MacRyu – The Worst Mac Blog in Singapore, and Some Say the World

The New iPhone – Scoop by 9to5mac

Posted May 30th, 2012 by Ryu at 1:38 am in iPhone 5, Rumors, Scoop and The New iPhone. 4 Comments

9to5mac (through ifixyouri) has a big scoop on the exterior look of the new iPhone. Metal backs, new dock connector, movement of the headphone jack to the bottom of the phone, and an overall thinner profile.

Get in on the details on their site now. ~~This stuff is legit.~~ A little birdie chirps that from what he/she knows, the parts posted by 9to5mac are legit. And the little birdie is often right. Unless of course, this is yet another “teardrop prototype drawing leaks into the wild and manufacturers start making cases off the leaked document” incident. Only this time there were actual parts made, parts that 9to5mac can order from a real iPhone parts OEM.

Why John Gruber jumped ship and betrayed 5by5 studios (Updated with Final Comment)

Posted May 29th, 2012 by Ryu at 1:20 am in 5by5, Complaints, Daring Fireball and Editorial. 1 Comment

!!!Important: Please read the final comment at the end of this post before deciding if you wish to continue reading the whole piece.

This incident has happened more than 3 weeks ago, and while it seems silly to write about it after most of the online hate towards gruber has died down, I simply can’t bring myself to write this piece when I was feeling so angry myself.

I have to admit, the only reason why I know about 5by5’s existence was because of The Talk Show (I have a previous post on 5by5), and that was probably why Gruber thought that he deserved a piece of 5by5 simply for being involved early, despite doing no part of the hard work that went into the creation of 5by5 Studios.

The Talk Show was definitely the first show that Dan ever did on 5by5, but it was most definitely not the best, as 5by5 listeners know. It was definitely the “original” 5by5 show, which was why almost everyone but the Gruber haters subscribed to the show, making it the most popular show on the network.

However, at least for me, The Talk Show was interesting because of these reasons, in order of importance;

1. The presence of Dan Benjamin.

Simply the main reason why I love 5by5. Dan is charming, witty, really interesting and has a great voice. He is a talented host, and is why I always enjoyed the 5by5 shows with him on as a host more than the shows without, like the incomparable.

2. It was on my list of subscribed podcasts on Instacast since a long long time ago.

3. Information on rumors about Apple from an “insider’s point of view”.

For John Gruber is Daring Fireball. However, with Amplified on 5by5 now Jim Dalrymple (of The Loop) is serving this purpose, to a greater extent since Jim is a much nicer host than Gruber is and will always make the effort to explain in detail, rather than Gruber who always seem disinterested in everything except his own food. One have to wonder if the presence of Amplified played any slight part on the decision of Gruber jumping ship, since he knows he’s marginalized on the network, with hardcore fans preferring every other 5by5 Apple-related show to his.

4. John Gruber being disinterested and making a lot of noises during the show.

You’ll have to agree that his antics are somewhat interesting.

With his new show on mule radio, one can only expect Apple info as the only thing he can bring to the table, that is if you managed to get through his rabbling and the total mess that is the new talk show.

How it went down

One thing that was very obvious was that Dan Benjamin was really the greatest victim here. As listeners of the very last episode would have suspected, Dan Benjamin knew nothing about Gruber’s plans, and that Gruber gave Dan the news only after the recording of episode 90. Throughout the show, Gruber sounded normal and was acting that the show will just continue next week, without even any subtle hint of the shit he was going to pull on Dan Benjamin. As evident from the comments on his new talk show, his fans are not going to forgive him for deceiving them.

As for Dan, it was obvious that he has no idea during the show, for who in the right mind will start selling The Talk Show t-shirts during the very last episode of The Talk Show? He would have much better sales than the 100 plus orders he got for The Talk Show t-shirt if he went with Hypercritical instead.

What is The Talk Show?

Gruber seemed to think that the property called “The Talk Show” totally belonged to him alone and that he did all the work. He claims (especially in Episode 2 of the new talk show) that there were in total 3 runs of The Talk Show, and that the current one that he is doing by himself is the third run.

In actual fact, The Talk Show was created solely by Dan Benjamin, the very first run was a format where he invited different guests to be on each show, many of whom happened to be Gruber. He then started a second run of The Talk Show with Gruber that ran periodically and spanned about 30 episodes. And finally, the 90-episode The Talk Show on 5by5 was actually the third run, and not the second run as Gruber claims. The truth seems to be that Gruber simply offered some comments as well as the artwork for the second season of The Talk Show (the 30-episode run before 5by5) and thus claimed ownership despite Dan being the one to do most of the marketing and the hard work that goes into the preparations of every single show, not to mention how he has been constantly giving in to anything Gruber demands on air.

Dan released a short statement on 5by5 Specials on Gruber’s taking of The Talk Show (a property in which Dan put in a lot of hard work to build up) and jumping ship. The guy actually bothered to wish Gruber luck after Gruber jumped ship without any advance warning or any chance for Dan to tie up any loose ends.

Why Gruber is being hated for his betrayal

John Gruber has no reason to keep doing a show with 5by5 if he is not happy, and everyone knows that. However, the problem with his betrayal is his taking of The Talk Show. Out of his current almost 400 1-star ratings (out of 600 in total) of the new talk show on iTunes, almost everyone took issue with the fact that he named the new show the talk show, and that new show simply isn’t “The Talk Show” because of its total lack of quality content. Even Gruber’s own friends and guests on the new talk show, including @lonelysandwich Adam Lisagor, repeatedly advised him to change the name of the show because they don’t agree with his use of the talk show name in his new show.

Yet Gruber, being the massively egoistic guy he is, stubbornly refused. “The Daring Fireball Podcast” would have made a much better name for his new podcast.

