After Apple’s press conference yesterday, they have announced that buyers of the new iPhone 4 will get free bumper cases, Apple’s own case for the iPhone 4 which wraps around the side of the phone. As well as this they have said that those who have already purchased the case will be refunded and those still not happy with the product will be offered refunds on the phone even if it is on a contract.

Hopefully Apple does eventually fix the problem rather than just addressing it with the case. Although, I think Apple did handle the problem well in the end, it took way too long for them to acknowledge that there was a problem in the first place.

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In a recent Cult of Mac post, PR experts outline the dangers of Apple continuing to skirt the recent accusations of a bad antenna design, especially after yesterday’s news of Consumer Reports magazine claiming it is unable to recommend the iPhone 4 after recent tests found too many faults with the phone’s hardware. “Apple will be forced to do a recall of this product,” Matthew Seeger, an expert in crisis communication, told Cult of Mac. “It’s critically important. The brand image is the most important thing Apple has. This is potentially devastating.” [Source: Techland]

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Apple’s iPhone 4 seemed like a pretty cool device when it first came out but now it seems like Apple’s image as a company which prides itself on the quality of its products is in tatters. The iPhone 4 has a serious design flaw with its antenna and the problem is not the design fault itself, as many great companies have released a product with a flaw in it, but the fact that Apple is not admitting to the mistake. In fact they are blaming the consumer by saying that they are holding it the wrong way. It is this arrogance which could lead to the failure of the product.

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The world’s largest software vendor, which has ambitions of making its Xbox 360 not just a gaming device but a hub of home video and Web entertainment, will also begin selling a smaller, same-priced version of the console this week.

Microsoft would not say how much Kinect — which plugs into Xboxes and lets players control games with body and hand gestures — will sell for, though analysts’ estimates range from $50 to $200. Executives said 15 titles, including one from Ubisoft, will be available at the time of launch.

Ahead of this week’s E3 convention, Microsoft offered sneak peeks of upcoming titles, including a LucasArts game in which Jedi Knights do battle with light sabers, and a fitness program that lets players compete in sports from bowling to sprinting.

The world’s leading gaming hardware makers, hoping to reignite the slumping $60 billion industry, will unveil a plethora of futuristic gadgets at the E3 convention this week.

The rush of technology comes just as the video game industry, which dwarfs the $10 billion domestic movie box office, needs it. U.S. industry sales — hardware, software and accessories — are down more than 10 percent to $4.7 billion this year through April, according to research firm NPD Group.

Microsoft also said on Monday it had struck a deal with Walt Disney Co’s ESPN network to broadcast live sporting events into U.S. living rooms through the Xbox 360 games console, bypassing traditional cable providers.

Live games will be broadcast through Microsoft’s Xbox Live service, and will be offered at no additional cost.

It already offers Netflix movies and Zune music and videos through its Xbox Live online subscription service. There has been talk that it will announce a deal to add Hulu TV shows to the service at E3.

The arrival of Kinect may pressure Nintendo, which pioneered motion-sensing gaming through an all-purpose controller with its Wii system. Nintendo is expected to unveil more details on its 3D games system that requires no glasses at E3.

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New Xbox 360

Microsoft will release a smaller, redesigned Xbox 360 console in Australia on July 1 featuring built-in wireless networking support and an internal, removable 250GB hard drive.

Don Mattrick, Xbox Senior Vice President, says the new console is “sleeker, smaller and whisper-quiet”. It will cost $449 in Australia.

Microsoft’s unveiled the redesigned machine at its press conference today at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles, the first official event of this week’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). E3 is the biggest annual event on the world’s gaming calendar.

The 90-minute presentation was evenly split between hardcore games designed to keep existing Xbox 360 fans glued to their consoles, and new motion-sensing games for the Kinect add-on, which Microsoft hopes can attract a wider audience to their system.

Kinect, which was previously known by the code-name Project Natal, will launch on November 4 in the US and before Christmas in Australia. Around 15 titles will be available at launch.

“For lots of people, that controller is a barrier,” says Microsoft creative director Kudo Tsunoda. “We set out to make a new control paradigm where anybody can get in and play, without having to read the instructions or learn a complicated set of controls.”

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In my opinion, the Kinect seems like a way to cash in on Nintendo’s success with the Wii. The Wii is extremely popular with whole families and younger kids and this is different target is what i think led to its success. For this reason both microsoft and Sony are trying to copycat Ninendo’s moves to stay in the competition. But, Microsoft’s new console looks absolutely awesome.

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The iPad. A magical, revolutionary device in a category of its own. But what’s the point?

