drbuk

iOS 5

1. iCloud: I already talked about the significance of iCloud and what it could entail. However, there are extra tidbits to tie it further with iOS5. There are rumours of your applications being backed up to the cloud and tied in with your Apple ID. So just like on android, you can put your ID on a new phone and apps will begin to install on the device, pretty damn cool ! Again further eliminating the need to sync with a computer and further pushing devices such as the iPad as a POST PC DEVICE.

1. OTA Software Updates: There were rumours of Apple talking to Verizon about over the air software updates. WebOS and Android already send out software updates OTA. Now we all know Apples software updates for iOS devices can sometimes be 100-500MB and thats a large file size. Apple would have to get the updates to be much smaller to do over the air, otherwise it would take ages to update OTA. But man its something I really want, just because I hate having to always connect via a cable to iTunes. I would love over the air updates.

1. FaceBook & Twitter Integration & Photo Stream:There are rumours pointing towards FB and T integretion into iOS. So there is a possibility that you could upload photos or news directly to FB or T with the OS instead of using 3rd party apps. At the same time specifically with FB, maybe integrate address books, messages, calendars and merge them with iOS address book, messages etc. Now this may or may not be a must want feature for some of you guys. To be honest I wouldn’t mind it, but I’m not craving the integration. There was also talk of something called “Photo Stream”. This is supposed to be Apple getting even more into Social Networks, something Apple has demonstrated that they have no idea what they are doing, look at Ping….It is possible that this is either an attempt to boost Ping services. However, with new rumours of Twitter getting into a photo/video sharing services as to prepare for iOS5, who knows what Photo Stream is.

1. New Multi-Touch Gestures: If you remember in a beta of iOS 4.3 we saw brand new MT Gestures that extremely improved the handling of multi-tasking and almost eliminated the use of the home button. It may be possible that we see these new gestures debut in iOS 5. These gestures were only for the iPad and may stay with the iPad, but man Id love some gestures on the iPhone so I could minimize the use of the home button for mutli-tasking, its so damn annoying.

1. Improved Multi-tasking: There are rumours of improved method of multi-tasking. Now i don’t think Apple will change there IMPLEMENTATION OF MULTI-TASKING, they won’t change to what we call TRUE MULTI-TASKING, so the android or webos sense, BUT rumours point to a change of UI for multi-tasking. To be honest, I do want a change of UI for multi-tasking, I TRULY HATE the way its implemented atm, using the home button all the time to access all the apps and then scrolling to find the app. The mutli-touch gestures for the iPad make multi-tasking a dream. Also the rumoured pictures show mutli-tasking with an expose mode, so showing all open active apps, in a tile menu interface, its pretty slick. I still want the ability to do some TRUE-MULTITASKING FEATURES, I mean i want a webpage to load in the background while im busy checking my mail. I hate this PAUSE AN APP WHILE IM AWAY, yes i get it, its multi-tasking and saving battery but man its annoying sometimes.

1. Turn by Turn Navigation new Maps: Will iOS5 be the os update to get rid of Google Maps and introduce Apple maps, I mean Apple have bought a maps company years ago known as PlaceBase ? I don’t think so, maybe we will see Apple Maps in OS6 alongside Google Maps and then Apple Maps full time in iOS7. Eric Schmidt at the D9 conference has announced that Apple has actually renewed its contract for Google Maps. Now thats all good news but I WANT GOOGLE MAPS 5.0, I WANT VECTOR MAPS/3D Maps/3D Compass even turn by turn navigation ! Have you seen how amazing Google Maps 5.0 looks on android phones ! just amazing ! Also its about time the iPhone got the latest version of Google Maps and perhaps also turn by turn navigation. But all we can do is wait and see.

