Now that iPhone is available on MTN, it means that we are starting to see more iPhones on our shores, and it is no longer only available on a very expensive contract. The last few updates to these devices have been pretty great, and iPad users got a huge update in the form of iOS 4.2.

Apple has just released the beta version of its next update, iOS 4.3. Even with 4.2, there are certain things that Android seems to do better these days – and one of them has been “hotspot” functionality. This allows your phone to create a Wifi network to which other devices can connect to. Up to now iPhone allowed “tethering” only, but soon you will be able to share your wifi connection to those devices that only have a wifi connection available. Good examples of this is the Wifi-only iPad models, or if you got one of the new Wifi-only Kindles. To be honest, I will have decide whether I should keep on paying for 3G on my iPad…

Here are some other great features to expect:

• New Multitouch gestures: You can swipe four fingers left and right in order to switch between running applications. Almost like a “Alt+Tab” for iPad. You can also pinch with five fingers to bring up the home screen.
• Lots of evidence of Facetime arriving on the next iPad. Its littered all over the code. Looks like the iPad screen resolution would stay the same in iPad 2G, so forget about a “retina” displays on the iPad.
• iPad users can now choose whether the switch on the side of the device is for orientation-lock or muting the device.
• Airplay is being shifted to other applications as well, provided they play videos in very specific H.264 and AAC standards.

Other things include small interface and usability changes, and bug fixes. However, being in Beta, there are probably a few new bugs. One thing which is not so great is that this beta release has not been made available for iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2g, which might indicate that these devices might not get any more updates. Which is not totally unexpected – the iPhone 3G is not a happy camper with iOS4, but 4.2 seems te run a bit better.

And if you are someone who wants to get an iPad because of all these updates coming soon, I would say hang on a while. While the iPad is not a waste of money, the 2nd generation iPad should be out within the next 3 months.

Many South Africans have been in that sucky situation where your power goes out late at night, and you have to somehow find a way to buy prepaid electricity. This usually necessitates a trip to the nearest shop or garage which requires you to pay cash…. Blah, blah blah, you know the drill.

I have recently been using an app called Powertime which installs on your iPhone (Blackberry is also available) and enables you to buy electricity at any time of day, and for any electricity meter you have registered with them. When you go to the Powertime website, you register your electricity meter (you can register more than one as well), with some of your details. You also register your credit card, and then you fax them a copy of your credit card and your ID book. And that is the only “work” from your end (this is still less work than the numerous trips to the shop and back…).

While these types of solutions have existed on the web for quite some time in SA, this is the first mobile implementation that I have come across that is so polished and easy to use. Where every other site is exercise in frustration, Powertime is quick and easy to use. Proof that there are some great iPhone developers in South Africa…The developers have recently added a few cool new features – like a tool that predicts your usage, and then also pushes a notification to your phone to remind you that your electricity is about to run out (every time I buy electricity I also just enter my current readout, and over time it builds its predictions). For example, my Powertime lets me know once my meter reaches 50 units. And its surprisingly accurate. I also appreciate the statistics that it gives me regarding my electricity usage:

They also added the ability to buy airtime from Vodacom, MTN and Cell C, which is easier than using WIG menus from banks, or having to go to internet banking websites…

This is one of those tools that I appreciate – while I can purchase electricity online quite easily, I really appreciate the convenience of Powertime on my phone.

PS: Powertime App was acclaimed on September 29th at the international Mobile Web in Africa conference in Johannesburg, receiving the top award at the App Factor competition.

The iOS Appstore has been one of the greatest success stories in software distribution, and it revolutionized the way we used our mobile phones. It was universally “borrowed” for other platforms as well, some with greater success than others. The advantages to using an Appstore are plenty – users can instantly see the most popular applications available for a platform, and a central location to download apps from is great. Instant installs and easy payment methods just improve it even further.

Apple will now be bringing this functionality to Macs as well, and first to those running OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard). The idea is simple – instead of going to the edge of the internet to find apps, you will find a curated store which can easily be searched to find the software you want. Software will be licensed per user, and if you have multiple Macs, the software can be put on all your machines with a single purchase, as long as the machines are linked to a user account (I suspect there will be a limit to this though).

Your account will be connected to your Apple ID, which is in turn connected to your credit card. So you do not have to go type in your payment details into some site you do not trust. One aspect of the Appstore I find exciting as well – centralized updates. Just like on iPhone, you can click one button to instantly update all the apps at once. No more checking for updates within every app or using obscure utilities to the job.

Apple is currently opening the Mac Appstore to developers, and a lot of the same rules as the iOS Appstore exists here. Developers will get 70% of their asking price, but then Apple would host the app for them, and charge no additional fees. For certain software houses 70% might be too little (do you think Adobe would give away 30% of the asking price of CS5?), whereas for smaller developers this might be a great deal (think some small company making a utility who does not want to spend extra on hosting fees). Once again Apple would curate all apps, so if the app is of limited use, or does not function as advertised, it will not arrive on the Appstore. Some people do not like this, but the quality of apps inside the appstore would hopefully then be of a higher quality…

Despite the authorization process by Apple, the potential advantages for new computer users will be great. Its clear to see that iOS and Mac are moving closer and closer together…

Pirated computer software is currently costing legal resellers and the local computer industry millions of rands a month through lost revenues – and leaving thousands of unsuspecting computer owners up the creek without support.

