Yesterday the Apple iPhone 4S was supposed to launch in China, after it was finally approved by the Chinese government. But the number of people who showed up at the Apple retail stores proved to much to handle. Customers was waiting outside in -9 degrees celsius temperatures, and the stores did not open at the normal 7:00 AM time. At 7:15 AM people started chanting “Open the Door!” after an Apple representative announced to the crowd that the phone would not go on sale. The delay sales was not in all stores however, with Shangai getting their allotment on time.

Soon afterward the police had to be called in to calm down the crowd, who started pelting the stores with eggs. Customers were instead told to order their iPhones online, and Apple has decided to not continue sales of the iPhone in stores, in order to prevent unruly crowds forming again.

“The demand for iPhone 4S has been incredible, and our stores in China have already sold out,” an Apple spokesperson told AllThingsD. “Unfortunately we were unable to open our store at Sanlitun due to the large crowd, and to ensure the safety of our customers and employees, iPhone will not available in our retail stores in Beijing and Shanghai for the time being. Customers can still order iPhone through the Apple Online Store, or buy at China Unicom and other authorized resellers.”

See our review of the iPhone 4S here.

Source: AllThingsD

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.

The Shape

Unpacking the iPhone 4S is almost the exact same experience as the iPhone 4. In fact, you might want to double check that you have the 4S box. Open it up, and the 4S is also almost a carbon copy of the iPhone 4, except for some differences in the outer antenna edges. The rest is all the same. That might bother some people who wanted a bigger screen or a new design. But you know what – I just don’t care. The 4 and 4S are still stunning phones to look at and hold. They just look and feel better than any other phone out there. The steel and glass just feels higher end than every other plastic phone smartphone. If it aint broke, why fix it? Or wait, speaking about breaking – I might have liked a carbon fibre or Kevlar back like the Motorola RAZR. While that glass is nice looking, it is fragile… If you do go for it, get a decent case. Vodacom was nice enough to bundle a nice little bumper case though.

Out of the box you are faced with iOS5′s new startup screens. If you have used iCloud backup on your old iPhone, you dont even have to connect it to your computer. You still have that option though. Switching from my previous iPhone 4 to the 4S took about 30 minutes, and everything was right where I left it.

Fast

In terms of software, it is pretty standard iOS5 fare – but everything is a lot faster. I was not particularly bothered by the iPhone 4’s speed – it felt zippy enough. But then you use the iPhone 4S, and then suddenly the iPhone 4 just feels sluggish. Everything has tiny speed improvements. There is no delay when scrolling long image rich pages, web rendering is a lot faster, and there are no more dropped frames in graphics intensive games, and load times are all a bit faster.

But while everyone is going on about the A5 dual core processor, it is the graphics that has gotten the biggest boost. There are not a lot of games out there that can already harness all the new GPU power. The only example right now is Infinity Blade 2. IF2 looks good on the iPhone 4, but on the iPhone 4S it is amazing. I cannot wait to see what the game developers are going to come up with – with things like Airplay mirroring (which is built into the iPhone 4S by the way) finding its way into games, we are slowly starting to approach a time where full games consoles might be less and less relevant. (Airplay mirroring allows you to use your TV screen for iPhone games – just do a search for Real Racing 2 and airplay mirror to see what I mean).

The Camera

I am not someone who ever really takes note of a cellphone camera, but the iPhone 4S’s 8MP shooter is one of the best cameras I have ever used. During this holiday period I often found myself reaching for the 4S, even though I had a brand new Canon IXUS and a Nikon D90 SLR with me. The 4S’s low light performance, and awesome macro modes amazed me the most. There is almost no image noise, and the camera launch and shutter is nice and quick – not something I am used to with a phone. Sure, I miss some things like zoom – but the 4S is really starting to give decent point and click cameras a go.

Siri

The other major addition to the 4S is of course the new artificial intelligence personal assistant called Siri. The concept is amazing – simply talk to your phone in natural language, and it actually understands what you are saying. Instead of saying “Is it going to rain tomorrow?” you can also ask “Will I need an umbrella tomorrow?” and it will actually answer yes or no. I found it to be best with very scientific or mathematical questions – “How high is table mountain?”. 1087m apparently.  It of course works with a few silly questions as well – “who lives in a pineapple under the sea?”, to which it answers Spongebob Squarepants. “Who is the president of South Africa?” Oh, it is Jacob Zuma, and Wolfram Alpha gives some additional info about him as well, like his age, presidency term, etc. But it does not show how many kids he has already.

