Isn't it great to have friends? You probably have friends that are really good at working on your car, others are your 'go to' for watching your kids, yet others are there for advice with what ever you can throw at them.
I'll be your tech guy. Not quite an 'end user', but not a full blown Geek Squad guy either. I love tech, I understand it, I try to leverage every ounce out of it, and I look forward to what's on the horizon all the time.
So, me being your tech guy, I subscribe to a few techie type magazines that keep me on the leading edge (public of course) of electronic news. I also use Mashable, a free App on iPhone that sends me push notifications for any breaking news in the world of phones/computers/iPads, etc.
Sprint iPhone 5
The first welcome piece of information that I am really looking forward to is ... News sources have reported that Sprint may be offering iPhone 5 before Christmas. Why is this a big deal? One reason ... Sprint is going to remain an 'all you can eat' (unlimited) Data provider. Sprint has come a long ways from just a few years ago. They used to have poor poor customer service. And let me just say, there is no 'perfect' carrier out there ... they all have their ups and downs. For me, it boils down to who has the best coverage where you're going to use your phone, and is the price competitive. Well, Sprint offers all you use data (internet on your phone) for $69 a month. That's not just internet, it's everything. $69 per line, you get everything unlimited. Pair that with a iPhone 5 and you have a happy customer (ME!).
AT&T and Verizon both have ditched the old unlimited plans, and have gone with a tiered service plan. Verizon, for example, just announced these prices/usage tiers;
- 75MB - $10/mo
- 2GB - $30/mo
- 5GB - $50/mo
- 10GB - $80/mo
Casual user? 2 GB is probably going to be more than you need. Using your phone as a hotspot? 10GB may not be enough (first month with our Sprint EVO, we used 32.5 GB - because we could - it's unlimited).
Point being, Sprint is leading the charge for what consumers want and deserve with a wireless carrier. I applaud them for that!
iOS 5
i (applies to Apple, iPad, iPhone, I ... etc). OS (operating system), the software that makes that brick of device do what it does. 5 - the latest iteration of said software, which is going to bring some earth shattering (for Apple) improvements to all of us that love iPhone, iPad, Touch devices.
First, a list of improvements;
- One-Touch camera access
- PC-free
- Ringtones
- Tweets
- iMessage
- Notifications
- Gaming
- Wi-Fi Sync
- AirPlay
- Newsstand
- Calendar and Location Based Reminders
- Accessability
- New Safari Browser
Those may appear mundane to you now, but if you are a user like me, you understand exactly what each has to offer looking forward.
One - Touch camera. From the lockscreen, you will be able to access camera with one touch (much like Droid users can now). Also, once in the camera app, you will gain access to the 'snap' function of the camera with a volume button vs how it is now - an icon on the screen of the phone. It will produce less jiggle, more focused shots. Also, an 8 megapixel camera is said to be the next upgrade ... I cannot imagine better pictures than what iPhone 4 shoots now - they are pretty impressive for a phone.
PC-Free. One of my long standing complaints of the way things are today with syncing phone or ipad to computer is ... the requirement of the cable. In todays world of bluetooth, wireless, etc., the need to hook a device physically to another, for anything ... is ludicrous to me. Apple listened to the users and with iOS5, the cord will be history! Wi-Fi Sync will finally be reality. That is one benefit, the other is the awesome ability to register/initiate service on a new device without plugging into iTunes. From iOS5 forward, when you get a new device, it will sync with your iCloud account, which stores all of your pertinent data to get your new device up and running. The benefits of this, are endless, and all good from my eyes.
Ringtones. In our house, we have 4 iPhones, and quite often, when friends with iPhones visit, things get a little messier yet. When one rings, or a text tone fires off ... we all look at one another and say 'Was that you?'. iOS5 will allow complete customization of the ringtones, SMS (text) tones, etc., so there should be less confusion when there are multiple phones going off in the house or car.
Tweets. I've been slow to adopt Twitter, but I'm on the verge of moving to that platform entirely. Facebook is still my go to website, but using Twitter with automatic posting in your Facebook account (from a Tweet) ... is where I see myself going. Many people use this feature now, Twitter is there go to application, and anything they post there, automatically goes onto their FB wall. Apple realizes the power of Twitter, and every app (new word for programs) will be tightly woven with Twitter functionality. Like it or not ... Twitter is here to stay. Learn it now, or be on the backside of this up and coming service.
iMessage. THIS, has me fired up. And it really shouldn't, now that all of the wireless carriers have extrapolated all they can from the consumer in the form of texting fees ... this seems like the next (and now allowable) morph of the popular messaging service. (remember when you had to pay for each text? Then there was '200 texts for $5.00/mo, 1000 texts for $15/mo, etc. Then, AT&T came out with family texting which was unlimited for $29.99/mo - that's all free with Sprint by the way). Now, Apple has said enough is enough and it will include all messaging to ANY i - device (friends, family, etc with an iPhone, Touch, iPad, etc) ... for free. Using the data side of the carrier vs the voice side (voice side is what you make your calls on/text with/send pictures, and the data side is what carries your internet connection). iMessage is going to allow us to send pictures, videos, messages, contacts and locations over the air like SMS text messages - but it will be free. Also, you will be able to 'see' when someone is replying to you (like on FB chat, when someone is typing, you see that, knowing they are responding). Very welcome changes!
