The Vodacom Apps Store has reached 100 000 downloads in its first month, and the company is now launching a program to support local talent in applications development. This Vodacom Developer Program aims to create an environment of collaboration and innovation amongst the local developer community.

The program will launch in Johannesburg on 7 October 2011 at the Protea Fire and Ice Hotel in Melrose Arch from 6-9pm, and in Cape Town on 10 October 2011 at Vodacom’s main auditorium in Century City from 6-9pm. This is free for those wishing to attend.

Prins Mhlanga, Managing Executive of Digital Media at Vodacom commented: “We see the Apps store as the embryo of an ecosystem. We’re looking forward to building a network of successful local developers, so they can help develop apps that help South Africans.

“With our apps initiative, we hope to complement and enhance this already vibrant community.”

The program promises to be a valuable knowledge sharing and learning exercise for the industry as a whole. Those attending will be provided with the opportunity to:

-       engage with the most renowned industry specialists in the mobile apps marketplace;

-       discuss tools to monetize apps

-       identify training opportunities in the mobile apps environment; and

-       gain insight into Vodacom’s innovation incentives and available technical and commercial support.

The Vodacom Apps Store was launched on 1 September 2011, and features a catalogue of over 140 000 applications powered by Appia, one of the world’s largest open application marketplaces. All Vodacom customers who wish to access Vodacom apps can do so by visiting http://vodacom.mobi/apps on their cellphones or from the apps feature on Vodafone live.

“The opportunities for further development in the Vodacom Apps Store are significant considering it also supports all major platforms including Android, Blackberry, Java, Symbian and Windows Mobile,” Mhlanga concluded.

Developers and interested parties are invited to register for the Vodacom Developer Programme at www.vodacom.co.za/developer

As you may know by now, I’m Android fanboy, so the fact that I specifically asked to cover the Nokia N9 launch last week Thursday, says something about how special this device is. Climbing a nondescript flight of metal stairs, I emerged into the DIS Daylight Studio, Nokia South Africa’s stunning venue for the N9 launch. Free drink in hand, looking around the room revealed a few very important faces (and a few less important one, like myself).

After a bit of networking, things kicked off with a slightly cheesy video about design inspiration and some stunning choreography, after which Nokia’s Senior VP of design, Marko Ahtisaari, took the stage. Marko is the man behind both the industrial, and user-experience design of the N9 – something that, as I’ll explain later, goes hand in hand. He explained how the design revolves around a single gesture, the “swipe”, and how the elegant simplicity of the Harmattan User Interface came about as a result of the competition’s design paradigms (iOS and Android were the examples used) still not being, in Nokia’s mind, optimal for a device that is “small enough for your pocket, but big enough for your hand”. As Marko explained these principles, and demoed the software on the phone, the passion and expertise that went into the Nokia N9′s overall design and experience was evident throughout, although there may have been a slight hint of bitterness – Nokia has already decided that MeeGo, the operating system that the N9 runs, has no future in the company.

After the presentation, I sauntered over to the N9 Showcase, and spent a few minutes with the device. (more…)

See yourself as a bit of a WordPress wizz, or want to learn a whole lot more? The upcoming WordCamp conference in Cape Town might just be the best way to quickly get in touch with some of the best minds and communities working with WordPress in SA today. WordCamps are informal, community-organized conferences about everything WordPress.

WordCamp Cape Town 2011 will be a great networking and learning event – every gets to participate, share ideas and get to know each other. WordCamp CT 2011 is the second WordCamp to be hosted in SA, with the first WordCamp SA hosted in 2008. This time round expect some top notch speakers from around the globe.

WordCamp Cape Town 2011 will offer 2 tracks of talks and workshops, each offering sessions hosted by some of the most interesting WordPress professionals from South Africa and the International community.
The tracks are:
● Publisher Track – This track will focus on the role of content in WordPress Web development, including blogging, content creation, content management and content strategy.
● Tech/Development – The development track will be focused on the more technical aspects of developing with WordPress, including Plugins, User Interface design and scalability.

The full list and Bio’s of our speaker are available online at http://2011.capetown.wordcamp.org/speakers/

The day will begin at 8:30 am and end at 6:00pm on Thursday the 15th of September.

