Category: Mobile

iPhone 4S launches October 14, 2011 with the best smartphone camera, will it kill point and shoots?

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Many felt Apple’s announcement of iPhone 4S yesterday was a let down. The rumours on the web hyped the event to a degree where most people I spoke to believed an iPhone 5, totally revolutionary new iPhone, was about to be launched. Apple’s tick-tock refreshes aren’t new, and it’s so effective even Intel has adopted it in its recent roadmaps. So why beat yourself up about it?

It’s not all “bad” news, the new camera in the iPhone 4S is incredible for its form factor.

The new iPhone 4S camera consists of the following:

  • Sensor:
    • 8 megapixels (3264×2448 resolution)
    • Backside illumination (BSI)
    • Hybrid IR filter
  • Lens:
    • 5 elements
    • f/2.4 aperture
    • 4.3 mm focal length (35 mm equivalent of exactly 35 mm)

Apple was also able to utlize the Apple A5 SoC to process images, created what they dubbed as Image Signal Processor. Coupled with the new sensor and lens the iPhone 4S allows for 60% more pixels, 73% more light, 33% faster capture, 30% sharper image, 26% better white balance, better colour accuracy and uniformity, face detection.

When a video is being taken, the iPhone 4S can utilize its gyroscope to provide video stabilization.

Judging from the EXIF data from the iPhone 4S keynote photos, the camera can achieve ISO 64 without any problems, it’s likely able to shoot in ISO 50 at the lowest range. The exposure and shutter are fully automatic with the built-in app so it’s hard to tell exactly what you can do until someone gets one and tries it with Camera+.

If the recent Flickr camera usage data is of any indication, the point and shoot cameras marketshare may take an unhealthy dip in the coming year.

What does the AT&T/T-Mobile merger mean to Canada?

You have no doubt have heard by now that AT&T and T-Mobile is seeking regulatory approval for merger. AT&T is prepared to pay Deutsche Telekom $39 billions in the acquisition. $25 billion will be cash, $14 billion stock options, Deutsche Telekom will in turn own 8% of AT&T. Everyone wins. 

Everyone, including Canadians.

T-Mobile’s spectrum licenses in the US are AWS, or otherwise known as Band IV (1700 MHz), similar to that of Wind and Mobilicity. The footprint is not yet large enough but AT&T’s plans of using it to expand its the LTE coverage in the US. This would only mean one thing. Eventually the true 4G handsets will need to utilize AWS, at least partially in conjunction with the current Band II+V (1900 MHz + 850 MHz) in North America. A hexa-band device will be the new standard to cover the world. 

Potentially every manufacturer will want to hop on the AWS bandwagon to futureproof themselves against the inevitable merger. In the short term nothing will happen, but in the long run Wind and Mobilicity will make a killing with a plethora amount of new devices available to their networks. 

Sorry American consumers, your competitive loss will be Canada’s competitive win. Ironic isn’t it? 

iWork + Box.net WebDAV = must have for iPad

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I have been searching for a WebDAV compatible cloud storage service since I started playing with Pages on the iPad. 16 GB is plenty for storage if you’re only doing word processing and simple spreadsheets but since Apple gimped the iPad’s file manager (it’s non-existent), I had to resort to some Googling to finally settling on using Box.net. 

<rant>

Apple’s iWork suite for iPad (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) natively support MobileMe’s iDisk function. But a MobileMe subscription costs $99! There are so many free cloud storage services nowadays that charging for $99 a year is just outrageous. If Dropbox can give me 2 GB for free with a dead easy sync app for every platform, why would I pay for MobileMe to get iDisk that’s supported by Apple devices only? That’s stupid, roll out free MobileMe or die. 

</rant>

So if you’re like me and is unwilling to sync with iTunes to get at the files created on your iPad, here’s how to get WebDAV working with Box.net. 

  1. Sign up with Box. 
  2. Setup Box’s WebDAV details with iWork apps. 

Server: http://box.net/dav
Username: your Box username
Password: your Box password

Done. 

PS: Dropbox can be extended with WebDAV functions using a 3rd party called DropDAV. It works relatively well and is painless to setup, but I wrote this for Box because it had native WebDAV support. There is however a problem with Box, there is no Mac desktop client. Kind of silly if you think about it. So if you prefer Dropbox (I always have) then check out DropDAV. 

iPad 2 is basically iPad with new SOC (dual-core), dual cameras, gyroscope, thinner, lighter

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The new iPad 2 technical specifications are out and it’s not half bad. The new Apple A5 system-on-chip is basically a dual-core ARM chip (CPU) paired with a better PowerVR chip (GPU), no RAM specification reveal but iFixit will have a teardown shortly after the March 11 US launch date. 

I was hoping for a simultaneous worldwide release this year. At least Apple was able to set a target date for the 2nd batch. So the US gets iPad 2 on March 11, rest of the developed world (note: Canada, Japan, Europe Union) gets it on March 25. No target date for the Southeast Asian or Middle East regions yet. I assume there will be mass grey market shipments from Japan to other Asian countries and the Middle East can dip into the EU shipments earlier. Price premiums be damned. 

There are some disapointments too. Where is the Retina Display? I guess IPS screens are still expensive and the amount of pixels that is required to power a “Retina Display” is not yet energy efficient enough. Same goes out to the Thunderbolt rumours. Having an direct input/output port on the iPad is not realistic yet, the controller Thunderbolt requires will probably make the iPad 2 twice as thick. 

I do like the fact that Apple is making a new dock adapter that will output to HDMI. $39 is hefty for an adapter but the pro-HDMI haters can finally be quiet about it. The new “Smart Covers” are meh. 

New free iPad-only apps include FaceTime, Photo Booth. Looks like FaceTime will finally switch to a different way of initiating calls. Too bad Apple is charging $0.99 for the Mac version. 

iMovie for iPad and GarageBand for iPad are nice, if you need them. Is it me or does Apple seem to refuse to adopt universal binaries for their own apps? I would like to pay $4.99 for iMovie once and have it work on all iOS devices please. It appears that I was wrong, iMovie will be universal. Yay! GarageBand probably requires the screen real estate like Pages, Numbers and Keynote, therefore is iPad-only. 

To be honest I am more excited about the fact that Random House is now on iBooks than the iPad 2 announcements. At least I have iOS 4.3 to look forward to come March 11.