Look what Apple sent me today. A new version of iOS.
I got this on my iPhone 5 in Pakistan. Did you get an update too ?
Now you can stream YouTube, Netflix and other videos right on to your TV with this amazingly small thumb device called Chromecast. But wait, haven’t we heard of such devices before?
With Kickstart’s popular Pocket TV and a number of other Android thumb sized devices that run full Android OS on them, I think this is more of a response launch from Google. Instead of buying Google TV or other smart TV hardware, people were turning towards these other low cost alternatives when Google has decided to launch Chromecast. I myself use an amazing media box by Western Digital called WD-TV that has a 1 terabyte of storage for movies and it also streams all sorts of internet media. Continue reading “Chrome Cast Thumb HDMI device for your TV”
If you are an iOS developer based in Pakistan and use your iTunes connect account for selling paid apps, you must have seen this email from apple. From now onwards you have to fill this Form R and submit it every month to receive your payments. Every month, you heard it right EVERY MONTH.
Why Form R?
Actually it has something to do with State Bank of Pakistan or some similar authority not letting the payments directly land to the developers’ account. Barclays bank is Apple’s partner bank in the country and they distribute payments to all developers every month. To process these payments now, Barclays bank needs a filled Form R from all developers every month. Big pain?
How to fill Form-R?
While I was freaking out about it, this still doesn’t seem to be that bad at all. Here is the process you have to follow:
1. Log in to your iTunes Connect account and note your payment amount and payment date. You have to send this Form R within 2 weeks of this payment date.
2. Get hold of a copy of Form R. If you have not received it from Apple, you can download Form R from www.basitali.com/downloads/docs/PKFormR.pdf
3. Print form R and print it out.
4. Provide following addresses in “Sender” field on Form R
— Apple Inc., 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA 95014
— iTunes S.a.r.l, 31-33 rue Sainte Zithe, Luxembourg L-273, Luxembourg
5. Mention the amount you can see in iTunes Connect’s Payment section (done in step 1).
6. In the end provide your name, address, telephone number and email address in the beneficiary section. Make sure you include all this information so that Barclays bank can process your payment.
7. Sign the form
8. Put this form R in an envelop and Courier this to following address:
— Barclays Bank PLC, Pakistan, 13 – C, College Road, F- 7 Markaz, Islamabad
Hint: If you are being lazy and don’t wanna go drop it at a courier outlet, you can call Call Courier Service at 111-786-227 and they’ll come and pick the letter from you 😉
What is Form R?
As the title says, Form R is a declaration of foreign remittance receipt above Rs. 10,000 for purpose other than Export and family maintenance. Well, while it says Rs. 10,000 on the title, Apple tells us to make sure to fill the form for whatever amount is coming in. Moreover, while I could put iTunes payment under software export, the banks are actually going to differ with my opinion here. And I also like the year 1947 on the title of the form 🙂
I’m sure this is going to work out and if you follow this process every month, you’ll be receiving your payments on time every month. Please do share your experience with me whether you succeed or you have any issues. Drop me a line on @basitj.
We at Eccentrica Technologies have just released Speedometer app for iPhone and iPad. This GPS based Speedometer app lets you keep an eye on your speed whether you are in a car, a bus, a train, a boat, riding a bike, running on foot or even skiing downhill. The app shows an analog and digital speed of the device you’re carrying. You can also turn on a speed alarm to avoid traffic tickets and the iPhone can fit in your dashboard for replacing your old boring speedometer.
The app takes just a few moments to lock the GPS and you’re ready to go. Download this app today for iTunes store now.
Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-speedometer/id582606409?mt=8
Well if you have not heard this already, we are just ten minutes away from an official announcement of an iPhone launch on Verizon. There are a lot of speculations, projections and tech/non-tech talk regarding the announcement, but it will for sure increase iPhone’s share in the market. Is this a great way of competing with already leading android OS share in US market? Only time will tell.
According to a report on Bloomberg TV, 80% of AT&T customers are using an iPhone and we may see a flow of existing AT&T users to Verizon. Moreover, those who didn’t get an iPhone yet just because they don’t like AT&T may also jump on to the Apple smart-phone wagon to get a ride on iPhone craze.
iPhone users, if you are a fan of GPRS/EDGE data use and you have an unlimited plan, the chances are that while you are downloading your favorite songs or apps over EDGE, you’re missing some important calls. The calls get redirected to the voice mail or simply get a not-available message.
This article on Apple’s support website clearly mentions this shortcoming:
If not on 3G, while iPhone is actively transferring data over the cellular data network—downloading a webpage, for example—you may not be able to receive calls. Incoming calls may go to voicemail.
