your support!

I had a bit of a bumpy ride with the Macbook Air, I ordered from Apple.com on Thanksgiving, it took a week to arrive, got delayed by the snow. Within two days the ESC key had broken after three key presses. Had to return the Macbook Air to Apple, two weeks later received the replacement again shipped from China. This time I was lucky to get it two days before more snow hit the country.

So far so good, loving the new Macbook Air experience. The only thing I would say is the 128gb SSD isn’t nearly enough once you start using iTunes with iOS devices like the iPad that are 64gb in size + a large music collection, but other than that it’s very nice and very fast. I don’t think I’ll ever buy another Windows laptop.

Kindle isn’t new, there was the Kindle 1, Kindle 2 and Kindle 2 DX and also the Kindle app for Android, iPhone and iPad.  I should add a note here that I have not previously used the Kindle 1, Kindle 2 or Kindle 2 DX but I have had the Android, iPhone and iPad apps and have been reading eBooks more recently in the Kindle iPad app.

The entire purchase from start to finish is pretty easy with Amazon, like with purchasing anything from Amazon, it’s a 1-click system, just buy and it arrives delivered wireless to your device over WiFi or 3G if you have the 3G model.  It also can be downloaded free to all of your Kindle devices that you have or devices you have the Kindle app installed to, e.g. iPad.  The purchase process has been improved a little for non-USA customers (e.g. us UK users) because you can now migrate your Kindle account to an Amazon UK account (more Amazon country accounts coming soon).  This means you can now be charged in the Queens British pound and not that US dollar.  price wise the conversion doesn’t vary that much so it’s not really a problem either way unless you hated seeing US dollars appearing on your credit card statement.

Out of Box
I’m amazed at the size of the Kindle 3 – the TV adverts and Amazon images online really don’t do it full justice.  If you thought it looked thin, it’s wafer thin.  At this size you find it hard to believe there’s a battery inside the device and even more so that the device will last for 30 days without a recharge.

Screen technology
The screen comes with a new technology (well okay not new new, but fairly new in the past few years) called e-ink.  E-ink basically makes the screen look like a piece of paper, there’s no back light or lighting in any way.  The text then is charged to the screen and it doesn’t use any power once the text is on the screen.  It only uses power when it needs to clear the screen and refresh or repaint the screen.  This means you get oodles of battery life.

The beauty of the screen is that in normal daylight or even on a sunny day you have no problems reading the screen, there’s absolutely no glare on the screen unlike (dare I say it) the Amazon TV ad shows in comparison to the iPad, which is great.  The problem comes with where you want to read it.  If like me, you do most of your reading in a slightly darker room – say at night, then unless you are in a mega bright room or under direct spot lights, then you’ll start to find reading slight difficult.

So I joked on Twitter that there’s a way around this – to use one of these LED head bands .  Actually, it works pretty well – although as the light source is close you do get a little reflection from the LED lights.

The other way is to listen to the built-in Text To Speech reading, which I found was pretty good and at night it also didn’t have the effect like reading in general does with me by tiring my eyes.

How many eBooks can the Kindle 3 carry?
Well, it comes with a 4gb built-in flash disk for storage, 3gb is available for eBooks.  Amazon suggest that it can hold around 3,500 books, which even in 10 years for me (as a casual eBook reader) means it would take me 100 years to read through all of that.  So don’t worry, 4gb is more than enough for eBook content!

How is the reading experience?
The reading experience is good – providing you have a good light source.  If you don’t, then a head torch (although you look a little silly) would be a requirement.  I haven’t tried reading it on a train but I could see that this might be a problem, especially that light levels are constantly changing and going in and out of tunnels.  That said, if you get on well reading a paper back book on the train then maybe you won’t experience a problem.

What I do find annoying is the 2 seconds it takes to change the page by wiping the ink off the screen and then re-charging the next page worth of ink.  I understand from previous Kindles that this has been improved upon but it’s still slow, too slow for me.  I’ve been using the Kindle app more recently on the iPad and it’s instantaneous page transitions.  Once you get into reading a book you’ll probably not notice this so much but it’s something that still frustrates me with the e-ink technology as it currently stands.