But I found using Siri for built in iPhone functions to be the best part – like saying “remind me to call my wife at 7” will correctly identify who your wife is (it checks you relations in your contacts, or simply asks the first time). Telling Siri to set an appointment with John at 12 on Wednesday will even tell you beforehand if there is schedule conflict. Social convention makes Siri somewhat awkward to use – I did not find myself babbling to my phone in public. I mostly used it when driving (it works great with Bluetooth), or when alone. For example – I simply set my alarm for the next morning with my voice now.

This all sounds great, but the honest truth is that Siri is currently severely stunted anywhere outside the US. Many of the questions that come naturally to us is somehow tied to location – like “How far is it to Green Point Stadium?” – which simply does not work. At a certain point you get so frustrated by the lack of services available to us (even though Google Maps has a lot of content in SA), that you just give up, and stick to only things that are specific to the phone. Dictation still works fine though – so you can use you voice every time instead of using the keyboard. Just click the voice button on the keyboard (yeah, just like how Android does it).

It is worth keeping in mind that Siri is still a Beta product. It is not perfect, and you can see there is still a lot of work to be done. But using Siri makes you wish for the day Apple would open up Siri’s API to app developers. How cool would it be to say “Add note to Evernote” and then simply dictating the rest.

So is it worth upgrading to iPhone 4S?

Yes, the iPhone 4S is a somewhat underwhelming upgrade to the iPhone 4, which does make a person wonder whether it is worth it. To the iPhone 4 user I would most definitely not recommend an upgrade, unless you can already get the 4S for free. Siri and the little bit of additional speed is great, but not worth upgrading from the iPhone 4 for. Up until now every new iPhone had some pretty great reasons to upgrade, even the iPhone 3GS, which was mostly a speed increase. But the iPhone 4S is more about refining the overall experience – it is a tiny bit better in every respect, without changing the great design. Evolution, not revolution.

If you are still rocking an iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 4S is a must have upgrade though. The solid metal and glass build, the Retina display, and the brilliant camera is a huge upgrade over the 3GS. Unless you are tempted by Android, I really recommend an upgrade to the iPhone 4S. But that is also the thing about the iPhone – right now the iOS ecosystem is so well executed, it is very tough for an iPhone user to jump to Android.

But this time Apple is also selling the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 new with contracts. So you can buy an “older” iPhone new if you want to save some money. If you are up for an upgrade, I would not recommend the 3GS anymore. While it is a great phone, you don’t have the certainty that Apple would keep pushing out software updates for it much longer. You might be tempted by the iPhone 4 as well – again – great phone, but you might save a R1000 tops. The iPhone 4S contracts are luckily not too bad, especially the Vodacom deals. So if you are free to choose, the iPhone 4S is the one to go for.

Images: Getty, iFixit

Related: If you want to be able download Apps, Music, Movies, TV Series etc from the US iTunes store, even if you live in SA, here is how to do it.

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:

• Storage. Store thousands of photos and files. TheSkyDrive storage meter shows how much storage space you’ve used.
• Organization. Arrange your files in top-level folders and subfolders that you create.
• Control. Choose permissions for each top-level folder that you create. Keep your photos, files, and favourites in personal folders so you can keep them private; in shared folders so you can share them with your Windows Livenetwork, your extended network, and people on your contact list; or in public folders so that they can be viewed by anyone on the Internet.
• Convenience. Keep track of your favourite websites even when you aren’t using your own computer.
• Flexibility. Move, copy, delete, rename, and caption your photos and files after you upload them.
• Display. Photos saved as the JPG, JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG, TIF, and TIFF file types display with thumbnail images, and can be viewed by other users on SkyDrive or in an online slide show, if they have the right permissions to view them.
• Sharing. Share links directly to your folders, files, and photos, or embed your photos and files in your blog or webpage. You can also let people know you’ve added their picture to SkyDrive by adding people tags.

In an interesting move, Microsoft did not release an iPad version of SkyDrive, which might be a further indication that an iOS version of Office is coming. Because of the lack of a file system on these devices, SkyDrive will have to include with Office for iOS.

But all in all, this is a great move by Microsoft…

So what is new? The navigation has been simplified with 4 major buttons – Home, Connect, Discover and Me. If you are already a Twitter user these buttons are not a major change from the previous version, but it does contain a few great enhancements. For example “connect” (which has the familiar @ reply symbol) now also houses things like people who retweet you and new followers, not just mentions of your name as in the past. If you only want to see your mentions, there is still a button for that under Connect.

Under the Discover button you will spot familiar things like Trends, but with a lot more descriptive content. Instead of just a list of trending words, you will see a pretty good description or image of the trending topic. A whole lot easier than trying to decipher some trending topics. Under the Me button your profile page also has a brand new design, also displaying your interests, lists etc a lot more prominently on the left.