I was shocked when I came to know this because I’ve been a GPRS freak with unlimited data since it became availaable in my country. On smartphones like BlackBerry and Android, it is obvious that your phone is almost always sending and/or receiving data. This means, the phone should simply refuse to receive any calls? The way above issue has been mentinoed as a “Note”, I don’t think Apple is thinking of finding a solution to this problem.
Happy using Apple’s iPhone 😉
Apple on Friday released the video of their press conference. Steve Jobs has presented his case and made some good point and then demonstrated how other popular phones also loose signal when held tight in the user’s hand.
RIM and Nokia have objected the way their phones have been mentioned in this session. The press conference video shows three different phones that loose signal when held tight in the user’s hand, one of them was BlackBerry Bold 9700. Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, founders and co-CEO of RIM have objected by saying that Apple is dragging RIM into their self made debacle.
Jobs also mentioned in the session that you can find pictures all over the internet of Nokia phones saying “Dont touch here”. Nokia has responded to that by saying that Nokia has spent thousands of man hours researching the way people hold their phones and they have been pioneer in making internal antenna featuring phones.
In addition to leg pulling and dragging, there were some concrete announcements in the press conference as well. Apple has announced free bumper cases to solve the antenna problem so that nobody gets to touch the metal border on iPhone 4. Moreover, Apple has also waived the return fees for unsatisfied iPhone 4 customers. These two measures are good enough, why on earth they had to be drag other phones into the scene? They’ve sold all of their phones already, haven’t they?
You can watch the Apple’s press conference video by hitting this link.
This has been a long awaited post and a few of my readers have been requesting for it repeatedly. I’ve finally decided to write on this topic. Some of my readers will call it a redundant post as so many has been said about these two phones and then some of them will call it biased due to Nokia being my all time favorite but I will still not be reluctant writing the post as it is totally based on facts and figures and I have not been unjust.
iPhone 4 by Apple and Nokia N8 have been put into a side by side table below. Thanks to GSM Arena, I did not have to type in all this data. What I’ve done is, I’ve colored this table green wherever I found a superior feature in one of the two phones. Quite interestingly iPhone is a winner in launching the phone first, it is smaller in volume, it’s got a gyro sensor, higher resolution screen, greater internal memory, better CPU clock and a larger battery capacity.
That makes around 8 features better than Nokia’s N8. Am I praising Apple’s marvel too much? Well, let’s look at Nokia’s features where Nokia is a winner against iPhone. The list is endlessly long and Nokia has around 19 features that are significantly better than that of iPhone including a 12 megapixel stunning still camera with a Carl Zeiss lens, Micro SD Slot which will let you plug in upto 32 GB of a memory card, USB on the go that will allow you to plug in your USB flash drives and hard disks as an additional storage space to your phone, 720p HDMI TV out, Flash support in browser, faster class 33 edge and much more. See the table below yourself, I’m not biased 😉
Hence the winner is … Nokia N8 without any doubt.
While my favorite of all the features will be the Nokia logo on the device that looks much better to me as compared to that of a metallic apple 🙂 . Where Nokia has lost it is; the delayed release that is causing additional curiosity and unrest among the fans who cannot take it anymore. Just release it Nokia!
