iPhone 5 official launch UAE some information

Hello Mac and PC users,

There has been some feedback from iPhone users or those interested in the use of the iPhone 5. The product has been officially launched in select countries around the world on September 21st 2012.

This product has received raving interest. With users around the world waiting to purchase this fantastic device.

Apple mentioned that the iPhone will be available in 100 countries by the year end. So far, iPhone 5 has not officially been available in the UAE.

Carriers such as Etisalat and Du partner with Apple and work together with a prospective date announced. This date is then advertised. Usually Apple, as the product is designed and sold by this company, whereas the carriers facilitate the mobile purchase transactions, announce the release date.

For any user interested in purchasing an iPhone 5 officially in the UAE, it's best to wait. There's a lot of questions being asked to companies that cannot say. It's up to Apple at this point and when the Apple UAE site at www.apple.com/ae changes. Or when the carriers for example officially announce. Apple will also have information at some point. Users will know about the pricing.

This is also the case with other Apple products that are not announced. A store or a carrier may carry the product at a future date, however until Apple officially announce along with the carrier, the prospective purchaser that is will not know.

It's best to wait and when Apple and or the carrier officially announce, then people can definitely order.

Happy purchasing.

Consult Mac

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iPhone 5 review

Hello Mac and PC users.

Welcome to our full review on the iPhone 5. First we'd like to thank the relevant stores involved for helping us to oversee the product and provide feedback to our clients with the testing model.

This review was conducted with an international iPhone 5, working with the local network there. Due to the point iPhone's work on different speed settings dependent on carrier, we tested the upgrade features and not LTE as it's not fully available worldwide. Long Term Evolution is a standard of 4G. The current iPhone is equipped with LTE which is a faster networking standard than 3G's HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA. All of these networking standards are available on the new iPhone.

Overview

The iPhone 5 is the next iteration of product from Apple Inc. The phone was officially announced on September 21st 2012. And will be released to countries worldwide. The iPhone is a smartphone that encompasses many features which contribute to Apple's variety of solutions. This is iOS, iTunes and iCloud. This review will mainly be based on the iPhone and iOS.

Design

The iPhone 5's design is remarkably aesthetic. Apple's approach to design has meant a solitude of refinement that is met throughout the phone's build. The iPhone is made of glass and aluminium. The precision in engineering has meant only the best product has been made, with a quality that is only reserved for this particular phone. 

The exterior of the phone utilises a glass and aluminium finish. There is a black and slate model, or a white and silver model. Dependent on the model, the white iPhone 5 has a ceramic glass inlay and the black, pigmented glass. Unlike the iPhone 4 and 4S, the iPhone 5 has an aluminium steel band around. The front utilises glass, the back full aluminium enclosure which is the same as the unibody Apple notebooks. The chamfers are fine tuned with a diamond tool to provide a clear display. The surface of the camera is sapphire crystal, industrial strength. The iPhone 5's screen has integrated touch technology. A layer was removed in reference to the capacitative touch sensor, the pixels are more efficient and hence is closer to the user with the overall display. The iPhone 5 is 20% lighter and 18% thinner than the iPhone 4S. When using it, it feels substantially lighter. The overall finish of the product feels of a luxury product. The iPhone may be light but it also fits comfortably and is easy to hold. The phone is just taller and not wider. 

The iPhone also utilises a new connector named Lightning. This is placed at the bottom of the phone to connect the iPhone via USB to a computer or portable adaptor for sync and charge. With this addition there is more space on the phone to achieve it's overall quality. Due to the fact this is a new connector, it's not completely compatible with old accessories. A new adaptor will be available for purchase to connect to older accessories that do not work directly with the lightning connector. This will prove useful for speaker docks. Although some accessories will not work with the Apple device.

Display

The iPhone 5's display looks better. The display has the same retina display of 326 pixels per inch, however the resolution of the iPhone is 1136 by 640. This provides 18% better colour quality than the iPhone 4S. The overall colour saturation has also improved by 44%. When viewing the iPhone's home screen, the colours seem more substantial, the apparent look of each app seems more realistic, with the front more precise in colour and the clarity of colour is the main aspect that is present.

The overall display is taller. At first, this may seem like a task to use apps, however with the usual notion of opening applications such as Music, Photos, the timing of reaching these applications is exactly the same. With the help of the same width, the phone itself feels the same. However it does take a moment to get used to. Initially, you also notice another row on the home screen for apps, this makes it more useful to navigate and find what you need in a more practical method. 

Viewing content is much better. The picture quality of photos with the retina display is great. Compared to the 3GS there is a magnitude of difference. And the widescreen video use also proves beneficial. Viewing the calendar in widescreen format is task efficient. 

