Carlos Computers - Cairns Computer Repairs, Sales and Service

It's been hyped up and talked about for nearly 16 months and in Apple land, 16 months is a long time between drinks. But alas, today Apple fans, the tech community and investors were let down. Instead of announcing the much anticipated iPhone 5, Apple announced an update to the iPhone 4; the iPhone 4S.

The iPhone 4S is at best a minor update in the Apple product range, an evolution rather than the revolution we were all hoping for with most of the changes happening under the hood. It now contains the same A5 dual core processor as the iPad 2, 1GB of RAM, 8 megapixel camera, extended battery and dual 3G antennas.

Also updated includes the operating system, to iOS 5, available to existing iPhone 3GS and 4 users on October 12th. Apple has touted 200 improvements to the operating system, including better notification and messaging systems. Also updated included better syncing to Apple's iCloud service.

Perhaps the biggest update to the software came in the form of the new personal assistant feature called "Siri". Siri essentially works phone-wide, allowing you to speak to your phone, control it and ask it questions. We've seen voice activation in the wild for quite some time already, many iterations of the Android and Windows Phone 7 operating systems have had these features for well over 18 months now. Speech recognition with computers has always been a tough battleground, we'll see how Apple's works in the real world with Australian accents before passing judgement on this new feature.

Siri is only available on the iPhone 4S however, as it requires the extra processing power from the A5 chip in order to operate correctly. Whether this one feature is a compelling enough reason to upgrade or just wait it out is yet to be seen.

As for the cosmetics, the phone is essentially identical to the iPhone 4. Much of the speculation surrounding the inclusion of dual 3G antennas is that Apple has essentially solved its "Antenna-gate" problem, associated with gripping the outside rim of the phone.

After the announcement, the tech community widely criticised Apple on what essentially is a minor improvement on an existing phone. Investors agreed, Apple shares tumbled 5% on Wall Street and even the majority of Apple fans were left puzzled by the update, taking to social media in disgust and disappointment.

There was a noticable quiet from the normally enthusiastic Apple fan tech journalists, David Pogue, Walt Mossberg and even Robert Scoble. You pretty much know Apple has brought disappointment to the table when even the most loyal supporters such as those listed above have little or nothing to say on the matter. Even the likes of Tech Crunch, Engadget and Mashable had very little positive to say about the 4S.

If anything, the 4S brings the iPhone into line with some of the biggest alternatives. The Samsung Galaxy S II in particular has been eating Apple's lunch for a few months now and the majority of tech reviewers agree that it is one of the only phones on the market that beats the iPhone 4 hands down. The improvement to the processor and camera in particular for the iPhone 4S means it can now compete with the Galaxy S II on a level playing field.

Speculation is already rife that Apple is gearing up for the iPhone 5 release around February 2012. Commenters suggesting that the reason behind the delay is that it will be a 4G device and Apple is waiting for carriers to upgrade their network infrastructure before a significant release. This argument however doesn't bode well when you consider there is a plethora of 4G handsets already on the market right now all taking advantage of 4G coverage where it is already enabled.

It's no secret I'm not Apple's biggest fan, but I think a lot of my constructive criticism of their products is often lost in a religious battle. This time however I feel I am rightly justified in my arguments and I'm not alone. The noticable disappointment and criticism throughout the entire tech community today after this release I feel has finally opened the eyes of some of the hardcore Apple fans who, I feel are blind to the alternatives and fail to realise that Apple is not the be all and end all to technology.

I whole heartedly agree that Apple makes spectacular products, there is no doubt about that. Their products are beautiful and they employ some of the best industrial design engineers in the world, so you'd expect results.

My criticisms lie mainly around the functionality of Apple products, their marketing machine and the ecosystem.

From a business standpoint, it makes sense that you'd want to lock your product down, control the functionality to an extent and keep users confined to your ecosystem. It means Apple is able to tightly control all aspects of their hardware and software to prevent tampering, support calls and generally, keep the user experience simple.

From a user standpoint however, this doesn't wash over well with me. As a consumer, you buy a product, you own it. I don't expect to be dictated to in how I can use that product after I've bought and own it. A mobile phone is an extremely personal product, it's something you'll use constantly, everyday and being able to use it to its full advantage and capabilities is something you would rate pretty highly.