Social Networking
The best thing I like so far about the Kindle is that you can not only highlight any section of the book (paragraph) but you can also then tweet the paragraph or even post it to your Facebook account.  This to me from a Social Networking perspective is very valuable, for one it tells your followers which book you are reading immediately and it also allows you to share funny or important parts of the book.

Specification

Newspapers
You can also subscribe to newspaper or magazine periodicals although Amazon do charge a monthly fee for these, usually around £1.99 a month per newspaper or magazine. This although was something that originally interested me and drew me to the Kindle, I don’t think I’d be paying a monthly fee for text that can be read on the Kindle, I think I’d get it free using my iPad or iPhone.

Web Browsing
The Kindle 3 does also sport a web browser, but it’s slow and tedious. If you wanted to check a website quickly then I guess it’s okay but again like the Newspapers feature, it’s not something I’d want to use that often due to the screen refresh slowness. I think I’d rather use my iPad or iPhone for web browsing.

Carry Case
There’s a number of different carry cases you can purchase direct from Amazon, this was the case that I purchased.

It took me a while to work out how to get the Kindle hooked into the hooks on spine but once I had worked it out it’s easy to take it in and out of the case.

Conclusion
So would I prefer the Kindle 3 to an iPad?  Quite simply it depends on where I’m reading.  If I were to be reading outside on a bright or sunny day then the Kindle would win over.  Likewise if I didn’t want to lug around my iPad and wanted a thin, lightweight eBook reader than the  Kindle 3 would also still win hands down.

Now if I mostly always carry the iPad with me (which I do) then I already have the Kindle reader app inside the iPad anyway, so that means lugging the Kindle 3 around as another device, so the iPad wins hands down, plus I do most of my reading in a darkish room which means I get a great back light to the iPad in which to perfectly read my eBooks.

So in conclusion it really depends on what your tastes are and how you read books and where you read them.  There’s both heavy pro’s and heavy con’s against the Kindle 3.  Personally I like it, it’s an additional device but if I want to read in bed or read when I’m out waiting to meet someone then it’s a nice lightweight device well ahead of it’s game.  Kindle 3 isn’t an iPad killer and likewise the iPad isn’t a Kindle (or eBook killer), it really depends on how you go about life and how you read books.

Kindle 3 Price
The price of writing this review (November 2010) is currently £109 for the WiFi model and £149 for the 3G model (that also supports WiFi)

Although technically not Compact Flash, but coming in a similar Compact Flash dimension, the new CFast is a variant of Compact Flash that could be making a huge come back.

Compact Flash bandwidth read/write caters for 90 MB/s and SSD (Solid State Drive) that are used in iPod Touch’s and iPhones and iPads can support up to 220 MB/s. The new CFast can support up to 300 MB/s. Bearing in mind that Apple use SSD’s at 220 MB/s, if Apple were to switch to using the faster 300+ MB/s then speeds could increase for devices, however Apple switching away from SSD technology is probably less likely at this stage as they have a huge investment in SSD.

CFast won’t work in a regular Compact Flash slot, they require an all new 7-pin SATA data connector as technically these are SATA II devices, however we might start to see the roll-out of these in future technology.

How do I fix? There’s a number of ways to workaround this problem…

OPTION #1

• Delete all your existing multi-day alarms
• For sake of argument, if you have an alarm that is set to go off 7 days a week, set up the alarm separately to go off today.  That means setting the alarm without a day.  If you set the alarm to go off every Monday then it will most likely still fail
• This means setting the alarm before you go to bed each night (a pain)

OPTION #2 – BEST WAY

• Keep your multi-day alarms but set them an hour early
• This will create a temporary fix for your alarms and have them go off at the correct time
• However, the downside is that when the US clocks change on Sunday 7th November then you may find them going off an hour earlier than expected and may have to re-correct them again

OPTION #3

• Some people have reported that purchasing an alarm app in the AppStore may fix it.
• The bug is within the iPhone alarm and not an in-app alarm so in theory this will fix it also and to set the alarms in the alarm app you purchase
• Not a great fix, may cost you some money but an alternative way

WANT THE PROBLEM FIXED BUT DON’T CARE WITH THE ABOVE?

• Don’t use the iPhone for alarms

Personally, what I have done to ensure I get alarmed correctly is to add an additional multi-day alarm an hour earlier than the normal one.  Once this fixes itself and I get awoken one hour earlier than usual I’ll delete the early alarms and go back to the normal alarms.

