Apple Unveils iPhone 4S

October 4 came and as expected Apple Inc unveiled the next generation iPhone; iPhone 4S at the company’s media event, Let’s Talk iPhone.

The new iPhone has the same design as the iPhone 4 but it’s different on the inside.

So, what’s really new on the inside?

Well, the iPhone 4S features an A5 processor which delivers 2X the speed of the iPhone 4, has an 8-megapixel back camera with some modifications to provide better pictures and HD (1080p) recording with up to 30 frames per second. Apple iPhone 4S is also the world’s first ‘World Phone’. It is able to switch between CDMA and GSM signals. The iPhone 4S offers download speed over HSDPA+ of up to 14.4mbps, that is twice what the iPhone 4 delivers. It will be available in 16GB, 32GB & 64GB when it launches on October 14.

What everybody is talking about though is Siri, your new personal assistant. You can ask Siri to send an email, set a reminder, tell you about LOL, place phone calls, ask about the weather and a lot more and Siri will do all that with ease…. all by talking to Siri.

I know not a lot of people are happy with the iPhone 4S. Personally, I don’t know if the iPhone 4S will break sales records but lest we forget, the iPhone 3GS had a similar reception when it was announced but it went on to outsell the iPhone 3G. The iPhone 4S can do the same.

I think the iPhone 4S is the best iPhone yet and had it not been for the rumours which spilled the specs and features and the high hopes for a teardrop design, people would have been wowed.

If you have an iPhone 4, there is no real need to upgrade to the iPhone 4S. Apple says the iPhone 4S will be available in 70 countries by the end of the year. This means Vodafone Ghana will probably not be carrying it by the end of 2011. My bet is still on Vodafone Ghana to be the first iPhone carrier in Ghana. I will just have to wait to see how much the SIM-free version will cost in the UK or whether the USA will have a SIM-free version as well. Currently, the SIM-free iPhone 4 sells in the UK for £429 (GH¢1,095) and in the USA for $549 (GH¢905). A SIM-free iPhone 4S should be around the same price.

Am I buying the iPhone 4S? Yes!

Goodbye, Steve.

Today’s post is dedicated to my personal hero, Steven Paul Jobs, who thought me to believe in design and quality. As we all know by now, Steve Jobs has resigned as CEO of Apple Inc, the world’s biggest technology company and makers of the Mac, iPhone, iPad and other great products. 

The news about Steve’s departure although saddens me was inevitable. Steve’s health has forced him to be on medical leave since January. In 2009, he had a liver transplant and he has been reported dead several times. 

As Walt Mossberg of All Things D writes; Steve Jobs’ resignation as chief executive officer of Apple is the end of an extraordinary era, not just for Apple, but for the global technology industry in general and I agree with him.

I however have no doubt his successor, Tim Cook (The Apprentice as some of us refer to him as) can run Apple Inc. as well as Steve Jobs did. Tim Cook has been with Apple since 1998 and is decried as an operational genius. He served as iCEO in 2009 and has been running Apple for the past 8 months.

I wish Steve Jobs good health and the very very best on his new position as Apple Board Chairman.

You are forever my idol!

Dropbox: Best App of 2010

Dropbox is my 2010 best app hands down! I am so in love with this app.

What is Dropbox? You remember when we used to attach files and save them as drafts in our emails so we don’t lose them? Well, those days belong to the last decade. Dropbox is an online backup/sync service/software offering 2GB for free. Bigger space is available for a monthly fee.

Dropbox is like your hard disk in the clouds. I use it for backing all my important data; office documents, iOS apps, eBooks, pictures, bookmarks, 1password backup files, reports, etc.

Once, I had a bad malware on my office pc. It ate up my files but since it had it all backed up on Dropbox, I didn’t panic. A few clicks and I had my files back. What if you mistakenly delete a file from your device and want it back, it is simple. Dropbox by default keeps deleted files for 30 days. All you have to do is undelete.