1. Improved Voice Recognition: There are large amounts of rumours pointing towards a deal between Apple and Nuance, allowing for Nuance’s advanced voice recognition service being used in iOS5. This service will also tie together the functionality of an Appe that Apple purchased called Siri which works via voice commands, and all the data will be referenced, stored, accessed via the new NC Data Centre. Siri is a very cool app, it basically allows for voice activated search “The Inquirer reports that: The software uses GPS and speech-recognition technology, and the application translates the commands and uses search algorithms to find answers.

1. Notifications & Widgets: The biggest thing I have been blasting about for ages is the lack of a good notification system on the iPhone or in crude terms the PATHETIC ALMOST NON-EXISTENT notification system we have today in iOS. There are now HUGE rumours about a totally revamped notification system in iOS as well as the debut of widgets in iOS. TBH I’m not so sure about widgets, but notifications has to be done, it just has to because its the one biggest area that iOS SEVERELY LACKS. Notification systems on WebOS and WP7 even on Android are supreme in every way versus notifications in iOS 4 atm. 

A dream would be to have a subtle, sleek, slick notification system for when a text message appears, or an email or even a missed call without always having to see that stupid blue box. 

Also perhaps a summary page at the lock screen displaying basic information. There was the guy who worked at Apple, left for Palm who worked on notifications who was then re-hired to work at Apple. 

There is also the guy who developed MobileNotifier which is the latest jailbreak tweak for notifications who IS RUMORED TO JUST BEING HIRED by Apple. There is so much news, rumours, hype around notifications, so lets hope its done and dusted and ready to debut  next Monday.

1. The last thing isn’t so much of a rumour but more of a personal request. As much as I love Apple introducing fun innovative features in iOS5 I really want UPDATES TO CORE APPS AND SERVICES. I mean I want to be able to flag or start email, to view calendar entries as a week view, the basic things. Please Apple ! Evolution vs Revolution….

Mac OSX 10.7 Lion Rumours

1. We saw just a “glimpse” of Lion at the “Back to the Mac” event. I am expecting to see a big demo of Lion at WWDC with quite a few new commercial features, perhaps even a new UI, and loads of tweaks and updates to core apps and features. But the key thing is all the tweaks and updates will have inspirations from iOS. I believe that, there are small things in OSX that really annoy us that Apple haven’t found a way to solve this, but its weird how iOS fills in those gaps nicely and smoothly, again a virtuous circle, Mac OSX lead to iOS and now iOS influences Mac OSX.

1. Some features that have been found in Lion betas, or have leaked as a rumour are as follows: 

• Find My Mac: But we assume “Find My Mac” is just another iOS-like feature Apple is adding. You’ll likely be able to track, send messages to, and remote wipe your lost or stolen computer.
•  Reading List: Users can save articles and read them offline later, just like Instapaper. It’s not clear if “Reading List” will sync with other devices like iPhones and iPads, but that would be a must-have if Apple hopes to compete with Instapaper.
•  Log in remotely using Apple ID: It used to be that you had to pay $99 for MobileMe in order to access your Mac remotely. Now it looks like Lion will let you do this for free just by logging in with your Apple ID. (The same one you use to purchase music and apps from iTunes or the App Store.) That’s a much better deal.
•  See document previews from spotlight: Gigaom discovered that Spotlight search will have some nice tweaks in Lion, allowing you to preview documents before opening them.
•  New log in screen: The log in screen got a simple look. Now it’s just a gray, metallic-like background with dark letters.

1.  There is also Pricing & Release date: I do think that Lion is going to be more expensive than Snow Leopard, but there are reports and rumours of Apple PRICING LION AGGRESSIVELY, and yes Apple do make money on OSX sales, but the main thing is to get LARGE ADOPTION, to get everyone on Lion and if its cheap and has a lot of new features THAT MAKES THE UPGRADE VERY ATTRACTIVE. I think maybe $70/80, £60/70. In terms of release date, I really do want a release date of June/July and think its possible, the latest I think is August/Sept but we have seen Leopard in the past being released in October.

