By Troy Wolverton
Assuming the rumours are true, we already have a pretty good idea of what Apple Inc’s new iPhones will look like and what their key features will be. But I’m still hoping for a few pleasant surprises.
According to the rumours, Apple is slated to unveil two new iPhone models at its media event today: a flagship model dubbed the iPhone 5S and a less expensive model called the iPhone 5C.
The iPhone 5C will be made of plastic and come in a variety of colours. The iPhone 5S, meanwhile, will resemble last year’s iPhone 5, but will come in one additional colour — gold — and will include a fingerprint reader that owners will likely be able to use to secure their phone or make payments without needing to enter passwords. It will also likely have a faster processor and better camera than its predecessor.
I’m eager to test both phones and, as an iPhone user, am excited about iOS 6, which will come installed on the new phones. I’m also interested to see how Apple uses the new fingerprint reader.
But I’m also hoping against hope that Apple has made some more mundane improvements to its phones — or at least has upgrades on the schedule for next year. Here are some things I’d like to see:
Better battery life: Apple promises 8 to 10 hours of talk time or Internet use on the iPhone 5, but I find it hard to believe that anyone really gets that much. My iPhone 5 rarely makes it through a day without needing a charge, and if I play a game or two or use its turn-by-turn navigation feature, it typically needs to be recharged much sooner than that.
Theoretically, I could get better battery life by more actively managing my phone, such as turning off the Bluetooth radio when I’m not using it or shutting off its push-mail feature. But much of the appeal of the iPhone is that it’s supposed to make such things simple, and I don’t want to have to figure out what will extend my battery life. Apple ought to do that for me — or offer a device whose battery truly can endure an entire day of use.
Apple’s rivals have already figured this out. Motorola’s new Moto X, for example, promises up to 24 hours of use.
Simultaneous talking and surfing. IPhone users on Sprint or Verizon (in the US) still can’t surf the Web while talking on the phone over those carriers’ networks.
The reason is technical. Those companies’ older networks didn’t support simultaneous talking and surfing. While their newer networks do support the feature, they currently require phones to have two cellular radios — one to handle the voice call and another to handle data — to be able to accomplish it. That’s something the iPhone 5 lacks.
Eventually Verizon and Sprint’s networks are supposed to support simultaneous talking and surfing without requiring two antennas by transmitting voice calls over the data network. But that could be a year or two away. It would be great if the iPhone could support the feature right now, like its rivals do.
Bigger screen. This is something that almost certainly won’t be a feature of either of the new iPhones. I’m hoping, though, that Apple will include it in the iPhone 6.
True, the iPhone 5 had a bigger screen than its predecessors, but it’s still much smaller than those of its rivals. That means it can’t display as much information and graphics, and text can be smaller and harder to see.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of jumbo phones; I generally agree with Apple that it’s important to have a phone that’s easy to use with one hand. Samsung’s Galaxy Note, with it whopping 5.5-inch screen, fails that test. But many of the larger-screen phones are about as thin as the iPhone and only slightly wider, making them much easier to handle than the Galaxy Note.
And phones with larger screen typically have an added bonus: room to fit a bigger and longer-lasting battery.
More storage space, less cost. I asked for this last year. Here’s hoping Apple finally listens.
Apple has offered the past four iPhones in at least two basic models: a 16-GB version for $200 and a 32-GB version for $300, both with a two-year wireless service contract. With the two most recent iPhones, Apple also offered a 64-GB version for $400 with a contract.
But people are doing more things — and needing to store more stuff — on their devices these days. Users are downloading more applications, and those apps have grown larger, in part because they need to offer data-hogging high-resolution graphics to look good on the iPhone’s screen. Also, the device’s ever higher-resolution cameras take pictures and videos that consume ever more space.
In short, users need more space. And they shouldn’t have to pay as much for it. Flash memory prices have plunged. You can get a 16GB memory card for a camera for less than $10 and a 32GB one for less than $20. So Apple could easily afford to offer more memory in the iPhone for lower prices. I’d love to see Apple start its line off with a 32GB model for $200. — San Jose Mercury News/MCT
In a nutshell
New iPhone colours and a fingerprint reader will likely get the headlines, but I’m hoping for some more modest changes. Among them:
Extended life. The current iPhone’s battery just doesn’t last long enough.
Talk and surf. You still can’t do those two things if you’re using the iPhone on Sprint or Verizon.
Bigger screen. Even though it’s bigger than before, the iPhone’s display is still too small.
More storage space for less money. The iPhone needs more space for pictures, videos and applications — at a reasonable price.
Get set for Galaxy Gear
By Salvador Rodriguez
Samsung has kicked off the smartwatch race by unveiling the Galaxy Gear.