It is also a good tool for sharing files. If you are working on a document with a group or you want to share a file with your twitter friends, just use Dropbox.

Dropbox is available for Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, Blackberry and Web. Your files are always in sync with Dropbox. Once you work on your mac and save a file, it syncs it to your iPad and other devices. Isn’t that cool enough?

Finally, let me tell you about Dropbox’s really cool referral package. Once you refer someone and the person joins and activates his/her Dropbox, you get 256MB additional space. The referred user also gets 256MB more space. So, if you don’t have a dropbox yet, use the referral link for 256MB more space: http://db.tt/lpd1aHl

Ghana: My Mobile Broadband Experience

Today’s blog post has been inspire by a question posed by Dr. Amos Anyimadu of AfricaNext Knowledge Brokerage & Initiative on my mobile broadband experience. It’s an interesting question and it stirred a lot of questions and answers through my mind.

My mobile broadband experience has been ‘slow and expensive’. I have used all four gsm mobile phone operators on my iphone. After months of switching between them, I can say Zain Ghana does it for me.

Tigo was the first I tried because I had a better coverage than the other networks at the time. It is interesting to know that Tigo Ghana charges GH¢1 per megabyte of data. This is ridiculous. As a heavy user who uses over 1GB data on my phone monthly and without monthly data plans, where does that fit into my budget? Tigo’s connection is quite stable and quite fast (Ghana fast).

I moved to Vodafone Ghana’s mobile internet. It’s no different from their broadband facility previously known as GT Broadband4u. It is slow, unstable and unreliable. Vodafone doesn’t offer monthly plans for the prepaid mobile user. Vodafone also doesn’t detail charge on 1mb of data on their website. From my experience, I’m guessing they charge 50p or 90p per 1mb.

MTN Ghana wasn’t such a bad experience. With the GPRS signals compared to the EDGE I was getting from Tigo and Vodafone, it was faster & better. Connection was stable and it was cheaper than Tigo and probably Vodafone. I decided to stay on MTN mobile internet so I checked their website to see if they had monthly plans for the mobile user. Yes, they did and they pricing was cool. But how do I activate a plan? I called MTN the next day to inquire and I was told the plans were for their postpaid costumers and as a prepaid costumer, I wasn’t qualified for a monthly data plan. After arguing with the costumer service representative, I gave up and switched to Zain Ghana.

The first time I accessed the web on my iPhone, I was redirected to the Zain data site where I was given the option to choose a ‘charge on use’ plan or ‘limited (monthly)’ plan. Wow, this was what I was telling the MTN costumer representative. I went for the economy bundle (500mb @ GH¢25). The other option was the super saver bundle (1gb @ GH¢60). Zain has gone on to add 5 more bundles. Currently, I use the Zain On The Go (Light) bundle (1gb @ GH¢30) and I can say I am very satisfied with the service. It has brought my iPhone alive. It is very stable. The only time, I don’t enjoy it when I am on the road. Zain’s coverage is quite limited.

So if you want to choose a data carrier for your phone, the choice is yours but I would strongly recommend Zain or MTN. In part 2 of this post I will discuss my experience with Kasapa powered Mobile2i and Zipnet.

God Bless Our Homeland Ghana!

Why an iPhone…… Why an iPod Touch?

I have owned several ‘smartphones’ from sony ericsson to nokia to blackberry and I must confess nothing comes closer to the iPhone. If you are thinking about getting a new phone, think Apple, think iPhone, if you are thinking of getting a portable music player, think iPod touch. I have been using the iPhone for close to two years and it hasn’t ceased to wow me.  I also believe that the core of every smartphone is the software and Apple got it right with the iPhone.  Allowing the iPhone to run Mac OS just does the trick. Windows mobile OS and Symbian seem too crappy for me. The Blackberry OS is just all right. I am yet to try Android though.