UPDATE – I believe that this problem will auto-rectify itself after November 7th as this is when the US change their clocks back.  Also there have been reports that iOS 4.2 (soon to be released) also fixes this problem as reported by some iOS 4.2 Beta Testers.

RIM are already facing stiff competition with Apple with the iPad and more recently with the announcement of Android tablets. RIM are looking to sell their tablet and cater for both enterprise users and just a single person that wants a tablet. They say the BlackBerry PlayBook is designed to give users what they want, including uncompromised web browsing, true multitasking and high performance multimedia, while also providing advanced security features, out-of-the-box enterprise support and a breakthrough development platform for IT departments and developers.

“RIM set out to engineer the best professional-grade tablet in the industry with cutting-edge hardware features and one of the world’s most robust and flexible operating systems,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion. “The BlackBerry PlayBook solidly hits the mark with industry leading power, true multitasking, uncompromised web browsing and high performance multimedia.”

The PlayBook tablet is ultra portable, ultra thin and super convenient for both work and play. Measuring less than half an inch thick and weighing less than a pound with a 7″ high resolution display.

The BlackBerry PlayBook comes with a 1 GHz dual-core processor and the new BlackBerry Tablet OS which supports true symmetric multiprocessing and a highly-responsive and fluid touch screen experience for apps and content services.

RIM have decided not to go down the same route that Apple toko with Adobe Flash and have announced support for Adobe Flash Player 10.1, Adobe Mobile AIR and HTML 5.

The BlackBerry PlayBook features premium multimedia features to support high-quality mobile experiences, it includes dual HD cameras for video capture and video conferencing that can both record HD video at the same time, and an HDMI-out port for presenting one’s creations on external displays. The BlackBerry PlayBook also offers rich stereo sound and a media player that rivals the best in the industry.

For people who already carry a Blackberry phone, the BlackBerry PlayBook will also be possible to pair their tablet and smartphone using a secure Bluetooth connection, which means you can opt to use the larger tablet display to seamlessly and securely view any of the email, BBM, calendar, tasks, documents and other content that resides on (or is accessible through) their smartphone. Effectively like a video out over Bluetooth!

• 7” LCD, 1024 x 600, WSVGA, capacitive touch screen with full multi-touch and gesture support
• BlackBerry Tablet OS with support for symmetric multiprocessing
• 1 GHz dual-core processor
• 1 GB RAM
• Dual HD cameras (3 MP front facing, 5 MP rear facing), supports 1080p HD video recording
• Video playback: 1080p HD Video, H.264, MPEG, DivX, WMV
• Audio playback: MP3, AAC, WMA
• HDMI video output
• Wi-Fi – 802.11 a/b/g/n
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Connectors: microHDMI, microUSB, charging contacts
• Open, flexible application platform with support for WebKit/HTML-5, Adobe Flash Player 10.1, Adobe Mobile AIR, Adobe Reader, POSIX, OpenGL, Java
• Ultra thin and portable:
• Measures 5.1”x7.6”x0.4” (130mm x 193mm x 10mm)
• Weighs less than a pound (approximately 0.9 lb or 400g)
• Additional features and specifications of the BlackBerry PlayBook will be shared on or before the date this product is launched in retail outlets.
• RIM intends to also offer 3G and 4G models in the future.

The BlackBerry PlayBook is expected to be available in retail outlets and other channels in the United States in early 2011 with rollouts in other international markets beginning in (calendar) Q2.

So after a long length of time I decided to set up a new Facebook Fan Page to supplement the blog. This has Facebook page can be access on the right hand side of the blog by the Facebook icon —-> and suppliments the blog with all the technical news posts I have so far.

I’ll be looking to add more to the Facebook Fan Page soon, so keep your eyes peeled.

Also let me know if you have any suggestions for the pae, e.g. discussions etc.