Cameras

The camera on the iPhone 5 compared to the previous iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 is noticeable. The iPhone 4S is very similar to the iPhone 5 in that the megapixel quality and the camera features are similar. Both iPhone 5 and 4S have an iSight 8 Megapixel camera. Both have Autofocus, tap to focus, LED flash, backside illuminator, Five - element lens, Face Detection, Hybrid IR filter, f/Aperture 2.4 and with iOS 6 panorama view. Where the iPhone 5 is more efficient is with 40% faster camera capture,better low - light performance and improved noise reduction. The iPhone 4 has a five megapixel camera, 4 element lens, no face detection, no hybrid IR filter, the aperture is smaller of f/2.8 and does not support panorama view. The panorama view is a cool feature. This utilises the gyroscope, processor and camera with assistance for a a panoramic picture. The overall quality of images offer a much required improvement.
The video recording on the iPhone 5 is 1080P, with 30 fps, tap to focus whilst recording, LED light. The iPhone 5 compared to the 4S has improved video stabilisation, take still photos whilst recording video and Face detection. The iPhone 4 has no video stabilisation.

The FaceTime camera unlike the iPhone 4S and 4 which are VGA utilises a 720P camera. With a 1.2 megapixel camera and a backside illumination sensor.

Processor

The iPhone 5 has an A6 processor. Subsequently each prior iPhone has a number less. iPhone 4S has the A5 and the iPhone 4 has the A4. Tasks seem to run very fast. From opening apps. In our test, when we opened some apps, the speed difference was visible. In addition, some applications appeared to run better overall on the iPhone 5. The graphics is also twice as fast. With this custom processor from Apple, the efficiency has improved. The latent time is almost not there compared to the 4S. Call clarity has substantially improved with the improved wideband technology.

The battery on the iPhone 5 has improved. We tested the phone for most of the day, general music, browsing, taking calls, sending e-mails, writing notes, the battery still had some left. It seems better than the 4S so far. Overall 3G talk time has improved on the iPhone 5 from 6 to 8 hours, like the iPhone 4. With up to 10 hours on Wi-fi like the iPhone 4. Overall standby time is lower than the iPhone 4 yet more than the iPhone 4S. The iPhone 5 standby time 225 hours. The iPhone 4S is 200 hours. And the iPhone 4 is 300 hours. iOS 6 on the iPhone 5 runs overall better and more swift than the iPhone 4S and 4.

Earpods

The iPhone 5 comes with a new headset. EarPods. Since the first iPod was announced, the Apple earphones have become popular. The shape of the headphones have been changed in addition to a substantial upgrade in sound quality that almost compete with professional headphones. The headphones have a rich bass, more clarity, better acoustics overall a much more consistent sound that is a practical add on to the iPhone 5. The EarPods have three microphones. One on the front, one on the back and on on the bottom. The one on the front and back work together to provide a better detail to sound.

UAE

The iPhone 5 is not officially launched from Apple in the UAE. The iPhone could arrives anytime between September 28th with a list of countries mentioned, to late December as propositioned by Apple's 100 countries announcement. The UAE Apple online store mentions coming soon.

Based on this, Etisalat and Du which are the UAE's two cellular network providers also, do not have any official announcements for this region. If an iPhone is purchased not from the UAE, the nano sim card format is required. This is a new sim connector and is not easily available. The iPhone 5 currently is being imported to the UAE. Some users are relying on methods to trim the sim card to fit the nano sim standard. Some users that have the iPhone 5 cannot use it. Also, Etisalat and Du are the two networks that provide data download services for mobile devices. The iPhone 5 supports LTE. As the phone is not officially launched in the UAE by Apple online or to local retailers, there is no official setup or support for LTE. In addition, some of the new features and current features of iPhone are not supported for UAE. These are Siri, FaceTime and some iOS 6 features. This means the features on the iPhone 5 and hence the purchase do not become of the same product abroad/ We've contacted TRA which is a network authority in the UAE and they mentioned a license needs to be present, which is a network provider such as Etisalat and Du. After contacting a network provider they mentioned Apple blocks these particular features. We are currently contacting Apple for additional information to our clients and Apple UAE customers.

Conclusion

Overall with the iPhone 5's design, ease of use with software, camera quality, processor and new headphones the product is a worthwhile purchase. The phone could prove a good upgrade to the iPhone 4S, a somewhat substantial upgrade from the iPhone 4 and an almost necessary upgrade from the 3GS. The downsides are that although Apple has introduced a new connector, it may not work necessarily with some accessories. Due to upgrading technologies, the lightning connector was important. Some iOS software is not fully working such as Maps. Although Apple did mention this will be improved. The main factor is the availability of the phone in the UAE. The iPhone will soon become available in the UAE. 

