Telecom NZ – Flat rate data roaming

Telecom NZ has a new take on data roaming. Traditionally when travelling internationally, internet data usage on your mobile devices was charged at a rather steep rate per megabyte of data used. Just by checking your email and using Maps for directions data costs could quickly get out of hand, resulting in a rather nasty bill on your arrival back home.

Now Telecom has announced a fixed rate per day, so you will know what you will pay regardless of usage (subject to their fair usage policy of course). Pricing for data roaming when in Australia is set at a very attractive $6 per day, with UK, USA, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and Saudi Arabia set at $10 per day.

The new pricing starts from Friday 21 December 2012, for more information read the press release.

iPad, iPhone, Telecom

Screen technology 101

Retina display. IPS. Full lamination. What does all this new speak mean?!

Lets try to demystify the new screen technology a bit and see which actually improves the user experience.

The biggest mover in the screen technology is the legendary “retina display”. This first appeared on the iPhone 4 and was a huge improvement over the iPhone 3 screen. Retina is defined as a display which, at a normal viewing distance, does not show any pixels. If you get close to a normal display, you can make out the pixels, or dots which make up the display. An exaggerated example of this is getting up close to your living room TV – you will certainly see the pixels there! If you have a look at an iPhone 4, you can get very close to the screen and not be able to make out the pixels – it is pretty amazing. For a phone, a retina screen is around 326ppi. If you look at the specifications of many Android phones, you will see that they have around 280-300ppi screens. Whilst not 326ppi, they are still very high resolution. Are they retina quality? It depends how far away you have to hold your phone from your eyes…

For an iPad or laptop screen, the resolution is less. The reason for this is that you generally hold these further away than you do with a phone. The iPad retina is 264ppi. The Macbook Pro retina is 220ppi.

So, we have established that a retina display is a high resolution screen in which the pixels are so fine that the human eye cannot make them out. Great. But what does this mean for a user? Here is an extreme closeup example which might give you a good idea. The left shot is from a iPhone 3GS, and the right shot is from a iPhone 4 retina display:

You can see the difference immediately, especially in the text. For users who spend a lot of time working with photography or kerning type, a retina display is a hot ticket.

One caveat – your software needs to be retina “ready” to take advantage of the screen. So if you use iPhoto, Aperture, Pixelmater, Microsoft Office 2011 – these are all ready to go. Adobe have announced support in Photoshop, but nothing is shipping yet. Clearly (pun intended) having a retina display along with retina ready software is a benefit.

IPS (In-Plane Switching) is a technology which improves LCD displays overall. It improves the response time, offers clearer imagery and less colour distortion over wide viewing angles. The creative director sitting alongside you will see the colours as you see them. If your screen has it – good news!

For the new iMac, Apple used a new bonding technique which brings the LED cell right up against the glass plane. It is called “full lamination”. For a user, this means a sharper display and better colour representation, and it means a much thinner computer! Apple also fully calibrates each iMac screen. This is from the Apple website for the iMac: “We put every single display through an exacting colour-calibration process using three state-of-the-art spectroradiometers: one to measure gamma, one to measure white point and one to check the work of the other two. This equipment is tuned to meet colour standards recognised around the world for precision and accuracy.”

All in all it is a good time to retire your old workhorse and check out some of the new machines with the exciting new display technologies onboard.

Apple, iPad, iPhone, Retina display

iPhone 5 preview

The iPhone 5 is coming to NZ soon (28th September) – and it looks great.

While there are a few who say it isn’t innovative or it is just an iPhone 4 with a larger screen – we aren’t going to be lazy and say that. Lets have a closer look.

Starting with the exterior, the iPhone 5 is made from Aluminium and Glass. The front glass sits over a new 4 inch display and has the “touch sensor” layer built into the LCD giving a brighter display. This also means that it helps with battery life as you can run the screen at a lower brightness setting without compromise. The sides and back are made from aluminium with a small glass window top/back and bottom/back to keep the signal strength up. Overall it is 7.6mm thick and weighs 112grams. That’s crazy!

On the inside, they have used a custom Apple A6 processor, put in a better 8MP camera, and basically shrunk everything internally to fit it in. Overall, the device feels solid, yet very light.

The items to note before you jump in: The bottom connector is not the 30 pin connector you are used to. It is a new “Lightning” connector. Don’t worry, there is an adapter to the 30 pin which you can buy. The other thing is the nano-sim card. Make sure your provider has the nano-sim ready and waiting before you jump into your iPhone 5. Those of us who are brave will be able to cut down our micro-sims probably…time will tell.

Overall it is an amazing piece of engineering which we’re sure the competition are crying about!

What’s cool:
Design, Quality, AppStore, Screensize, Lightweight, Fast

What to watch out for:
Make sure you get a “plastic film” for the back of the black model BEFORE you put a case on it. The black model has been reported to scratch easily, and putting a case on it will scratch it too. The only solution is to get white, or put on a back protector film.
All your 30 pin dock connector stuff, The Nano-sim, Your very jealous & abrasive Android friends – their Galaxy S3 is just an S2 with a bigger screen
(Just kidding, although we prefer the Galaxy Nexus…)

http://www.apple.com/nz/iphone/design/

Apple, iPhone

iOS 5.1.1 Software Update now available

Apple has released iOS 5.1.1 Software update for compatible iPhone and iPads. This update fixes numerous annoying bugs related to HDR photos, AirPlay playback, Safari syncing and App Store purchases.

