Siri—the equally impressive and gimmicky iPhone 4S’ smart assistant—connects to Apple’s servers every time you ask for something or dictate a message. It sends your query and analyzes it, returning you whatever it thinks is the correct answer or action.
This means that, depending on how much you use it, it may affect your data plan. But how much?
Jacqui Cheng at Ars Technica tested the consumption using various questions. She found out that, on average, you can expect Siri to consume 63KB per query. According to her calculations, that would put about 4 to 30MB on top of your usual data churning, depending on your usage.
Hardly dangerous for any plan, but a useful tidbit for all those three iPhone users who spend all their day trying to have virtual sex with Siri.
Google has finally taken wraps off of its official iOS Gmail app. However, momentarily after being launched, the app was pulled by Google. Google’s confirmed on its blog that the Gmail app contains a bug that breaks notifications, and it’s pulled the app while it fixes it. A new version is promised “soon.”
Anyway, let’s take a look at the app first shall we? The new app offers a number of “time-saving features,” including push notifications for new message alerts, quick message search and email address auto-complete from your Apple device’s address book. The iPad version also offers up a split view, to read messages and check out your inbox at the same time.
On the efficiency side, the Priority Inbox shows your important messages first, and the app also lets you sort messages via labels and stars. Swiping down will refresh the messages and swiping right gives you a quick view of your labels. Gmail will work with devices running iOS 4 and higher.
Bored with Siri yet? Ran out of things to ask her? Then ask her to tell you a story! She’ll refuse at first but if you keep on bothering her, she’ll relent and tell you her origin story. It’s funny!
Easter eggs like this one turn Siri from a really great voice control system to a really great voice control system you actually want to use. There’s more depth to her than any robot around.
Apple today officially launched the iPhone 4S in 22 new countries, marking the second round of launches for the device. The company began taking pre-orders last week ahead of the launch scheduled for the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
While Apple does not offer online sales in all of the new launch countries and customers looking to purchase subsidized models on contract will not be able to purchase online, Apple is currently quoting shipping estimates of 1-2 weeks for unlocked devices in nearly all of the new markets with online stores. The lone exception is Singapore, where all iPhone 4S models are listed as currently unavailable. Demand for the iPhone 4S has been high in that country, with reports indicating that carrier partner SingTel sold out of appointment slots to purchase the device within 90 minutes of opening registration earlier this week.
Since the release of the iPhone 4S, some users have been complaining about poor battery life. Even with Apple having quietly reduced the standby battery life from 300 hours on the iPhone 4 to 200 hours on the iPhone 4S, active-use battery life for the iPhone 4S was supposed to remain the same or better than on the iPhone 4. But some users are indeed seeing rapid battery drains, both while in active use and in standby, suggesting that some sort of background task is sapping the device’s battery under certain circumstances, according to The Guardian.
One user in particular noted a battery drain of 10% per hour even in standby mode. The user was able to replicate the issue with all features such as Siri and location services turned off, and even on a relatively clean phone with no apps installed, hinting that the battery drain was coming from a core functionality on the device. The user does report, however, that Apple has reached out in an attempt to research the issue, asking to install system monitoring software on the device to help figure out what is going wrong.
“I then got a call from a senior [Apple] engineer who said he had read my post and was ‘reaching out’ to users for data and admitted this was an issue (and that they aren’t close to finding a fix!) and asked lots of questions about my usage and then asked if he could install the file below and that he would call back the day after to retrieve the info. I extracted the file from my Mac after a sync and emailed it to him. He was incredibly helpful and apologetic in the typical Apple way!”
Apple has yet to offer an explanation for the battery life issue, but anecdotal reports suggest that corrupted contacts may be responsible. Some users have reported that a backup and restore through iTunes can help, but until Apple offers an official solution those affected by the issue may need to experiment with various solutions.
The Malaysian Apple Online store today quietly rolled out the option to purchase the Iphone 4 and Iphone 3GS directly from Apple unlocked and without a contract. The Iphone 4 8GB is available for RM1,799, while the older 3GS 8GB sells for RM1,199. Shipping as usual is free. Both the 4 and the 3GS also comes with the recently updates iOS5.
We are waiting to see if the recently launched iPhone 4s will also be making it direct to the Malaysian Apple Store for purchase. Also not yet available are the higher capacity 16GB and 32GB models. Hit up the Malaysian Apple store at http://store.apple.com/my/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iphone to snag yourself an iPhone if you haven’t already got one already.