Why Gruber jumped ship, and why Mule Radio (MRS)?

This part can best be answered by a single post on Quora, by a “Anon User” who is assumed to be someone in the loop of stuff happening at 5by5, who remains anonymous for obvious reasons.

In his own words;

John Gruber left 5by5 for Mule Radio because of money, and/or potential money. And by potential money, I mean a stake in MRS.

Here’s how I think it went down. Many months ago Dan started to talk about releasing an iPhone app for 5by5. At first he talked about it being free, then Marco Arment said he should charge $1 to avoid getting negative feedback. Dan started to come around to this idea. He enlisted Black Pixel to make the app, then realized that since there’s a lot of competition (instacast), he should do something that no one can do. And what no one could do was a live streaming app for 5by5. My guess is that Black Pixel wasn’t actually hired by Dan to do the app. They were doing it on their own. Sort of an app that could be rebranded by any podcast network. This is why when Dan decided on the new style app with streaming, he couldn’t go to BP anymore, and he had to find a new developer. The BP app was then released by Mule Radio and is free. Presumably BP still owns the rights to that app, and will rebrand it for anyone willing to pony up the cash. So as I was saying, Dan enlisted a new developer and decided to charge $3 for the app because this app was costing him a bunch of cash to develop. This might be where Gruber started to get annoyed. Then around the same time Dan released The Talk Show t-shirts so they could be out in time for wwdc. Clearly trying to play on Gruber’s popularity. I believe this is where Gruber decided to approach Dan about compensation. I think Dan offered Gruber some compensation, but Gruber was not happy with that amount. It’s very possible that Gruber said that since he played a major role in the current success of 5by5, that he should be compensated more than any of the other hosts. I also believe Gruber asked for a percentage stake in 5by5 and Dan refused. Gruber was angry and decided to stick it to Dan very publicly by taking the talk show and moving it to Mule Radio. Which incidentally is owned by Mike Monteiro, someone who has already stuck it Dan. Mike originally had a show on 5by5 before he moved that show to his own network. Mike actually paid Dan to have that show on 5by5. I believe the figure was $1000 a month. It was advertising for Mike. He paid Dan and got tons of earballs. Then when the show got some traction, he left 5by5 and started Mule. Very slick move. Devious, but slick. So anyhow, Gruber approached Mike and said give me a stake in Mule, and I’ll do for you, what I did for 5by5. Mike agreed, and boom, The Talk Show on MRS.

Top 10 tactical moves, facts, opinions, etc, that prove this is about money.

10. Gruber makes money from 5by5, but not enough that he couldn’t risk it for a stake in a new network.

9. While we’ve heard many times from people who sell t-shirts that they don’t make any money at all, I know for a fact they do. The T-shirts were $24 each. They were 1 color ink and Dan used a fulfillment company for shipping. Fulfillment companies usually charge shipping plus 20%. Maybe 30%. So on a $24 shirt that’s 4.80-$7.20. Call it $5-$7 bucks. A 1 color t-shirt costs 8 bucks to make. And that’s a high number. Especially if the fulfillment company is the one making the shirt. So as far as I can tell Dan would be making around 10 dollars a shirt. Gruber knows this cause he does his own shirts and sells them for $29. Which funnily enough, he just started selling today http://daringfireball.net/linked…

8. The T-shirts are The Talk Show branded. And seeing as how Gruber now has The Talk Show on Mule, he has the rights to that name. Therefore, Gruber should be receiving compensation for the use of his name on the shirt. Which he might have (Ryu: Dan posted on twitter stating that each host, including gruber, will receive 50% of the profits of the t-shirts). But maybe not enough.

7. Gruber posts a list of the talk show sponsors on Daring Fireball each week. This is worth almost as much as the daring fireball sponsorship which he currently sells for $7500 a week. I bet this played a major part in the negotiations.

6. The app has been doing extremely well. And unlike t-shirts, it’s always up for sale. If Gruber believes he had a hand in the current success of 5by5, then he believes he should have a cut of that money. I don’t believe any hosts are receiving a cut of that money.

5. Is Gruber going to make himself look like a complete dick for a few grand extra a year? No. He’s going to risk looking like a dick for potentially a lot more.

4. Gruber can’t make a lot more money as a host by going with Mule over 5by5. Mule has no reach right now.

3. If we believe that both 5 and 4 are true, then one can only assume that Mike gave Gruber a percentage in the network.

2. Gruber is currently the only host on 5by5 whose popularity could rival the popularity of the entire 5by5 network. And if that’s true, then it’s going to be extremely difficult for Gruber to make a lot more money on 5by5 by just being a host. It would make sense for him to move to Mule, take a stake in the network, and try and build it to a size that rivals 5by5.

1. Gruber’s head is massive.

————————————————————

I’d also like to say that I’m a huge 5by5 supporter and I’m glad Gruber left. He’s just too arrogant to be on there. Every host is kind to listeners except him. What’s interesting is I don’t like Mike either. He’s even more arrogant than Gruber. I think they make a really great team.

Long live Hypercritical.