Notifications. Simply put, when you get a 'push notification' (like a text that pops up in the middle of your screen while you're doing something else .. and all it says is 'LOL'), no longer will be in the middle of what you're doing/looking at. Notifications are moving to the top of the screen, to become less obtrusive. Responding or recognizing the Notification will be on your time, not the applications. This is a welcome change as well.
Gaming. I'm not a game player, so this will be short. You can now rate apps from within Game Center and purchase other games without leaving the Game Center. You will also be able to see which games your friends are playing in real time as well.
Air Play. If you own an Apple TV box ($99), you will be able to do some very nice things with iPad/iPhone through that device. Like, mirror the display of your device onto the TV, no matter what you're doing. Imagine a large text exchange on your TV for example. A more practical application, may be showing a room full of friends picutres from your last trip, on the TV, with no wires required. You will also be able to play games on your device, wirelessly displayed on your TV for better viewing. Some games, will allow one view on the device, with a different view on the screen (like a driving game, for example, would show the track on iPad, which you're using as a steering wheel and on the TV you would have an 'in car' view, or cockpit view looking out).
Newsstand. iBooks has been awesome for me. I have become a reader, and carrying multiple books around on the iPad vs a bag full of books and magazines is one of the reasons I bought iPad in the first place. The way it is now for me though, I use Zinio (a free app which I subscribe to magazines with) for periodicals, and I use iBooks for all my personal/professional development books. Newsstand will be a replacement of my zinio service in that, news papers and magazines will come through this app, exactly like iBooks works with one nice upgrade - any subscription to a paper or magazine will automatically download to the device without your prompting (zinio requires a few clicks to get your content on the device - silly since you buy a subscription ... that's as crazy as the though of calling the publisher before they mail a copy of a magazine to your house).
Calendar and Location Based Reminders. This sounds Awesome! This is what having an iPhone is all about to me. Utilizing GPS, and tying into the calendar and reminder service on the phone, you will now be prompted, for example when you walk into the grocery store, to get items that you've put on your list. The phone will know you're there, based on GPS, and when you have a reminder (could be 'pick up present for anniverssary at Target') set up in the phone, you will get a notification, or reminder that you are to get something while you're there. Now, is this going to make us more lazy? Yes, gray matter may further fade with help of technology. But I'll take a little fade over egg in face from forgetting something I drove 20 miles to get!
Accessiblity. This is big one. Have you ever tried to type on iPad, using two thumbs? I do, my digits are long enough I can hit about every letter on the keyboard, with a slight twist of the hand to reach t, y, g, h, b, n. With iOS5, iPads keyboard will split in two, allowing a more viewable area behind where the old solid keyboard was AND no more reaching for those middle letters. Each side of iPad's screen will now contain a small keyboard that has been split right down the middle. I'm going to be a big fan of this.
New Safari Browser. Safari is great. It's stable, usually displays the page as it was meant to be viewed, etc. It is missing some features of others well known browsers though (such as Chrome, Atomic Web Browser, Opera). With iOS5, we will gain some of the features that the other browswers have been holding over Safaris head. Such as tabbed browsing. I am a big fan of tabbed browsing. It's one of the reasons I was an early adopter of Firefox on the PC and Mac computer platforms. For example (if you don't know what tabbed browsing is), when I open Chrome, or Firefox on a computer, the 'home' page is not only Facebook, but also Advocare and Google. 3 pages open, which sit in thier own tab. Clicking on a tab above the page you're used to viewing, you go right into another page (that's already loaded) of what ever you've set up. The majority of my time is spent on FB, my Advocare office, and Google. So when I open my browser, it opens 3 tabs, each of which is where I'm going anyway. This capability has not been in Safari for an iPhone or iPad - until iOS5. You can do it now via Opera or Atomic Web Browser, but soon, it will become part of the Apple experience through thier own software.
iOS5 is going to be a must have update. One fair warning though, if you are fond of Jailbreaking (replacing, or modifying Apples iOS with a customized OS), you are going to lose it for a while until the underground world comes up with a way to jailbreak iOS5. It will happen, it's never a question of 'if' so much as 'when'. It's a cat and mouse game that will probably never cease. It IS Legal to jailbreak, Apple will try and scare you away from it by saying your device will fall out of warranty as soon as you jailbreak. And it is something to consider. But just know that (as with all percieved worries), you need to know the true consequence of the 'what if' before you become threatened by big Apple. In other words, anything short of your phone just not turning on or powering up .... you can simply restore your software back to the current iOS version, and no one knows any different. Now, like I say, if your phone flat dies, and you cannot power it up ... then, when it's sent in and they get it to power up, they will know it's jailbroken. Then, only then, would they know you've decided to wander from the crowd and seek all cool underground features that either Apple, AT&T, Verizon, or who ever is in contract with Apple have decided to whithold from the masses. The masses being US - the people that spend all the $$$$ on these devices and services. I don't know about you, but I don't do anything 'watered down', it's full throttle or nothing :)
That's iOS5 in a nutshell. Don't upgrade if you're fond of your Jailbreak. I will be upgrading right away and waiting for jailbreak capability just because there is enough good stuff in 5 to lose the break for a while.
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