Thank you for reading our review. Only from Consult Mac.

Consult Mac

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www.etherealtech.ae

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iOS 6 general information for the UAE

Hello Mac and PC users,

This information details iOS 6 for the UAE. The software update information provided details all the current updated features for the Apple iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

For the UAE some of these features will not work. More specifically, Directions, the Fly over, Traffic, Turn by turn direction, local search, business reviews and photos, on Maps. Twitter and Facebook integration. Siri. iTunes Music and Movie and TV programme stores. Dictation, 

To upgrade to iOS 6 you should have either:

• iPhone 3GS
• iPhone 4
• iPhone 4S
• iPod Touch (4th generation)
• iPod Touch (5th generation)
• iPad 2
• The new iPad

iOS 6 will not work as well on the iPhone 3GS compared to the later iPhone models.

Summary:

iOS 6 is a useful upgrade, with all the existing functionality it definitely enhances your iPhone. Although some of the features do not work, aspects such as DND so all incoming data is presented but phone calls and messages do not return upon the time you allocate, customising a message if you cannot answer the phone, the overall change in design on some apps, Mail update for VIP, Privacy, if you have an iPhone 4S the Panorama feature, the general speed of the OS is well suited for iPhone 4, 4S and the iPhone 5. There are many more features for iOS 6 on Apple iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.. That's our summary for iOS 6 on Apple iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

Consult Mac

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iOS 6

Hello Mac and PC users,

Here is the list of all new features on iOS 6:

iOS 6 Software Update

This update contains over 200 new features, including the following:

•  Maps
◦  Apple-designed, vector-based maps
◦  Turn-by-turn navigation with spoken directions on  iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPad Wi-Fi + Cellular (2nd and 3rd generation)
◦  Real-time traffic information
◦  Flyover for photo-realistic, interactive 3D views of major metropolitan areas on iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPad (3rd generation) and iPod touch (5th generation)
◦  Local search results with Yelp photos, ratings, reviews and available deals
◦  Siri integration for requesting directions and finding places along a route
•  Siri improvements
◦  Sport: scores, player stats, game schedules, teamsheets and league standings for American football, baseball, basketball, football and ice hockey
◦  Films: trailers, showtimes, reviews and facts
◦  Restaurants: reservations, reviews, photos and information
◦  Send a Tweet
◦  Post on Facebook
◦  App launch
◦  Eyes Free in supported automobiles
◦  Local search available in Siri-supported countries (availability may be limited during initial rollout)
◦  Additional country and language support for Canada (English and Canadian French), China (Mandarin), Hong Kong (Cantonese), Italy (Italian), Korea (Korean), Mexico (Spanish), Spain (Spanish), Switzerland (Italian, French, German), Taiwan (Mandarin), US (Spanish)
◦  Supported on iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPad (3rd generation) and iPod touch (5th generation)
•  Facebook integration
◦  Single sign-on from Settings
◦  Post from Photos, Safari, Maps, App Store, iTunes, Game Center, Notification Centre and Siri
◦  Add location and choose audience for any post
◦  View up-to-date Facebook profile photos and contact information in Contacts
◦  View Facebook events and birthdays in Calendar
◦  Like content and see your friends' Likes in App Store and iTunes Store
•  Shared Photo Streams
◦  Share selected photos with the people you choose
◦  Friends can view shared photos in Photos app, iPhoto and Apple TV
◦  Friends can like and make comments on individual photos
•  Passbook
◦  One place for boarding passes, store cards, film tickets and other passes
◦  Barcode display for boarding flights, buying coffee, getting into films and other actions
◦  Passes displayed on Lock Screen based on time or location
◦  Passes can be automatically updated
◦  Supported on iPhone and iPod touch
•  FaceTime improvements
◦  FaceTime over mobile network support for iPhone 5, iPhone 4S and iPad Wi-Fi + Cellular (3rd generation)
◦  Receive FaceTime calls, sent to your iPhone number, on your iPad and iPod touch
•  Phone improvements
◦  Do Not Disturb to suppress incoming calls and notifications
◦  'Reply with message' option when declining a call
◦  'Remind me later' option based on time or location when declining a call
•  Mail improvements
◦  VIP mailbox to quickly access mail from important people
◦  Flagged email mailbox
◦  Insert photos and videos when composing email
◦  Open password-protected Office docs
◦  Pull down to refresh mailboxes
◦  Per-account signatures
•  Safari improvements
◦  iCloud tabs to see open pages on all your devices
◦  Offline Reading List
◦  Photo upload support
◦  Full-screen landscape view on iPhone and iPod touch
◦  Smart app banners
◦  JavaScript performance improvements
•  App Store and iTunes Store improvements
◦  Updated store design
◦  iTunes Preview history
◦  Complete my series
◦  Complete my album
•  Game Center improvements
◦  Challenge friends to beat high scores and achievements
◦  Post high scores and achievements to Facebook and Twitter
◦  Friend recommendations based on your Facebook friends
•  Accessibility improvements
◦  Guided Access to limit device to one app or restrict touch input on certain areas of the screen
◦  VoiceOver integration with Maps, AssistiveTouch and Zoom
◦  Support for Made for iPhone Hearing Aids for iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S
•  Improved privacy controls for Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Photos and data shared over Bluetooth
•  Reminders can be reordered in the Reminders app
•  Custom vibrations for alerts on iPhone
•  Clock app for iPad
•  Clock alarm with song
•  Search all fields in Contacts
•  Automatic film mode for improved video sound quality
•  Definitions of a selected word for Chinese, French, German and Spanish
•  New keyboard layouts for French, German, Turkish, Catalan, Arabic and Icelandic
•  Keyboard shortcuts shared across devices via iCloud
•  Bluetooth MAP support
•  Global network proxy for HTTP
•  Features for China
◦  Baidu web search
◦  Sina Weibo integration
◦  Share videos to Tudou
◦  Share videos to Youku
◦  Improved text input for handwriting and Pinyin
•  Bug fixes