————————————————————

UPDATE 5-21-12:

Dan Benjamin released a short, but very telling statement in a special today. You can listen to it here http://5by5.tv/specials/6

Some things that we can all take from this statement:
Â
1. It was very classy the way he did it. But he definitely got in a few good digs, that I believe are completely warranted.
Â
2. It’s obvious that Gruber was not fired, let go, or asked to leave 5by5 because of his show attendance track record. Gruber actually posted something on DF that I believe was him trying to insinuate that he was fired, and that he’s not at fault. He didn’t come out and say it, because it’s not true, but he insinuated it. That post is here http://daringfireball.net/linked…

3. Some people have stated that Dan could have had issues with sponsors if the talk show didn’t air, but it doesn’t seem like that was a problem now. Or if it was, it wasn’t the reason for the break-up.
Â
4. Dan said that if “the arrangement wasn’t working” that they’d talk about it. Which I take to mean that the dollars weren’t working or the format/Dan wasn’t working, he could have said something. I’d also like to point out that this is the only thing Dan mentioned as a possible issue Gruber had for leaving. Therefore, I assume Dan knows it was one of these things.
Â
5. Dan said he was upset that they couldn’t give the talk show a proper send off, which means that Gruber just said he’s done and would like to move on. And since we know 4 is true, then we know that Gruber gave no explanation why he left. This means that Gruber was pissed about something.
Â
6. We know the format changed when Gruber moved to MRS, but this can’t be the reason for moving because Dan stated that Gruber didn’t approach him about leaving. Everyone knows that if Gruber said to him that he wanted to discontinue the talk show and start a new show with him having guests and doing interviews, Dan would have said yes without hesitation. Gruber knows this. This means Gruber left for another reason. Money.
Â
Conclusion – I believe I was right about the reason Gruber left, but unless Dan is not telling us something, which is totally possible, there wasn’t a long talk about that reason. This makes sense cause Gruber does seem like the guy that would just grab his toys and go home if he was pissed.
Â
One last thought before I end this. I’ve always thought that Gruber being an asshole on the talk show was a bit of an act. He’d talk over Dan all the time. Never laugh at anything he says, which in a show like this, even if the joke was’t incredibly funny, you laugh anyway cause it brings the audience in. You ever laugh at a friend cause he said something, and is laughing at what he said, but you have no idea what he meant? It’s cause you feel like you want to be involved in the moment. This is why you laugh at the co-host’s joke, even it’s not that funny. Dan is a funny guy though, but that’s beside the point. So as I was saying, I always thought the asshole Gruber was an act. But in seeing how this all went down, I’m starting to think that the asshole Gruber is not an act and Gruber is really just an asshole.

I suspect the details in his post are almost 99% accurate. Gruber himself sort of confirmed the accusations in his second episode when he revealed that he was unhappy with Dan for a long time for “business reasons”, probably because Dan refused to give Gruber a piece of 5by5.

So what now?

Gruber is probably going to continue his new show without changing the name despite the universal hate in the form of iTunes ratings. He’s just that. Besides Mike Monteiro and Mule Radio is giving Gruber a lot of money, including sponsoring his wife’s expenses to WWDC it seems, as Gruber’s twitter has revealed recently.

Eventually people will forget and move on, and Gruber’s new talk show will probably do okay simply because of the Daring Fireball brand, and all he will probably lose is some fans and some t-shirt sales, which won’t really matter to him.

I was a long-time John Gruber fan, and have personally bought Daring Fireball t-shirts, but I have to say that this incident pissed me off a whole lot. Gruber was always a prick, but had always been a lovable prick rather than an arsehole. Now he’s just a prick. I’ve downgraded from being a “fan” to merely a “reader”.

Just like what some of his fans have emailed him,

DICK MOVE, JOHN. I WON’T BE LISTENING ANYMORE.

P.S. Gruber published yet another post about the new talk show, which does show that he knows that his new show is getting really bad response and it’s not going to be profitable in the long run if things go on. He even revealed that ad slots for the next two shows are only half-filled, which is poor for a show of this repute. His PR rescue attempt (by thanking Dan) with no doubt bring some of his die hard fans back to the new talk show, but if he was really sincere, he did not have to wait this long to do it.

It was totally obvious that the amount of bad response was too much for him.

P.P.S Maybe I was too harsh on John. Can’t be bothered about this issue anymore. Old news. This is the last time I’ll update this post (probably).

Final Comment (May 2015): It has been years since this piece was released, based upon the original comment on Quora, and bits of information have emerged since then to paint a quite different picture from the Quora post, that personally I am no longer convinced that the original piece is that believable after all. I will not say it is completely wrong, but as with all things there are accuracies and inaccuracies. Dan Benjamin may not have been that much of a “victim”, and John Grubber definitely is not the bad guy here. His taking of The Talk Show completely off podcast networks a year after jumping from 5by5 was definitely the best thing for the podcast.

Besides, much have happened since then, and 5by5 is no longer the choice of network for podcasts for many of us Mac people, with the Apple mainstay now being Amplified, which Dan Benjamin has largely ignored possibly due to the lack of listenership compared to some of his other podcasts. While it seems more appropriate to take down this article, I do not have the practice of doing so (erasing posts that I have deemed inaccurate after posting), so I will leave it here with this final comment, which I will no longer update.

iPad 3rd Generation Singapore Launch at M1 Paragon

Posted March 16th, 2012 by Ryu at 3:52 am in iPad 3, Launch, M1 and Singapore. 2 Comments

Just some quick photos before I go to sleep.

And an iPad Launch won’t be an iPad Launch without scalpers, with a big bunch of them gathering at Starbucks after purchase to get paid by the big boss.

Oh and here’s my iPad.

P.S. I’m going to Singapore Polytechnic in the morning for the notebook sales. Anyone there tomorrow feel free to drop by the Apple booth (Sapura) to say hi. Not bringing my iPad though. :p

I give up trying to find a job in Apple Singapore

Posted March 14th, 2012 by Ryu at 12:47 am in Apple Singapore, Editorial and Jobs. 6 Comments

Who am I kidding really? I was never really eligible for any position within Apple Singapore. I graduated with a BA in Communications and New Media, hardly something Apple Singapore wants. I don’t have a computer science degree, I don’t know Unix inside out, I don’t have call center work experience, The only vague Apple-related work experience is from my annual sales gig selling Macs to tertiary freshmen in the various polytechnics and universities, and well, all the nonsense I made Apple Singapore do for us when I was still president at MacNUS.

