Telstra T-Box gets an iPhone remote app
Posted Tuesday, October 11, 2011 at 4:20 pm by Jason Cartwright
Telstra are launching a new iPhone app that gives T-Box customers the ability to change the channel, record programs and mute the sound by shaking the iPhone. The T-Box does come with a remote already, but by comparison is small, clunky and crowded. If you are both an iPhone and T-Box owner, it’s a no brainer, get the damn app.
“Internet-enabled entertainment is fast becoming the norm as products like the Telstra T-Box and smart TVs become part of the furniture in living rooms across the country. The technology has evolved from being a novelty for technology enthusiasts into something anyone can understand and use,” Telstra’s Executive Director of Media, J-B Rousselot said.
According to Telstra, around 50% of their mobile customers own a smart phone, which has justified a ‘considerable investment’ in the development of mobile applications. Telstra say an Android version of the app is in development and will available soon.
Since it’s launch, there has been more than 200,000 T-Box’s sold, delivering more than 1.8 Million movies to Australian homes.
More information @ Telstra.
Pre-order Apple iPhone 4 S
Posted Saturday, October 8, 2011 at 12:39 am by Nick Ayre
You can now pre-order Apple’s latest phone, the iPhone 4 S unlocked from Apple’s online store which was announced during a press conference on the 5th.
The phone comes in black and white at three different price points:
- 16GB $799
- 32GB $899
- 64GB $999
As of writing this none of the carriers have released information about purchasing the iPhone 4 S on a contract, stay tuned to techAU.
Update
Optus tweeted out this morning that their pre-orders were ready to go, however the link provided http://optus.com.au/iphone4s is broken.
Update 2
Optus have released new plans for the iPhone 4S and surprisingly aren’t better than current plans.. TechGeek has a great run down of the details.
Learn more about the iPhone 4 S:
Apple iPhone announcement: the important bits.
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.
“Let’s talk iPhone” event Oct 5. No new iPhone ?
Posted Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 3:26 am by Jason Cartwright
Apple have finally confirmed a special invite-only iPhone Event on October 4th 10:00 am (US Pacific time), which will be October 5th Australian time. John Paczkowski over at All Things D reported the news a short time ago. The invite graphic has a very basic grid of 4 default iPhone applications with the text ‘Let’s talk iPhone’ below.
While it is great to have an iPhone-related event locked-in, there is something about the invite feels strange. There’s no teasing image of an iPhone 5 silhouette, which could be done without revealing critical information. Reading between the lines, the very blunt statement, Let’s talk iPhone, combined with picture of app icons, almost sounds like Apple will not launch a new iPhone but focus on iOS 5 on the iPhone.
It is telling that this event will take place to a small invite-only select crowd at Apple’s Cupertino campus, rather than at WWDC in front of thousands at a larger venue like Moscone West Centre like they have in the past. Let’s hope this event isn’t Apple’s way of letting us down gently that iPhone 5 is delayed. Time will tell.
More info @ All Things D.
Australia gets white iPhone 4 before US.
Posted Thursday, April 28, 2011 at 1:24 pm by Jason CartwrightAfter many, many months of waiting, Apple have finally sorted out the production issues with the white iPhone 4. As you can see from the images below, they had to modify the top section of the phone to allow the sensors to work correctly with the white face. Apparently sensing proximity is easy through black, hard through white, still its finally here.
Its April 28th in Australia and our Apple’s front page looks like this..
While the US version looks like this..
It’s not often Australia gets new products (I say new product, but really mean new colour) before the US. That said, we’ll take our little time zone victories where we can get them. I’m pretty sure at this point everyone who was going to get an iPhone4 already has a black one and is tied into a contract. Most iPhone users will wait till iPhone 5 before upgrading.. who knows, maybe the iPhone 5 will come in another colour..
Update
Turns out if you try and actually buy a white iPhone 4, you can’t, at least not yet. There’s currently no option to select the white version. Am sure it won’t be long, but looks like the front page went live a little early.
Update 2
Vodafone has posted a list of retail stores that are stocking the white iPhone 4 – http://blog.vodafone.com.au/blog/news/apple®-iphone™-4-white-store-list/
More info @ http://www.apple.com/au/iphone/
Telstra charging $5 for Visual Voicemail, slammed by customers
Posted Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at 6:00 pm by Jason Cartwright
Telstra has finally launched Visual Voicemail today for iPhone customers, more than 2 years after competitor Vodafone. Naturally Telstra has to throw their own unique spin on it, calling the optional service ‘Message Bank Plus’.
Telstra explains how it works..
By linking up with the iPhone’s voicemail interface, MessageBank plus serves up all of your voice messages (in date order) as a list on your phone. To play back a message, you can simply browse through your list of voicemail and tap on the item you’d like to hear.
There’s nothing new about this feature, just the fact that Telstra is now making it available to their iPhone customers. While iOS4.3 gave us Mobile Hotspot for free, Telstra’s implementation of Visual Voicemail Message Bank Plus will set you back $5 per month. Not sure how many voice mails that you receive, but for the few I get, I doubt I could justify the cost.
Strangely this ‘new feature’ on Telstra iPhones will require at least iOS4.3, strange because Vodafone has had this feature for years, running of many earlier firmware versions. This makes you wonder what is unique about Telstra’s implementation ?
MessageBank Plus requires an Apple iPhone running iOS4.3 or later, connected to a Telstra Post-Paid mobile voice service.
Take a minute to read through the comments on the post, almost 100% of which condemn the $5pm fee. Many commenters highlight the fact that they are on $100+ plans, yet would still be required to pay. It seems this may be $5 to much for Telstra customers. It will be interesting to see Telstra’s response to this backlash, they are after all re-inventing themselves as the company that really listens to their customers.
While Telstra takes the heat today, it should also be highlighted that Optus still doesn’t offer Visual Voicemail at all, paid or not.
More information @ Telstra Exchange
