iMessage so unreliable, users are going back to SMS
Posted Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 10:35 pm by Jason Cartwright
With the launch of iOS5, we got iMessage. Apple’s very own SMS replacement service. The experience is supposed to be seamless, with messages sent to contacts using an iOS device is automatically done via iMessage rather than SMS. This should save some customers still paying for SMS some coin.
It’s surprising that mobile carriers ever allowed Apple to implement a technology that could largely reduce their 160 character cash cow. All sounds like a positive for consumers right? Unfortunately iMessage may not be ready to replace SMS just yet.
A great way to have friends and loved ones pissed off at you, is to ignore their messages. iOS5 users are reporting that iMessage is actually pretty unreliable and messages are frequently being dropped. Despite posting a delivered message and sending date and time stamp, they don’t always make it to the destination.
The problem is so bad, that some users (myself now included), have switched off iMessage and are back to using SMS. What has your experience with iMessage been? If you have had any issues, leave a comment.
iOS 5.0.1 fixes battery life, improves Aussie voice dictation
Posted Friday, November 11, 2011 at 7:22 am by Jason Cartwright![iOS 5.0.1 update[5]](http://techau.tv/blog/images/iOS.1-fixes-battery-life-improves-Aussie_74B6/iOS-5.0.1-update5.jpg "iOS 5.0.1 update[5]")
Apple have released the first update since iPhone 5 shipped. The iOS5.0.1 update release addresses the much discussed battery life issues. It will take a few days of regular use to confirm if this is definitely solved, but Apple say it is.
Another improvement is the support for Australia voices when using dictation, that’s when you hit the microphone in the keyboard. As you can see from the screen shot below, it’s now pretty good, but not perfect. It was basically unusable before the update, so it’s a solid improvement.
Sadly there is no update to Siri, that means maps and businesses outside the US are still unavailable.
To get the update over the air, just go to Settings > General > Software Update.
Apple iPhone announcement: the important bits.
Posted Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 3:51 am by Jason Cartwright
Image credit: The Verge
In typical Apple style, the event this morning started with sales figures. While interesting to some, statistics can be crafted to effectively say what you want. What you’re really after the juicy new details.. so here they are.
iOS5
Developers have been flushing out the bugs in iOS5 for months now.. it’s now ready for prime time. The iOS5 Gold Master will be available to developers today and shortly after for the public.
Apple also showed off a new ‘Cards’ app. This allows you to snap a photo with your phone and send it as a physical printed card to your friends and family. The originator will receive a push notification when the card is delivered.
Another new Reminders app will in iOS will be location aware, providing you with prompts when your near a certain location. This should actually be really useful for groceries,
Safari Mobile will get a new feature that comes from desktop browsers, Tabbed Browsing.
The iPod Nano will also get iOS5, this makes it the 3rd skew of the operating system. iPhone, iPad and now iPod Nano. The Nano will also track your runs using the Nike technology without an additional sensor in your shoes.
iCloud
Available to App Developers, iCloud syncs documents, photos, books and apps to be synced between devices via iCloud.
Find My Friends is a new feature that allows iOS users to discover the location of their friends. Naturally there would need to be privacy controls to ensure that you can be off the grid when you want to be. This will be competition for Facebook’s Check-in feature.
iTunes Match will cost US $25 per year, will launch at the end of October, but is a US only feature. Add it to the list.
iPhone
Apple have announced an iPhone 4S featuring an upgraded A5 dual-core processor. The iPhone 4S will achieve 7x the GPU capabilities of our existing iPhone 4. The physical dimensions are the same as the current model, same screen, good news for developers.
Apple have have modified the antenna in the 4S, despite it really being a non-issue.
![iPhone 4S[7]](http://techau.tv/blog/images/Apple-announces-iPhone-4s_3608/iPhone-4S7.jpg "iPhone 4S[7]")
Image credit: The Verge
The iPhone 4S is being labelled as a World Phone.. and will support HSDPA or data speeds up to 14.4 Mbps. Not exactly the 4G LTE support (Telstra) hoped for.
The camera gets an upgrade with an 8 Megapixel sensor, auto white balancing, faster load times and only 0.5 seconds between shots. In video mode, it also supports 1080p recording, and real time image stabilisation. Unfortunately the front camera has still been left at VGA quality.
Image credit: Engadget
Voice controls will now be enhanced with the help of Siri, a company Apple acquired. Surprisingly the name has survived the acquisition with the natural voice translation on the iPhone called ‘Siri’. The live demo showed examples of “What’s the weather like today” and “Find me a great Greek restaurant in Palo Alto”. Siri is also able to create travel path on Google Maps, or set an alarm on your phone.
Siri is only available on iPhone 4S and will launch under the beta label. It also supports dictation. There will be a new microphone icon on the keyboard just like Google’s Android. Application developers can use a new API to integrate Siri support into their apps.
The great news for Australians is that Siri explicitly supports the Aussie accent.
