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The iPhone 4 has been languishing on my desk for almost four days now.

Considering the fact that the unit is supposedly unlocked, my wait time to get the thing running has been due to the late arrival of the NooSY Micro SIM card trimmer. That device was, in my opinion, all I would need to get the iPhone 4 up and running.

I took the plunge and cut an old SIM card just to be sure the rather attractive Chinese stapler look-alike actually functions as advertised. A rather sickening snap later, I had a very neatly cut SIM card, albeit one that seem to have been cut agonizingly close to the golden contact area of the chip. Insertion into the the sleek new iPhone worked and the SIM was recognized. Time to cut my actual SIM, currently ensconced in the iPhone 3G. Again, the cut-out worked rather nicely, and after inserting the now Micro SIM into the unit, I was pleased to enter my PIN code and connect to iTunes. That’s where the happiness ended rather abruptly:

That message is a warning to all that are keen to be on the bleeding edge. Apple has apparently created an extra check in their backend systems to verify which SIM card is in the phone and where that SIM card originates. Since the check is in the backend, there is little anyone can do.

One option is to wait for the official release of the iPhone in South Africa. The other? Contact a friend or pay some cash. Let’s see how that goes…

Update: after a fair bit of fiddling, it would seem as though my unit is a dud. Needs to be swapped out for another one. Another week to wait for that

After submitting my certified identification information, Apple yesterday finally permitted activation of my iPhone developer account.

We are following up with you regarding your recent iPhone Developer Program purchase.
Your order information did not sufficiently match your enrollment information and as a result the ability to activate your Program was placed on a temporary hold. We have reviewed the issue and have removed the hold on your Program activation. At this time, we ask that you please refer to the original activation code email that you received and click through the link once again.

What information didn’t match up, I have no clue as I provided everything that was requested. USD 99 down and it’s done. Now, to get the latest SDK which runs about 800MB as a download…

Whilst Apple‘s products are amongst the best-designed and most stylish in the world, that company’s interaction with its developer community is rather archaic and worthy of being called dictatorial. The process I followed to be registered as an iPhone developer started innocuously enough: log on to the developer website and start entering details. But whilst every other process of purchasing goods on the Internet permits immediate purchase by credit card, the Apple iPhone developer program stops its web workflow and requires a form to be printed out, signed and faxed to developer central. I am generally not interested in faxing anything and I initially attempted to mail a scanned copy of the completed form to Apple. No response. So, I went the way of the 1980′s and reticently faxed them the piece of paper.

A fast turnaround time, to be fair. I had a confirmation of my enrollment within a few hours, but attempting to activate my paid-for membership resulted in another disappointment: a request for identity verification, no less!

Once again, I need to print out a form and complete it. Attach a certified copy of a passport or similar identification document and then fax it off to Apple. It’s as though I’m trying to gain access to CERN‘s LHC complex instead of wanting to potter around developing an iPhone application or trying to see what options there are for iPad development. Requesting identity verification for a developer program is a joke, specifically if my payment has already been completed and accepted. Why not request identity verification together with the payment if that’s so important? The fact that the enrollment procedure doesn’t take place completely electronically is an inconvenience. The fact that Apple requires identity verification for the download and use of an SDK to support their products is an absolute disgrace!

The replacement for the two-year old Asus G2S has arrived.

Though there’s little doubt that Apple will announce the new i7 MacBook Pro lineup soon, the current generation machine is nothing to sniff at. Great performance and a sleek design. Best of all, decent screen resolution!

I wasn’t an early adopter of the new Apple Magic Mouse. Overall, the Mighty Mouse with its single trackball in its wired and wireless variations has served me well. Though there is a lot of criticism leveled at that peripheral, I was quite comfortable using it and was even adept at left and right clicking at will. I found the shape quite comfortable and something that accentuated the experience of working with a Mac. Since my current black MacBook doesn’t have a multi-touch trackpad, I grabbed a Magic Mouse on a recent flyby of the local Apple store.

The Magic Mouse is sleek and attractive. Boxed in a clear perspex container, it exudes the charm a gadget costing more than ZAR 800 should. There are no unsightly wires and absolutely no button or trackpad to be seen. The smooth, curved surface contains a discreet Apple logo. The mouse is satisfyingly weighty and slides quite nicely on a smooth surface.

Setup on the MacBook running Snow Leopard was extremely simple: unpack the mouse, switch it on (batteries are already installed) and let the Bluetooth stacks communicate.

I was a bit apprehensive about the use of the touch interface on the mouse. Within minutes, I was scrolling easily through documents in Pages and web sites in Firefox. It’s an incredibly intuitive way of working. A brief stop in the Mouse preferences pane to change the function of the secondary button is the usual configuration change I make for every Apple mouse.

Moving the index finger across the length of the mouse enables scrolling top to bottom. Left to right scrolling is achieved by moving the index finger along the width of the mouse. A nice feature is the ability to zoom into the screen by pressing the ctrl key and scrolling upward. A sideways two-finger swipe assists scrolling through iPhoto libraries, for example. When not in use, the mouse powers down to help conserve the batteries – hopefully, these won’t need replacing too often.

