How did it all start?
I have had most of the iPod Nano's, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 6th generation. The latest 6th generation is my favorite with it's touch screen and small size. I am waiting the the watch straps to come out so I can wear it as my watch, the LunaTik seems to be making a hit at the moment. I can't wait to get rid of my single function device (watch) and replace it with something more functional.
Tik Tok
I got my first iPhone a few years ago before they were available outside the US. I had a business trip to Canada, and had done all the research before hand. When I got to Toronto at my first meeting I asked the client if he knew how I could get one. It turned out that one of his colleagues had bid on 2 on eBay and got both. I bought it that day. Those were the days of having to hack the iPhone as they are network locked to AT&T in the US. It was quite a hair raising experience every time as you were not sure the phone would survive an upgrade. The early hacks were very manual and took around 2 hours to download and go through the entire process (that's if you got it right first time). Eventually the screen packed up (this was a common fault on the first generation iPhone, you could buy DIY kits to replace the glass).
The iPhone 3G then came to SA about 2 years ago and I bought one, but had to port my MTN number to Vodacom as they were the only service provider offering iPhones in SA. This was a big mistake, I don't know if it is the porting to Vodacom or the Vodacom network but I miss call on a daily basis. The bonus was that it was not network locked so it would work without being hacked. I did initially hack it so I could load other app on it but eventually went back to a standard unhacked phone as the iTunes apps have almost anything you can think of.
Aileen got the 3GS about a year ago and she agreed to swap phones with me (what a nice wife I have). The 3GS is about 50% faster than the 3G and now supports multitasking on IOS 4.1 and above. This allows you to run multiple apps at the same time. To access them you need to double click the menu button and the switch between them. In this mode you can close unwanted apps by touching one of them until they 'jiggle' and then close the apps.
I have my iPhone 4 on order and I am going back to MTN so hopefully all my connectivity problems should be at an end. Unfortunately I have to wait to mid February 2011 for m old contract to finish.
Now onto my favorite toy, my iPad. I had been following the rumors and watched the launch of the iPad, and I just knew I had to get one. A colleague at work was going to the UK so I asked him to bring one back. It turned out that all he could get was the 64Gb 3G model. I wanted the 3G but would have been happy with a 16 or 32Gb model. The 3G model uses a micro SIM card which was not available in SA at the time. I did some research and found that you can cut the standard mini SIM card to fit. I used an old card to test and once ti worked I made a template for cutting the SIM cards.
How to make a micro SIM card
The iPad Is the most brilliant device, it has just won the best gadget for 2010.
Time Magazine iPad best gadget 2010.There are some limitations which make it more challenging to use. The most difficult is to get information onto and off the device without using iTunes. I will cover this in a later blog. Apple 'sandboxes' all it's allocations so they can't share data or see each other. This makes the apps more stable but you lose some functionality.
I'll cover some of my favorite apps in the next blog. Please send comments and questions and make this interactive.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