Date: 15 September 2011
Venue: The Atlantic Imbizo, V&A Waterfront
Location: Cape Town

For more info goto: http://2011.capetown.wordcamp.org/about/

After watching the Apple‘s Back to Mac event (yes you can go download it on iTunes under podcasts), I thought I might give my opinions as well. Once again a person gets the idea that these events are perfectly orchastrated – every single slide and sentence was perfectly in tune with the bigger picture of the day. Steve made it very clear that the technology they perfected on their mobility front has creeped back to the Mac as well, be it software or hardware.

First off – I do not really care about iLife all that much. Sure, its a nice multimedia suite when you buy a new Mac, but it really is aimed at non-pros. iPhoto is still not as good as Picasa, and as long as Apple insists on using its ridiculous iPhoto library file structure, I will not use it. Garageband has also gotten a few improvements, but the true standout of the day was iMovie. You can still do all the same things you did in the past, but this time round they added Movie Trailers. Using simple guidelines a user can make very convincing spoof movie trailers. I would recommend you go look at them.

The event also focussed on the next version of Mac OS X: “Lion”. (Something struck me though – how does a person top the name “Lion” in terms of cats? Maybe its the last cat name prototype?) The biggest change to Lion is that it will take some of the ease of use of iOS back to the Mac. First off – the Mac Appstore. Now I realise people might throw up their arms thinking Steve has also locked down the Mac as well, just like he did with the iPhone. That is not the case at all – users still have the choice of getting their software from other sources as well, but people who don’t want to go trawl the internet looking for a specific app now have a very easy way of searching and installing the app.

The Mac Appstore will work almost exactly the same as on iPad and iPhone, and it gains all the same ease of use features. The Top Apps and Categories buttons are still there, but perhaps more significantly, you will also now have a centralized area to update all your apps with one single click. No more using third party utilities or going into every app and trying to update them.

On the hardware front Steve announced the new Macbook Air – and it’s a beauty. While very similiar to the old Macbook Air in concept, the new version takes a lot pointers from the iPad. The inside is almost all battery,  with Apple doing away with the standard hard drive “shell” convention. They added the flash memory directly to the tiny motherboard. Stand out features are the full unibody construction, instant on, 15 second boot up time and very good battery life. The machine can be used for wireless browsing up to 7 hours on the 13 inch model, with up to an amazing 30 days of standby time while the machine is sleeping. The 11 and 13 inch models both have reasonably high res screens for their size as well.

My only problem is that Apple still gives only 2GB of RAM as standard. You can configure it with 4GB of RAM, but you have to add it as a custom build to order. So dont count on iStore carrying the 4GB of RAM yet. Maybe they will surprise us – because 2GB of RAM is getting a little cramped these days.

The Macbook Air is already available in the US, iLife ’11 is already available and OS X Lion is coming in “Summer 2011″ – thats June 2011 for us…

The rapid consumerisation of technology is fundamentally changing the way businesses procure and use information technology (IT) – and is transforming the entire industry in the process, according to one of Microsoft’s top executives. Speaking at the opening of Tech-Ed Africa 2010 in Durban, Microsoft’s chief technology officer (CTO) of Worldwide Services, Norm Judah, said people increasingly want Monday morning’s technology experience to be the same as their Sunday evening experience, with access to the same data and devices.

“We hear a lot about the cloud, which is effectively the fifth generation of computing,” said Judah. “Fact is, the cloud is dramatically changing the way IT in general is consumed – and this rate of change is accelerating dramatically. The cloud will automate a lot of the cost out of technology, while increasing its agility. If you’re not thinking about the cloud today, why not?” Tech-Ed Africa 2010 is Microsoft’s premier event for IT professionals and developers, and runs from 17-20 October at Durban’s International Conference Centre (ICC). It is being attended by more than 2 500 delegates from across the continent.