A little cajoling from a clever developer got Siri talking to the iPhone 4 and the iPad, but Apple’s tight-lipped servers kept the conversation effectively one-sided. The last-gen port was still missing something, and developer Steven Troughton-Smith knew where to find it: a jailbroken iPhone 4S. In an interview with 9to5Mac, Troughton-Smith said that getting Siri to talk to Cupertino’s data servers only took ten minutes after he had all of the pieces in place. Ready for your personal assistant port? Hold the phone, the process is a bit dodgy — our hacking hero said that getting Siri on the older device is a 20-step process, and it requires files from the iPhone 4S that he says aren’t his to distribute. When asked about distributing the hack over Cydia, Troughton-Smith said it was something he couldn’t be a part of. On Twitter he suggested that a release would “anger the hive,” but promised to post detailed notes on the hack after an iPhone 4S jailbreak drops.
Seamus McGarvey, the cinematographer for the upcoming movie The Avengers, claims that some of the footage was shot using the iPhone 4′s camera. In fact, a few nuggets of that Apple-tainted footage appear in the movie trailer below. Can you tell where he used the new camera?
“The beauty of photography or cinema is that you make every choice based on the content at hand,” he told IFTN in a recent interview. “I understand that sometimes there is no choice and you have to go for the cheapest option, but if you are limited for choice, you can still make poignant decisions that will affect the look of the film.”
Ever plopped your cellular down next to your laptop? According Georgia Tech researchers, that common scenario could let hackers record almost every sentence you type, all thanks to your smartphone’s accelerometer. They’ve achieved the feat with an impressive 80 percent accuracy using an iPhone 4, and are dubbing the program they’ve developed, spiPhone. (Although the group initially had fledgling trials with an iPhone 3GS, they discovered the 4′s gyroscope aided in data reading.)
If the software gets installed onto a mobile device it can use the accelerometer to sense vibrations within three-inches, in degrees of “near or far and left or right,” allowing it to statistically guess the words being written — so long as they have three or more letters. It does this by recording pairs of keystrokes, putting them against dictionaries with nearly 58,000 words to come up with the most likely results.
The group has also done the same with the phone’s mics (which they say samples data at a whopping 44,000 times per second vs. the accelerometer’s 100), but note that it’s a less likely option given the usual need for some form of user permission. Furthermore, they explained that the accelerometer data rate is already mighty slow, and if phone makers reduced it a bit more, spiPhone would have a hard time doin’ its thing.
The good news? Considering the strict circumstances needed, these researchers think there’s a slim chance that this kind of malware could go into action easily. Looks like our iPhone and MacBook can still be close friends… For now. You’ll find more details at the links below.
What does a Russian satellite system have to do with the iPhone 4S’ GPS capabilities? Allow us to explain. Russian site iPhones.ru recently noticed that the 4S’ spec page lists support for both assisted GPS and GLONASS — the Kremlin’s global navigation satellite system and acronym for GLObalnaya NAvigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema.
The country launched GLONASS 35 years ago in the hopes that it would eventually provide an alternative to GPS and the EU’s forthcoming Galileo, thereby reducing Russia’s dependence upon US- or Europe-operated systems. The global system has since been beset by delays and budgetary setbacks, but last week, a Russian rocket successfully launched the 24th and final GLONASS satellite, completing the constellation and inching the infrastructure closer to full activation.
News of the iPhone 4S’ support has already elicited a delightfully surprised response from the Russian media, with daily Vedomosti writing: “If the iPhone 4S really does have Glonass navigation, this would be the first time the Russian system reached the world market.” (Nokia, it’s worth noting, announced in August that it would manufacture GLONASS-compliant handsets, while Samsung’s High Fidelity Position app offers similar compatibility.) In light of Russia’s economic and regulatory climate, however, the move may not seem so shocking.
The Kremlin already imposes import taxes on handsets that don’t support GLONASS and, as Russia’s iGuides.ru points out, has even threatened non-compliant devices with an outright ban. Apple, meanwhile, has made no secret of its interest in expanding its influence within the country, with CEO Tim Cook recently referring to the Russian market as “more promising.” It remains to be seen whether this added support results in sharper navigation capabilities, or if it enhances Apple’s presence within Russia, but it’s certainly a compelling development, nonetheless.
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