Tag Archives: Apple

Will 4G LTE Work On The iPhone in Lebanon?

As of writing this post and as far as I know, the only device in the Lebanese market that is capable of running 4G/LTE is the iPhone 5. LTE enabled android smartphones have not been imported yet and the current ones in the market do not contain that functionality.

However, there is one hurdle that I’m not sure if the ministry of telecommunication is familiar with regarding actually getting 4G to work on the iPhone 5.

No, I’m not talking about the iPhone 5′s model, something I told you about many times before, being the first blog to tell you to buy model A1429 (click here). I am referring to the following:

“Apple’s power over operators is often overstated, but for the first time, a carrier has confirmed that the company conducts its own tests on an LTE network before deciding whether to enable 4G services on iPhones and iPads for customers of that company.

Swiss operator Swisscom admitted that was the case to mobile-focused website Telecoms.com, confirming an Apple policy that many had previously believed to be true. A Swisscom spokesperson told Telecoms.com that the company “only enables 4G access after testing their device on an operator’s live network.” (source)

In order for LTE to be enabled on the only LTE phone in the Lebanese market so far, Apple needs to personally verify that the Lebanese network is up to par. Have we received any Apple technicians in the country to test out the 4G network ahead of the pilot phase and subsequent commercial launch in April?

The iOS 6.1 update brought LTE functionality to a multitude of European and Middle Eastern countries. The functionality is not via activating the chip in the phone, it is enabling the toggle which allows an iPhone’s user to access their carrier’s LTE network. In order for us to receive this toggle in Lebanon, we will require another iOS update. Will Apple do one specifically for us and possibly other smaller markets in case they come and test our upcoming 4G LTE networks?

Seeing as much more important markets, especially European ones, had to wait months for the 6.1 update, I doubt.

This is the current state of the network data settings:

LTE toggle iPhone 5 - 2

 

And this is how it should be:

LTE toggle iPhone 5

I am writing this because I’m not sure if this issue has been brought up to those who are concerned with launching 4G in Lebanon. Having LTE work on our iPhones is not as simple as having the service activated on our sim cards and it also involves much more than simply having a functional network in the country’s main cities.

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Lebanese iTunes Store Launches Movies Section

Who doesn't love Wall-E?

Who doesn’t love Wall-E?

Apple seems to be adopting a very aggressive strategy rolling out new iTunes services to international markets. Only days after Lebanon got the music iTunes store added to its already existing AppStore, the country’s iTunes Store now has its own bonafide movies section, albeit the selection isn’t that extensive.

Here are the current top-selling movies at the Lebanese store:

Lebanese iTunes Store top movies

The prices range from $9.99 for the Disney bunch to $18.99 for new releases such as Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Each movie is more than 1.5GB of downloads in SD format and about 4GB in HD, which makes you wonder: how are the people buying these movies actually downloading them?

Lebanese iTunes Store movies

There’s also a separate section for Arabic movies which currently contains a pitiful selection of obviously horrid Egyptian movies.

All in all, this is a nice improvement for the store. The music section seems to have decent enough sales to have a top 200 ranking, although most of those are not Lebanese music which discredits the idea that Lebanese expats would be the store’s main clientele.

Hopefully a books section gets launched soon and the Lebanese iTunes store would become complete. Now let’s instill the mentality in people’s heads that buying online using a debit or credit card is okay, secure and that trusted companies are not out there to get you.

Apple Launches Lebanese iTunes Music Store

iTunes Music Store Lebanon

This should be interesting. Apple has launched iTunes’ Music Store in over 56 countries yesterday, one of those being Lebanon. In addition to the AppStore which Lebanese customers had for a while now, they’ll be able to – yes you guessed it – buy songs and albums online, however far-fetched that happening might be.

In addition to Lebanon, Apple’s iTunes Music Store has launched in other countries of the region such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain as well as Israel. This means it’s the first time the region gets a legal alternative for websites such as Nogomi which allow free downloads of music.

I personally buy most of the music I listen to off the American iTunes Store. Some Lebanese have called me crazy for doing so. So I wonder how many Lebanese are actually willing to leave their music piracy ways behind and start paying for the music they listen to? I’m sure it won’t be many.

iPhone 5 in Lebanon: The LTE “Issue”

Many people have been asking which countries they can purchase an iPhone 5 from and have it function normally in Lebanon.

The confusion is because the iPhone 5 will support different frequencies of LTE depending on the country you get it from. For a full list of those frequencies, click here.