Image credit: Engadget
Pricing and availability
The US will launch in United States, Canada, Australia, UK, France, Germany and Japan on October 14th. Pre-orders start on October 7th. There’s no local pricing, what we do know is the US prices – 16GB for $199 32GB for $299 and new 64GB model for $399.
Update
iPhone 4S starts at AUD $799. iPhone 4 $679. iPhone 3GS $449.
More info @ Apple.
Videos from the One More Thing conference
Posted Sunday, September 11, 2011 at 9:59 am by Jason Cartwright
The One More Thing conference took place last month in Melbourne, providing an opportunity for budding iOS developers to learn from those who’ve been there and done it. Videos from the day are now available online, so if you couldn’t make it on the day, here is your opportunity to get the information for free.
One of the most interesting of the videos available is the Speaker Q&A. Speakers on stage are the experienced minds of:
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You can see all the videos from the day over at Vimeo – One More Thing.
*Disclaimer, the OneMoreThing Conference previously sponsored the techAU Podcast, however this post was not paid for.
iOS App price drop, music and hardware to follow ?
Posted Thursday, July 14, 2011 at 11:42 pm by Jason Cartwright
Today Apple made an important adjustment to the price of iOS apps in the App Store. The cheapest apps that typically go for US$0.99 have translated to A$1.19 since the App Store launched three years ago. The new price lowest price for apps is $0.99, equalling that of the United States.
With the strength of the Aussie dollar this price adjustment have been called for by many. Some explaining the price differential away with the 10% GST in Australia. If the GST was indeed contributing, then today’s price adjustment become all the more intriguing.
The Australian dollar today closed at 1.0757 vs the greenback. Given this difference is less than 10%, does this mean Apple are taking the hit of a few cents per transaction to deliver iOS apps at that golden sub-dollar price ? It is important to note that the prices of iOS Apps in Australia aren’t at a 1-1 parity with the US across the price spectrum. Lifehacker has a great table on the price changes.
Could it be that this price adjustment is the beginning of an Apple-wide eradication of the Australian tech tax ? First Apps, then music, even hardware could potentially be realigned to current price indexes. While gadget lovers would love to have the exchange rate price conversion be live, the reality is that Apple, and others, lock in a conversion rate at a specific point in time.
As far as Apple price adjustments go, they are quite rare. In the three years since the App Store launched iOS applications into the world, this is the first price change. Music prices were altered last year, however that change was related to record label deals rather than exchange rates.
The timing of the change is interesting, close to the launch of OSX Lion (before the end of the month) and the rumoured Macbook Air refresh. A narrowing or eradication of the hardware price differences between Australia and the US would put an end to enthusiasts importing their Apple products for cheaper than buying locally.
The response on twitter drew comparisons between the new low price A$0.99 for Angry Birds on iOS and A$4.00 for the same game on Windows Phone 7.
More @ TUAW
Will you stop using your location-tracking iPhone / iPad ?
Posted Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 8:12 pm by Jason Cartwright
The internet (and main-stream press) went bananas today with the revelation that Apple’s iOS devices (iPhone and iPad) contains a log of your location data for the past 12 months. Two researches for O’Reilly media published an article and video explaining the very sensitive issue.
A file contained within iOS backups called Consolidated.db contains latitudes, longitudes, timestamps and device ID’s. It appears this was added in iOS4 and as usual with most things critical of Apple, they’re not talking about it. Naturally news like this spreads across tech sites like wildfire, but surprisingly, main-stream news also picked up this and engaged in a bit of Apple-bashing.
The good news is, there is no evidence of this information being transmitted back to Apple or 3rd party applications. It is however still concerning there’s a single location storing your movements, data that’s potentially very dangerous in the wrong hands.
This was location archive was actually discovered some months ago, but apparently the original pioneers were terrible at telling the world, now today they’re keen to get credit. Seriously just use Tip Your Editors on any mainstream tech blog.
Apple’s decision to stay quiet on the issue is quite frankly is pretty unacceptable corporate behaviour, particularly in-regards to an issue of security. Props to O’Reilly and specifically Pete Warden and Alasdair Allan for bringing this issue to the public spotlight. If users needed any convincing just how scary this data is, seeing it visually makes it sink in real fast.
Washington DC to New York from Alasdair Allan on Vimeo.
So given the information available is seriously concerning, but its location is essentially controlled by you (just don’t loose your device), then how do you feel about it ? Should Apple release an immediate update to stop it ? Will your stop using your iOS device ?
Microsoft jumped at the chance to point out that the way location information works on Windows Phones is that only the latest lat, long info is stored for the ‘find my phone’ feature. On the Android side of things its a similar story, unless of course you use Google latitude, then Google, your friends, or everyone in the world knows where you’ve been.
Boy Genius Report has a great article on what we actually signup to allow manufacturers (and partners) to do with out information, its surprisingly scary. We all knew those 57 page agreements were that long for a reason.
More info @ Engadget
