Author Archives: Steve
Yesterday’s iCloud introduction leaves lots of questions, few answers
Yesterday in the delirium of the WWDC keynote, iCloud seemed like the business – the all-syncing, all-dancing digital nirvana that we could have only dreamed of a few years ago. And we have a feeling that it will pan out this way in the long run, but right now the web is starting to fill up with questions from concerned Apple customers whose current modus operandi doesn’t seem to fit in with the way we currently understand iCloud to work. Questions like “Will my MobileMe account migrate to iCloud?”, “Can I still share my Apple ID with my family for app purchases and still use iCloud?”, “What happens to iDisk?” and “What about MobileMe Gallery?”. The perception is that Apple are suddenly telling us that the way we use our accounts and sync our phones has to change. Unfortunately, while Cupertino have given us lots of information about how wonderful iCloud is, they’ve neglected to provide answers to important questions like these that would inevitably be on people’s minds. So what answers do we have? Read on.…
Read More
Posted in All, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch
iOS 5 announced: new feature round-up
Steve Jobs’s WWDC Keynote has wrapped up and I have to say that this is probably the most exciting and feature-packed non-hardware keynote I’ve ever seen him do. There are some incredible new features being packed into iOS 5 that will really wipe the smug smile from any face that might have been claiming that iOS was getting stale and falling behind the competition. After the break we’ll have a quick round-up of what’s new so read on.…
Read More24 hours til WWDC: Time for a rumour roundup
We’re just one little day away from WWDC 2011 and while we now know for a fact that Steve Jobs will introducing iOS 5, iCloud and Mac OS X Lion, we know very little more than that in terms of what these new products will actually do (with the possible exception of Lion). And we all know that when facts are scarce, that’s when the rumour mill gets its cogs turning so keep reading for a round-up of what we might see tomorrow and what we would be announcing were we in charge in Cupertino!…
Read More
Posted in All, Apple TV, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch
iWork apps now available for iPhone and iPod touch
Apple’s iWork suite (Pages, Numbers and Keynote) have been updated into universal binaries this morning which means that they now work on the iPhone and iPod touch as well as iPad. This is great news as until now there hasn’t really been a solid productivity suite for the iPhone that you could call a “must buy” and the fact that it’s a universal binary means that those who already own an iPad can now download the apps to their iPhones or iPod touches for no further outlay. Awesome stuff! Keep reading for the press release.…
Read More
Posted in All, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch
iOS 5, iCloud and OS X Lion confirmed for WWDC
In a somewhat unusual move for Apple, the company have issued a press release this morning confirming ahead of time that Steve Jobs (yes, Steve Jobs!) will be unveiling not only Mac OS X Lion but also iOS 5 and the widely-rumoured iCloud which the press release calls “Apple’s upcoming cloud services offering” at Tuesday’s WWDC event. That’s a lot of reveals for one day but there could still be some surprises for the day… iPhone 4S, anybody? Keep reading for the full press release from Cupertino.
…
Read More
Posted in All, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch
Read free eBooks on your iOS device the legal way, thanks to your local library
There seems to be a common misconception out there that because Apple hasn’t begun selling iBooks via its NZ iBookstore that the iPad is dead in the water in this country as far as functioning as an eBook Reader goes. Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong! There are a number of perfectly capable alternatives available here including the Whitcoulls and Kindle apps which both incorporate NZ-accessible stores, as well as several stand-alone reader apps including Stanza which will allow you to import your own books / pdfs. But, little did we realise until we saw this comment from nz_ark, there is also a fabulous app called Overdrive Media Console which will allow members of Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland libraries to ‘borrow’ eBooks for free.…
Read More
Posted in All, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Reviews
Winnie the Pooh goes MIA from NZ iBookstore, demands money from other territories
Ever-since the launch of iBooks, Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne has been supplied for free as a pre-installed starter title to show you what iBooks can do, complete with the original colour illustrations from the original publication. But following a comment from user Chiefie saying that he was unable to track it down, I went snooping through the minuscule NZ iBookstore expecting to find it easily and put him out of his misery. However, just as Chiefie had said, it was nowhere to be found.