What many Lebanese users are forgetting is the following.

  1. We are not getting LTE in Lebanon anytime soon. I have it from trusted sources within Alfa and MTC that it will be a few years before LTE goes out of trial phase in Lebanon, which obviously makes sense. I mean it hasn’t been a year even since 3G was rolled out.
  2. By the time LTE becomes available in Lebanon, Apple would have released iPhone 10 and odds are you would have given up on your iPhone 5 by then and upgraded.
  3. The iPhone 5 keeps the same frequencies the 4S and the 4 used to connect to 3G and older cellular generations and as we all know, older generation iPhones work well  - or as well as a smartphone can work – in Lebanon.

What does it all mean?

It means that you can buy an unlocked iPhone 5 from the US, France, Italy, Australia – any country basically – and have it work in Lebanon. Your only problem remaining is to find a nano sim. Good luck with that.

iPhone 5 in Lebanon: The Nano Sim Problem

20120917-104841.jpg

With Apple unveiling their new iPhone 5, a problem has surfaced for Lebanese users who want to purchase the phone and it is the SIM card that the phone uses.
Ditching the micro sim that was made popular by the iPhone 4, the iPhone 5 uses a new generation of SIM cards called nano sims.
The standard was only approved a few months ago so it’s still not available in many countries and the iPhone 5 will be the first phone to use this standard.

20120917-105201.jpg

Unlike micro sims, you can’t cut a bigger sim into a nano sim which is how most early iPhone 4 adopters managed before the microsim became available in early fall of 2010, almost 3 months after the initial release of the iPhone 4.

Alfa has issued a statement that it will be getting nano sims soon. But that’s soon in Lebanese standards which might mean a few months. So for those who rushed to pre-order their iPhones already and expect to have them in Lebanon in the coming weeks, you’ll be stuck with your older phones until an “unconfirmed” date.

20120917-105549.jpg

But hey, at least you’ll have that gorgeous device to keep you busy until then. Right?

In Case You Had Any Doubt the iPhone 5 Is Going To Sell Like Hotcakes

Jimmy Kimmel is here to tell you that Apple’s new iPhone, regardless of what you think of it, will end up being a huge hit with consumers – in typical Apple fashion.

I think the new iPhone looks amazing. But it doesn’t give me this itch to upgrade like with previous updates to the world’s best smartphone. But make no mistake, I think this is the best phone that you can buy today – bar none… especially not that Galaxy SIII thing.

I don’t feel disappointed though because I think we’re at a point in technology where incremental updates are the way to go. The room to grow isn’t that roomy and drastic changes can’t happen yearly. Sure the iPhone 5 lacks some technologies which are available today. However,  I’d much rather not have new technology incorporated in the phone (NFC comes to mind) without it being entirely practical. Less clutter, more usability.

Why won’t I get it? Well, for one I am a student in a country where mobile carrier plans don’t exist so coughing up the full price for it doesn’t make sense to me when my 4S can do everything it does except in a different enclosure. I wouldn’t mind it as a gift though – my birthday is coming up in exactly two months *wink – 64GB, black – wink.*

For a complete rundown on the new iPhone, click here.

I think if you have any iPhone that’s older than the iPhone 4S, you’re due for an upgrade.

Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion – Overview and Observations

Apple is set to release its next update to the Mac operating system OS X tomorrow. However, I’ve been working with Mountain Lion for the past two weeks and here’s an overview of 10.8 as well as some observations.

The update is quite welcome. My Mac’s performance improved drastically over Lion which had caused my mid 09 Macbook Pro to experience some serious lagging. The most welcome update that I found myself is enjoying is actually Safari. I no longer need any other browser to get by and I haven’t bothered downloading any other the browsers I used to use on OS X Lion. And I’m especially fond of them integrating the google search function into the address bar (better late than never).

Another interesting feature in Safari, which is also present across the Mountain Lion, is some serious iCloud integration. Notice the cloud icon next to the address bar? Clicking on that will show you any tabs you left open on your iPhone or iPad so you can pick up your reading or work on your Mac.

Moreover, you can immediately add any page you want to your reading list and it will actually take some time to save the page for offline viewing. The page will then sync to your reading list on your iPhone or iPad as well.

The install process was quite smooth. I opted for a clean install so I simply turned a flash drive into a bootable drive and used it to erase my hard drive and install Mac OS X anew.