Apple created their own category of device. A device which has more capabilities than a smartphone but is not quite a laptop. The device seemed pretty slick with the ability to use apps similar to the iPhone but on a larger screen. Using iWork on this thing seemed pretty cool when it shown off at Steve Jobs’ keynote and how awesome would it be to watch videos on a device like this if you were travelling on a train or in the passenger seat of a car. You could have hours of entertainment right at your fingertips. On top of this you could browse the internet in a new, revolutionary way. This seemed like a dream device.

Then you found out about the limitations. No USB port to export your iWork documents, an additional adapter so you could connect your camera and the fact that you could only install things Apple wanted you to install. Then there are the obvious things such as a front facing camera for video chat. This seemed like a no-brainer, to be able to talk to your friends with an iPad would be an awesome experience. But it seems Apple left this feature out, probably to release it in the second generation. Next, it raises the question of where will you use it? Sure you could take it to school or work and take notes at a meeting but the touchscreen keyboard kind of limits it as you have to be looking at the screen to get your fingers in the correct position. You could use it on the bus or train to watch movies or read books. Firstly, reading books on a screen this bright and vibrant, although implemented well, will just not work. The backlight will cause eye strain and this cannot be avoided. Reading whole novels on this device will lead you to ruin your eyes even if you think it is fine in the beginning. Secondly, why would you want to fork out so much for a device where you can only watch movies. That’s what a portable dvd player is all about and you can buy one for about $50 now.

So you have this device, something which was supposed to be magical and revolutionary but it wasn’t. Its the tiny limitations of the product which make you realise how awesome it could have been but just wasn’t. What is the point of buying a device like this? Can you name any uses specifically for this device which warrants the need for a new category of device?

You can also find this article at my newsvine.com column

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Introduction

Recently, Sony released a movies store on their Playstation 3 where you can buy or rent the latest and not so latest movies. I was able to test this service out just recently and here is my review of it.

Pros

• Easy, inexpensive delivery service
• Integrated into the PSN store without an additional download
• Has both HD and SD movies for people with not enough download limit
• Movie rental service is convenient
• Decent video and sound quality

Cons

• 5.1 channel surround sound is not activated by default
• HD movies are not 1080p

Review

I rented three movies, Surrogates, Invictus and 2012. I found the delivery method was easy but on my 2Mbps connection, the movie took about 8 hours to download which is a bit of a pain. This means you have to plan ahead of time. Conveniently, Sony does give you an option to play the movie while it is downloading but the download is so slow that it will keep pausing the movie. It is better to just wait for the movie to reach at least 80% before you start watching it. Once I did get the movie, it said once it was opened I had 48 hours to watch it which is quite reasonable. I only tried out the HD movies and although they weren’t full HD, the quality was very decent. I was quite impressed. Originally it was playing in stereo sound and only after fiddling around in the settings and changing the audio track could i activate the 5.1 channel surround sound. I can’t imagine non tech savvy people being able to work this out especially since there are no clear instructions telling you you have to change the audio track to get surround sound. This is a real pain but once you do it, the sound quality is also amazing.

The price for renting a HD movie is reasonable at $5.99 – $6.99 which is around the same price as my local video rental store but many of the latest movies can’t be rented at must be bought at the less reasonable price of $24.99. It really is a shame that when you are purchasing the movie with credit card, the minimum amount you can add to your wallet is $10. This means that everytime you buy a movie for $7 you have to give Sony $10. Only after your 4th movie will stop having to add funds. I don’t know why you couldn’t just pay the exact amount you needed for the movie. The other alternative is a PSN network card which has a minimum of $20 $30. So both ways you cannot pay an exact amount but only add amounts to your wallet. It means later on you might be forced to buy something you really don’t want but need to to use up the funds in your PSN wallet. Another bad thing is that they haven’t followed the Foxtel IQ method where if you don’t watch the rented movie at all you don’t get charged for it. This was good because if you changed your mind, you can simply delete the movie and you won’t get charged anything.

Overall, I like the new movie service. The video and sound quality are very decent and the whole concept is excellent. If the download speed was improved and the files weren’t so large it would be more accessible to people with lower download limits. Unfortunately, buying the latest movies can become an expensive affair especially when the Blu-Ray can often be bought for less than $25 and the DVD for less than $15 even for new movies. I don’t think this is going to deter movie piracy either but those who want an alternative to the video rental store have a great one here.

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Has Apple left iPhone 3G customers out in the cold? These are the first iPhones which came out internationally and now with the latest iOS4, sure the 3G will get the update but most of the features which people want are simply not there.