The Magic Mouse enables an intuitive interaction with the Mac. I took to it without a minute’s hesitation and already find myself trying to scroll without using the scroll wheel on the G2S‘ Logitech mouse. Most certainly pricey, but an absolute joy to use. I’ll have to think about replacing the iMac‘s mouse next…

Only a few more hours to go until Apple unveils the next big thing.

Unbelievable how much a product that no one has ever seen can grab the imagination in the way the rumoured Apple tablet device has. If this is anything like an oversized iPhone with 3G network connectivity, WLAN, touch screen and decent display, I want one.

Then again, we may only be seeing a new MacBook Pro and Aperture 3.0.

Oh, and one more thing…

Today marks another occasion for an Apple event.

Scheduled to start around 19:00 South African time, it’s unlikely that anything earth-shattering will be announced.

Safe bets include a new or updated set of iPod devices, a new version of iTunes and the possible announcement of a new piece of software for media organization called Cocktail. Highly unlikely: the announcement of the iPad.

Apple fanboys will await the event with intense anticipation as per usual…

Update: at around 16:30 local time, the Apple online store is down.

New products for sure. Question is: what are they?

Rumours have been rampant that Apple will launch a new device sometime soon. Initially, reports indicated that a netbook would be available sometime in 2010, then late 2009. More and more stories of a potential tablet have made the rounds with a report in today’s Financial Times also hinting that such a device is on its way.

According to the FT article

The new touch-sensitive device Apple is working on will have a screen that may be up to 10 inches diagonally. It will connect to the internet like the iPod Touch – probably without phone capability but with access to Apple’s online stores.

Whether this is all idle speculation or true fact remains to be seen. Personally, I’d be very interested in an Internet tablet that could connect using either HSDPA or wireless LAN. I imagine it to be a large iPod Touch with a screen better suited to Internet browsing and video playback. The 10″ screen hinted at in the FT article would be more than large enough and there is no need for the tablet to provide any additional functionality over and above what the iPod Touch can provide: connectivity to the Internet, ability to play back audio and video and the ability to load applications from the App Store. It would be the ideal solution to read books and, with the colour screen, huge competition for the Amazon Kindle.

Chances are very good that such a device, made by Apple, would be sold at an absolute premium. Even so, the CrunchPad with its anticipated reasonable price, would stand no chance. Apple has the ability to define a product genre and make products previously considered ridiculous  indispensable to consumers.

Here’s hoping there is such a thing as the Apple tablet device…

via FT.com

It must be old age, but I’ve lost the ability to grab my latest gadget acquisition, strip the packaging off it and start playing with it as soon as possible. Nowadays, gadgets get to sit around, often waiting in their original boxes, safety tape still in place. The iMac was no exception and it’s taken me almost a week to unpack and set up. Not that the setup takes any time, to be honest. It’s a question of opening the box, lifting the smallish box containing the mouse off the top and then hauling out the rather larger 24″ dream machine. Strangely, the keyboard is not in the box but is supplied separately. It’s the longer keyboard, containing a numeric keypad.

No question: this is the most fantastic computer I’ve ever owned and it completes my transition to the Mac platform. At 24″, the available screen real estate is more than adequate. Using Spaces, I have my usual four desktops that I configure to host specific applications. Instead of shoving all my data onto the internal 640GB hard drive, I’ve connected a 1TB Seagate drive via USB and currently have the Drobo attached via the Firewire 800 port. Once I have the DroboShare in-house, the Drobo will move to its rightful place on the network, providing a unified shared disk for all machines.

I selected the 2.93GHz system with 4GB RAM as it provides a decent amount of horsepower for all applications I intend running. Snow Leopard in September will provide access to a 64-bit OS and that should improve response times even further. The iMac is fast: reboots take a few seconds and there is no problem running a number of applications all accessing hardware resources concurrently.

First order of business was to install the latest patches, then add iWork, Aperture, Elements, Canon DPP, and a variety of other software components. Then, the lengthy process of pulling photos and music from the Drobo and adding to Aperture, iPhoto and iTunes. My final task is to migrate mail data from Thunderbird on the Mandriva box to Mail.app.

Once again, the argument can go something like this: Apple kit is certainly expensive, but there’s no denying build quality, aesthetic appeal and the fact that this stuff just works.

Just a short time to go until the iPhone 3G will be able to perform that wonderful action of copy and paste! Amazing how features other mobile phones have provided since inception are eagerly awaited by geeks and Apple fanboys across the planet. A strange lot, human beings…

I’m waiting too, of course. Here’s a terminal trick from TUAW you can use to see whether or not the firmware file is available:

curl -s -L http://phobos.apple.com/version |\
grep -i restore |\
grep ‘_3.’ | open -f

Not there yet…

…19:49 ZA time and it’s finally made an appearance.

iPhone1,1_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw
iPhone1,1_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw
iPhone1,1_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw
iPhone1,1_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw
iPhone1,2_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw
iPhone1,2_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw
iPhone1,2_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw
iPhone2,1_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw
iPhone2,1_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw

Now to see how well the hosting servers hold up.