Microsoft South Africa’s Charl Everton says her company alone is currently busy investigating more than 60 computer dealers suspected of selling fake or illegally licensed software – and that’s “just the tip of the iceberg,” she says.

Overall, the trade in counterfeit goods is costing South Africa millions of rands annually in lost revenues, says Mandla Mnyatheli, chief director of company and IP enforcement with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).

“The exact impact of counterfeiting is hard to quantify, but there’s no doubt this trend has been increasing. We have an urgent challenge in South Africa to stem this tide,” said Mnyatheli.

The Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Ms Tobias-Pokolo, is spearheading a nationwide campaign to raise awareness of the scourges of piracy and counterfeiting, says Mnyatheli. All relevant enforcement agencies and government departments in the security cluster will be part of this campaign.

The biggest problem with piracy, though, says Ms Everton, is that there is growing evidence that many local criminal organisations are now involved in counterfeiting to some degree – which effectively means that people who buy pirated goods are funding organised crime.

“All indications are that local criminal syndicates are following the global trend of branching out into counterfeit software as a low-risk, high-profit sideline to other activities like hijacking and drug trafficking,” she said.

Ms Everton was speaking as part of Microsoft’s worldwide ‘Consumer Action Day’ – a drive across 70 countries to protect consumers and increase awareness of the risks of counterfeit software.

She says that every year, thousands of consumers and businesses buy counterfeit products that either don’t work or actually harm the users by opening the door to online spam, virus and fraud networks. Microsoft’s tests of software on some popular sites have shown that up to 35 percent of counterfeit software contains harmful code.

Globally, Microsoft has had more than 300 000 voluntary reports in the past two years from people who unknowingly purchased counterfeit software that was often riddled with viruses or malware. Victims risk losing personal information, having their identities stolen, and wasting valuable time and money.

“Consumers everywhere are coming to us with complaints about counterfeit software,” said Dale Waterman, Microsoft’s Corporate Attorney for Anti-Piracy for the Middle East and Africa region. “They’re asking what they can do to protect themselves. They want facts. And they want industry and government to stand up and take action. Our commitment is to do everything we can to help them.”

According to data released by Microsoft this week,  based on the results of a broad consumer survey which asked more than 38,000 men and women in 20 countries around the world about their perceptions of counterfeit software, 80 percent of consumers polled worldwide have a range of concerns about the risks of using counterfeit software, and 70 percent said they believe genuine software is more secure, more stable and is easier to keep up-to-date.

But the presence of high-quality fakes in the market today makes distinguishing counterfeit from genuine a continuing challenge for consumers. The majority of those polled — 73 percent — say they would choose genuine software given the choice, and more than two-thirds believe that consumers in general have to be on the lookout or they could mistakenly buy counterfeit software.

As part of its awareness activities, Microsoft this month launched its “Don’t Fake It” campaign, which drives people to the www.dontfakeit.co.za website. There, they get to be part of a music video with popular local band Prime Circle.

There has been no shortage of anti-piracy action by authorities this year. In the past month alone, there have been more than 20 enforcement actions involving the SA Police Services, the DTi or Microsoft’s attorneys against resellers offering pirated software in Bloemfontein and Gauteng. Numerous hard drives used to make counterfeit copies of popular software suites were seized in the raids.

Several of the dealers have been served with ‘cease and desist’ letters by Microsoft’s attorney’s around the sale of counterfeit software and PCs loaded with illegal software.

One of the men netted in the swoop, a prominent Bloemfontein IT consultant, has been charged with offences under the Copyright Goods Act after being caught selling high-quality counterfeit software and product keys on a popular online site.

People who use social networks have probably gotten used to the “life stream” feeds on the web today. People are using multiple social networks, be it Facebook, Twitter and also linked in for their professional life. Email is however the odd one out, and wisestamp tries to fix that.

Instead of having boring signature which only provides links to social networks, wisestamp gives the sender the ability to integrate recnet activity from his or her latest networks. This can include tweets, facebook statuses, or ECM what is the last thing that he/she bought on eBay (if you think it’s a good idea).

Wisestamp integrates with a number of email services and a variety of online networks. If you want to try it, go over to wisestamp and download it… Let us know what you think.

Distimo just released their latest report for August, which details sales of all the current mobile application stores. Here are the noteworthy results so far:

While the average price of all applications is only 16% higher in the Apple App Store for iPad than in the Apple App Store for iPhone, the average price of the 100 most popular applications is nearly three times as high in the Apple App Store for iPad.

