iOS 7 and other Apple Annoucements…

iOS 7…

Yes I’m testing it, what do I think so far?

Thinks that make you go hmmmmmmmmm…….

Well what can I say?

Title says it all doesn’t it?

The new products Apple have just announced, well all I can say is WOW!

The iPad mini looks good, it’s size is just about right for those who want a small mini tablet for email and calendar functions etc just like a PDA! And even the price isn’t too bad. People can experience an iOS device with a great screen and touch surface for a much lower price than the larger iPad. I won’t bother with one of course as I already have 2 iPad’s and see no need for a smaller one at this stage but the idea of using one for an in-car media player suddenly springs to mind as I write this!

The new iMac is a very nice piece of kit, the ultra thin screen looks really good and would be even better if it was retina but even still with the power and options on the new model desktop users should be more than happy! Not to mention the cheap as Mac Mini which can be used as a server or a small media PC in your loungeroom. Again the in-car idea springs to mind!

I’m a little peeved at the annoucement of the new iPad 4 model complete with A6 chip, 4G (LTE) and lightning connectors. I just got my iPad 3 only a couple of months ago and would surely have waited for this one especially as it compares with my new iPhone 5 feature wise. Even so the next iPad surely should have some even better features. I can understand the update especially to bring it into line with the launch cycle of the iPad mini. I can see Apple releasing both at the same time with comparable feature sets but different sizes in the future.

The new iBooks sounds interesting as well as the sharing features, I was recently miffed at the fact that a book I purchased on iBooks was not also readable on my Macbook Pro when in fact Apple promotes the ability to share your content amongst all your iDevices but seemingly forgot about this at the time!

It really looks like Apple is on the warpath marketing wise and is really pushing out the product the last 18 months, with an uptake of their mobile OS known as iOS with a recent major upgrade over 600 million devices recently upgraded to iOS 6 in the last 2 months… amazing!

What will the next 18 month have in store for us from Apple?

I look forward to finding out!

Updates & New iPhone

Yes I know I said I was back, and yes I am but I’ve been so busy with work/life stuff that I just get no time to spend updating this blog much.

But I’m here now so stop yer nagging!

Seems there is going to be a new iPhone in town!

No not the iPhone 5, they are dropping the model number just like the “New iPad” this year it will be just known as the “New iPhone”.

All reports so far point out to a larger screen, smaller dock connecter, 2 tone look amongst many other new features. It’s looking like a September 12 announcement with a September 21 launch date.

Just scored myself a new iPad a couple of weeks ago, and i’m running iOS 6 Beta 3 on it along with my iPhone 4 and it’s just magic and a huge improvement over the iPad 2 as far as speed and graphics go. It’s been interesting to have Siri on board the iPad even if she did mistake something I said for the word “bitch” 🙂

Speaking of iOS 6 and OS updates, who has updated to OSX Mountain Lion yet? I’ve been using the beta’s for a few months and found it pretty good in testing but the public release seems nice and stable and is everything they said it would be.

Stay tuned for more updates…

Apple working to adopt 802.11ac 5G Gigabit WiFi this year

By Daniel Eran Dilger Published: 02:34 PM EST on Apple Inside

Apple is expected to rapidly deploy support for the new 802.11ac specification this year, adding so called “Gigabit WiFi” to new AirPort base stations, Time Capsule, Apple TV,notebooks and potentially its mobile devices.

The new 802.11ac standard achieves much faster wireless networking speeds than the existing 802.11n specification (in use on the latest Mac, AirPort and iOS devices) by using 2 to 4 times the frequency bandwidth (from 80 to 160MHz), more efficient data transfers through sophisticated modulation, and more antennas (up to 8; existing standards support up to 4, while Apple’s Macs currently use up to 3).

While not yet finalized as an official standard by the 802.11 Working Group, progress on the new 802.11.ac standard is occurring faster than previous efforts in wireless networking have.

Multiple suppliers have already issued chipsets supporting 802.11ac for consumer grade applications. Key Apple component maker Broadcom announced chips supporting the standard earlier this month at CES.

In addition to reaching networking speeds above 1 Gigabit (about three times as fast as 802.11n networks can manage), 802.11ac promises better networking range, improved reliability, and more power efficient chips, thanks to parallel advances in reducing chip size and enhancing power management.

Apple popularizes WiFi with AirPort

While Apple wasn’t the first company to sell wireless devices, it was first to bring the technology into the mainstream beginning in 1999, when Steve Jobs dramatically demonstrated Apple’s initial AirPort technology onstage at the July Macworld Expo as “one more thing” after showing off the company’s new consumer iBook notebook.

Jobs pretended to hold his new iBook notebook up to provide a clear view for the camera operator, but he then continued to use the web as he walked across the stage to the delight of the audience that suddenly realized the new notebook had a wireless connection.

