Colin Charles Agenda

My Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus streams are just filled with people complaining about iOS 6. The luddite that I am, I haven’t upgraded my phone nor my tablet. One thing I’ve learned about relying on my devices? Never ever do an upgrade until the kinks get fixed.

Most common complaint? Maps. Google Maps is gone and now there is a new, inaccurate maps app. A blog tracking it has been setup too. I presume that this is better in the long run — you’ll get better crowd sourced maps. Question is, will it go back directly to the source? I have no idea.

The YouTube app is now missing. This is easily fixed by downloading it.

What annoys me about iOS 6? The fact that it won’t run on my first generation iPad. I bought mine the first week of April in 2010 (2 years 5 months). This is just a little over two years old. The iPhone 3GS has been around since mid June 2009 (3 years 3 months and continuing). It receives the iOS 6 upgrade.

This isn’t a problem yet but when I can’t get apps on my iPad, I will start to get thoroughly annoyed. I know uber-iOS developers like Marco might drop newer Instapaper support in future releases, which will annoy me.

I after all have a 64GB iPad which I use to consume content mostly: read the NYTimes, Instapaper, Kindle, browse the web in Safari, watch videos in VLC, watch video podcasts. That’s pretty much all I really care about. There are games like Scrabble which I play with my family, and Plants vs Zombies which I finished a long time ago, but this isn’t its core usage. Oh, and the iPad “just works fine”.

I’ll eventually update my iPhone 4 (because I don’t plan to buy the amazing iPhone 5). I know a friend mentioned that there was no Siri on the iPhone 4. I don’t think Siri is a killer feature unless you’re living in the USA (with all its tie-ins to data sources).

Changing connectors? Application inconsistencies? In retaliation, I did pick up a Google Nexus 7 (its half the price of me upgrading to the new iPad 3 64GB size; and is cheaper than the 16GB iPad3 by RM500). Its 16GB size is too small for me to load up with movies, it comes with no casing, and the 7″ screen size might be too small to watch TV on, but we’ll see.

I have been asked numerous times in the last few days: what do you think of the new iPhone 5? Will you recommend me to buy it?

Go, whet your appetite at the official iPhone page. It has a great design (thinner, lighter), it’s the same width but taller (4 inches now), comes with an awesome camera, has better battery life & comes with LTE connectivity. The feature list is impressive as are the tech specs.

Am I going to buy it? No, I’m happy with last year’s model. (ok, a little older – I’m using an iPhone 4 personally). It is a pity that I can no longer link to the site made by gina trapani & anil dash.

If you need to buy a new phone, my suggestion is of course to get the best & latest model, and that is the iPhone 5. If however your older iPhone 4S or 4 is working, I think my arguments work on why you don’t quite need to migrate yet. Put it plain & simple: the iPhone 4 I carry in my pocket “just works”. I have a mophie juice pack to extend its battery life. I have invested in the dock ecosystem tremendously (chargers for an office, two homes, as well as the travel kit; devices like a Withings BP-800 Blood Pressure Monitor, a whole lot more like music docks & those pesky things called in-car audio systems).

I wrote about the dock ecosystem a while back and Apple has decided to upgrade this, i.e. now with a Lighting connector. One has to buy a Lightning to 30-pin adapter. I understand that it was probably impossible to get the design to become much thinner, but we’re in a dilemma situation now especially when many people have i-devices, including an iPad. Gone is the ease of use of just having similar chargers. This transition period is going to be tough. Also, some countries get the adapter included for free, while others are forced to pay USD$30 for it.

Apple has decided to use a nano SIM (i.e. something smaller than a micro-SIM). People are still getting used to micro-SIM’s, and my travel kit even has a SIM cutter, because when you travel its pretty hard to find prepaid services that offer micro-SIM cards. Its impossible to cut a micro-SIM to a nano-SIM, so telcos have to support it by default. Apple doesn’t care so much about this because in their launch market (the USA), they have AT&T giving you international data roaming plans that don’t cost an arm & a leg. I have to pay anywhere between USD$12-19 to have data roaming per day.

No one knows if one of the major complaints about the iPhone is fixed – the dodgy home button. I know many iPhone users whom have owned a second phone turn on the accessibility functionality just so that they don’t have to press the home button. This is a workaround and does not work as expected. It is a disappointment for such a costly device that such things do not stand the test of time.

A lot of people sell the idea that its great to watch videos & movies on your iPhone. I’m sure many people do that, but I don’t. I watch movies on my iPad quite happily when mobile. Or on my huge LCD television when I’m home :-)

It comes with LTE. I’m sure LTE is meant to be awesome (in fact, I’ve use it regularly in South Korea, and it is fast, real fast), but my home carriers don’t support it yet. And it likely that by the time there is widespread support throughout the whole of Malaysia (heck, its still difficult to get reliable 3G access in the whole country if you step out of the Klang Valley) there will be a next generation iPhone, which is something I might pick up.

The camera on my iPhone 4 is sufficient. The camera on the 4S is awesome. And I bet the camera on the 5 will do wonders with easy panaromas, quicker photo capture, etc. It probably means I will find less need to carry a point & shoot, but this alone is not a good reason to upgrade.

