When a writer for the Discovery Channel’s gear and gadget section found himself trying to explain over and over again that he was talking about the Apple iPhone rather than the Apple fruit during a discussion with his family, he found himself inspired and with the help of MBA Online, created this unique infographic.

The infographic below shows how the one we talk, email and chat from measures up against the one that we eat. The infographic includes the comparison between their distribution, composition, weight and history. Interesting stuff!

View the infographic after the jump:

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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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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…)

As previously announced by Rockstar Games, a special anniversary edition of the popular Grand Theft Auto 3 game is now available for Android and iOS devices.

The anniversary edition similar to the now 10-year old original that is arguably considered the most influential games of all time, is optimized for touch-screen devices, with resizable custom controls. However,  there are two major improvements to the original version – they are autosave mode and mission retry which have been implemented to avoid users causing harm to their mobile devices out of pure frustration while playing.

The game is compatible with the iPhone 4S and 4, 4th generation iPod touch and iPad 1 and 2. Supported Android devices include HTC Rezound, LG Optimus 2x, Motorola Atrix 4G, Motorola Droid X2, Motorola Photon 4G, Samsung Galaxy R, T-Mobile G2x.

Supported Android tablets include the LG Optimus Pad, Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 and 10.1, Sony Tablet S.

The game is now available to download from the Android Market and iTunes Store.

source: Mashable

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.

bidorbuy.co.za launched its app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch today that lets users shop on “Africa’s largest online marketplace” from their mobile devices.

The app allows users to browse through various categories or conduct a search, take part in an online auction or buy items at a fixed price. Once the items have been selected, they can be added to a watchlist or cart and the user can then proceed to the checkout.

Jaco Jonker, bidorbuy CEO, stated that “The launch of the bidorbuy iPhone app is part of our larger mobile strategy which will encompass native apps for all the other major players including Android, Windows Mobile and Blackberry. The bidorbuy Mobile offering also includes a rich-content mobile site geared towards smartphone users, in addition to the basic, no-frills mobi site, which is suitable for lower-end internet enabled handsets. The bidorbuy App and mobi sites give buyers a full shopping experience, from browsing for items, placing bids and buying items through to completing checkout, all from their mobile device.”

The free app is available to download from the iTunes store and is compatible with iPhones, iPod touches and iPads running iOS 3.0 and higher.

To get the bidorbuy app click here.

View some of the app screenshots below:

Apple Analyst Gene Munster recently commented at the Ignition: Future Of Media conference that he believes that Apple will be launching its very own television in time for the 2012 holiday season. Munster was so confident about the project that he told the audience to wait for Apple, if they are planning to buy a new television in the near future.