 

While Intel and others were promoting wired home networking schemes using landline phone wiring, Apple quickly brought WiFi into common use with support for AirPort across its Mac desktop and laptop line and its new AirPort branded base stations, making secure wireless technology both affordable and easy to use.

The WiFi technology Jobs demonstrated was second generation 802.11b; an earlier 802.11 version had previously been developed but only offered a tenth of the speed, making it less than practical for mainstream users. At the same time, 802.11b wasn’t formally ratified until September of 1999, making Apple’s inclusion on the iBook a forward-looking innovation. It also made the iBook the first mainstream computer sold with integrated WiFi.

In January 2003, Apple launched AirPort Extreme, its brand name for the improved 802.11g standard. While backwardly compatible with 802.11b devices, the new AirPort Extreme base station and compliant computers could now achieve wireless networking speeds up to five times faster. The 802.11g standard wasn’t formally ratified for another six months after Apple released its first implementation of it.

Apple sneaks out 802.11n

In September 2006, Apple offered a sneak peek at Apple TV. It seemed immediately obvious that Apple would empower this using the new 802.11n standard, but it was widely doubted at the time that Apple could release support for the much faster new version of WiFi before the standard was ratified.

However, in January 2007 Apple announced that Apple TV did indeed use 802.11n, alongside new AirPort base stations also supporting a draft version of the still unfinished specification. The company also acknowledged that it had secretly included support for the fast new “draft n” specification in all of its previously released Core 2 Duo Macs.

Due to accounting concerns, Apple planned to charge a nominal $4.99 fee for distributing the drivers needed to activate this unadvertised hardware feature on recent Macs. After a hailstorm of caustic criticism, Apple dropped the fee to $1.99, and subsequently included the drivers into the next version of Mac OS X for free.

The 802.11n standard wasn’t formally ratified until October of 2009, nearly three years after Apple began rolling it out. By May 2008, Apple was recognized by NDP Group as having a 10.6 percent share of WiFi base station sales, and AirPort Extreme was named the top selling 802.11n router in the US.

AirPort advances since 802.11n

The new 802.11ac isn’t expected to be fully approved as a finished standard until late next year, but Apple is poised to adopt it well before then. Since the initial rollout of 802.11n Macs, AirPort base stations and Apple TV in early 2007, Apple has incrementally advanced support for new facets of the 802.11n specification and has also developed new practical applications tied to wireless connectivity.

In 2008 Apple launched support for 802.11n base stations and clients operating in the 5GHz band at the launch of Time Capsule. In this frequency band, WiFi devices can double their bandwidth allocation to a wide 40 MHz to allow faster networking speeds, nearly doubling the theoretical maximum. For existing Macs, this boosted top speeds from 130 to 300 Mbps.

In 2009 Apple enhanced AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule products with support for simultaneous 2.4 and 5GHz band operation and guest access.

The following year, Apple launched iPad with support for both 802.11n and 5GHz networks. iPhone 4 followed with support for 802.11n, although it could not connect to 5GHz networks.

Last year, Apple’s Thunderbolt Macs silently incorporated support for three send and receive antennas, enabling them to achieve a top data rate of 450 Mbps on 5GHz networks with wide channels.

 

Apple also enhanced its AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule last summer, increasing their range and radio power output and adding support for new Mac’s triple antennas while extending simultaneous operation to automatically use both 2.4 and 5GHz bands.

Software applications for WiFi

In addition to hardware advances, Apple has introduced a variety of technologies that focus on WiFi networking, including Bonjour-discoverable disk and printer sharing from AirPort Extreme base stations, AirTunes wireless audio distribution introduced alongside AirPort Express, and Mac OS X Leopard’s Time Machine backups designed to work with Time Capsule.

 

Last year, Apple introduced AirPlay as a replacement for AirTunes, enabling iTunes and iOS devices to wirelessly stream both audio and video to Apple TV. AirPlay Mirroring on iPad 2 and iPhone 4S enable those devices to export their primary video display to an HDTV via Apple TV.

In Mac OS X Lion, Apple introduced support for AirDrop, enabling nearby users to share files without configuring a WiFi network.

The tremendous speed gains possible with 802.11ac will continue to make Apple’s wireless technologies from AirPlay to Time Machine faster and more efficient, virtually erasing any advantage in using wired network cabling in most cases.

Can Your iPhone Keep a Secret? Password Managers Compared

By Geoffrey Goetz May. 5, 2011 on Gigaom

In light of recent events regarding the security of online password managers, it’s worth a look at some of the alternatives out there, and the advantages and disadvantages of each. I’ve been using password managers on devices I carry around with me for almost 10 years now. When the first iPhone came out, I remember wanting one, but the reason I did not get one was because there were no third-party apps. I was a long-time Palm owner and had a Treo 650 running SplashID. I have well over three hundred accounts, combinations, locks, and little secret bits of information to manage. So I was excited when I saw that Apple was going to support third-party apps.