The South Korean tech giant introduced the device last week in Berlin. Users wear the Galaxy Gear on their wrists like any other watch, but this watch is capable of making voice calls, running apps, taking photos, displaying alerts and more.
Here are 10 things you need to know about the Galaxy Gear:
It connects with Samsung devices.
Samsung said the Galaxy Gear connects with the Galaxy Note III and 2014 edition of the Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet, both of which will come out in the next few weeks. The Galaxy S4 will also soon receive an update to be compatible with the Galaxy Gear, and in the future, other Samsung devices will too.
The Galaxy Gear connects to those devices using Bluetooth in order to perform its numerous functions.
It has a small touchscreen.
The Galaxy Gear uses a small 1.63-inch touchscreen. The display has a 320 by 320 pixel resolution.
It will show you notifications.
Whenever you receive a new message, e-mail or alert on your smartphone, the Galaxy Gear will display a notification. If you want to see the full message, simply pick up the Samsung device that the Galaxy Gear is connected to and that smartphone or tablet will automatically open to the message.
It can make calls.
The Galaxy Gear will also alert you when you have an incoming call. But you don’t have to pull out your phone to pick up; the smartwatch has a speaker and microphone on its wristband that you can use to talk.
It responds to voice commands.
You can use that microphone to also give the Galaxy Gear instructions. The device runs S Voice, which is Samsung’s version of Siri, so you can give voice commands such as “Is it going to rain today?” or “Set a reminder” and the Galaxy Gear will respond appropriately.
It can also take pictures.
Besides a microphone and speaker, the Galaxy Gear’s wristband also has a small 1.9MP camera attached. The camera can be used to quickly take pictures or shoot video.
It runs apps.
Like a smartphone, the Galaxy Gear is also capable of running apps. For now, there are only a handful of apps specifically designed for Samsung’s smartwatch — they include the Path social network and read-it-later app Pocket — but the company said more will come soon.
Its battery lasts a full day.
You won’t have to worry about charging the Galaxy Gear often — Samsung said the smartwatch can last 25 hours on just one full charge.
It comes in six colours.
Trying to appeal to all kinds of consumers, Samsung will release the Galaxy Gear in black, grey, orange, beige, rose gold and green colours.
It won’t come out until October, and there’s no price for it yet.
Although 149 countries will get the Galaxy Gear this month, US customers will have to wait until October. Samsung also did not disclose a price for their new product. — Los Angeles Times/MCT
Ask the geek
Putting video in the
cloud can take hours
I’m part of an educational group that teaches real estate professionals. To become a certified real estate instructor in our group, candidates must submit a 50-minute video of themselves teaching a class. But I can’t find a way for them to upload such a long video, because the video files are too large for services such as YouTube. Is there a way to buy some cloud computing service where candidates could drag and drop their video files?
There is a way. But it might not be practical.
What you’re looking for is called a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) service, which can upload and store big files in a remote data centre. Despite its mysterious name, “the cloud” is just made up of remote data centres.
Companies that offer FTP service include OpenDrive, Dropbox and SkyDrive. For comparisons of several FTP services, and tips on what to look for, see http://tinyurl.com/kzd26gt.
But here’s the problem. It takes a long time to upload a 50-minute video, even with today’s Internet speeds.
A 50-minute video shot at 1080p high-definition contains about 4GB (billion bytes) of data. If you have a fast home data connection — say, Comcast service with 25 megabit (million bits per second) downloads and 5 megabit uploads — it will take about two hours to upload a 4GB data file. For a person with a much slower Internet upload speed, say 1.5 megabits, the upload time will be between six and seven hours.
It might be a better idea to have your students burn their 50-minute videos to DVDs and send them to you via US mail.
The most common DVD format is the single-sided, single-layer DVD that holds 4.7GB of data, just right for the 50-minute videos you want submitted.
Are there any downloads available (either free or for a nominal fee) for creating return address labels? I’m using OpenOffice, which does have an application for making labels, but the software makes it difficult to add clip art to the labels. (It places the clip art either above or below the address, not to the left of the address where I want it.)
Here are a few label-making programmes I found at CNET’s Download.com, a database of software that has been scanned to make sure it contains no malicious code. All offer free trial periods.
Label Maker Pro ($60) at http://tinyurl.com/nypa37j
Easy Mail ($35) at http://tinyurl.com/kfxmles
Label Designer Plus Deluxe ($40) at http://tinyurl.com/lrqaze4
Small Business Publisher ($55) at http://tinyurl.com/jwt9evz
Print Designer Gold ($60) at http://tinyurl.com/mpf752c
— By Steve Alexander, Star Tribune/MCT