Some features may not be available in all countries or all areas.  Please visit this website for more details:
http://www.apple.com/ios/feature-availability

For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

Consult Mac

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Apple based stores, setup and service

Hello Mac and PC users.

When purchasing a new Apple product or service, there are a range of options in the UAE. With the recent range of new retail stores and e-commerce, we can highlight purchase points and service options along with the general Apple purchasing standpoint.

Apple products and services were scarce in the region at some point. Today, there are a host of retail stores, online stores and service providers that are happy to provide general solutions and servicing towards your Apple product. Although the service and list of options are not as complete from Apple directly, they are viable places to purchase and offer accessories to complement your solution.

The range of retail stores are Jumbo, Virgin, E-Max, Plug-Ins, CompuMe, Carrefour and iStyle as the only Apple based Premium reseller. 

Online stores available are JadoPado, Emirates Avenue and a few more. 

The ones highlighted are the main ones we find for Apple products and services, that offer good value and service. 

All the best with your new purchase.

Consult Mac

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www.etherealtech.ae

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iCloud

To Mac and PC users.

iCloud is a fantastic new service from Apple. The service allows you to sign up with an Apple ID and a manage sync and data.  The data that iCloud manages is your contacts, calendar and e-mails.

All the information is stored online and can be accessed from iCloud.com. Your contacts, calendars and e-mails that are stored on your computer, are now available online. You can switch views and create a new contact, add a calendar option or compose a new e-mail.

iCloud also offers wireless sync. This means once you update any changes to any of your Apple devices, it will automatically update to iCloud and all of your other Apple devices. For example, if you add a calendar appointment on iCal on your Mac, this will then update on iCloud and to all of your other Apple devices wirelessly.

iCloud also offers PhotoStream. A robust way to view your pictures. As an example, if you store your pictures on a camera and import to your computer, iCloud will automatically store 1000 of these pictures available in a photo stream. These will also be available on your iOS device or on your computer.

iCloud is a useful utility to store and manage your information online, on your Apple or PC. The best sync available for your Apple as it's directly integrated to all Apple devices.

Register for iCloud today on www.icloud.com.

Consult Mac

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www.etherealtech.ae

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The new iPad

Hello PC and Mac users.

For iPad 2 users, do you need the New iPad? The new Apple product is leaps ahead of other devices on the market with reference to technology. You have a full retina display, 4G network combined in a nutshell with the most advanced software. However is it time to change?

Apple does announce products as and when needed for the consumer market, we recommend purchasing the current range of fantastic Apple devices, however when there is an incremental difference, the decision is really yours.

Recently tests were conducted on an older version of the iPad 2, with a newer version of the iPad 2, one available to purchase a couple of months ago, a new one to purchase now and there is a difference.

The iPad 2 utilizes a smaller processor. Apparently this could mean a better battery life or battery lifespan. Now the iPad 2 is a great product, but if you're editing documents whilst traveling, swiping to access your e-mail frequently, viewing crisp photos and editing videos on a short term basis, the new IPad is for your forte. 

If you're simply just editing documents here and there, reading on Safari or other fantastic apps, utilizing the iPad less frequently the iPad 2 is still a fantastic device. 

The new iPad isn't necessarily significantly more advanced than the iPad 2 with reference to task management, so to purchase one is not necessary at this time. 

We would still recommend to buy both according to the above.

Consult Mac

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