At the event, Microsoft will be showing off its much-anticipated Windows Phone 7 Series and controller-free Kinect gaming system – both of which launch in South Africa next month. It will also be highlighting some of its key cloud-based technologies, including its Lync collaboration platform and recent releases like SQL Server 2008 R2 and Office 2010. “I don’t know if we’re always going to be talking about the cloud – that’s a word that might last five or ten years. So the real thing to do today is to capture the dimensions of the thing that we’re betting our company on, and pretty much everybody in the technology industry is betting their companies on,” said Judah. Judah is no stranger to South Africa: he earned his first degree (in electrical engineering) from Wits University before heading abroad in the mid-70s. He has worked for Microsoft for the past 20 years, and has built an impressive reputation as a speaker and a strategic thinker around IT.

Tech-Ed will also feature the announcements of several new and upcoming technologies that Microsoft believes will help enable IT professionals and developers to help their organisations save money and improve efficiencies. “It’s all about ensuring that IT professionals and developers continue to have the platform and technologies to drive maximum value and business results. Getting the most out of IT investments is even more important in today’s economy,” said Nyati.

Apart from Judah, Microsoft has assembled a formidable line-up of local and international speakers for this year’s event, which will include more than 200 in-depth sessions. They include internationally recognised technology expert, bestselling author, and public speaker Michael Noel, and self-confessed geek Lynn Langit, who co-host’s the MSDN Channel 9 geekSpeak series at http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/geekSpeak/. Links to videos, blogs, product downloads, and other information about this year’s event, can be found at www.teched.co.za. If you want news from Africa’s premier technology conference, you can expect it right here on Bandwidth Blog, so stay posted.

Every year in September Apple has its music focussed event which normally focusses on new iPods, but occasionally Apple also releases interesting new devices as well…

Now if we look at the invite for the event its a guitar with a Apple shaped hole behind the strings, so clearly Apple is sticking to the music theme this year. But this might also hint towards Apple’s iLife suite which has the Garageband app. Its been 18 months since iLife ’09 was released. The typical release date for past releases of iLife was in January at the Macworld conference, but since Apple does not go to Macworld anymore, an announcement for a new version of iLife might be very possible.

Captain Obvious will also tell you that new iPods are on the way. Updates to the current iPod might look something like this I reckon:

iPod Classic: All evidence suggests that the hard drive based iPod is on the way out. With all of Apple’s focus on touch based interfaces, it would be very strange of Apple to keep selling the Classic. But there is a sizable number of people out there with massive music libraries that want it all in their pockets. So if Apple drops the iPod Classic, expect some outcry.

iPod Nano: There are currently pictures out there from case suppliers that suggest that Apple might be changing the Nano a lot. Expect a small clip like device, almost like the second generation iPod Shuffle. Bizarrely this device will use a 3 inch touch screen.

I am somewhat skeptical of this, and I guess I would have to see how one would pull off a touch based interface on such a small screen that actually works well. I am instead hoping for a smaller sized iPod Touch shaped device.

iPod Touch: My opinion is that the iPod touch and Classic would be fused into one product. I reckon the iPod touch might change its name to simply “iPod”. Looking at the iPhone 4 its easy enough to predict what we might see. Expect higher resolution Retina displays, front facing cameras for using Facetime calls and a more iPhone like design scheme that uses matte steel and black steel.

iPod Shuffle: In the past year, the Shuffle was the dud of the iPod lineup. Without a decent control scheme, I expect Apple to shift to another design. Or alternatively, if the rumors of a much smaller iPod Nano is to believed, it might be entirely possible that the Shuffle can be scrapped altogether.

One more thing: New AppleTV (or iTV). I expect a more simplified version of Apple TV to arrive soon. Current rumors suggest an iOS based interface, smaller on board storage and an much lower price. I have no idea how they would implement iOS on a screen without a decent control scheme though. Maybe a Wiimote like pointer?

The big what if for me: When is iPad users getting iOS4? Apple told us that we can expect it Fall 2010. Well – its that time Apple. Problem is that there has been no public beta of 4.1 for iPad. Therefore I expect at least the announcement of the iPad iOS Beta program to start. Call it iOS 4.1, iOS 4.2, heck, call iPadFixed, just give us some feedback Apple. But I don’t want to get off on a rant here – you can read my current issues with the iPad here.

But its only a day until we will know how wrong I am…