Apple has just opened up the iTunes store for South East Asia area (Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam). Guess what songs I immediately got? Manic Monday and Friday I’m In Love for my iOS 6 alarms :P
So much for synergy. A few days ago, Microsoft announced WP8 to much self-generated fanfare and a bitter fact: You can’t upgrade older devices to WP7. Used to be that’s not so much of a problem. But iOS has shifted the customer expectation towards upgradeability being a necessity. The result: a lot of disappointment and a big drop in stock price for Nokia. For sure other WP7 device makers were also affected. And for sure they already have WP8 devices on the works. But Nokia had touted “special advantages” when it decided to partner with Microsoft. Don’t you just hate it when your strategic partner doesn’t strategize with you? Couldn’t Microsoft have handled it a little bit better? When Android 4 Ice Cream Sandwich was announced, not all devices were expected to be able to run it. And even now adoption has been low. And yet that affair seemed better handled.
The table is now a tablet. Microsoft has announced it’s own branded tablet (ahead of the anticipated Google’s own branded tablet). And guess what? It looks like and iPad down to the screen cover. If it wasn’t for the Windows logo and the keyboard, I could swear it’s an iPad. And then the microsite looks so minimalist, so Apple-ish. Looks like Apple has another company to sue.
Have you ever imagined how so much money would look like? Here is one way it would look. Stupendous!
So iOS 6 was announced at WWDC and I grabbed the beta soon as it became available. It generally looks just like iOS 5 in keeping with Apple’s incremental improvement approach. There were changes here and there but the biggest ones I noticed were:
- Maps – out goes Google and in comes TomTom, their new maps data provider. New features are turn-by-turn navigation and 3D view. Level of detail is less than Google Maps at this time though.
- Passbook – one place for all your electronic/digital passes, tickets, discount cards, coupons, etc.
- Siri – gets new functionality such as launching apps.
- Call Handling – Do not disturb mode (with exceptions to selected number or repeated calls, how cool is that?), send SMS to reject call (Nokias had this since like forever), callback reminder.
- Parental Control – better restrictions on apps and content, Guided Access mode (stay within one app). Just be sure your toddler doesn’t slam your iDevice on the floor in frustration.
- Privacy – better privacy control
- Mail – Mailbox management (VIP and flagging), add attachments from the new message screen, new pull down to refresh animation.
- Clock – Alarm sound can be a song. You can wake up to the sound of Manic Monday and Friday I’m In Love :P
- Safari – offline reading, syncing
- Share Button – graphical, colorful, and prettier. Way better than the previous text list.
- Built-In Apps – built-in apps such as iTunes and Music have sleeker, easier-to-use interfaces. Unfortunately, Find My Friends isn’t one of them. Not that anybody uses it.
- New Wallpapers – 3 new wallpapers including the official iOS 6 ripples background.
- Facebook Integration – Similar to the Twitter integration introduced in iOS 5. Couldn’t care less about this :P