So yeah, on paper, I was no good. In reality, I am probably no good too.

I am probably really only half-decently-good at piecing together information from my various sources and churning out articles/posts that detail sometimes-decently-accurate information that Apple has no intend of letting the world know. And as any hardcore Apple fan know, that’s a surefire way to make the recruiters trash bin my resume the minute they spot my name.

During the first few years after graduating from the now-infamous-pro-PRC-anti-Singaporean NUS, I did try my best to get onto the interviewee list, and every single time I fail to get past the first/second stage. I failed the interview for the japanese language call centre support job “because I asked about what the 1-year contract entails”, I failed the interview for call centre support because I told them I was only available in one month, I even got cancelled for part-time work for processing Back to School Promo documents for the Taiwan store last minute, among other rejections at Apple (To my credit, the non-Apple interviews I went for are all pretty successful). I can’t even remember how many times I was at the Ang Mo Kio Campus for interviews already.

With all these rejections taking a toll on my confidence, “Applying for a job at Apple Singapore” eventually became “every few months, check the Apple Jobs site, send in a few automatic applications with the 3-year-old resume, and wait for a call”. And of course the calls usually don’t come.

Apple, Apple Singapore at least, does not seem to like to hire its diehard fans, usually preferring to hire “people with results” away from other PC companies through word of mouth, in particular IBM. It totally does not matter that their internal staff have absolutely no experience nor knowledge of the Mac platform, so long they can perform their job scopes, like sales or marketing, very well (to say the truth, their performance was suspect, but whatever).

It was thus music to my ears when the then Head of Education Sales informally offered to find me a job in Apple Singapore in my graduating year. He eventually did not find me a job. And sort of disappeared after that year.

As anyone around me for the past 8 years will know, I am a fanatic Steve Jobs supporter before I am an Apple fan, so maybe in this world where Steve is no longer around, my stubborn insistence on adding Apple Inc to my resume can end. I suspect I will still send in the occasional application, but it will not be the same.

I give up.

You can follow MacRyu at @ryuworks on Twitter and @ryu on App.net.

The Apple Store is Coming to Singapore

Posted March 11th, 2012 by Ryu at 1:22 pm in Apple Store. 20 Comments

Image Credits: RyuWorks on Flickr

Fact: the Apple Store (physical) for Singapore is almost ready.

For many years Japan was the only country in Asia with official Apple Stores, staffed by peeps wearing real Apple T shirts and geniuses who will solve all your Mac problems.Â

Then the China Apple Stores happened. And then so did the Hong Kong one.Â

In recent years, particularly around 2010, rumors have been rife that both Hong Kong and Singapore will be getting their own Apple Stores. The rumors kept everyone excited for a bit, but as time goes by and nothing happened, people forget.Â

Then in 2011, the Hong Kong Apple Store happened.Â

What happened to the Singapore Apple Store then, you wonder?

It is happening.Â

In recent months, I have heard whispers and chirpings from more than a few birdies that Apple’s business channels for the Apple Store in Singapore are under preparations, and that by now much have been done.Â

While the location of the Store remains a mystery, the expected period of its grand opening apparently isn’t. With some luck, Singapore will have our first Apple Store by end 2012.Â

Having an official Apple Store in Singapore is definitely exciting, but what does this mean for existing Apple resellers and consumers?

Fact: Apple do not really like their resellers much.

Resellers are a necessary evil to Apple, they ensure sales in locations and countries that Apple Retail cannot reach, and most of them, especially the APRs (Apple Premium Resellers), are even willing to have Apple dictate the design of their stores even if the APRs are the ones paying for the renovations. Selling through resellers, however, mean the Apple earns less profit compared to selling directly from its stores.Â

Thus for Apple Retail to enter Singapore, Apple will have to made conditions favorable for the official Apple Store to take away most of the retail profits from the current crop of Apple resellers in Singapore.Â

This usually mean putting more restrictions on what Apple resellers can or cannot do, for example the recent “no participation in IT bazaar shows” (nevertheless, nubox and Epicentre were still openly selling Macs at the recent IT Fair without being too showy about it), giving resellers even lesser stock of new products (they are already getting very little stock now, especially the non-APRs), and probably not allowing anymore new Apple resellers to happen (while trying to terminate the smaller resellers’ rights to resell).Â

Singapore has the largest number of Apple resellers in the region (so much so that people actually think Epicentre is the Apple Store), and for the Apple Store to take the lion’s share of the local market some of the resellers will have to go, it seems.Â

Nevertheless, I don’t expect Epicentre to be affected by this, since time and time again they have demonstrated that they have a lot of internal backing from Apple Singapore, for despite being the reseller to continuously break Apple’s very strict reseller rules with pleasure, they have rarely been punished. Seems that they are also heavily involved in Apple’s China operations.Â

Like the States though, the Apple booths in electronic chains like Harvey Norman and Challenger are apparently officially sanctioned by Apple, and are managed by a company (infinite) directly appointed by Apple. So these will definitely remain, and even thrive, in a future where there are Apple Stores in Singapore.Â

You might think all the above sound so terribly evil, but as a consumer, a future with a Singapore Apple Store is a much brighter future.Â

There are considerable benefits to be had from an official Apple Store as compared to normal resellers.Â

As far as I know, all Apple Stores in the world follow Apple’s 14-day return policy or purchases. This mean that should you be unhappy with your purchases, you can return your purchases for a full refund sans a small restocking fee.Â

