John Manderson (Photo by Akil Simmons) November 1,2011

Tuesday October 4, 2011 marked the latest announcement of Apple Computer Inc’s iconic iPhone model. However sadly, the very next day the unthinkable happened to the very one who sought to have us all “think different”, Steve Jobs passed away and left a void in the tech world. But he also left behind a legacy of great inventions, toys and tools to enhance our lives and to make what we do every day, just a little easier, a little better and certainly a little smarter.

So what was announced? The iPhone 4S. Not the iPhone 5 we were all hoping for, but what appeared initially to be the same as the iPhone 4, with an S on the end. Fans that watched the live blogs on announcement day were somewhat underwhelmed by the event, and kept on thinking well any minute now, we’ll get the usual “and one more thing” at the end of the presentation. But not this time. That’s not to say it was a total non event, because a couple of new things were announced.

This is a much more powerful device running the same processor as the iPad 2 and if you’ve ever had a go on one of those you know it’s lighting fast. Web pages and videos open much faster, apps play much better and now the camera has a massive eight megapixel camera on board. My first proper digital camera only had four! Sharper and more brilliant photos are expected with better low light performance which as always been a bit of an issue on the models to date.

There is more however. A recent purchase of a company called Siri for $200 million is now embedded in the IOS 5 operating system that will ship with the new 4S that is touted as your own personal digital assistant. So what exactly is Siri? Well it used to be an app that you could install yourself from the app store, allowing you to ask natural language questions that would be analysed by the Siri servers, to make sense of what you asked for, then return the results to allow you to do things like book a dinner reservation at a nearby restaurant, or buy movie tickets. Apple obviously liked what they saw and figured they could take it farther and with the new processing power of the 4S turned it into an embedded service.

Only available in the new iPhone 4S and IOS 5 (no you can’t get it if you are a 3GS or 4 user) it will allow you to ask external queries about the weather, local businesses nearby and really cool capabilities like providing hands free assistance in creating a new appointment, contact info, timers/reminders and even location based reminders. For instance “remind me when I get close to a petrol station to stop and fill up”. Of course you’ll be able to compose emails or texts on the fly or control your music playback all hands free. Feasibly any app that has text input can have you simply speak to enter your text. All in all Siri looks like it will be pretty fun to try, but will the results and content it finds be relevant to us in Bermuda? We’ll see.

Well as usual Apple has outdone itself and in the first 24 hours of PRE-orders sold in excess of one million units. That amount alone pretty much took care of the $200 million they spent on acquiring Siri. Have you ordered yours?

John Manderson has spent the last 20 years in the telecommunications and IT industry. He currently heads up Wireless Ventures Ltd in Bermuda as its president and CEO providing consulting services and products to the Bermuda, US and UK telecoms markets. He can be contacted at john.manderson[AT]wirelessventuresltd.com

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According to an Engadget source, the next Apple TV will be a totally reimagined device built upon the hardware and software architecture of the next iPhone. And it’ll cost $100.

Rather than relying on local storage—the next Apple TV is rumored to have just 16GB—Apple will offer network streaming from devices like Time Capsules while moving to cloud-based streaming that works within iPhone OS. With just a power plug and video out, the next Apple TV will stream 1080P movies to your TV. That’s right—no ethernet.

The rumor comes with no explanation on app support, nor does it explain whether or not the next iPod touch will feature all of the same capabilities (frankly, there’s no reason it shouldn’t). And actually, it does nothing to explain why the next Apple TV will be any more appealing than the current Apple TV. So what if Apple TV will have high def streaming—the current Apple TV does, too, even if the service is 720P (nothing that’s Blu-ray quality is traveling from the cloud, through your Wi-Fi, onto your screen, trust me). So what if Apple TV is cheaper? Nobody ever wanted it in the first place.

More »

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It’s been formally announced that Google is teaming with Intel and Sony to create Google TV, a bold effort to integrate its Android software into TVs, Blu-ray players, and a Google TV-top box simply called a “Buddy Box.”

If it sounds like an endeavor aimed squarely at Apple TV, you would be correct.

Google TV, however, is poised and ready for battle with entities beyond Apple. In many ways, Google is taking on the cable and broadcast television industries with a new – and potentially revolutionary – effort that will link the Internet with televisions in a manner never before seen in the digital age.

“With Google TV, consumers will now be able to search and watch an expanded universe of content available from a variety of sources including TV providers, the web, their personal content libraries, and mobile applications,” Google gushed in a statement about the launch.

“The Google TV experience is complemented by the ability to watch streaming video from leading content platforms, including Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, and YouTube. Google TV will also have the capability to run apps from the Android Market.”

The arrival of Google TV could be a significant development in both the worlds of entertainment and advertising, as content providers and mobile marketers must now challenge themselves to address a new way in which millions of users may soon absorb content.

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The iPad 3G may require a micro SIM—a lilliputian SIM card incompatible with anything else you own—but AT&T will be selling each bundled with a full SIM card adapter—meaning you could potentially use your data plan elsewhere. UPDATE:

UPDATE: Actually, a better look from BGR shows us that this seems to be a punch out scenario in which you can’t reuse the larger SIM casing once you choose to break away the Micro SIM. It’s probably just going to make stocking at AT&T easier. Luckily, given that SIM and Micro SIM have the same contacts, adapters (even homemade ones) are likely to be available soon. [BGR and Engadget]

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