iCloud Rumours 

1. What will iCloud do ? Well there are quite a few suggestions:

• Media Service: Rumours are saying Apple will make a MUSIC LOCKER SERVICE, just like Amazon and Google. In my view I don’t believe Apple will do it just like Amazon and Google. To my understanding Amazon and Google allow you to upload ANY MUSIC, PURCHASED, CD RIP ETC. to there cloud storage. I think Apple will only allow purchased music from the iTunes store to go up to the cloud.
• Also if Apple just give us a cloud music locker, this is pretty boring, they need to differentiate themselves from Amazon and Google.What Apple could do and is rumoured to do, is the following: 

1. Detect purchased music in your iTunes library and then put a High quality copy of the song you have into the cloud AUTOMATICALLY, so you don’t have to UPLOAD THE SONG MANUALLY TO THE CLOUD. 
2. Also to not just limit to music in the cloud but to allow for things like movies or tv shows, so video. So you purchase a tv show or a movie and it goes straight to the cloud and then you can either stream it or download it to your device. Apple are rumoured to already have a few deals with various music and video companies.
3. Storage for Apple TV: one of the features that was lost with the new Apple TV was storage on the device, but what happens if you could buy content then keep it in iCloud then stream whenever you want via Apple TV !

1. Enhanced of existing MobileMe features

1. iOS Syncing via iCloud: This will be the only feature that I TRULY WANT AND WILL FALL IN LOVE WITH ! It is a BIG feature IF IT IS DONE RIGHT that is DESPERATELY NEEDED and will SOLVE MANY PROBLEMS. The biggest problem with content creation on iOS devices is the fact that when your done with a document, you end up sending copies of the document from device to device, be it iPad to iPhone or iPad to Mac. So what happens is, you end up with multiple copies, and that leads to confusion or a large loss of work. This is the reason for word processing I use SimpleNote and not Pages. Simple Note syncs with the cloud between my iPhone, iPad and my Mac (JustNotes), brilliant ! If Apple develop a system to allow documents to be made using apps that then save it to the cloud, then are synced with all devices, that would solve the whole dilemma, basically WORK LIKE DROP-BOX.

Let me paint the picture/scenario: “I am working on a keynote presentation about my 4th year research project on my MacBook Pro. I need to travel but have to continue work on the presentation. So I save the presentation to iCloud. iCloud then syncs the file to my iPhone and my iPad. On the way to the train station I am editing my presentation on my iPhone, again all changes are synced back to the cloud. On the train now editing the presentation on my iPad, again save changes back to the cloud. Get to university and the presentation is all done and synced back to my Mac”. 

I want much more syncing with the cloud, what I have talked about is just one syncing scenario.

The biggest problem here is, will Apple allow third party apps to have access to iCloud ? Devs who have money will have there own servers, and you can use there cloud service and there apps or apps compatible with there service, just like apps that are Drop Box compatible. Its great to have Apple apps syncing to the cloud, but even better if 3rd party apps could sync to iCloud, maybe Apple could charge a small fee to devs for using iCloud ?

1. There is very little information thats solid about iCloud. We don’t know if iCloud will replace MobileMe, be a part of MobileMe or is a separate stand alone product. It would be great if its part of MobileMe and the whole package is offered at a COMPETITIVE PRICE. At the same time, there may be customers who don’t want all Cloud services and may just want to pay for the media services. In my view Apple need to get as many people using there cloud services, so offering it all for a competitive price and rebranding it all as iCloud makes sense. 

The most interesting thing about iCloud is the fact that, it may be able to make iOS devices like the iPad A TRUE POST PC DEVICE. If you could store everything from contacts to music to maybe apps then perhaps you don’t need to sync it or activate it with a computer.

1. There is also talk about the pricing of iCloud. Rumours are suggesting that Apple will either price it competitively, and have heavy student discounts (BACK TO SCHOOL PROGRAM). There is also talk about making aspects of iCloud free and to make it free for all Lion users. Its hard to predict, but months ago there was a lot of talk about MobileMe having a paid and free tiered service. We shall wait and see.