If a product is refreshed with 14 days of your purchase, you can exchange your old product for the updated model. For example, if you bought an iPad 2 on the 13th and the iPad (3rd generation) is released in stores on the 16th, an exchange is totally possible in an official Apple Store.Â

Such exchanges and returns are just impossible at any Apple reseller.Â

Also, when Apple runs an official promotion like the annual Back To School promotion, you can enjoy the promotion directly at the official Apple Store, not so at the resellers.Â

When Apple announces a new product and keeps the current product while dropping its prices, like the $528 iPad 2 wifi for Singapore, an official Apple Store will update its prices immediately for existing stocks of iPad 2, while the last time I checked with certain resellers they were still selling the same model at $668 (Infinite-run booths and it’s Vivocity shop have the new prices already).Â

Other obvious benefits range from the superior experience shopping in an Apple Store, to much higher stock levels for new products, to availability of Apple Store-only products like the product (RED) iPods.Â

All in all, a very exciting future to look forward to. I can’t wait to go give my money to Apple at the Singapore Apple Store.Â

P.S. The second Hong Kong Apple Store is coming up soon too.Â

Edit on 14th Nov 2013: Chatter resurfaced recently. Apple Store Singapore is apparently being planned for Orchard Road, the area between Wheelock Place and Far East Shopping Centre/Hilton. Will update if or when I hear more.

You can follow MacRyu at @ryuworks on Twitter and @ryu on App.net.

Got questions about iOS 7 and the new iPhone 5s and 5c? Visit MacNet at sgmac.net today!

My iPad 3 Predictions

Posted March 5th, 2012 by Ryu at 3:47 pm in iPad 3. Closed

Wednesday night (or Thursday morning) is iPad 3 day, and here are my predictions;

1. No LTE

Sorry, but LTE is really just not feasible in anywhere besides the States right now. In fact, it really isn’t even that feasible within the States, where LTE coverage is really less than ideal.

2. Retina Display, 2X of the original iPad resolution

Given.

3. iPad 2 8GB, to accompany iPad 3 16GB, 32GB, 64GB.

Which means no 128GB. It’s really just part of Apple’s recent strategy, to continue selling old stuff for cheap. It’s really not new, Apple for years have continue to sell previous generation models through the “refurbished models” page on their site, and putting it out front and centre is just a way to sell even more of the old stock (though with the 8GB they probably have to modify the old stock).

4. Naming? iPad 3

No particular reason, I just like iPad 3 more than iPad 2S or iPad HD.

5. Apps to demo the iPad 3 on? Aperture for iPad

Dan Benjamin thinks it’s Photoshop Touch, but he really is mistaken. For the past don’t-know-how-many iPhone/iPad events, new Apple apps have always accompanied the release of the devices, and this one shouldn’t be any different. And it’s finally time for Aperture for the iPad, because iPhoto on the iPad will be really weird due to the presence of the Photos app.

6. Design? Almost exactly the same as iPad 2, slightly difference in thickness.

Given. Too many pieces of evidence lately.

7. Camera? 5MP

Why? Cause it’s cheap enough by now.

8. Accessories? “Works with Smart Cover!” New colors.

If the case design is largely the same, no reason why it won’t work with the current line of Smart Covers. The design of the Smart Cover is such that it will accommodate many future iPads so long the design of the iPad itself isn’t that big of a difference in terms of shape. New colors will just give everyone a reason to buy new Smart Covers, which is what Apple really wants.

9. OS version? iOS 5.1 with Siri

Seriously though, Siri is getting pretty slow these days, so it will only hurt if they put Siri on the iPad. But Apple always put its new software features and apps on every new device that they debut, so it’s highly possible.

10. Singapore Launch Date? 23rd March 2012, Friday

Seriously it’s a tie between the 23rd and the 30th, but I won’t be able to make it on the 30th. So I’m putting all hope on the 23rd! Peeps in US, Japan, Britain get theirs this coming Friday.

The iMessage Flaw (aka the iMessage Bug) Detailed and Explained (mostly)

Posted February 21st, 2012 by Ryu at 4:38 am in Apple, Bugs, iMessage, iOS, iPhone and iPhone 4S. 1 Comment

Man, this is going to be really long. How should I start?

So Apple introduced iMessage with iOS 5. Just like iOS 5 itself, there are, rather than calling them bugs, what I will term inconsistencies or ideas that aren’t very well thought-out before execution all over the OS, and iMessage’s authentication process is one of those.

iMessage itself is a wonderful idea, it relies on data only, is completely integrated in the what most think of as the SMS app, and most of all, is completely transparent to the clueless user.

You get your iPhone 4S (or any other iPhones capable of running iOS 5), pop in your sim card, your sim card then discreetly sends an SMS to Apple to register your phone number on iMessage’s servers, and from then on every time you try to SMS another iOS 5 user you wonder why the text bubble turned from green to blue. “Ah, maybe this iPhone is smart enough to detect which of my friends are cool as blue and which are green and boring”, you may think. And then you wonder why you are billed for 20 SMSes instead of the usual 5000 SMSes at the end of the month.

iMessage, therefore, really works, in typical Apple fashion, seamlessly.

Or does it?

For those in the know, iMessage works not just with your phone number, but with any email address-based Apple ID as well. If you set the iMessage Caller ID on your iPhone as your Apple ID instead of your phone number (non-iPhones can only use Apple IDs as Caller IDs), your iMessage conversations will magically duplicate themselves across all your iDevices (with the same Caller ID), including all your spare iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads (and your Macs too, with the new Messages.app beta). This is wonderful, for you can start a conversation on your iPhone and continue on your iPad. The confusion sets in when you, like others, by default, set your iPhone’s iMessage Caller ID to your phone number and start wondering if Apple’s advertising if iMessage as being able to sync across devices is bullshit. But then, this is a topic for another day.

