Apple Watch

The book I read to research this post was Apple Watch 101 The Complete Guide by Ryan Tracy which is a very good book that I downloaded for free from kindle. The apple watch comes in 2 sizes 38 mm and 42 mm and is priced from $ 349 up to a rather huge $ 18,000. To get the most out of it you need to use it in conjunction with an iPhone. You can make calls on it for example but it drains the battery rather. The battery life between charges is rated at 18 hours but this depends on how you use it. The operating system is called watch iOS. Initially it will have around 1,000 apps available with some of the more mainstream ones like Facebook and Instagram incuded on the watch. It has a rotating bezel to select stuff and a button to actually select and turn it on or off. You hold the button until it turns off to turn it off. It has various health features like monitoring calories used and heart beat many of which were available on the iPhone with various apps. It includes versions of iTunes and Siri. There isn’t an inbuilt GPS app but these are available to download. You can store uprto 8 credit cards in a secure payment system so you can pay for stuff without having to print your details each time. This book is around 20 pages so is quite short. It’s an enjoyable read and I do recommend it.

iOS 7

The book I read to research this post was The Complete iOS 7 User Guide by Peter Hills which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. iOS 7 is the latest operating system released by Apple in 2013 for devices such as the iPod touch, iPad & iPhone although there software can often be updated it only works on the more recent models. It requires a certain amount of hardware to work but you can download it on a computer and install it on these. Some of the more popular new features are the icons for a start are clearer and there is a new version of iTunes which includes a radio service which streams music and while it is free with adverts, there is a paid option without ads. Another feature is facetime audio which is similar to skype but only with the apple devices. Facetime of course lets you make video calls. Siri is retained and lets you enter voice commands in your device as well as having a search facility where you can ask it questions. A new feature is your device will work with other devices whether that be transferring files or streaming stuff. It also has upgraded security where it can analyze your fingerprint in order to work as part of this and also uses passcode and password as security. By default if it is inactive for 48 hours you must enter the password and passcode to make it work which is designed to prevent theft. They have tried to put all your settings in one place. I did really enjoy this book and it is maybe a little but is quite interesting.

Siri

The book I read to research this post was Siri for Dummies by Marc Salzmann which is an excellent book which I bought from Kindle. On 5th of October last year which was the day before Steve Jobs died Apple had a press conference where they unveilled the iphone 4GS & many people were expecting the iphone 5 & the most exciting feature of that phone was for many people Siri. It’s a voice activated assistant which is a download but can handle loads of different. Apple has teamed up with Wolfram Alpha so that you can ask it factual questions & it will give you an answer. You need to speak clearly & it doesn’t cope very well with background noise. It adapts to the wording you use. A lot of the technology behind Siri comes from the DARPANET & the defence industry & the name comes from the SRI or Stanford Research Institute who were key developers. You can even ask it something profound like “What’s the meaning of life?” & it will give you a witty answer. You can also tell it how you feel & it will offer advice. If you’re looking for a certain type of shop in a particular town it will give you a list & tell you how far away they are. That feature also integrates with the GPS feature on the phone. Expect versions of Siri to come out for the iPad & iPod touch in the near future. Also although you can’t directly put posts on twitter & facebook with Siri there’s a way around it. You can download apps that let you do that.

Starting an iPhone Apps Business

The book I read to research this post was Starting an iPhone App Business for Dummies by Joel Elad et al which is an excellent book which I bought from Kindle. An Apple iPhone App Developer subscription costs $99 per year which you need if you are going to do an iphone app. In addition you need the iPhone App SDK or software development kit which is a free download. It’s relatively easy to learn to write an iPhone App compared to for example learning Visual Basic. If you already know Java you have a headstart because iPhones can understand that. Stanford University has written a course in writing iPhones which can be found on iTunes. Many Apps are free, often because someone is new to programming & wants a good job so does it to show how skilled he is. Some people give Apps away because they sell advertising space on it. Others do a limited version free & offer a premium version for a fee. Yet other Apps are free but charge a subscription for a service which is a part of it. The vast majority of Apps are either free or only charge a small fee. Interestingly the ones that are expensive tend to be ones aimed at medical professionals, who if they had to buy special equipment to do the same job it would be quite expensive. If you can get a software developer interested in your App, you can make money without the hassle of promoting it. If you’ve an idea for an App but don’t want to write the code you can get a programmer at a site like

http://guru.com

They might do a simple App for around $500. A more complex one could cost from $1,000 to $5,000. You might be able to get it done a bit cheaper if you agree the programmer can reuse the code. This book also tells you all about how to promote your App but I think it would make this post too long if I went into all that.