Hi, my name is Adrian, welcome to the D R B U K Channel !

All my life I have been a Windows Platform user. I used Windows based computers, Windows based phones etc. August 2007 I decided to make the ‘BIG SWTICH’ and change to the ‘Macintosh Platform’. The Macintosh platform isn’t the only platform from Apple that has taken off. We now also have the very successful ‘iOS platform’, which I switched to in 2008.

So what makes the D R B U K channel different from other Technology YouTube channels ? The two unique features of my videos are ‘objectivity’ & ‘immense detail’. I believe it’s important to make videos that are truthful & unbiased and to make sure those videos are full of detail. All I want to do, is help people feel confident & comfortable about switching to the Macintosh Platform & the iOS Platform. Technology products are NOT CHEAP, it is your money you are spending and I truly believe that people need to know as much as possible about a product before they buy it.

Please remember I am not loyal to Apple, Windows etc. I switch to the platform that I feel IS THE BEST, and at this present time I feel that the Macintosh Platform & the iOS Platform ARE THE BEST.

So watch and enjoy a multitude of Apple related videos, such as unboxing videos, in depth review videos, Apple event overview videos and other technology videos that manage to crop up.

Thanks for watching, and most of all 

HAPPY SWITCHING !

Steppin Up - M.I.A (Strong Bass + Highs)

Kush - Dr. Dre (Strong Bass + Bass + Mids + Mix)

The Prodigy - Invaders Must Die (Strong Bass + Bass)

Southside - Common ft Kanye West (Strong Bass)

Crack A Bottle - Eminem (Strong Bass + Instrumental)

Touch It - Busta Rhymes (Strong Bass)

I’m Not A Player - Big Punisher (Strong Bass + Mix)

Lollipop - Lil Wayne (Strong Bass + Bass + Mix)

Get You Some - Busta Rhymes (Strong Bass + Strings + Vocals)

Valley of Death - Rick Ross (Strong Bass)

Bat for Lashes - Mt Eden (Strong Bass)

Sa-Ra - Big Fame (Strong Bass)

Light Up - Drake ft Jay-Z (Strong Bass + Mix + Vocals)

Maniac - Kid Cudi (Strong Bass + Bass + Mids)

Light Up - Drake ft Jay-Z (Strong Bass + Mix + Vocals)

Maniac - Kid Cudi (Strong Bass + Bass + Mids)

The Prodigy - Omen (Strong Bass + Bass)

What U Gon’ Do - Lil Jon (Strong Bass)

Eazy-E - Ole School S*** (Strong Bass)

Killas - Lil Jon ft Ice Cube, Game (Strong Bass)

Joe Budden - Pump It Up (Strong Bass)

Cocaina - Busta Rhymes (Strong Bass + Instrumental)

Outta Your Mind - Lil Jon (Strong Bass)

Most Kingz - Jay-Z ft Chris Martin (Strong Bass + Mix)

Wont Back Down - Eminem ft Pink (Bass + Highs)

Penthouse Condo - Stat Quo (Bass + Mix)

The Champion - Inspectah Deck (Bass + Mix)

Clubbin - MH (Bass + Vocals)

Hey Baby - Pitbull ft T-Pain (Bass + Vocals + Mix)

What’s The Difference - Dr. Dre (Bass + MIx)

Blakroc - What you Do To Me (Bass + Mix)

Symphony In X Major - Xzibit ft Dr. Dre (Bass + Mix)

Trylogy - Kurupt (Bass + Strings + Vocal)

Aston Martin Music - Drake ONLY VERSION (Bass + Mids + Mix)

Start The Show - Common (Bass + Mix)

House Of Flying Daggers - Raekwon (Bass)

Black Cloud - Joe Budden (Bass + Mix)

Nas - Get Down (Mids + Bass)

Promiscuous Girl - Nelly Furtado ft Timbaland (Bass + Mix)

