I decided against doing a full iPhone 4S review – the simple fact is that the iPhone 4S is not a massive jump from the iPhone 4, and you will be quite familiar with the 4S if you have ever used an iPhone 4. But the thing about Apple fans is that they always want the latest and greatest. Luckily I was up for an upgrade from Vodacom, so here we are.

I am doing this review from the viewpoint of a long time iPhone user – I am comparing it to previous iPhones, of which I have owned every version since launch. While I use different phones with different operating systems almost every week, my primary phone is still an iPhone. I am not comparing it to the latest Galaxy Optimus Black Nexus LTE Droid RAZR Defy Plus. I have great respect for some of the latest Android superphones, but right now I am simply going to address the iPhone 4S from the viewpoint of an iPhone user. So here goes.

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As 2011 draws to a close we thought it might be a good time to look back and see what products we really enjoyed using in 2011. Some of our choices might be controversial, but hey, horses for courses. Let us know what you think in the comments?

Best Phone: Samsung Galaxy S2

Even the most ardent fans of iPhone have to agree – the Galaxy S2 is a truly great phone. It is very fast, is built well (despite being made of plastic), the screen is beautiful, the camera is excellent – the list goes on. Pricing is also pretty good, and the phone is still great several months later, which you cannot typically say of the Android phone marketplace. You cannot go wrong. Not even Samsung’s bigger and faster Galaxy Note could change our name. Now we just have to get our hands on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Close second: Apple iPhone 4S. Expect our review in the new year.

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Vodacom today announced the launch of a service that is going to proactively inform customers via SMS while abroad, about the roaming rates that are applicable in the foreign countries they travel into. The service, known as Roaming Tariff Information (RTI) SMS, is going to help customers avoid roaming bill shock.

The RTI SMS service will notify customers on arrival at their international destination that they are in the coverage area of a foreign network; and it will specify the exact roaming rates customers are going to pay on a particular foreign network.

Commenting on this new offering, Portia Maurice, Chief Officer, Corporate Affairs at Vodacom says, “This service augments our ongoing consumer educational campaign on how to help prevent roaming bill shocks. By proactively informing customers about the roaming rates, this will enable customers to manage their roaming use carefully.”

Customers should take note of the rates in the RTI SMS, and be aware that roaming is more expensive than using the same services back home.

When travelling internationally, Vodacom suggests the following tips to help customers manage their roaming bill.

Data Roaming tips: (more…)

This will be an ongoing post, and I will update it as time goes on.

In South Africa we have a tendency to not really care about bad customer service, which really only makes us even more deserving of it. Worldwide the launch of a new iPhone is typically followed by a bit of a frenzy by loyal Apple fans. In South Africa, Vodacom and MTN are the only providers of the iPhone, so users need to use their “pre-order” channels in order to secure an iPhone.

Vodacom’s handling of this launch has been nothing short of shocking. I have been a Vodacom customer for more than 10 years, and every year I have had to deal with poor service trying to get an iPhone on launch day. I have been up for an upgrade for a few months, because I was holding out for an iPhone 4S.

This year is no different: After multiple calls with their call center, Twitter agents, multiple uninformed stores (“I think you mean the iPhone 4 sir!”) etc, I decided I would share my experience with the readers of this site. At this time I have still not gotten hold of an iPhone 4S, and Vodacom has not yet reached me to inform me when I will receive one. And the strange thing is, I doubt I am the only one in this boat.

Here is a timeline of my experience with Vodacom and the iPhone 4S launch:

Thursday, 1 December 2011 – Vodacom Pre-Registration Form goes live. I register within the first hour of the page being available. I also register with Cellucity’s pre-registration page. That set my mind at ease. (more…)

The iPhone 4S has finally been launched in SA this past weekend – but the networks kept their cards close to their chest in terms of deals. Pricing was only officially announced on Thursday, and not through very public channels. Pricing is definitely better than expected, but it is clear that networks are trying to limit the choices of contracts you can receive a free phone with.

For example, last year you could get a free iPhone 4 with a Vodacom Top Up 275 contract, with 100meg of data at R379. This year, Top Up customers are not as lucky – I was quoted R3000+ pay in on the Top 315 contract. So if you want a iPhone 4S, you are pretty much forced to go for the more business orientated contracts. (more…)

OK, so another month, another best Android phone out there. This is partly to blame on the massively quick development with Android and the constant competition between the manufacturers. In recent months Samsung seems to be having the upper hand, with the great Galaxy S2, and the recently released Galaxy Nexus.

The Galaxy Note is different however – it aims to combine the use of a phone with a tablet, and it includes a stylus as well, something which is relative scarcity since the arrival of capacitative screens. This “phoneblet” is truly huge – if you ever look at your current smartphone and think the screen is too small, or if you think your tablet is too big, you might want to give the Galaxy Note a serious look.

Design and Build

First off – this phone is massive. Or this tablet is small? Either way you look at it, the Note is good deal bigger than any phone you might be used to. (more…)

We all know the de facto internet filesharing and cloud storage tool until now has been Dropbox, but Microsoft has always had their own offering, SkyDrive. SkyDrive gave you 25GB of storage for free, which is a good deal more than Dropbox’s measly 3GB. Problem was, SkyDrive was not really available on anything else other than Windows (and Mac), and there was no mobile integration except with Windows Phone 7. Now Microsoft is starting to put SkyDrive into the devices people use every day, instead of only giving it to the Windows faithful.

