What would it be?

The excitement is almost unbearable. The rumours about iPhone breaking down everywhere were rife. Come tomorrow …. in fact in a few hours time, the new iPhone would be unveiled! Appropriately, the Apple Store was currently down for maintenance, and that can only be one thing ….

I was just wondering if it would just be the iPhone. Would they also announce a new line-up of iMac - which was in need of refreshing, since I was looking for one. It was pretty clear that what ever phone Apple would launch tomorrow, I would definitely going to get it …… And I have already told Puan Anita about that ……

Fingers crossed …… Unfortunately I would be on call tomorrow. Not going to bed to stay up for the announcement would not be a choice ….

Apple TV

It took a fair while before Apple TV was released in Malaysia. It was partly due to the limitation of Malaysian App Store, which until only recently sold songs and movies. It was only purely applications prior to that, although it did not stop me from having both the US and UK app store accounts for my fix of movies and videos.

The Apple TV was surprisingly affordable at RM350, but compared to Western Digital media hubs and the like, it was pretty limited in terms of what it could do. But what ever it could do, typically of Apple, it did them well. It could stream. From iTunes. And that was it biggest selling point. And it streamed media directly from the iPads and Macs very well, although at a very noticeable latency.

The unit was much smaller than I expectedAnd it came with a slick remote unitTypical of Apple, it came in a nice tidy packageIt could also perform AirPlay, a way of turning the TV into a computer screen remotely, but the latency and lag were just too long. It was unusable at best. I also suffered from limited bandwidth as my router was located at my study, and I had to use a repeater to get signals onto the Apple TV. Streaming YouTube was effortless, but anything from the iTune Store took a while to download. I ended up downloading onto my MacBook, then streaming it onto the TV.

The situation maybe a little better if the wifi signal was stronger, something I would try on a later venture. At the moment, I was happy with the YouTube streaming, and media from my iPad. And another thing to be aware, the Apple TV unit did not come with an HDMI cable. You would need to purchase that separately.

The Schemer at Work

Kids nowadays are resourceful. So much so that all I would hear from Irfan would be, "Daddy, put in the password!". He would go into the App Store and pick his game. All I had to do was get key in the password and he would even sync the download later himself. Unbelievable.

I just need to make sure that he could not read the password, because otherwise, there would be trouble. Not on downloads, but from in-app purchases. That would be the killer.

As you can see from the photo, the boys got the whole scheme sorted out ....

I am with Siri

Finally, it was time for an upgrade. The home button on my iPhone 4 had been playing up for the last couple of months, but I never got around to find the time to upgrade the phone.

I was pleasantly surprised that all the shops were opened on Xmas day in Kuala Lumpur. And Bukit Bintang was teaming was people. Anita wanted to do some shopping there - there were plenty of bargain to be had there - as well as pick up some DVD from our "dealer". Mission accomplished.

While she was shopping, I roamed around and there were a few vendors selling the iPhone. After surveying around, I finally entered the Maxis store, and the rest was history ....

I will be putting up more review of the phone tomorrow after playing around with it. And the camera was just amazing ....

More Updates

I was lucky that I was not plagued by the reported battery drain issues of the iOS 5. Some of the issue was apparently addressed by the iOS 5.0.1 patch. But apparently not all. Rumors has it, the next iteration, iOS 5.0.2 would be released soon. Hopefully, this would not seed any new problems with my iPhone. At least, the update process would be a lot more straight forward. Over the air update was not only convenient, it also meant a leaner, smaller software download. A godsend.