They Don’t Care About Us - Michael Jackson (Vocals + Bass + Mix)

Beat It - Michael Jackson (Vocals + Mix)

Coldplay - In My Place (Instrumental + Vocals)

Coldplay - Clocks (instrumental + Vocals)

Don’t Bring Me Down - Sia (Vocals + Mix)

Moon - Sia (Vocals + Mix)

Hey Jude - The Beatles (Vocals + Mix)

Brian McKnight - Used to be my girl (Vocals + Mix)

John Legend - Ordinary People (Instrumental + Vocals)

To Build A Home - Ma Fleur (Instrumental + Vocals)

Cary Brothers - Blue Eyes (Vocals + Mix)

Kings of Leon - The End (Instrumental + Vocals)

How It Ends - DeVotchka (Vocals + Mix)

The Jesus and Mary Chain - Just Like Honey (Mix)

50 Cent ft Jeremih - 5 Senses (Vocals + Mix + Mids)

Bed - J. Holiday (Vocals + Mix)

Jamie Cullum - Frontin (Pharrel Cover) (Instrumental + Vocals)

Time To Pretend - MGMT (Mix + Vocals)

The Beatles - Let It Be (Vocals)

Curren$y - Flying Iron (Instrumental)

Roc Boys - Jay-Z (Mix + Instrumental)

You Can Do It Too - Pharrel (Instrumental)

Gorgeous - Kanye West (Mix)

Kings of Leon - Pyro (Instrumental + Vocals)

If I Ruled The World - Jamie Cullum (Instrumental + Vocal + Bass)

Wyclef Jean - Gone Till November (Instrumental + Mix)

Coldplay - In My Place (Instrumental + Vocals)

Callie Moore - Grand Finale (Vocals)

Coldplay - Clocks (instrumental + Vocals)

So Apple is suing Samsung…skipping past the technicalities, basically Apple are suing due to Samsung copying the iPhone, things like similar icons etc. If you want to know the SPECIFICS check out www.thisismynext.com and check for an editorial by Nilay Patel, brilliant writing AS USUAL !

So time to throw out some views on the topic, in the forms of some questions you guys have asked via twitter (drbuk).

Q1. Why the hell is Apple suing Samsung ? Aren’t they Apple’s biggest supplier of iPhone components ? Why would they risk that relationship ?

A1. I originally said on twitter that this is no big deal, these component deals are BIG CONTRACTS set in stone a long time ago, and just because things change you can’t just change a contract, you would have to honour that contract till the end, and if you want to not carry on, thats fine.

But from reading and listening to Nilay Patel, apparently the structure of Samsung as a company won’t damage relationships with Apple…as much that is…

Samsung is split up into divisions and so you have the Component division, the mobile division etc. And so Apple has a good relationship with the component division. Apple is suing the MOBILE DIVISION, so the component division will be like meh, we don’t care thats not our problem.

Also the mobile division has to BID for components for its phones in the same way Apple has to bid for components for its iPhone…lol…hilarious in my view…your thinking but why ? well HELLO ! who makes more money from phones, Apple or Samsung ?  Easy its Apple, so they order TONNES MORE COMPONENTS compared to the components needed for samsung phones, so Samsung will make more money from Apple, period.

Q2. Is samsung trying to make an iPhone copy or trying to fool people into buying the Samsung thinking its an iPhone ?

A2. In my view, samsung does copy. Samsung takes a popular product and then mass produces there version of it but combined with very very good hardware and a familiar os. Samsung are just not innovative. 

The samsung galaxy s series phones are wonderful phones in terms of hardware, and I mean that HONESTLY, I love it. I HATE HATE HATE THE SKIN they use on Android. But its that skin (TouchWiz Pro) that looks PRETTY IDENTICAL TO iOS. The icons are hilariously similar lol. 