|
Apple iPhone 4 |
Nokia N8 |
||
|
General |
2G Network |
GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 |
GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 |
|
3G Network |
HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100 |
HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1700 / 2100 /1900 |
|
|
Announced |
2010, June |
2010, April |
|
|
Status |
Available. Released 2010, June |
Coming soon. Exp. release 2010, October |
|
|
Size |
Dimensions |
115.2 x 58.6 x 9.3 mm |
113.5 x 59.1 x 12.9 mm, 86 cc |
|
Weight |
137 g |
135 g |
|
|
Display |
Type |
TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors |
AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M |
|
Size |
640 x 960 pixels, 3.5 inches |
360 x 640 pixels, 3.5 inches |
|
|
– Scratch-resistant surface |
– Scratch-resistant surface |
||
|
– Multi-touch input method |
– Multi-touch input method |
||
|
– Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate |
– Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate |
||
|
– Three-axis gyro sensor |
|||
|
– Proximity sensor for auto turn-off |
– Proximity sensor for auto turn-off |
||
|
Sound |
Alert types |
Vibration, MP3 ringtones |
Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones |
|
Speakerphone |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
– 3.5 mm headset jack |
– 3.5 mm audio jack |
||
|
Memory |
Phonebook |
Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall |
Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall |
|
Call records |
100 received, dialed and missed calls |
Detailed, max 30 days |
|
|
Internal |
16/32 GB storage, 512 MB RAM |
16 GB storage, 256MB RAM, 512 MB ROM |
|
|
Card slot |
No |
microSD, up to 32GB |
|
|
Data |
GPRS |
Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 – 48 kbps |
Class 33 |
|
EDGE |
Class 10, 236.8 kbps |
Class 33 |
|
|
3G |
HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps |
HSDPA, 10.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 2.0 Mbps |
|
|
WLAN |
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n |
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, UPnP technology |
|
|
Bluetooth |
Yes, v2.1 with A2DP |
Yes, v3.0 with A2DP |
|
|
Infrared port |
No |
No |
|
|
USB |
Yes, v2.0 |
Yes, microUSB v2.0, USB On-the-go |
|
|
Camera |
Primary |
5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus, LED flash |
12 MP, 4000×3000 pixels, Carl Zeiss |
|
Features |
Touch focus, geo-tagging |
1/1.83” sensor size, ND filter, geo-tagging, face and smile |
|
|
Video |
Yes, 720p@30fps, LED video light, geo-tagging |
Yes, 720p@25fps |
|
|
Secondary |
Yes, videocalling over Wi-Fi only |
VGA videocall camera |
|
|
Features |
OS |
iOS 4 |
Symbian ^3 OS |
|
CPU |
1 GHz Apple A4 processor |
ARM 11 680 MHz processor, 3D Graphics HW accelerator |
|
|
Messaging |
SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email |
SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email, IM |
|
|
Browser |
HTML (Safari) |
WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML, RSS feeds |
|
|
Radio |
No |
Stereo FM radio with RDS; FM transmitter |
|
|
Games |
Downloadable, incl. motion-based |
Yes + downloadable |
|
|
Colors |
Black, White |
Dark Grey, Silver White, Green, Blue, Orange |
|
|
GPS |
Yes, with A-GPS support |
Yes, with A-GPS support; Ovi Maps 3.0 |
|
|
Java |
No |
Yes, MIDP 2.1 |
|
|
– MicroSIM card support only |
– Document viewer (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF) |
||
|
– Scratch-resistant glass back panel |
– Dolby Digital Plus via HDMI |
||
|
– Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic. |
– Anodized aluminum casing |
||
|
– Digital compass |
– Digital compass |
||
|
– Google Maps |
– Video/photo editor |
||
|
– iBooks application |
– DivX/XviD/MP4/H.264/H.263/WMV |
||
|
– Audio/video player and editor |
– MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+ player |
||
|
– Voice command/dial |
– Voice command/dial |
||
|
– TV-out |
– TV-out (720p video) via HDMI and composite |
||
|
– Flash Lite v4.0 |
|||
|
Battery |
Standard battery, Li-Po 1420mAh |
Standard battery, Li-Ion 1200 mAh |
|
|
Stand-by |
Up to 300 h (2G) / Up to 300 h (3G) |
Up to 390 h (2G) / Up to 400 h (3G) |
|
|
Talk time |
Up to 14 h (2G) / Up to 7 h (3G) |
Up to 12 h 30 min (2G) / Up to 5 h 30 min (3G) |
|
|
Music play |
Up to 40 h |
Up to 50 h
|
*** Update
While iPhone 4 is not available unlocked without a voice/data contract in US, we can compare UK prices of iPhone 4 and Nokia N8.Right now, the approximate price of unlocked 16GB iPhone 4 in UK is GBP 499 that is around USD 760. Same 16 GB iPhone 4 is available for Eur 629 in France for example.
On the other hand, Nokia N8 is expected to be available for around Eur 450 on launch. Even if it sells for Eur 500, its pretty economical, isn’t it? 🙂
There have been news and posts all around that Apple has advised iPhone 4 owners not to hold it in a specific way to avoid any signal dropping issues. I’ve not tried the new iPhone (nor am looking forward to) but Nokia has posted a comprehensive post on “How to hold your Nokia” and they make the point absolutely clear that you won’t lose any signal, no matter how you hold the phone. Sarcasm at it’s best!
Following is the number of ways in which you can hold a Nokia phone :p
Continue reading “ROFL @Apple – How do you hold your Nokia?”
This is big for me at least. This fellow has found a way to install a boot loader and install Android OS on iPhone. We all know that Apple’s iPhone has strong hardware capabilities but due to software restrictions, iPhone users have been deprived from a lot of features and functionality that they could use just by simple software ad-ons. With this hack, which obviously is not supported or accepted by Apple, a whole wide range of possibilities are in your hand. Check out the demo video.