So what do we not like? It looks like Twitter is try to discourage direct messages to other users. DMs have been moved a layer deeper into the interface. But Direct Messaging has always been something of a niche function, with many new users not understanding the whole “the person you contact has to follow you” idea. But still – direct messaging has its place, and has in many cases replaced something like SMS.

If images dont seem to tell the whole story – here is pretty great video that was put together by the Twitter folks:

Overall these new changes will make Twitter a lot more understandable to new users, while also giving experienced users great new features. Most impressively, Twitter has managed to roll out the new web site and mobile apps all at once. It is pretty clear to see how important Twitter views mobile, and it is great indication to see how important social networks view their mobile users.

If you do not have access to the new Twitter web interface yet, just sign into your profile from any Android or iPhone that is running the latest version of Twitter. Tweetdeck has also been updated.

Microsoft is slowly but surely starting to cater for people who use Apple’s devices – and the latest app from their stable is the My Xbox Live app. If you are a big online game player, and you hate tearing yourself away from your Xbox, the Xbox Live app will keep you posted on all the activity in your Xbox community. The app is beautifully made, and gives you a very special preview to how apps look on Windows Phone – it feels a little strange having a Metro interface on your iDevice.

Here is the feature rundown:

Track and compare your achievements, connect with your Xbox LIVE friends, and change up your 3D Avatar. Review all your recent great games you and your friends love to play and compare achievements with them. Jump into our games hub to learn about the latest LIVE games and apps. Access Xbox Spotlight feeds, get breaking news from Xbox LIVE, game tips and tricks, gamer spotlight and much more.

Go download it now on the Apple Appstore. With all this attention on iOS, maybe Microsoft should get Office for iOS out sooner than later…

Android users have always had one great feature – you can easily jump to a specific setting that you need to change often with one click. This is usually done with a quick widget, and it works a whole lot faster than trawling the Settings menu to find what you are looking for.

There are certain items in the iOS settings menu more often than others. For example, I set my Brightness multiple times a day, and it gets a little tedious to go through multiple clicks just to change the brightness. Sure, you could jailbreak your iPhone to install SBSettings, but what if you do not want to go through that hassle? Luckily some enterprising South Africans (iPhoneZA) built a great site that hosts script files that contain shortcuts to any item in your settings menu.

So how do you do it? Just as an example, I am going to add the “Brightness” shortcut on my Home Screen:

1) Take your iOS device and go to the Iconsettings webpage: http://iphoneza.co.za/IconSettings/

2) Click on the “Brightness” link

3) When it is clicked, the phone will ask you if you want to “Open this page in Settings”? Click Cancel

4) Click the Shortcut button at bottom, middle, and choose “Add to Homescreen”

5) A Text Entry field with the relevant icon will be displayed. You can edit the name if you wish, then click “Add”.

6) The Icon is thrown in the Home Screen, you are now to move it wherever.

Done! Now just repeat with other regularly used Settings items, like I did above.

Update: Here is a good video guide:

Great to see some cool iPhone hacking tools coming out of SA. So which Settings Menu do you access often? Let us know how it goes!

So you were so eager to jump on the iOS5 update when it arrived, and now your phone wont last the day? It looks like Apple’s fancy new mobile operating system has been giving a few people very poor battery life. Well luckily Apple has fixed iOS5 with a simple Over The Air update. In the past it was a big mission to update your iPhone, requiring you to plug in your device to iTunes and then downloading a massive ipsw file.

This time it is a lot easier, provided you have iOS5 installed already. First off, make sure you have a battery above 50%, or plug your device into power:

• Go to Settings – General – Software Update
• Click Download and Install.

You can then keep using the phone for other things. The download will happen in the background, and the phone will inform you once it needs to restart.

First off, you have to be connected to a wifi network, as the update is still 40+ megabytes to download. The whole update took us about 5 minutes on a decent internet connection. iOS5 is available on iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S (on which it is preinstalled). Any iPod Touch 3rd generation and newer, and any iPad can install iOS5 as well. As a bonus, this update also enables multi touch gestures on older iPad 1′s. Which might be reason enough to get it…

If you have not updated to iOS5, here are some reasons you need it right now.

The iPhone has always had a weird development cycle – it has until now always lagged a little behind in terms of features, especially compared to the very quick development cycle of Android. Even though the hardware was first rate, users have stuck by the iPhone primarily because of ease of use and the rich app ecosystem.