Samsung are NOT SERIOUS ABOUT MAKING A GREAT PRODUCT THROUGH THE COMBINING OF ORIGINAL SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE in my view, examples of companies that are serious about doing something DIFFERENT is Apple and HTC. Look at the skin that HTC uses on its android phones, HTC SENSE, its BEAUTIFUL AND DIFFERENT. Samsung in my view looked at the iPhone and thought, meh we will just take that look and feel and play with it a bit, make it a bit different and ship that on our phones. No innovation, just imitation and laziness, and not even done nicely, have you seen the ugly fonts used in the samsung galaxy series phones, yuck !

People I have talked to who have own a samsung galaxy s series phone say, that oh i love it, it feels and looks like an iPhone and BOOM ! THERE WE GO ! lol Samsung almost knew that if we produce something with fantastic hardware and a feel close to the iphone then people will want that. I DONT THINK SAMSUNG ARE TRYING TO FOOL PEOPLE INTO BUYING THE GALAXY SERIES PHONES, into thinking its an iPhone.

Q3. Is Apples actions going too far ?

A3. Apple want to halt all sales of galaxy series phones, or anything that has that iOS COPIED UI. To be honest, that is going THE WHOLE MILE, thats big actions, and not even the last of what Apple wants, I’m just skimming it down, again for full legal actions check out Nilay Patel’s article on www.thisismynext.com.

To be honest, people get upset at Apple for doing this because, its UI and its icons, it’s look and feel, and people think how can you sue for the look and feel, no big deal. But think about if from an angle of IF YOU DESIGNED SOMETHING AND SOMEONE COPIED THAT AND WAS 1. MAKING MONEY OF YOUR IDEA OR 2. CONFUSING THE BASIC AVERAGE CONSUMER ABOUT WHICH PRODUCT IS WHICH. Then you feel like yes Apple is doing the right thing. To be honest, I DON’T HAVE A VIEW JUST YET ON APPLES ACTIONS.

thats all for now…my fingers hurt

laters

I have way too much to say about Windows Phone 7….so rather then talk about features, the pros etc. I just want to talk about one worry I have about Windows Phone 7…the speed of software updates.

So WP7 launched sometime last year, and at a Microsoft event it was promised that a software update would be coming with copy&paste and perhaps some bug fixes. Well, its April 2011 and the update is just beginning to roll out but with LOADS OF ISSUES, be it phones bricking or carriers not allowing the update to come out. So the speed of the update to customers is slow because of the above points.

Although thats a crappy situation, thats not what I’m moaning about. What I’m moaning about is HOW LONG MICROSOFT TAKE TO WORK ON AN UPDATE THEN GET IT OUT TO US. By the time Microsoft get a software update out with MUCH NEEDED ON LAUNCH FEATURES, the competition is speeding away. Microsoft was always GOING TO PLAY CATCH UP with WP7 but I mean COME ON, if anything you now NEED TO WORK FASTER, SO WHY THE HOLD UP !

Microsoft just had its software dev meetup MIX, and again a new update was announced with some great new features BUT TO BE RELEASED LATE 2011, again PATHETIC, especially with Android updates coming left right and centre and iOS 5 coming out roughly in June, a mobile os going through its fifth biggest update. COME ON MICROSOFT HURRY UP ! You finally have a mobile OS that has some promising features and a great HARDWARE SPEC REQUIREMENT SHEET, so why risk failure with slow slow slow software updates.

As usual I blame THE SPEED of Microsoft to REACT, on one thing…the Size of the company, the countless levels of middle management and red tape…this is the culture of an established company, and not a startup…Microsoft needs to adapt a culture of a startup and stop all this inter-departmental bickering and competition.

Would I recommend Windows Phone 7, well in terms of phone features, look and feel and experience YES. In terms of software updates, the speed of them, and should you really wait that long rather then going with Android or iPhone and having to WAIT LESS TIME FOR MUCH NEEDED FEATURES…no

Sad isn’t it, considering that WP7 is a product I love to pieces…

laters..