What makes the iPhone and the iPod touch super cool is the wide range of apps you can get through the App Store. 60,000 apps and counting and there is almost an app for everything. As soon as I get on the iPhone programming, I will write an app for pounding fufu and for the best fufu joints in Ghana :D Not kidding! If you’re reading this post and you don’t have an iPhone or iPod touch yet, please get one. You wont regret it.

Now let me share some of the coolest apps in Apple’s App Store with you. These are apps I use personally and I would recommend for everyone. Its hard making choices from 60,000+ apps so I hope this will be your guide.

1.     TwitterFon Pro, Tweetie, Twitterrific & Birdhouse: these are my favourite twitter apps. TwitterFon does it for me. It caches me tweets so I can read them even if I am offline, it has a counter so I don’t miss a tweet. That’s the first twitter app I recommend for everyone. The free version of this app comes with ads. If you don’t want it eating your data, you have to pay $4.99 for it. Birdhouse is a small app, which allows you to draft tweets so you can post them later. Why would you want to draft tweets? Lets say twitter is down or your data service is down, wouldn’t you want to draft your tweets? Tweetie and Twitterrific are equal super twitter apps too. They dont disappoint.

2.     Newsstand: this is without a doubt the best rss reader for the iPhone. It can sync with Google reader and you can also add feeds manually. Best part for me is that you can tweet from the app. If you come across a news item you want to share, you can do so via twitter or email all within the app.

3.     Pocket God: This is the best and the most creative iPhone game. Created by @davecazz, it is one game you won’t stop playing. It makes you a god of an island and you can let it rain, make a volcano erupt, let the islanders cook etc. What’s even cool is that @davecazz updates it regularly.  Oh and it ‘s only $0.99

4.     Facebook: you are on facebook? Well you need this app. It’s a free app which allows you do almost everything you can on the web.

5.     BeejiveIM: the only instant messenger client you will need. Jabber, Yahoo messenger, AIM, GTalk, Facebook Im, MySpace IM, ICQ and Windows Live all in one. It also has push notification.

6.     My Soccer: it’s football (soccer) season and you don’t want to miss out, this app got you. Check the scores, fixtures, line ups, team news etc. A must-have for all soccer fans.

7.    iWiki: Wikipedia without going to your browser. I use Wikipedia a lot. Price: $1.99 There is an official wikipedia app but I like iWiki better.

8.     Google Mobile & Inquisitor: Google mobile does google and Inquisitor, yahoo. Google mobile is the coolest. The voice search is the killer. Price: Free

9.     Holy Bible, Universalis & iRosary: must have for Christians. iRosary is really cool. It makes praying the rosary easy for me.  Happy I paid $0.99 for it. Holy Bible is free and Universalis has a hefty $24.99 tag :D

10.  Convertbot: best unit convertor for iPhone. I just love the interface. Beautiful and free.

11. AppMiner: what if you want an app on your iPhone and cant afford to pay the hefty tag? You put it on watch in AppMiner and app miner will let you know when it goes on sale. AppMiner also allows you to see the new apps in the store and which app is on sale.  Price: Free

12. Dictonary.com: what does the name say? Dictionary from dictionary.com. it’s free and it has a word of the day section so you get to learn a new word everyday.

13. Assassin’s Creed, Resident Evil, Top Gun, Sonic the Hedgehog, NFSU, Crash Kart, Tetris, Scrabble, Sudoku, Monopoly, Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, Puzzloop, Caissa Chess, Hangman & Real Soccer 09: Had to kill all these apps with one stone. If you or your girl play zuma or luxor? You will like puzzloop. Crash Kart looks like Mario Kart. You have seen the movies, the game show, now you meet the app; Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. All the games listed are just fantastic.

14. Cool fx, ColorSplash & Photogene are the photo editing apps you will need on your iPhone.

I could go on and on about the apps, but seeing is believing and trying is loving. I will be blogging about these apps and more in subsequent posts.