From today SkyDrive is also available on iPhone, which is a major shift for Microsoft. “We realize that not everyone who relies on SkyDrive for sharing photos or accessing Office documents uses Windows Phone… yet. We have a long history of supporting iPhone customers with built-in support for Hotmail and with apps like Bing, Messenger, OneNote (with SkyDrive sync), and now Skype.”

“More generally, we believe you should have access to your personal content no matter which device you use. This is why we are excited to invest in HTML5—both on the web and on mobile—on http://skydrive.com.” iPhone users can access all of their cloud stored files, create folders, delete files and share links to folders, which fires off a invite using Mail.”

If you have not yet heard of SkyDrive, here are some of the features:

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So 2011 is drawing to a close, but I thought it might be cool to look back and see what was our most popular articles of the year. 2011 was a great year for Bandwidth Blog, not only terms of traffic, but also with regard to interaction and loyalty with our reader base. More than ever we have seen what you think, be it through comments or tweets, and we would like to thank you for that. We value your feedback and opinion, so here is our most popular posts of 2011:

10) The iPhone 5 – What to expect, Why you should upgrade to iOS5 right now

OK, so it was not the iPhone 5, but the 4S did show up. While many people were initially irritated because it was not called iPhone 5, the iPhone 4S is a more significant update than the name and appearance would suggest. Most of predictions were right, with the major exception of the larger screen.

9) iPad 2 in South Africa, iPad 2 Hands On Review

Clearly people were interested to get their hands on the iPad 2. Core stepped up and brought the iPad 2 to SA a lot sooner than most of us expected, and at a pretty decent price! We managed to get hold of iPad 2 a while before release in SA, and we were very impressed. Even a few months later, it is still the tablet to beat.

8 ) Nokia’s New Lumia Smartphone Leaked

In 2011 Nokia announced that they will finally be moving away from the aging Symbian operating system to Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7. But then it got silent, and no one knew what these new phones would look like. Windows Phone 7 and first rate hardware sounds like a great recipe, and the Lumia 800 was leaked a few hours before its official announcement. It is almost a carbon copy of the brilliant but very sad Nokia N9, and we cannot wait to get our hands on it.

7) Vodacom Announces 20GB for R500 Promotion

In a bandwidth starved country like SA, there is a constant battle between the network providers to see who can give customers the best bang for the buck. In 2010 it was Cell C, but in 2011 the landscape evened somewhat. But in November Vodacom announced that they will be running a 20GB for R500 promotion during December and January. Now Vodacom, do the right thing and make it more permanent offer, OK?

6) The Top 5 Twitter Clients for iPhone

Twitter is one of the most visited social networks from a mobile phone, and the number of clients out there just seems to increase every day. Luckily it is pretty easy to choose with this list. Luckily our favourite choice is still free.

5) Blackberry Bold 9900 out in SA, Bandwidth Blog’s Hands on Review of the Bold 9900

RIM had a tough 2011 with a worldwide outage that lasted more than 3 days. But for the die hard crackberry fans, this will not scare them off – they have been looking forward to the ultimate Blackberry, the 9900. Dressed in steel, glass and carbon fibre, the 9900 impressed us with a pin sharp display, beautiful construction and a new touch screen plus physical keyboard combo. We can confidently state it is the best Blackberry yet.

4) 8ta Announces Blackberry Deals

You would think there is enough Blackberry deals out there, but readers were clearly waiting to see what 8ta would bring to the table. In typical 8ta fashion there is plenty of incentives included, even though the pricing was not a major improvement over other networks.

3) Microsoft Shows off Windows 8 New Ribbon Explorer Interface

While 2011 is the year Apple might have reached the highest market cap in the world, the fanbase waiting for Windows 8 is clearly bigger than we expected. Windows 8 will sport a new Metro start menu interface, but also more touch friendly ribbon bars throughout the desktop.

2) Vodacom Puts Cap on Blackberry Usage, Pieter Uys has to clarify Blackberry Throttling

Vodacom announced that it will be throttling Blackberry BIS users who use more than 100MB per month, effectively stepping them down to 2G speeds. Needless to say – there was tremendous backlash to this decision. Twitter was abuzz, and Bandwidth Blog had massive traffic from users who wanted to comment on this. People were NOT happy, and they did not see this helping all Blackberry users in the bigger scheme of things. All in all, everyone thought they will be affected. Vodacom’s CEO had to cut a trip short to quickly return and face the media regarding this announcement… He put everyone’s fears to rest.

1) The Best Thing Tim Cook Did Not Announce

Everyone was waiting for the ever-delayed iPhone 5, which Apple did not announce. Instead they announced the iPhone 4S, while keeping the iPhone 4 on the market at a lower price point. But in a new move for Apple, they also kept the iPhone 3GS on the market, a phone first released in 2009. In the US this phone will be given free with contracts, and it can still run the latest iOS5 software. Richard Oakley did an excellent post on the iPhone 3GS’s extended life – instead of developing a new watered down version of the iPhone, the 3GS is more in tune in with Apple’s vision of devices that just work.