Month: August 2012

Some Apple Store (retail) related news

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The Hong Kong Apple Store at IFC

This came in recently from another source (not the same one as my previous article on the Apple Store in Singapore). Do take it with a pinch of salt though, I’m not sure how accurate this is.

In the latest report released in June on the next batches of Apple Stores to be opened around the world in the following months/year, Singapore is suspiciously absent from the list of countries. Hong Kong’s second store still is on the list though.

Strangely though, around the last one or two months, chatter about the preparations for the local Apple Store has completely stopped, with some people close to the situation commenting that plans might have been delayed due to problems of site allocation and the general reseller situation in Singapore.

However, none of them are absolutely sure that the project has been shelved.

That said, it’s already August and there still isn’t any news on recruitment for a possible Apple Store.

Will we have an Apple Store soon?

Updated: Yes, we will have an Apple Store, just slightly delayed to next year. It will become very obvious in two months’ time.

First looks at the Google Nexus 7

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Mine came in late last week, thanks to the help of a good friend. Been playing with it all weekend, here are the first thoughts;

1. It’s slightly faster than the Galaxy Nexus on Jelly Bean, but when you have lots of widgets on your home screen or try to do multiple actions at one time, the lag is no joke. So much for Jelly Bean’s Project Butter (edit: It’s pretty fast generally, you can’t see any legginess in the interface so long you don’t push it)

2. It’s supposed to be a tablet, but in reality it’s really a giant Android phone, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Certain apps with tablet interfaces don’t work very well on the small screen, especially due to the crazily short width of the tablet in portrait mode, so apps work way better in “phone mode” (you can choose).

3. It’s pretty light, and I’ll love to bring it everywhere I go, until the iPad Mini (definitely coming out, thanks sources) debuts of course.

4. Build quality is a bit shoddy, I can hear the screen moving every time I touched a certain spot on the screen.

5. Every single bad point about the Android OS remains, such as the ability to do work on it due to the lack of proper apps, fugly app interfaces, irritating country-based restrictions on what you can or cannot buy from them, which means in Singapore you generally get NO CONTENT to buy. No books no music no movies no nothing.

Conclusion: This is just a first look, but I doubt my opinions about it will change. The Nexus 7 is a toy. A toy you can bring along on overseas trips together with your MacBook Air because it’s so small and portable, to watch videos that you torrent off the net because Cathay’s In-Flight Entertainment is a joke. And there’s really nothing bad about it being a toy. I love toys. It’s just not an iPad, and will never be in the next 5 years or so.