So Many to Choose From

SplashID couldn’t keep up with the times (it was slow to offer sync and multitasking support was not up to par). But what password manager to switch to?  I turned to an App Store search technique I’ve perfected:

1. Use a search term to find a collection of apps that suit your needs.
2. On the iPad, iPhone and Mac App Stores, filter out everything but those ranked four stars and above.
3. Sort by popularity.
4. Ignore the free apps (everyone rates free apps higher because they are free).

And there you have it: a short list made up of 1Password, mSecure, and DataVault.  Keep in mind that I also took the number of comments across all versions into consideration, as well as the fact that there was an iPhone, iPod and Mac version available.

mSecure ($14.99 for Mac, $4.99 for iPhone/iPad). On the surface, it appears to meet all my minimum requirements for a password manager. Data is secure with 256-bit blowfish encryption.  There is an iPhone, iPad and Mac version.  All three versions can automatically generate strong passwords.  It supports multitasking on iOS devices, and you can sync data from one account to multiple iOS devices. The multitasking support is what I really noticed.  mSecure doesn’t get too fancy with protecting your data in a multitasking iOS environment. mSeven’s mSecure has the multitasking transition down and have successfully implemented a working auto-lock feature. After porting my data over from SplashID into mSecure, I found I had other needs as well.  I wanted categories and the ability to customize field names on an item without having to create a new type.  There is the ability to create custom types, and in these custom types you can define any number of fields you like.  Overall, for a $20 total investment, it’s a solid offering and has everything one needs to manage their passwords effectively.

DataVault ($19.99 for Mac, $19.99 for iPhone/iPad). Stepping up in both price and features, Ascendo’s DataVault is a solid performer as well. If you want more control over your secure items, and you can handle a little more complexity in order to get that control, then DataVault is the tool for you.  It has everything the mSecure has to offer and a little bit more.  mSecure’s concept of types is akin to DataVault’s implementation of templates. DataVault also has types and even categories, but these are used more for organizing records than defining them.  It was the user interface that left me wanting.  Pardon my saying, but the app was more Android than iPhone.  I had all the features and control I wanted, but the look and feel, while certainly high-res, was a little rough around the edges.  After using DataVault for a while, I actually started to prefer mSecure’s simplicity, and was convincing myself that the control I thought I wanted, wasn’t what I wanted at all.

1Password ($39.99 for Mac, $9.99 for iPhone, and $9.99 for iPad). Weighing in at a whopping $60 for the bundle, 1Password is definitely the most expensive of the three solutions.  There’s a universal iOS version for $14.99 if you need both iPhone and iPad versions. This is the only one of the three that is not for sale via the OS X Mac App Store, which means you’ll have to purchase additional licenses to run it on multiple Macs (a family pack is available for $69.99).  1Password is very different from the others in that you are almost forced to live with a limited set of ‘vaults’ to store your secure items in. But you can customize each and every item by adding fields and renaming field names.  The workflow for creating a new item takes some getting used to.  Since the only way to generate a strong password is to create a password item first, then create the full item you really care about in one of the vaults.  That being said, the Mac version is the deepest and most feature-rich password manager of the three.  With full multi-device Dropbox sync support, complete browser integration with auto forms, and a truly unique feature called 1Passwordanywhere that proved to be quite be useful when installed on a USB key, 1Password does earns its keep. It has a polished look and feel throughout and gives you control in places you never knew you wanted control.

Conclusion: mSecure for Most, 1Password for the Rest of Us

I was originally tempted to settle on 1Password without trying alternatives, but I never would have met mSecure had I done that. With its simple design and straightforward approach to managing passwords, it’s everything almost anyone would ever need in a password manager.  I would definitely recommend it for the $20 complete price tag. While DataVault was certainly more of a match in features to SplashID, its user interface and overall design left me wanting, quite frankly, less. Which brings me right back to 1Password.  It’s definitely the most expensive password manager out there.  Is it worth it?  You do get what you pay for.  But if you don’t need all the features it offers, then perhaps mSecure is the right-sized solution you need.

Rumor: Apple plans to move laptops from Intel to ARM processors

By Sam Oliver on AppleInsider

A new rumor claims that Apple plans to ditch Intel processors to instead adopt the ARM architecture currently found in devices like the iPhone and iPad.

Apple’s alleged move to ARM processors is expected to take place “as soon as possible,” likely when 64-bit variations are available at the end of 2012 or by early 2013, according to SemiAccurate (via MacRumors. The site is run by Charlie Demerjian, previous editor of U.K. tabloid The Inquirer.)