Let's take an analogy and apply it to how Apple controls their products and then make a judgement call. You walk into a Holden dealership and buy a Commodore. You're told you can only purchase fuel for this vehicle from Shell, you can only get 20ltrs of fuel at a time, if you want a bigger fuel tank there's only one other option for a 40ltr tank and it's $1000 more, you can't plug your own MP3 player into the stereo system, you can't replace the tyres or a flat yourself and you can't recline the seat. Here's your contract, sign here.

You wouldn't put up with this from Holden, yet Apple fans seem quite content to wave the white flag and surrender. You can only purchase approved applications from the iTunes App Store, it only syncs with iTunes, you can't playback certain file types, you can't put simple shortcuts to settings like a bluetooth on/off switch on the home screen, can't download or choose your own preferred mail app, internet app or SMS app, can't swap out the battery, etc. etc. etc.

Does this seem right to you? I mean yeah, some users might not really give two hoots about those things I mentioned above. It's something Android, Windows Phone 7, Nokia and RIM users have gloated about forever. It's customisation and being able to use the product you own without being restricted should you choose.

The other pet peeve I have is that Apple fans won't even consider alternatives. They just grab the next iPhone without shopping around or even taking a look at what else is out there. They're essentially sucked into the Apple marketing machine.

I mentioned in the blog post above the Samsung Galaxy S II, a fantastic phone. Hands down whips the iPhone 4 up and down the court in terms of specifications and Samsung's simple Android interface. Not to mention the Galaxy S II is also 4G enabled so it already has the jump on Apple in that regard. The upgrade to the 4S has at best, put the iPhone on a level playing field now, it'll be extremely interesting to see how this pans out over the coming months.

The HTC Evo 3D has a much better screen, processor and camera than the iPhone 4. Even with the update to the 4S, the Evo's processor is still beefier than Apple's A5. Oh and did I mention, it's a 4G phone also. It's also a 3D enabled screen, these are starting to become more popular in handheld devices.

That's just two of the alternatives on the market that compete quite well with the iPhone, yet don't get anywhere near the same attention from the media.

So there you have it. My argument, out in the open for all to see and on record. It has nothing to do with being a cheap skate or expecting everything for free. It has nothing to do with hating the iPhone. It has nothing to do with hating Apple. It has everything to do with the functionality of something you own and whether you get suckered into marketing.

I'm noticing more and more on my Facebook stream people confused or spreading false information about the new "Subscribe" feature that was released in Facebook recently. Here's what it really does and what it means for you.

First and foremost, your privacy has not been violated. If your profile is set to "Friends Only", only those people who are your friends will see your profile. Anything you do as "Public" will of course continue to be shown publicly to people who are not your friends. This includes "Friends of Friends" and of course the general public. Examples of things that are public are comments on fan pages or group pages where anyone can see them and comment on them or updates and postings you specifically have tagged as Public.

The subscribe feature was introduced to give your friends the opportunity to filter what shows up in the new Facebook Ticker. Essentially, the Facebook ticker is replacing the News Feed and will show real time results of what is happening to any of your friends profiles and pages you have "Liked".

So if you don't want to see a particular friends' updates constantly, you can simply unsubscribe to them and their updates will not show up in your Ticker. If one of your friends is posting too many photos and you're sick of seeing how good their holiday is when you're stuck in the office, then unsubscribe from their photo updates.

Facebook is simply giving you more power and flexibility in what you want to see shown in your own Ticker! There is no privacy risk and your private wall posts to friends will not all of a sudden be out there for the general public and your photo albums are not all of a sudden visible to everyone. Take your tin foil hats off folks, there is no conspiracy.

The other thing the subscribe feature does is allow people to follow your public updates who may not necessarily be your friends. (They could be friends of friends, admirers, fans etc..) So if you post something as "Public" people who are subscribed to you will see those updates, this is nothing new, if you posted something publicly previously they'd be able to see it also. This is particularly useful for people and businesses who live in the public eye and don't necessarily want to maintain two separate accounts. It now gives you the flexibility to update just one account and determine what you keep private and what you share publicly. Note, that if your default settings are private, then all postings will remain private. You physically have to click a drop down box to make something public, so there shouldn't be any accidental public postings.

