Apple Hong Kong’s Chinese New Year ’11 One Day Deal

In the past Apple online store had held one day sales event for “Black Friday” (aka “Boxing Day”, the day after Christmas). Usually any other times Apple products are rarely discounted; unless it is through the Corporate or Education sites or refurbished items.

So it is a bit surprising to receive a Sale event announcement from Apple Hong Kong this morning. Let along a one day sale event from Apple HK. The email announcement detailed their first ever Chinese New Year 2011 one day sale event to be held on Friday, January 14th in their online store.

There are currently no additional details about the deals, discounts or products included in the one-day-sale event. Visiting the page on Apple HK online store right now, one will see a message asking visitors to return on Friday for details.

Review: BlogPress for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch [Updated]

If you are a blogger you are most likely using a blogging platform to host your blog. These blogging platforms will come with web based interfaces for users to compose blog posts. When these web based interfaces are accessed from a browser on the computer this works well, but may not be the case from mobile devices like the iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad. Of course there are exceptions, which I will discuss later.

It is hard to find an app that takes advantage of the capabilities of these mobile devices while supports the functionalities of the blogging platforms. There are two blogging platform specific apps for the iOS devices: WordPress and SquareSpace. The former is the first of its kind and its functionalities are fairly complete, but there are bugs that will sometimes cause the lost of blog posts. The latest version (2.6.3) is even worst, so this is not an app that I will recommend. On the other hand the offering from SquareSpace is very well designed. It has set the standards for all blogging apps in the iTunes App Store.

Then there are blogging apps that support multiple platforms, like BlogPress. It supports the following blogging platform/services: Continue reading “Review: BlogPress for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch [Updated]”

Review: Flickpad for iPad

If you enjoy looking at photos on the Internet you will be familiar with the social photo sharing site Flickr, and may even have an account on it. Aside from Flickr many have also shared photos on the social network Facebook.

The user experience for exploring photos on both of these sites are okay but they are rightfully focused on an individual rather than on the photos as they would if it was a photo browsing site, because both are social sharing web sites. Until now there are no tools to view these photos from your social graph on both of these networks together in one place, which the iPad app, Flickpad, is designed just for this purpose.

Continue reading “Review: Flickpad for iPad”

North Point’s iBand Amazed with iDevices

The North Point Community Church’s “iBand” used apps on their iPad and iPhone to deliver an impressive performance of “Carol of the Bells“, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and “Feliz Navidad“.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9XNfWNooz4

Although they are not the first to use iOS devices in a performance, they are one of the first to use so many apps at the same time. They even use Apple’s Logic to multitrack the arrangements before they perform the songs.

Continue reading “North Point’s iBand Amazed with iDevices”

How to Ensure You Have a Clean iOS 4.2.x Upgrade?

This morning (Nov. 22 PDT US time) Apple made the latest version (v4.2.1) of iOS available through iTunes. It is one of the highly anticipated upgrade for the iPad and other iOS devices. Not only because this version brings features to the iPad that had been enjoyed by other iOS devices, it is also the first version of the OS to align all iOS devices to the same iOS version.

As a result many iOS device users rushed to download and upgrade their devices, causing slow downs to the iTunes upgrade servers. If you have trouble downloading the new update you can try the following direct download links [compliments of MacStories]

Before you upgrading your iOS device you should always back it up by performing a synchronization using iTunes. I cannot reiterate enough how important it is to do this on a daily bases. Since these devices are mobile and you carry it around, so there is a high possibility of the device being stolen or damage resulting in losing your stored data on them.

The other thing you may need to do if you fall into one of the following groups of users:
Continue reading “How to Ensure You Have a Clean iOS 4.2.x Upgrade?”

Apple’s iTunes Related “Unforgettable” Announcement [Updated]

Apple posted a teaser message onto their web site and in iTunes Store about an announcement to be revealed Tuesday, November 16 (07:00 PDT US).

Apple in the past never puts such announcements in their iTunes Stores, the current message only appears in iTunes Stores that have a music component (ie. USA, UK, Japan, Australia, etc.). One can therefore speculate that this announcement has to do with iTunes, iTunes Store or music.

Continue reading “Apple’s iTunes Related “Unforgettable” Announcement [Updated]”

Triumph of HTML5

Over the past 3 years Apple Inc. has taken the heat on pushing the adoption of the W3C standard, HTML5, for all web based development. They have even been taken to court for not allowing competitor’s technology (Flash) on their platform (iOS).

Recently to avoid any more blame for flaws in these 3rd party technologies, they have stopped pre-installing them on all hardware products they ship.

Now the companies behind these other technologies are showing signs of support for Apple’s directions. Are Microsoft shifts away from Silverlight and Adobe announcing the HTML5 Video Player widget indications that Apple rivals in the HTML5 war are finally given up?

This recent Microsoft decision is in line with their statement 4 years ago stating that, what they had done with Internet Explorer for the past 6 version were wrong and IE8 is the start of HTML5 compliancy.

Recently Microsoft released beta version of IE9 at PDC, which will be even more compliant with HTML5 than any previous versions of Internet Explorer.

Continue reading “Triumph of HTML5”

Triumph of HTML5

Over the past 3 years Apple Inc. has taken the heat on pushing the adoption of the W3C standard, HTML5, for all web based development. They have even been taken to court for not allowing competitor’s technology (Flash) on their platform (iOS).
Recently to avoid any more blame for flaws in these 3rd party technologies, they have stopped pre-installing them on all hardware products they ship.

Now the companies behind these other technologies are showing signs of support for Apple’s directions. Are Microsoft shifts away from Silverlight and Adobe announcing the HTML5 Video Player widget indications that Apple rivals in the HTML5 war are finally given up?

This recent Microsoft decision is in line with their statement 4 years ago stating that, what they had done with Internet Explorer for the past 6 version were wrong and IE8 is the start of HTML5 compliancy.

Recently Microsoft released beta version of IE9 at PDC, which will be even more compliant with HTML5 than any previous versions of Internet Explorer.

Continue reading “Triumph of HTML5”

My First Hands-on with MacBook Air (late 2010)

Today I have my first hands-on with the brand new MacBook Air (MBA) that Apple released last Wednesday, October 20 (US PDT).

Until I touch it myself I did not appreciate how thin this latest revision of the MBA is. As we all know from Apple’s specifications the thickest part of the MBA is 0.68 inch and tapering to 0.11 inch at its thinest part. The 11-inch weights in at 2.3 lbs (1.06 kg) and the 13-inch weights in at a 2.9 lbs (1.32 kg).

The main differences between the 11-inch and the 13-inch aside from prices, obvious screen size and physical dimensions are:
Continue reading “My First Hands-on with MacBook Air (late 2010)”