Thinking it was probably just a glitch, I switched to my UK account and found that the title is no longer free in that territory, but £5.99! Obviously the agreement between Apple and Pooh’s publisher to provide this book at no charge has come to an end, and with no agreements in place to actually sell content via the NZ iBookstore this would explain its sudden absence here. But why? My bet is that the imminent release of Disney’s new Winnie the Pooh movie has the publisher hoping that renewed interest in all things Pooh will make them some money. What do you think?…
Read More
Posted in All, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch
Win one of three cases for your iOS device with thanks to Chillicase.co.nz [closed]
Is your iPhone 3G / 3GS / 4 or iPad 1 / 2 feeling a little tired? Does it need a nice new outfit to breathe some life back into it? Well, the lovely people at Chillicase.co.nz have you covered. They’ve supplied us with three snazzy cases, and all you need to do is tell us why you deserve to win one. Keep reading for details of what’s up for grabs and how to win.…
Read More
Posted in All, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch
Apple’s offer of free repairs for Japan quake victims does not extend to NZ because we don’t have Apple Stores
You may have recently read in some of the international blogs (such as Engadget) that Apple are offering those affected by the terrible events in Japan free repair of Apple hardware including iPhones, iPads and iPod touches. After receiving a number of queries from readers in Christchurch asking whether such a program existed for New Zealand, I contacted Apple to find out. The answer may surprise you.…
Read More
Posted in All, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Other News
You can now download files from Safari on your iPhone or iPad thanks to Dropbox
This afternoon I had a real wtf moment when I accidentally tapped on a link to download a .dmg file while using Safari on my iPhone. Up until very recently, tapping on files like this would result in a pop-up telling you that Safari couldn’t download it. Now, if you’re a Dropbox user (and if you’re not, you should be) and you have the Dropbox app installed on your iOS device, you’ll get an ‘Open in Dropbox’ button instead, which will whisk you into the Dropbox app where you can upload the file. The next time you sit down at your computer it will be there waiting for you. Read on for more.…
Read More
Posted in All, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Other News
Hardware review: Two iPhone alarm clocks do battle
iPhone-friendly alarm clocks are a great thing – as well as charging your device while you sleep, they also allow you to wake up to your favourite tunes. I’ve recently had the opportunity to try out two different alarm clocks designed for iPod / iPhone, both with what appears to be similar feature-sets but very different price-tags. The first is the Thomson RC59I at $79.95 and the other is the Panasonic RC-DC1 at $149.95. With one being almost twice the price of the other, I wanted to know whether this was simply a case of paying extra for a more well-known brand or if you really do get what you pay for. Stay with me to find out!…
Read More
Posted in All, iPhone, iPod touch, Reviews
Opinion: TradeMe’s iPhone usage stats are encouraging, but it’s time for more features
Chris Keall over at the National Business Review has posted some stats today that were given to him by TradeMe and reveal just how popular the iPhone is in New Zealand and how it continues to grow and grow. The stats show that traffic via mobile devices now accounts for just over 1% of all TradeMe sessions and while that may not sound like a lot on the face of it, the iPhone app alone accounts for over a million sessions per month and has been downloaded from the App Store in excess of 100,000 times. But how can Fairfax leverage the platform to push mobile usage even further? We think we know.…
Read More
Posted in All, iPhone, iPod touch, Other News
Checking ‘Your Telecom’ on your iPhone now comes with less pain
This morning we noticed that checking Your Telecom (which provides your current account balance / free minutes / data allocation) over 3G no longer asks you for your user-name or password. A quick call to Telecom confirmed that enhancements to the platform have been made for smartphones (iPhone, Android and Windows Mobile) so that when visiting Your Telecom over 3G the authentication is done via the mobile platform itself, thereby bypassing the need for any user-name or password entry. Your login details are still required when on Wi-Fi, however. And unless we’ve just never noticed them before, there also seems to be some new options for topping up a prepaid mobile using credit card or voucher right from within Your Telecom, which should make topping up the credit on an iPad easier.…
Read More
Posted in All, iPad, iPhone, Telecom XT
Official Royal Wedding Souvenir Guide now available for free on iBookstore (yes, even the NZ one)
Did your invitation to the wedding of the century go missing in the post? Yeah, mine too. But never fear, you can still grab a slice of history in the form of an iBook version of the Official Royal Wedding Souvenir Guide which is available for free right now on the iBookstore, courtesy of The Foundation of Prince William and Prince Harry. The guide has been sumptuously put together and includes the full text of the service along with maps, full colour portraits of the royal couple, and a history of Westminster Abbey. Grab it here right now, if only to keep that lonely copy of Winnie the Pooh company.…
Read More
Posted in All, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Other News
White iPhone 4 available in NZ from today (or tomorrow?)
Well, this has been a long time coming and you’d have to be a pretty staunch fan of the colour white to have stuck it out this long, but Apple have officially confirmed that the white iPhone 4 will be available in New Zealand from today. Pricing and specs are identical to the existing black model, and you’ll be able to order from the online store. The full press release is after the break but note that while the PR groups the NZ and US release date as 28/04, the Apple NZ website currently says ‘coming tomorrow’ and is still absent from the store itself so our guess is that we’re looking at a release date of 28/04 US time, which is of course 29/04 here.
UPDATE: The white iPhone is now available through Vodafone.
UPDATE 2: The Apple Store website is currently down. Expect to find White iPhone 4′s when it comes back up.…
Read MoreStream any video file type to your Apple TV 2 without jailbreaking
In a recent post about refurbished Apple TV units being available on the NZ Apple Store, I casually mentioned that it’s possible to stream just about any video file type to the Apple TV 2 without jailbreaking via an app called AirVideo. Sparking quite a bit of interest, some of you wanted to learn more, so here goes. Stay tuned to find out how it all works.…
Read More
Posted in All, Apple TV, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch
Refurbished Apple TV’s hit the NZ Apple Store
If you’ve got an iOS device then one of the best and most well-priced accessories you can buy for it is an Apple TV. At $170, they’re a steal for what they can do… but at $145 they’re an even better deal and that’s how much you can snag a refurbished one for via the NZ Apple Store right now. Keep reading for my top ten reasons why you should buy an Apple TV.…
Read More