In recent months there’s been reports about iMessage “malfunctioning” by sending messages to wrong parties or going missing, but most of those reports only painted a picture of the “symptoms” without going anywhere near addressing the real cause of these “symptoms”. Others, like theives-blog Gizmodo, only used the chance to throw shit on Apple. Too bad they don’t have any credibility left for anyone to believe their bullshit.

iMessage, however, does have a few problems stemming from their authentication and “pushing” process, and I will attempt, from the very limited knowledge I have, to detail what is happening and explain why.

I have personally tested iMessage extensively using a combination of phones and sim cards and below are the three scenarios I have encountered often. The phones I am using are the iPhone 4S which is my main phone, the Galaxy Nexus my spare phone, and another iPhone 3GS. I am using 3 sim cards, let’s call them Singtel, Starhub and M1 (which really are Singtel, Starhub and M1 sim cards). The Singtel is my main sim card with a 9-number, and the M1 is a prepaid sim card with a 8-number. The Starhub is a DATA-only sim card with a 8-number.

What are the possible problems?

Situation 1

I have been using the Singtel sim card in my iPhone 4S since the day I bought the phone, and iMessage is obviously activated with the Singtel 9-number. Recently I decided to test out ICS and switched out the Singtel sim card and started using it with the Galaxy Nexus. However, there is absolutely no way I can get any work done on Android with its crappy third party apps so I needed my 4S as well. To ensure it works properly I inserted the DATA only Starhub sim card into the 4S, without rebooting the phone even once. This causes a strange situation. Under Settings>Messages>Receive At, listed at the top is “Verifying 9-number(my Singtel sim)” and at nowhere is the Starhub 8-number listed there despite the Starhub sim card being inside the 4S at that very point of time. “Maybe iMessages sent to my Singtel 9-number will just fail and default to SMS then, since the 9-number isn’t verified”, or so I thought. Over the next few days, many have came up to me and asked why I didn’t reply their messages. I simply didn’t receive them on the Galaxy Nexus, which at that point of time was holding the Singtel 9-number sim card. I didn’t even receive them on the iPhone. I then reinserted the Singtel sim card into the iPhone, reactivated iMessage under the 9-number, but the messages never came through. They were all blackhole’d, sent to a dimension where humans don’t exist.

Situation 2

I was setting up my old iPhone 4 for my mum one day by restoring it through iTunes. When the activation screens came up, I just inserted my Singtel sim card to get through the activation screens as per pervious iOSes. Next thing I know, for the next few days, because my mum haven’t got around to getting her sim card transferred from her old phone to the iPhone 4, she was receiving every single one of my iMessages. And that’s like 20 threads per day, a few hundred messages every 24 hours.

Situation 3

In order to solve the problem of missing iMessages, I reactivated my iPhone 4S’s iMessage using the M1 sim card (iMessage was working properly when I tried to send messages to the M1’s 8-number). I then put my Singtel sim card in the Galaxy Nexus. So at this point of time my Singtel 9-number shouldn’t be associated with iMessage or any Apple devices. I waited 10 minutes just in case. Then I did the test.

I iMessaged the Singtel 9-number from my Mac using Messages.app with my Apple ID. It failed to send. Great.

I iMessaged the Singtel 9-number from my iPhone 3GS (using the Starhub 8-number). It failed to send. Great.

I iMessaged the Singtel 9-number from my brother’s iPhone 4S. It sent. And shown the message to be “delivered”. Of course the message is nowhere to be found on all my phones. Not good.

I got my friend KPS to iMessage the Singtel 9-number. It sent. And shown the message to be “delivered”. Of course the message is nowhere again. Not good at all.

I then iMessage the Singtel 9-number, again, using my mum’s iPhone 4. It fail to send. Whatever.

These three situations are extremely common in today’s world, and especially for Singaporeans since every 30-40 year old changes his or her phone every 6 months or so, and thus either have a large collection of old phones to switch sim cards on or regularly sell phones away to make room for new ones.

Consider Situation 2. Say you are a girl selling your iPhone 4 to some (creepy) old guy (let’s call him Thomas). You wiped (and by that I meant you restored your phone through iTunes, completely reformatting the phone) your phone and brought it to show Thomas at the nearby McDonalds. Thomas says, “Yeah it looks good, but I don’t know if the phone part of the phone is working. Can you show it to me? I don’t have a sim card with me though.” So you foolishly popped your sim card into the phone, and proceed to show Thomas that the phone actually works. Thomas happily paid you the money and took your phone. Unfortunately for you, Thomas never intended to put his own sim card into the phone. From the very moment you inserted your sim card into the wiped iPhone 4, Thomas has access to every single iMessage you sent, as well as every single iMessage sent to you. He will have a copy of all your sexting conversations with your boyfriend, your secret chats with your girlfriends, and the dirty chats you have with your best friend’s boyfriend with whom you are having an affair with. Thomas pwns you.

This is also a problem when you lose your phone, or if your phone is stolen. Yes you can remote wipe your iPhone by Find My iPhone, but because your sim card is still in the iPhone when the phone is being rebooted after a remote wipe, iMessage on the stolen phone will still be tied to your phone number. I imagine in this case, that one should firstly deactivate the sim card through your telco, before issuing the remote wipe. But all these is way too complicated for someone who just lost his or her precious iPhone.