You can install the update ‘over the air’ now by tapping on Settings, then General, then Software Update and tapping Download and Install. The update takes about 10 minutes to download and install, make sure your device has plenty of battery charge left before running the update.

Apple, iOS, iPad, iPhone

iOS5 and caller ID on Telecom XT

Apple has released iOS5 today for compatible iDevices, it’s a great update with lots of new features such as the notifications, iCloud integration and wireless syncing with iTunes.

If you are using Telecom XT with your iPhone or iPad be sure to update your carrier settings via iTunes after applying iOS5, you can do this while you still have your iDevice plugged in via the USB cable. If you don’t apply the carrier update you will find that the caller ID doesn’t match up with your contacts.

Apple, iPad, iPhone, Telecom, XT

Let’s talk iPhone – The Apple iPhone 4S

Apple announced the iPhone 4S today at its rather appropriately named “Let’s talk iPhone” event. Apple’s latest iPhone is an upgrade of the existing iPhone 4, keeping the same shape and size. The new iPhone features a Dual-core A5 chip that is up to two times more powerful and up to seven times faster for graphics display, a new 8 MegaPixel camera that can take photos faster and can record video at 1080p, it also has a redesigned antenna system for better performance.

The iPhone 4S will also come with iOS5 that features the new Notification Centre, iMessage, Twitter Integration and iCloud Integration.

The biggest surprise for some was the new voice command system named Siri. By using Siri on your iPhone 4S you can send messages, schedule meetings, set reminders, play music, answer your questions and run other functions just by using your voice. Siri is an intelligent system and is location aware so you can check the traffic or weather based on your current location.

The iPhone 4S will be out in 7 countries (including Australia) in mid October, with 70 countries (very likely to include New Zealand) by the end of the year.

You can watch the Siri video here.

The iPod Touch (now available in white) and iPod Nano also got a minor updates today, the iPod Classic and Shuffle remain unchanged.

Apple, iOS5, iPhone, Siri

Apple iPad 2 – v2

Now that iOS 4.3 has shown it’s head on our devices in NZ, we can now confirm that the iPhone 4 on XT or Vodafone can use the new Personal Hotspot feature to share your phone’s data plan with your laptop or iPad using wifi. (It lets 3 devices work over wifi)

So this makes purchasing the iPad 2 a little harder. If you have an iPhone 4, then the wifi model is all you need. Just turn on the iPhone 4 Personal Hotspot feature, connect your iPad 2 and browse. But if you don’t have an iPhone 4, then you will either need to upgrade your iPhone – or get the iPad 2 with wifi+3G.

Gizmodo has a great article on this, so have a read and see where you fit – otherwise have a chat with one of the Digital Arena team!

iPad, ipad 2, iPhone

Apple introduces iAd Producer

Apple has introduced iAd Producer to help you create advertising for the iAd network. iAd Producer contains a visual designer, page templates, a component library, prebuilt animations and effects so you can easily create rich media and interactive content for your iAd project.

The iAd Producer also includes a simulator and validation tools so you can test out your iAd projects before submitting it to the iAd network.

iAd Producer is part of the iOS Developer program. More information here

Apple, iAd, iAd Producer, iOS, iPad, iPhone

Find my iPhone

One of the new goodies in iOS4.2 is that the ‘Find My iPhone’ feature is now free for qualifying devices. If you have the latest iPhone (iPhone 4), iPod Touch or iPad then you get this feature for free. ‘Find My iPhone’ allows you to see where you mobile device has gotten to, great when you have forgotten who you lent your iPad to.

Apple has made an easy to follow setup guide for this feature, see here.

It’s a good idea to set this up before you realise you need it. Essentially you just enter or create an AppleID where you would normally setup a Mobile Me mail account, verify you account if needed, agree to the terms and turn the ‘Find My iPhone’ on.

After it is all setup you can find your mobile device by either downloading and signing into the ‘Find iPhone’ App or logging into Me.com website.

Our iPad seems to be located in the carpark, better go and scoop it up!

Apple, Find My iPhone, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch

View your mobile data usage on Telecom XT

If you are on Telecom XT and use mobile data with your mobile device (i.e. your iPhone) then you can view your data usage and plan details via the TWorld mobile site.

On your iPhone go enter the following address in Safari;

http://m.telecom.co.nz/yxt

Scroll down and press on the ‘Your Telecom’ section.

You can enter your phone number and password, or if you haven’t used the service before you can press ‘Send new password’ to have a TXT sent to you with a temporary password.

Once logged in you can see your remaining usage, texts and plan roll over date (Next bill due).

Using the ‘Your Usage’ tab, you can also view the details of your plan (data and text allowance) and excess charges (Plan details). Recent activity is also viewable.

Using the the ‘Services’ tab, you can manage Call diversions, call waiting and caller ID restriction.

Data Usage, iPad, iPhone, Mobile Data, Telecom, Tip, XT