Clearly people are willing to way for good quality apps on the iPad. The problem with the iPad appstore presently is that many of the apps are just supersized iPhone applications made to fit the bigger resolution, without really adding any functionality. But slowly this is changing – just look at the newly released Twitter for iPad, which makes good use of the large touch panel and gives as an idea of where iPad apps are moving towards in terms of user interaction and design conventions:

In the Apple App Store for iPad, BlackBerry App World and Windows Marketplace for Mobile, the respective companies that run each application store, (Apple, Research In Motion and Microsoft) are the top publishers in their own store with only a limited number of applications. Clickgamer.com and Offscreen publish many popular games in the Apple App Store for iPhone and Nokia Ovi Store making them the top publishers in these stores.

People expect higher quality apps from the vendors who design the software, and in most cases this does show. Apple‘s Pages is a prime example of this – while not super functional, the interface and ease of use is way ahead of any other similiar offering from other vendors.

Average prices of the different appstores also bring up some interesting results:

Google Marketplace has the lowest pricing, and the store size is rapidly increasing. Also worth noting is Blackberry‘s cost which is still quite high, but this can be ascribed to their minimum price being $2.99, but this is being changed with the latest release of App World. So expect those prices to drop soon enough. The iPad is still being seen by developers as a higher income “niche” product, so the current prices still reflect this.

Here is some other results from the different appstores:

If you want to read the Distimo report more in-depth, you can find it here.

If you play around with the Apple iPad at the moment it becomes pretty clear that the apps dont follow some type of guidelines on usability. Sure, the button sizes are correct, but some apps have very strange operating methods. For example, the Guiness Book of Records uses a different paging techniques than say, Wired’s page flipping method. At present, image link areas are also too large or small in some apps. This leads to some usability issues with current range of apps. It reminds me somewhat of the early days of CD-ROM – every app had a more creative, but not necessarily better way to navigate or operate.

With the iPhone, the screensize limited new or unique gesture methods. But with the iPad’s bigger screen developers are free to play around with new gestures, like three or four fingers swipes. While this is fine, there needs to be some user conventions that will hopefully happen over time.Just watching someone who is used to the iPhone will show this pretty quickly – you often see them repeating gestures with small adjustments in either speed, motion, etc. As Nielsen mentions:

“iPad apps are inconsistent and have low feature discoverability, with frequent user errors due to accidental gestures. An overly strong print metaphor and weird interaction styles cause further usability problems.”

This does not necessarily mean there is a problem with the platform, instead developers need to focus on certain aspects to ensure that their apps perform well on the iPad:

Even our limited initial user studies provide directions for making iPad designs more usable:
• Add dimensionality and better define individual interactive areas to increase discoverability through perceived affordances of what users can do where.
• To achieve these interactive benefits, loosen up the etched-glass aesthetic. Going beyond the flatland of iPad’s first-generation apps might create slightly less attractive screens, but designers can retain most of the good looks by making the GUI cues more subtle than the heavy-handed visuals used in the Macintosh-to-Windows-7 progression of GUI styles.
• Abandon the hope of value-add through weirdness. Better to use consistent interaction techniques that empower users to focus on your content instead of wondering how to get it.
• Support standard navigation, including a Back feature, search, clickable headlines, and a homepage for most apps.

If you want to go read the full 93 page usability report, you can find it here. This is a truly valuable resource if you are currently experimenting with touch interfaces.

Thanks to Albert for the pointer…

The Distimo report is a monthly report that shows current trends in the mobile application development marketplace. It takes into account all the handset manufacturers’ different stores through which they distribute applications on their devices. Here are some of the interesting developments:

- Mobile apps are cheap, or free. More than half of apps are below $2. So developers who charge high prices, remember, the large group of users out there should make you worry less about profit per sale.

- The iPad’s current application seems to cost a bit more than the iPhone. This can be attributed to increased development costs, but I have to commend developers who write universal apps. Universal apps you purchase once, and they run on both the iPhone and the iPad. Dont make me pay twice for two devices.

- The Android market is made up of more than 57% free apps. Why? Is it because Android users are less likely to buy apps than on other platforms? Or is it because the free apps are good enough?

- Games are still by far the most popular apps. Out of the top 10 paid for apps on the iPhone, 8 was games.

- Amazon’s Kindle app seems to be under fire. Apple’s iBooks app is the number one app on the Appstore. But its still great that Amazon is making their platform available to other platforms as well. After using the iPad, I have to say my Kindle has become neglected. And with good reason.

What is interesting is seeing how the appstore ecosystem is changing. iPhone still seems to be the one that has the monetary edge, but that might change soon enough. With the number of Android handsets being released, there is plenty of oppurtunities for developers. The number of free apps on Android might sound great, but this does not take into account the quality of these apps. Whereas the iPhone Appstore is verified by Apple on a app for app basis, Google’s marketplace has no such process.

The disadvatange to this is of course that low-quality or poorly designed apps get in there as well. While people criticize Apple’s quality control, there are just as many postive aspects as well.I really reckon Google can do with a similiar process – not to replace the current marketplace, but a “Google Verified” section for apps that Google does approve of. That way you have the best of both worlds.

That way you cater for both developers who want to quickly and easily want to get into the marketplace, but end users who want high quality apps can find them as well. Tools like AppBrain does address this somewhat, but what I am talking about is a official source of apps. Maybe Google should have a chat with AppBrain?

You can download the full Distimo report here.