One thing the iPad has done is give me 0 second startup time. I simply press the power button and it turns on. There’s no hard disk to spin up, there’s no time to boot the operating system, it’s there. All solid state as opposed to a hard disk. It’s also larger than my netbook in terms of screen size, but it’s thinner and more lightweight. Okay, granted it doesn’t have a keyboard but the on-screen keyboard works pretty well for me. The biggest part is that I always had to leave the netbook powered on because even bringing it out of hibernation was slow. That ate up electricity, not a lot on a daily basis but when you consider you’re running a device 24/7 for 365 days a year, that adds up to a lot of electricity. With the iPad I only charge it when it gets low, e.g. over night if I want it topped up to 100%, or sometimes I go for several days without charging it.

On the iPad I have my Exchange email, I have BeeJiveIM for my Instant Messaging chats, I have Docs2Go to open up and read any attachments people send me, I also have a variety of other office based apps that allow for online storage of docs, to read PDF’s and PowerPoints as well as my creature comfort personal apps.

Steve Jobs said that the iPad was revolutionary and magic. For some maybe it’s not, but when I look back on how my evenings have changed and how much more I use the iPad than a regular computer, I guess I would call it revolutionary. I’m not sure I’d class it as magic, but it’s not far of it.

The iPad is still selling strong, but in people I talk to it’s had a lesser take up than I would have imagined. I think this comes down to more the price point and that people already have computers available and see no need for the iPad. Some said that the iPad would be a niche market, and it is. However the more people that have iPhone’s and iPod Touch’s, the more that like their devices and want a larger ‘living room’ computer will probably adopt to an iPad more than going to buy a new laptop, mini-laptop or netbook.

This is where the 7″ Android tablets might come in to still the thunder a little from the iPad. Android has got to the stage in it’s life where it has matured enough to be a serious contender for Apple both in the mobile phone platform but also in the tablet platform. A 7″ tablet would be nice and I have to agree that if I had one I’d probably take it with me more than I do the iPad because it’s smaller, but then comes the smaller screen, less battery power and suddenly you start to realise that all you have really is a device that for the best part is double the size of a regular mobile phone. Will that cut it for you? For me probably not, that’s where the iPad screen size if 9.7″ really comes handy. Will Apple do a 7″ to compete with the new Samsung Galaxy Tab? Possibly, time will tell, but for the best part I think Apple will probably sit back but have something to go just in case they feel they need to. The one thing that Apple don’t want to do is create a drop in iPad sales and create fragmentation around the iPad and ultimately bring in less money because people will start buying the 7″ more than the 9.7″ iPad.

Let’s not forget the iPad is an all-round device, it’s good for gaming, there’s tons of games from card games to fully fledge 30fps shoot’em-up games and driving games available for the iPad, most games are under £10 too.

Also the iPad just isn’t a gaming device, it also allows you to catch up on your ebook reading, store hundreds of thousands of electronic books on the device, so you have your entire reading library on the device when you take it with you.

If you have apps installed like Amazon’s Kindle app, then you can also synchronise where you left off reading on your iPhone or iPod Touch and pick up at the same location on the iPad.

There’s also lots of magazines, newspapers and periodicals you can also purchase or subscribe to and have delivered to the iPad on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

HTC’s Sense-UI is grown in strength, it’s a very clean interface that HTC usually put on top of an operating system like Windows Mobile or Android, and makes the interface look a whole lot richer. How much of this we’re going to see on Windows Phone 7 is unsure at this point. This is currently what HTC’s Sense-UI looks like.

Microsoft are likely to not want manufacturers to cover up and hide the main features of the OS including the new style home screen with flip out tiles, so it will be interesting to see what kind of changes HTC make on top of the core Windows Phone 7 UI and whether they will be subtle or massive stand-out changes like they’re used to making to have all of their devices look very similar in terms of UI and functionality.

What’s certain is with HTC’s announcement of their new HD3 does look pretty good.

The real problem for Windows Phone 7 is still going to be the infancy in the Windows Marketplace. There’s still a lot of restrictions for developers along with the concerns about piracy and the lack of applications and games available in the Windows Marketplace. Like with Apple and Google, Microsoft have to start somewhere and it will take time for Microsoft to build-up the store to come close to anything Google are offering with Android, let alone what Apple are offering with iOS devices like iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Microsoft were the market leader in this area but fell back and decided to not do anything radical to their OS platform as it seemed to still be working and selling devices, but unfortunately because of this were taken by surprise when both Apple and Google came along and redesigned not only how mobile phones should be used, but how useful they could be with the connected internet.