iPhone 4S

The book I read to research this post was iPhone 4 S for Dummies by Bob le Vitus et al which is an excellent book which I bought from Kindle. This is the smartphone I have & this book covers pretty much covers all you could possibly want to know about the iPhone 4 S. You can do video calls with it using Facetime & that also supports more than 2 callers at the same time or conference calls. It has a bigger screen than any of the previous iPods. It’s essentially an iPod with phone capability. You should take it out of its case to recharge it as it can get quite hot which can damage the battery. If you install Skype on an iPod Touch you can make phone calls via a computer network. One of the best features of the 4S is the maps which work like a GPS & show you your location in relation to everything else. A lot of people want to use iCloud which is the current version of Mobile Me mainly instant messaging. To use that if you have a pc you need a minimum of Windows Vista with Service Pack 2 installed. You sometimes need to download updates or reset your iPhone via computer ie if it’s malfunctioning. To do that if you have a pc you need a minimum of Windows XP with Service Pack 3. Apple will continue providing updates for the iPhone & one thing it said in the book is that might include support for video & audio formats that aren’t currently supported. Certainly most of the major formats are supported. iTunes is quite nifty & you can download television shows, films, podcasts, music & apps for your iPhone from this. It supports the playback of video files in a HD format but these take up extra space on the hard drive. I think the podcasts are particularly good value as practically all of them are free.

Mobile Device Security

The book I read to research this post was Mobile Device Security for Dummies by Rich Campagna et al which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. By the way if you are considering buying a smartphone or tablet I have done quite a few posts on the various models on my technology blog at http://scratbagroberts.com

The traditional business smartphone is the blackberry & they would use blackberry enterprise server to connect it to the network. Note it only works with blackberry smartphones. The iPhone is catching up as a potential business smartphone. One good thing about the iPhone & iPad is apple have to approve any potential applications & the only official reseller is the iTunes store. Operating systems like android don’t have this approval process & also practically anyone can sell apps. The people who wrote this book work in developing & deploying pulse by juniper networks which I think is a good choice if you’re looking for software to help with the security issues of connecting smartphones to a network. Windows phone 7 is aimed at the consumer market & lacks things like VPN which are essential for a business phone although it’s particularly easy to use. Ideally only company mobile devices should be used to access the company network. If you are in a job like network administrator you should have a policy that all employees should be aware of detailing what they can & can’t do as far as accessing the network. I think it’s a good idea to make employees hand in camera phones when they are on the company premises because they can easily photograph what is on a VDU screen & commit espionage & that’s a common practise in companies in china.

iPhone 5

There is a white paper at http://www.internet.com  that says that iOS 5 weren’t ready in time for the iPhone 4GS and that there might not be that long a wait for the iPhone 5. I think that anyone thinking of getting into a long term contract should think twice. It might be an idea to have an upgrade option.

 

iPhone 4 Apps

The book I read to research this post was The Rough Guide to the iPhone 3rd ed. by Peter Buckley which is an excellent book and which I got from the library.

There is the ibookreader that works with the apple bookstore. Kindle works with the kindle ebook store on amazon and I have to admit from experience are reasonably priced. There’s flixster which plays movies mostly ones you rent. With wikihood you can be in any city and it tells you where the significant buildings are. London A-Z is useful if you are in london.  Barcode scanner is very useful for scanning barcodes which you often see with adverts or in certain books and takes you to extra content on the web. Mobile me lets you automatically synchronise your computers with your iphone although there is a charge for this service. miTypewriter simulates an old typewriter. Voice control optimizes your voice so it can be heard when there is a lot of background noise. Dial plate adds a virtual rotary phone dialler to your iphone. Face Dialler lets you select people to call by selecting a tiny photo of them.

 

iPhone 4

The book I read to research this post was iPhone 4 for Dummies (mini edition) by Bob LeVitus et al and it’s a very good book. I got this ebook from kindle for 99p which I think is good value when you consider a magazine like Stuff is almost a fiver. What I thought in this post is give you a tour of the screen icons. Don’t forget if you have one of the earlier incarnations of the iPhone you can upgrade to iOS 4 which is what the iPhone 4 uses but it won’t contain the utility icon.

Messages lets you exchange text and multimedia messages. Calendar synchronizes with programs like iCal and Outlook.  Photos stores your photos. Camera takes pictures. YouTube lets you watch videos on the YouTube site. Stocks displays shares in real time. Maps displays street maps and satellite imagery for an unlimited number of cities. Weather gives you a six day forecast for more or less anywhere. Notes lets you save notes and emails. The utility icon contains clock which gives you the local time for anyway. Calculator which is a simple calculator. Compass which functions as a virtual compass – this obviously harnesses the GPS chip. And finally it contains Voice Memo which lets you record voice messages.

Your other icons are Safari which is your web browser. iTunes lets you

The iPhone

The book I read to research this post was iPhone Fully Loaded by Andy Ihnatko and I got it from the library. It’s an interesting book but most of the book is about the various apps rather than the iPhone. Aside from making phone calls you can send emails, go on the internet, be used as a GPS, play music and video and display photos. The latest version is the iPhone 4 but the one in this book I think is the first version. I know with the later versions the data transfer speeds were improved. There is a wordpress app which lets you post articles on your blog as well as read blogs. There is several programs that will convert video into iPhone format.