When the update is released via the Mac App Store tomorrow, you can simply opt to update without deleting any of your data. Having Time Machine backups is preferable though, although odds are nothing serious will happen. It’s a very streamlined process which only requires clicking a few buttons and waiting about 30 minutes and you’re set.

With the introduction of Notification Center and Notification Banners, you can opt out of having the dock showing all the time. Whenever you receive an email, a twitter notification or an iMessage, you will get a banner on the top right similar to the one below. It’s very neat.

 

 

Swiping left or simply clicking on the dashed button next to the search icon on the top right will show the notification center which aggregates all your notifications and they stay there until you clear them.

Of the new additions to OS X Mountain Lion, there’s Notes and Reminders, both of which also sync to your iDevices so your notes and reminders can be synchronized everywhere.

They have also added Game Center, which I think is useless.

 

One of the other cool features that were added, under the hood, is power nap whereby your mac goes to sleep but it stays up to date with your emails and notifications. They have also added dictation which you can activate by clicking the “fn” button twice. Yes, you will finally use that button.

 

 

iCloud integration:

As I mentioned previously, Apple is pushing you to use iCloud with everything they can in OS X Mountain Lion (and iOS 6 for your iDevices). In fact, the default saving option for your documents, modified pictures, etc… is, yes you guessed it, to iCloud.

I think the whole feature is seamless and streamlined. Anything you do on your mac gets synced to the cloud which sends it to your iPhone or iPad. It’s that simple and intuitive. It’s also nice to find something you had been typing out on the mac already on the iPad.

Twitter integration:

Facebook integration is coming later. But Twitter integration is already here. And the sharing button is everywhere. Mountain Lion even asks you if you want to allow other applications to use your twitter account the first time you set it up or even authorize an application to use your account online.

Sharing to twitter is also very simple and very similar to iOS 5.

 

Sharing:

In fact, it doesn’t stop at Twitter. Apple wants you to share things with Mountain Lion, be it to friends via airdrop or sharing your videos to Facebook or via email.

In fact Airdrop is now integrated, for example, into Quicktime itself to immediately share that file to your friends who are on the same network.

The show is The Walking Dead by the way.

And that’s a quick roundup of some of the main features that I, as a basic user, worked with on OS X Mountain Lion. Should you upgrade? I say definitely. It’s more than worth it and for a little more than $20, it’s very affordable.

An interesting tidbit though, the new wallpapers for OS X Mountain Lion don’t even have a picture of a Mountain Lion.

 

 

 

God Plays With Siri – Or Samuel L Jackson

Preparing for a date night? No problem. Siri is here for you.

Zooey Deschanel has also toyed with the iPhone 4S’ feature.

Months after getting my iPhone 4S, I still find myself using Siri occasionally to text and call people and heavily to play music while on the road and set up alarms.

iPhone 4S users, are you still using Siri?

Les Apple Addict

A hilarious French video that has went viral in the past couple of days…. “Plus en plus de gens autour de moi qui font l’acquisition d’un mac. Mais pour eux c’est pas un simple ordinateur comme un PC. Non, pour eux Apple c’est une religion!”

Insert 5 minutes of him making fun of the whole Mac/iPhone obsession – even down the the most minute detail, the box. You know you’ve kept your macbook’s box somewhere.

Regardless, iPhones and Mac are awesome! Want a demo? :p

 

 

Apple Unveils Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and Messages App

It looks like OS X Lion will have a short time to stand as the newest update for OS X. Mountain Lion is coming this summer for all Mac users and it’s bringing more iOS features with it to the Mac, including Twitter integration, more iCloud integration, Game Center, Notification Center, Notes, Reminder, etc…

For a full list of what features OS X Mountain Lion is bringing, go to this link. Or you can check out the following:

This is OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

This is notification center

The new Notes app

Game center integration... awesome, no?

This is reminders

Apple has also introduced a new feature called Gatekeeper helping users to specify from which sources apps may be installed on their computers. For a hands-on experience of Mac OS X Mountain Lion, you can check out Engadget or Macworld.

And as promised, Apple has unveiled a new messaging app for the Mac. This new app, called Messages, will replace iChat in function. It will allow unlimited messaging to any iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch running iOS 5.0 or higher. It will also integrate Facetime, whilst supporting normal chatting services such as Gmail, AOL, etc…

This is Messages

The good news? You won’t have to wait long to get Messages. A public beta is already available for you to download (click here). Messages requires OS X 10.7.3.

All in all, a great time to be a Mac user, isn’t it?