Consider Situation 1. Say you are overseas, in a place like Hong Kong, where 3G prepaid sim cards are available for cheap. You want mobile internet, so you bought one, took your sim card out of your iPhone 4S and popped in the 3 3G sim card you just bought (3 is a carrier in Hong Kong, UK, and many places where democracy can be found. It’s never coming to Singapore.) without rebooting the phone. The mobile internet works, and you are happy. Are you really? After that one week of vacation, you return back to Singapore where a very angry girlfriend is screaming at you because you ignored all of her iMessages. But when you say you didn’t receive any messages she pulls out her iPhone, shows you the “delivered” status underneath every single text bubble she sent, and proceeds to give you one hell of a tight slap without any advance warning.

Solution for Situation 1

I somehow found out, through trial and error, that the “Verifying whatever number” error can be resolved simply by doing this.

After you inserted the new sim card, turn iMessage OFF. Then shut down your phone. Turn it on again, then turn on your iMessage. If it doesn’t work, turn off and on iMessage a few more times, it should work.

For some reason, unless you reboot the phone, iMessage never forces itself to recheck the phone number of the current sim card, and will instead try to verify if the current sim card has the same phone number of the previous sim card. When the phone’s iMessage is activated with the new number, your previous sim card should now not be associated with iMessage. But as we all know, Situation 3 happened. And cannot be resolved. It seems to be a problem of the iMessage servers holding on to the number-phone association for far longer than it should, despite the same phone now being activated with a new number. So if you are overseas and want to use a prepaid sim card with your iPhone 4S, pop in the new sim, do the above sequence, check that the iPhone 4S’s iMessage is activated with the new prepaid sim card number, then pray that the important messages go through via SMS to your spare phone (you do have a spare phone for overseas travel don’t you?) instead.

Solution for Situations 2 and 3

The solution for Situation 2 is simply not to put in your sim card once you restored that phone unless you are planning to use it again. Either that or you secretly want Thomas to read all your messages.

The solution for Situation 3? File a bug report with Apple here. Or go to their forums and scream and shout there.

You could always try to get most of your iPhone owning friends to message you through your Apple ID instead and it will solve most of the “blackhole’d iMessages” problem, but clueless folks aren’t going to “SMS you on an email address”, so you will still get some iMessages sent to your phone number no matter what.

What is really causing all these problems? To answer that we have to first understand iMessage’s phone number registration/authentication process. When you first enter a new sim card, or set up your iPhone, there is a hidden SMS exchange to inform Apple’s iMessage servers that your iOS device is now registered to your phone number. This is probably also why when you enter the number of your friend who has an iOS 5 phone, iMessage’s servers will inform you that your friend is using iMessage by turning the color of your friend’s number from green to blue.

If you ever pop in a new sim card, you will need to toggle and reboot the phone in order to force a new phone number registration process as I have detailed earlier.

The problem with the registration process, however, is that when you removed the sim card, Apple’s servers aren’t notified by the same hidden SMS exchange. Well, there’s really no way to notify (by SMS anyway), since when you removed that sim card the iPhone has no way of sending a SMS.

This is why, should you ever remove the original sim card from your phone, say for example, if I removed the Singtel 9-number sim card from my iPhone 4S, and just leave the iPhone on wifi without inserting a new sim card, my iPhone will still receive iMessages sent to my Singtel 9-number despite the sim card not being in the iPhone.

Thus maybe one solution will be to have the iPhone scan for the presence of a sim card, and if it isn’t in the phone iMessage should then just default to using an Apple ID instead, but maybe that in itself will cause other problems.

The problem identified in Situation 3 could be explained if for some reason, some of Apple’s servers were holding on to a certain number-device association even after that certain device has now been activated with a new number, and maybe deletion of that original number-device association isn’t done cleanly across all of Apple’s servers. And this seems to be something Apple definitely has to fix on their end.(I seriously show my lack of knowledge on this part of the problem, argh)

Despite all these problems/flaws, iMessage certainly is crazily popular among the masses, for in every ten messages I receive, only one is green. Apple will have to improve their iMessage implementation though out iOS 5’s lifetime for sure, and hopefully by iOS 6 it will truly become flawless(okay now you know that’s bullshit right? No software and service is flawless. But whatever.)

You can follow MacRyu at @ryuworks on Twitter and @ryu on App.net.

How to insult your Android-using friends / relatives this Christmas / New Year / Chinese New Year

Posted December 24th, 2011 by Ryu at 12:38 am in Editorial, Humor, iOS and iPhone. 1 Comment

So it’s the festive season again. If you are like me, this holiday is the perfect chance to tease, insult, those who have chosen, for whatever reason, to stand on Google’s side and use an Android.

Unlike some lesser countries it’s highly unlikely you will ever find yourself in a situation where the number of iPhone owners present is not at least 3 times the number of Android users present, unless there are only two of you or all your friends (I certainly hope not) are lifeless nerds.

Thus, almost always any public teasing of an Android user in the group will serve to both entertain the crowd, and possibly persuade those on the wrong side to start giving excuses like “Oh my 3GS dropped into the toilet bowl and I had to use this because it’s free”.

This list of fine insults will be constantly updated every time I think of something, but for now they will have to do. Don’t follow exactly, be flexible. Be smart about your insults. It always help to do them with a smile on your face. ^_^

Here goes.

General platform-based attacks, if you want to be lazy

“Wahâ€¦ Your OS is so ugly. What kind of font is that? So messyâ€¦. This back button do what one? (Tap the touchscreen buttons carelessly so you will purposely miss activating the buttons a few times, then look frustrated) Wahâ€¦.. So hard to use! Why like that one? The apps are so fuglyâ€¦ Even my ugliest iOS twitter app is nicer than all the twitter apps you have.”

Then, check if the Google Marketplace has been updated to the ICS-ish version. If it has, it’s bound to be laggy. Start doing some fast taps and swiping and once it starts lagging turn the phone around and show everyone else.