The other feature implemented this week also includes the ability to implement friend lists. The lists feature is a secondary tier of privacy where you can post updates, photos, videos or links to lists of your choosing. In essence, you're filtering your own updates to only the people you want to see them.

In conclusion I'll end by saying that if you're really that concerned with privacy then perhaps you really shouldn't be using social networking sites in the first place. Spreading false information doesn't help anyone, a little bit of research and simply asking people in the know, goes a long way to alleviating any concerns you might have.

I've been using the Internet since 1995 and I've seen great changes over that time. Perhaps the biggest change during my past 16 years of Internet usage has been the rise of social media and its impact on our day to day lives.

Once upon a time, the Internet was mostly a one way street, people posted to webpages and there was very little interaction with the content. Today, the Internet is different, a two way medium, with family, friends, colleagues and businesses all using it to its full potential. At the helm, social media has been a major driver of the two way conversation, sites like MySpace, Friendster, even the chat program ICQ paved the way to the more infamous sites we know today.

The likes of Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Linked In dominate the social media space and with the emergence of Google+ onto the scene, social media is where it's all at right now. There's never been a time when everyone has been more connected than we are now. With the simple click of a mouse or opening an application on your smart phone you can be in touch with your family, friends and even liaise with real people in businesses you deal with.

Social Media even helped break news. Looking back at the uprising in Iran and Egypt where protestors were posting images and video on the ground as chaos ensued around them. It helped bring to light the plight of the people against hard line government crack downs. Then there's also more recent events, like the Japan Tsunami and even Cyclone Yasi being covered in real time by average users.

In more recent times, we've seen the uglier side of social media, like the riots in London and the ever increasing cyber bullying threat with teenagers taking their own lives after being tormented online. But these things shouldn't detract from all the good a two way conversation can impact how we get our news, chat to family and friends or do business.

I've been using social media for several years now, with my personal Facebook page to stay in contact with my friends and family. I also have my public facing business Facebook page at facebook.com/carloscomputers where I'm able to directly chat to like-minded tech heads and customers.

My Twitter stream @carloscomputers allows everyone to see a mix of my public and business life with discussions, links and updates relating to what I'm doing or interesting things I see. I also run the @cycloneupdate Twitter stream which became incredibly popular during Cyclone Yasi. See The Cairns Post's story on me for that one.

Other clever uses of social media include smart phone applications that post directly to all your streams. Picture applications like TwitPic, PicPlz and Instagram consolidate pictures across multiple platforms so you don't have to post the same thing several times for your friends or followers to see it.

There's also exercise applications that track and post your workouts where others can comment and encourage your progress. I use an application called SportyPal and my workouts are tracked and posted publicly as a way of motivating myself to keep up the exercise regime and not slack off. See my workouts here.

Technology is amazing; it's why I work in this field. The constant go, go, go and changing field makes it an interesting place to be right now.

How has social media changed your life?

Google's Android mobile operating system has conquered almost 50% market share in its three years since Google launched it in 2008. In results released by research firm Canalys, Android is now the dominant mobile operating system in the Asia-Pacific region as well as in 35 other countries.

Google accquired Android in 2005 and launched it as an open mobile platform to developers in 2008. Phone makers such as HTC, Samsung, Motorola and LG have embraced the operating system, selling millions of handsets worldwide on smart phones and tablet devices.

Apple's iOS operating system also made tracks with 19% market share, overtaking Nokia as the world's biggest smartphone manufacturer for the first time. Nokia recently announced it would start manufacturing handsets with Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 operating system.

Microsoft's recently released Windows Phone 7 came in with a meager 1% market share, although it has only been available for around 12 months and the numbers from the Microsoft/Nokia deal are not yet in.

RIM, who make Blackberry continued to slide in the rankings, coming in behind Apple with 12% market share, down from 33% just a year earlier.

It's not all good news for Android though, its success has attracted a plethora of lawsuits filed by the likes of Microsoft, Apple and Oracle who claim Android is using a perpetual patent licensing deal that violates a Nortel patent.

Other statistics revealed earlier in the year also show that Australian's are some of the most mobile savvy consumers in the world with smartphone penetration pushing past 35% of all phones sold.