I doubt that there will be much software that doesn’t run on the iPhone 4. iOS 6 will run on the iPhone 4. Apple continues to sell the iPhone 4, so it will be supported. 

So, am I compelled to upgrade? No. But if anything happened to my dear iPhone 4, I might consider the iPhone 5. Or with my investment in the dock connector ecosystem, I might just get an iPhone 4S :-) Happy not to be giving into the consumption economy!

I’ve wanted the iTunes store for over four years. Today Apple finally brings the iTunes store to Asia. All hail all of us sitting in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and more. Indonesia which is big in mobile however, is missing from the list.

For music, I’m not particularly excited. I’m using Spotify (first experience) and Rdio and don’t plan to buy music again. This means that iTunes Match doesn’t particularly excite me either (don’t forget that many Malaysian telcos are now charging you for your data — free 3GB with a plan, and the rest is either slow or you pay).

What looks interesting for me though? Movies. This is something I still have not solved yet, and using torrents always makes me feel dead guilty (which is why I always end up buying DVDs later, and never watching them – see my tv/movie consumption in 2011). The ability to buy or rent shows seems really interesting to me.

This probably means that I’ll end up getting an Apple TV in the near future. They don’t seem to be available in the Malaysia or Singapore stores yet… Metered bandwidth for DSL soon? I sincerely hope not…

Prices in the Malaysian store still suggest things in US dollars. Then again, everything including apps are in USD.

I have two iTunes accounts (one Malaysian, one US). With this announcement, I can finally think about merging everything into one account. Totally stoked at the upcoming simplicity :)

The iPhone dock connector is awesome. There are plenty of devices for it. Its what I would consider ubiquitous today.

I visit many hotels and one of the things that I totally enjoy is the fact that I can dock my iPhone and it automatically charges it. Sometimes I play music. Sometimes I’ve seen it at the back of the telephone, and the whole idea is to provide charging only. It means I carry one charger less.

The charger itself has changed over time. When I first interfaced with it, it connected to my computer using Firewire (from the days of the first generation iPod). Then it moved to USB. To the device, they had little push-in buttons. Now its just push in or pull out. 

Throughout all this though, the form factor has remained the same. Which is why there are so many devices for charging, playing music, interfacing to blood pressure monitors, and lots more. The device ecosystem is huge.

Changing it now without compatibility is going to be a real bummer. Lets hope Apple is smart about this. Optimize it, maybe. But make sure it “just works”.

Over a year ago, I wrote about Messenger apps, disrupting text messages (SMS). During that time, Apple launched another service called iMessage (standard with iOS 5 and greater). Send unlimited text messages via WiFi or 3G, and pick up where you left off across devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch).

I was desperately looking for a BBM desktop client. I’ve since stopped using BBM much due to the fact that most of my friends on the service have ditched the BlackBerry in favour of Android and iOS devices. So now we only keep in touch via WhatsApp. And more recently, KakaoTalk. Makes me wonder which came first — WhatsApp or KakaoTalk.

But not to digress, Apple has done a one-up. They’re providing iMessage support in Mountain Lion. And this is a killer feature because now you can chat on your iPhone, move to an iPad if you’re lying on your couch, and go straight to continue messaging on your MacBook Air when you’re on your desk. You also have group chat with iMessage. This is an extreme productivity booster when you need to keep in touch with groups (i.e. don’t only chat on the go, but chat at your desk too).

The only limitation of iMessage? All users need to have an iOS device. I’d hope Apple would open it all up so other people can built against the iMessages API, but thats probably a pipe dream. This limitation is basically similar to the once popular BBM.

With two major platforms, Android (Google Talk) and iOS (iMessage), you’ll go where your friends are.

The announcement for Mountain Lion came quite a while ago so I’m definitely late to the game. However one feature that excites me the most is AirPlay to an AppleTV. You can already do this AirPlay mirroring with an iPad (which I’ve not tested before). But why is this big for laptops?

Every respectable hotel I stay at has an iPod/iPhone dock. It may be from Bose or from some third party, but whatever it is, there is a dock. It started as an iPod dock, and now its pretty ubiquitous since many folk have iPhones. Solves the carrying a charger problem as well.

Many hotels I go to now have a DVD player. Some even have a BluRay player. I never use these devices. I watch TV sure, but I don’t carry physical media with me.

Imagine if every hotel room has an AppleTV? No more watching crappy Pay TV but mirroring my screen with some streaming video. Or just watching stuff off VLC (I hope AirPlay works with VLC).

You’ll say that no hotel will want this. But no hotel wanted to provide fast Internet either (long distance calling killed by Skype, Pay TV killed by streaming movies, etc.). It becomes a necessity after a while. In fact many hotels now give you a free Pay TV movie per stay if you’re so inclined.

I wonder if Apple will go into the projector making space? Or if AirPlay technology will be licensed to projector makers. After all, imagine seamless sync of your video out via AirPlay to a projector, with no cables whatsoever? Great for presentations, and one dongle less to carry.