“Wahâ€¦ Is this Google’s App Store? So confusing! How to navigate? Where to find my apps that have an update? (If your friend shows you how to access the updatable apps area, then on purpose tap the back button once or twice to get out of the area, then turn around to your friend and say) Eh gone? How to go back ah? Why so hard to go back one? How much did you pay for it again”

If they are using anything other than the Galaxy Nexus (which if you are in Singapore, most likely they won”t) then use the Gingerbread attack

“Wahâ€¦ your phone’s software is so updated leh. Wasn’t Gingerbread ANNOUNCED in Oct 2010? (If your friend has a phone that’s only a few months old, like the Arc series or the Galaxy S2) My (his/her or anyone who has an old iPhone in the group) 3GS/iPhone 4 has a much newer OS than yours do. What kind of a new phone is that? How much did you pay for it again?”

Anytime they answer “Free”, you say this

“No wonder la. Cheap stuff crappy. Google OS is free so it’s crappy. Lousy stuff. Why you so cheapskate?”

If they answer “400+” or something expensive

“Why did you spend your money on something like this?”

And if it’s a samsung device or something that looks plasticky

“Cheap plastic all aroundâ€¦ CMI designâ€¦ It’s worth 400???”

Anytime you want to challenge camera capabilities, it’s almost obvious that the iPhone 4/4S will win. To make it more obvious, do the challenge at night. Then also try to invert the front and back cameras and then say this.

“Wah how to change to front camera? (After your friend shows you) Why so difficult one? Sadâ€¦”

Next, Battery life insults

No wonder what you think of your 4S’ battery life, just insist that the Android phone has pathetic battery life. Because it usually does. If the fellow tries to bullshit you just go with this.

“Ehâ€¦ You lifeless ah? Might as well just get a dumb Nokia phone la. Why buy a smartphone?”

If they tries to argue that it’s their careful power management techniques that gives them decent battery life.

“Wahâ€¦ see? You really lifeless. You have so much time to do silly things like turning off switches when you don’t need wifi”

Model specific insults

For large-screen phones (Anything above 4″, such as the Razr, the Galaxy S2, the Xperia Arc and Arc clones, except the Galaxy Nexus):

“Do you have swollen fingers? (smile, and ask like you are really puzzled) Is that why you can’t type properly on an iPhone and need such an oversized keyboard?”

or “Do you have terrible vision? (ask with a really serious face) Why do you need such a LOW res, large screen to see your SMSes on?”

Very obviously, if the phone has smaller than iPhone-size screens then laugh at the pathetic size. Or if it has broken rubber port covers then laugh at those too.

Always follow up on insults by touting some good features of iOS that Android users don’t have. My favorite is iMessage.

“iMessage is really fast and good. It’s like I’m SMSing and MMSing people but I don’t pay anything.”

You have to stop here, and DO NOT MENTION WHATSAPP, because this is a lure to make your Android silly friend mention WHATSAPP. Once he/she does, counterattack.

“Whatsapp? It’s so slow and pathetic! Sometimes always cannot connect one. Got server errors and downtimes. It’s really pathetic. The reason why I keep Whatsapp on my phone is for the benefit of the less fortunate people in society. People without access to iOS 5 are so unfortunate. Sometimes it helps to do some charity for these less fortunate people.”

I seem to remember having at least one more insult to type, but my brain is so dead now I guess all these will have to do for now.

Before I go though, some reminders.

Change to dialect, rephrase the insults, add new ideas. Do whatever you want to make the insult more effective.

Always remember that some people will just be better at insulting people than others. If you aren’t good at it, it’s best not to try. You might become a laughing stock once you failed to carry it through.

“Best Cases for the iPhone 4S in Singapore” review series – Fabrix Cases’ Fifth October (Steve Jobs Tribute) Sleeve for the iPhone 4S

Posted November 8th, 2011 by Ryu at 1:44 am in Cases/Sleeves, iPhone 4S and Review. 0 Comments

Fabrix Cases sent me one of their latest sleeves, the special edition Fifth October sleeve.

The Fifth October sleeve is a special edition sleeve designed and made as a tribute to Steve Jobs, the greatest among us who have ever lived, who gave meaning to many people’s lives, including my own.

Fifth October, the name of the sleeve, is the day he left us. A day that I, and many others, will remember for the rest of our lives.

The Fifth October sleeve’s design is pretty self explanatory to those of us in the know. Black Top with Denim Bottoms, Steve’s choice of wardrobe most of the time.

Each sleeve comes in a nice box, and inside every box is a small card printed with one of Steve’s many memorable quotes. Mine says;

The sleeve itself, like other Fabrix Cases’ sleeves, is top notch in quality and made to last. I have reviewed one of their sleeves before here and everything in that review still stands true today.

The Fifth October special edition Steve Jobs Tribute sleeve retails for only 10USD, because Fabrix Cases “believe that every and anyone who would like to own it should be able to do so without a pinch” and is available here.

The 2011 M1 iPhone 4S Launch

Posted October 29th, 2011 by Ryu at 3:59 pm in iPhone 4S, Launch, M1 and Singapore. 0 Comments

While I didn’t go to any of the launches myself, that doesn’t mean no one went to one on my behalf.

The guy arguably is a lousy photographer with a really outdated camera phone, but it beats having nothing at all.

Here’s two shots from the M1 Paragon Launch on the evening of the 27th.

And here’s the shot from the Ang Mo Kio Hub M1 Branch launch on the morning of the 28th.

These launches are always the same every year that it gets really boring to put any serious effort to reporting them. Unless, of course, you want to be engadget, or you have too much free time on your hands.