But today Apple has finally given the iOS operating system the shot in the arm it has always needed. If you are an iPhone or iPad user, we strongly recommend you download and install iOS5 as soon as possible. It is perhaps the most significant update that the iPhone and iPad (and iPod Touch) has gotten yet. So why would you want it? Here is the rundown of the new features – this is not all (there are a LOT), but only the most important ones:

iMessage:

For a messaging crazy country like SA, this is the number one reason to get iOS5. It basically mimics the free BBM service that Blackberry has had for ages, or the Whatsapp app that many people are familiar with. Only it is a lot smarter – and it works very well.

It works in a pretty simple fashion-the first time you send an SMS to another iOS5 user, it notes that on the Apple server (automatically, no interaction needed), and then all subsequent messages take the iMessage route which only requires a data connection. If it finds that the message cannot be delivered, it switches back to the old sms route.

And no, there is no handing out PIN numbers like BBM – you can register your email addresses (in addition to the iPhone you are using) you prefer to be contacted at with iMessage. In my testing it has worked flawlessly for the past week. For example – my wife has an iPhone as well, and all our SMS’s between each other has been free. Great.

New Notification Center:

This might be a bigger deal to some than the iMessage integration. Up until iOS4, the notification system was severely limited. You know the drill – you might be playing a game, reading an important mail etc., and then a notification takes over your entire screen. This then freezes whats underneath it, until you confirm that you read the message. The new notification system is a lot more subtle – the top of the screen simply rolls up to tell you what is up. Easy enough.

But what if you have missed the notification? With iOS5 you can now go see previous ones. Apple has gone and taken a page from Android and WebOS and built a drawer that slides down with a list of past notifications. By clicking on a line in the drawer you are taken directly to the relevant app – for example click on a tweet you have gotten, and you will be taken to the Twitter app. Same for missed calls, calendar entries, weather, etc. Want to remove the notification? Just click the close button next to it.

New Lock Screen:

The iPhone’s lock screen has always been a bit of a wasteland, with perhaps one single notification on the screen. That has luckily been fixed now, and many apps can now take a place on your lock screen to inform you about things. If you miss something it will take up a line on the lock screen, and the user can very quickly be taken to the relevant app by just sliding the icon accross the screen. Missed a call? Just drag the notification icon to the right, and the phone instantly fires up a return call. Huge improvement.

Reminders:

Yeah, yeah. How interesting can a Reminders app be? Hold on – iOS5 does make some very cool enhancements to such a mundane app. Reminders will be integrated with iCloud (and servers like Exchange for Tasks), but they have added location aware reminders as well. You can set the iPhone (or iPad) to remind you based on certain location based triggers.

For example – set a reminder like “Pick up Gift” and set it to remind you when you arrive at home. Or before you leave work. I expected this to strain my battery, but my battery held up fine. Combined with the upcoming Siri feature on the iPhone 4S, this will be amazing.

Safari:

The Safari browser on iPhone is already the most popular smartphone browser out there, and the new upgrades will make it even better. The biggest change is with the new “Reader” option. You know that irritating thing where you might be reading an article, and then you have to click to read the next page? Now you can just click on Reader, and then it goes and pulls all those pages into one page, and you can then also quickly change the font sizes. No ads as well… Just good clean text.

If you are running iOS5 on iPad you also now have real tabbed browsing, not the pseudo version like on the previous iOS. The other tabs will also load in the background, just like your desktop browser.

Camera:

For some people their phone’s camera is never that important, but for others the best camera is the one they have on them. One of the problems have always been how slow it is to start up the camera – but now it is a lot faster. Simply double tap the home button when the phone is locked, and then click the camera icon. Apple has also finally listened to users and enabled the volume up button on the side of the phone, instead of trying to click the on screen shutter button. You can also see grid lines to better compose your images.

But after you have taken the photos, you also gain some simple on device editing. Colour balance a little off? Just click edit, then auto-enhance. You can also crop an image or remove red-eye by clicking on the subject’s eyes. Yeah, these editing tools have for a long time been available on other platforms, and Apple just caught up. Good thing nonetheless.

Once your photos have been taken they can also be stored in iCloud in what Apple calls “Photo Stream”. In default mode the iPhone will automatically upload all new photos up to photo stream, and then download that to all your other iCloud connected devices, like your iPad, or PC or Mac.

iCloud Backups and PC Free setup:

Typical readers of Bandwidth Blog are quite familiar with backups we reckon (right?). But a shocking number of iPhone users have never, ever backed up their phones. Then when they lose their phone and replace it with a new iPhone, they have to start afresh. The backup system has always worked well, but required users to plug in their devices into a iTunes-installed computer. Bit tedious, especially if you do not use a computer much. Luckily now Apple bundles iOS5 with iCloud, which amongst other things enables the user to backup his phone contents to the “cloud”. All you need is a decent Wifi connection, and then you can set your device to save changes on Apple’s servers. Lose you phone? Then just unbox a new iPhone, and then enter your iCloud details to restore everything like it was before. Great.