Though SemiAccurate is not a frequent source of Apple rumors, the site did report in July 2009 that Apple was moving away from Nvidia chipsets at a gradual pace. Currently, Apple’s new MacBook Pros and iMacs exclusively feature AMD Radeon graphics, or Intel’s integrated option.

In addition to laptops, the report said that Apple would “presumably” be looking to move its desktop Macs to ARM architecture as well. It characterized the transition to Apple-made chips for its line of computers as a “done deal.”

“Now you realize why Apple is desperately searching for fab capacity from Samsung, Global Foundries, and TSMC,” the report said. “Intel doesn’t know about this particular change of heart yet, which is why they are dropping all the hints about wanting Apple as a foundry customer. Once they realize Apple will be fabbing ARM chips at the expense of x86 parts, they may not be so eager to provide them wafers on advanced processes.”

The rumor comes just days after a report indicated that Intel could be interested in building mobile chips for Apple, like the A5 processor found in the iPad 2. Intel currently makes the CPUs powering Apple’s notebooks and desktops, but Apple has turned to ARM processors for a range of devices, including its iPods, Airport base stations, and iOS devices, including the new Apple TV.

Apple even entered the chip designing business starting with the A4 processor that powers the iPhone 4 and first-generation iPad. Apple gained the ability to design its own systems-on-a-chip through the acquisition of PA Semi for $278 million in 2008.

Even Microsoft has plans for the ARM architecture in the future, as mobile devices offer longer battery life with the low-power chips. The Redmond, Wash., software giant revealed at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show that the next version of its desktop operating system, Windows 8, will run on the ARM’s architecture.

Apple Reportedly Using “iCloud” Name Internally

by Alex Jordanon May 2nd, 2011 on iSource

AppleInsider is reporting that Apple is using the “iCloud” name internally, when referring to integration of the service in builds of iOS 5 and Mac OS X Lion.
Here’s an excerpt:

According to people familiar with the matter, Apple is prepping beta versions of both iOS 5.0 and Mac OS X Lion ahead of its annual developers conference that integrate with a service dubbed “iCloud,” enabling users to sync and store much of the same information they currently can with the company’s existing MobileMe service, such as bookmarks, email, contacts and iCal events.

The report also notes that the new iCloud service will likely deal with more than just music- possibly even storing photos and video content. Granted we’ve been hearing more about the music storage aspect of the service as of late, but this news shouldn’t come as a surprise either. We’ve heard rumblings that Apple is working on a MobileMe overhaul that would also store video and photo content.

I strongly suspect that this online music storage service won’t be it’s own product, but an additional offering of the overhauled MobileMe, which will be called iCloud once it’s launched. Plus, I suspect features currently offered like iWork.com will be added to the “iCloud” name. Now, I’m still iffy on whether the Apple will charge for the service, or if it will be free, in an attempt to add value to the company’s current platforms.

Mac OS X Lion To Reportedly Be Released Through Mac App Store

by Alex Jordanon May 4th, 2011 on iSource

AppleInsider is reporting that Mac OS X Lion, alongside disc media, will be sold through the Mac App Store when it becomes available this “summer.” The distribution plan for Lion is expected to be announced at this year’s World Wide Developers Conference which is slated for June 6-10 in San Francisco.

This doesn’t sound at all like a far-fetched idea. In fact, Apple has been issuing seeds of the Lion developer betas through the Mac App Store already. Plus, Apple is making it obvious that they want to cut back on physical media for software. They’ve even removed floor space in their retail stores to adjust accordingly. Removing all physical media would also allow Apple to remove disc drives from their machines, further reducing size, weight, and power consumption.

I would bank on this one. But, I would also expect a version of it on a disc as well. Some people just don’t have the fastest internet around yet, and downloading a 4-5 GB update would be cumbersome at best. However, it’s clear that the Mac App Store is the future of installing software on your Mac.

I’m back!

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks at work and at home and I haven’t had a lot of time to update this blog of late and my apologies for that!

A lot has been happening and lots of news from the Apple front with the release of the iPad 2, iOS 4.3 the new Macbook Pro’s and lots of rumours flying about iPhone 5 and iPad 3 etc.

I’ve been developing an iPhone application for work and that’s been interesting.

There has been lots of new applications for the Mac, new Apps and games for iOS and I’ve busy trying those out too!

Stay tuned!

Apple Seeds First Build of Mac OS X 10.6.7 to Developers

by Alex Jordan on January 20th, 2011 on iSource

Apple has seeded the first release of Mac OS X 10.6.7 (Build 10J842) to developers. Little is currently known about the release aside from the fact that Apple lists no known issues in the build, and asks developers to focus on areas such as SMB, Graphics Drivers, AirPort, and Bonjour.

Anyway, Apple is already seeding the next maintenance update to developers, just two weeks after releasing 10.6.6 to the public. That update of course, brought us the Mac App Store.