I can understand the logic behind no multitasking as the phone isn’t optimised for it. It’s processor will probably not be able to cope. I also understand that Apple want to make sure the end user gets an enjoyable experience when using their product. However, I cannot think why some other of the highly anticipated features such as customisable wallpapers, folders and iBooks were not allowed on the older iPhone. They probably would have worked fine as customisable wallpapers and other cool features have been available for jailbroken iPhones for ages. These ran fine, there were no complaints about the performance and the processor seemed to cope. This seems like a ploy by Apple to get everyone to renew their contracts with their carrier for the iPhone 4. Not a good practice if you ask me. The fact that the earlier products have just been abandoned so users are forced to fork out money to upgrade or live with an inferior phone which could have done so much more. The funny thing is, Apple have such an influence on people that everyone will accept this and move on. Take the iPad for example; if it was launched by some other company, exactly the same product but with a different logo on it, no one would have given it the slightest bit of attention. Apple can get away with making a product which deliberately is cut back on features and so when the next generation is released, the product which people wanted will come. This is a really bad tactic for the consumer. Especially those devoted to Apple and their products, to whom Steve Jobs is a god. The fact that Apple can sell so many of a device which lacks features most people expect is amazing. The fact that Apple managed to make a 2G phone in a 3G world and still make it one of the most popular phones in the US is a wonder. It is just amazing that this sales technique works purely because of the fanbase for their product.

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Sorry about not updating the blog in ages. I have been extremely busy. So, I thought what better time to make a new post than on the introduction of a new Apple product. Quite frankly, I thought the iPad was a bit of a disappointment to me personally and I have to say that i was expecting big things of the iPhone 4. However, I believe this new product is just trying to play catchup with its Android counterparts for this generation. Yes, Apple has added over 100 new features to iOS 4 but none of them are truly revolutionary.

Take this quote for example of Apple’s website:

“People have been dreaming about video calling for decades”

My first reaction to seeing this on Apple’s website was to burst out laughing. You have to have been living under a rock for the last 6 years to not have noticed that most new phones have video calling capabilities. As well as this, FaceTime can only be used on WiFi between two iPhone 4s. The chances of the person you want to call being on a WiFi network with an iPhone 4 is astronomically low. Why wouldn’t you just use Skype? Other features such as multi tasking, folders and an all new processor do not better its competitors such as the HTC Evo. They only just manage to match them. The A4 processor matches the Snapdragon 1GHz processor in many of the latest Android smartphones. Yet still, the iPhone is lacking in many areas. Apple didn’t even take the opportunity to use 4G on their phone. It may be in its early stages but seeing as Apple only release one phone per year, they have to do something to stop it from becoming outdated in this year.

One thing I was impressed by was the retina display which has a really high resolution and the colours are well reproduced. As well as this the iPhone does look stunning and it looks like a high-end, well built device. But despite this, I could not imagine reading a whole, or even part of a book on an iPhone screen. It will cause too much eye strain due to the small screen and backlight. Although i think Apple have implemented the iBooks app really well. On top of this, I like the camera which the phone has and the photos it produces look quite good. Putting iMovie on an iPhone was also a really good idea but maybe they could have given it for free.

These are my first impressions of the iPhone 4. I should have a full review once it comes out in Australia in July. I shall leave you with this quote I found on a forum which is pretty true in my opinion:

“I can now replace my 2004 Nokia because the iPhone is finally catching up”

What do you think?

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“Lockerz is an invitation-only website created to connect members through commerce, content and social networking. Once invited, you’ll be able to watch exclusive video, buy great products, discover new music, play games, and connect with friends. You’ll be able to do this all in one place, AND you’ll get rewarded for just doing the things you love. When you watch a video, play a game, or even log in, you’ll earn Pointz (or “PTZ”) Lockerz own form of currency. Turn around and redeem your PTZ for incredible merchandise, unique experiences and exclusive deals and sales.
Our mission is to be your daily habit, not a site for your parents or grandparents looking for their long-lost friends from kindergarten. Thanks to our millions of members around the world, Lockerz is already taking off beyond our greatest expectations. While still in beta, we’ve been sending today’s most coveted items, from iPods to Xboxes, to members around the globe who have redeemed their PTZ and earned great prizes.
Too good to be true? Why are we doing this? To thank you for joining early. To build a Lockerz community of leaders and trendsetters. To give you a taste of how PTZ will work when we go live in early 2010. And to test out different prizes and PTZ levels. That’s key. This version of PTZ Place is a test. PTZ levels will change when the full Lockerz site launches.
We’re excited to have our early members join now, and explore and help shape the site before our official launch. We hope you’ll join us.”

For an invite, just send me an email at murtaza@buildyourown-computer.com

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