This also means that we finally get rid of that connect to iTunes screen when you unbox a new iPhone.

iTunes Wifi Sync:

People do not like connecting their iDevice every time they want to sync with iTunes. So with iTunes 10.5 and iOS5 you can now let your device sync through Wifi. In fact it will automatically sync if the phone is connected to power, and connected to the same wifi network as your computer.

Find My Friends:

While not strictly an iOS5 feature, it did roll out with iOS5. You need to go download this app, and it really does work well. The concept is simple – you need to find a friend, and you can now request his location quickly and easily. The recipient can then share his location for 24 hours, which ought to be enough. You then get a ping on your map to show where to find your friend, with a button to quickly find directions as well. How cool is that?

So this is not a social network class tool like Google Latitude. It is simple to use – because the concept is simple.

Other Nice to Have New Features:

• Built in Twitter functionality – Set up your Twitter account in Settings, then you can quickly share from various built in apps to Twitter.
• Mail has been improved – You will now have some more control over the text formatting in composed mail. You can also quickly drag contacts between different fields like BCC, CC etc. Not rocket science. Should have been there long ago.
• Newsstand – You can now subscribe to many magazines which will now be seperately kept on a bookshelf called Newsstand. You subscribe, and new issues simply land in the Newsstand.
• Split keyboard on the iPad – You can now split the iPad keyboard into two smaller halves, which makes for better thumb typing when you cannot put the iPad down to type.

It’s not that there isn’t a business case for doing so. Android is growing at a remarkable rate. Why? Because it’s cheap. In a country like India, with an estimated 600m subscribers, Nokia accounts for 40% of new device sales, with RIM and Android dividing another 36% between them. Apple? 2.6%. It’s much the same story here in SA. Despite the endless hype, iOS devices account for approximately 1% of the mobile market.

And yet, instead of releasing a plastic low-end iPhone to compete with the RIMs of the world, Cook announced instead that the 3Gs, now 2 years old, will be available for free on contract, while the amazing-until-yesterday iPhone 4 will set a subscriber back just $99.

Personally, I think it’s a great move.

Apple is all about the brand. About image. About quality. They have positioned themselves as being the best of the best. Want cheap? Look elsewhere. Want perfect? Get Apple. To release a ‘cheap’ and ‘low-spec’ version of their device would be to dilute this entirely. The equivalent of Aston Martin releasing a competitor to the smartcar. Instead, Apple will work to make the older versions more available, the message being simple; it may be slightly out-of-date now, but it was the best on the market at the time. For the most part, those entering the lower end of the market will still have access to that ‘Apple experience’. And, quite frankly, the iPhone 4 is probably years ahead in features, quality and design than the equivalently-priced Android, Nokia, or RIM device.

It’s more than a nice thought. With the growing market share of Android and the like, capturing the emerging markets is vital to Apple’s growth. The Chinese Apple stores have the highest traffic of any in the world; the Shanghai store alone saw 100 000 visitors in its opening weekend recently. The market size can’t be ignored. And while Apple’s profit margin on these older devices may be very low, the profit generated from in-phone purchases, as well as the brand impact of having more people seeing your products on a daily basis, is huge. The only remaining challenge for Apple is dealing with actually getting these devices into the emerging markets.

Forget the iPhone 4S. The big announcement? The 3GS.

There is one event that most Apple fans look forward to every year. Hell, if you are at all into smartphones it is a pretty special day (because you know every other smartphone brand is sitting up and taking notice). Problem is that the wait has been a bit longer this year, but now we at least know it is happening: Apple is expected to show off its latest iPhone (or iPhones) on October 4th. The rumour mill has been in overdrive the past few months, with most reports pointing to two possible new iPhones. First off a iPhone 4S, which will be a simple upgrade of the iPhone 4, while keeping the same case design. There is also rumours of a iPhone 5, which will gain a larger screen and a new “teardrop” rear casing.

In typical Apple fashion, the invite is a pretty nice design. It shows off the icons that you typically find on an iPhone, but you need to read a bit more into it. It shows, the date, time and place of the event (that map icon is actually the Apple Campus), with a simple “Let’s talk iPhone”.

What is interesting about this invite is that there is no mention of the iPod, which has always been refreshed by this time of the year in the past. iPhone were typically refreshed in July, and iPods in September. So the “Let’s talk iPhone” tagline might just include some iPod hardware as well.