In order to hack Siri into iPhone 4, you will need to Jailbreak it first. Personally, I’m not a fan of Jailbreaking. Still prefer the official route.

Not sure what is Apple’s plans for Siri on iPhone 4 (and iPad 2). It seems like the hardware is able to run Siri without any problems. Maybe Apple wants to make Siri exclusive to iPhone 4S so that more people will buy it. Or maybe because Apple don’t want to overload their server by opening up to existing iPhone 4 and iPad 2 users now. Afterall, Siri is still in beta.

We shall wait and see. There’s rumors that Apple is testing Siri on iPhone 4. But then, like all Apple rumors, take it with a pinch of salt.

The iPod was announced on 23 October 2011 at a rented auditorium near Apple’s Cupertino campus.

The first iPod used a 5GB Toshiba hard drive, can store up to 1000 songs and has a battery life of 10 hours. It uses Firewire and is only supported on Mac.

The first iPod wasn’t a huge success. It cost $399 and does not have Windows support. It took Apple almost 1 1/2 years to sell 1 million iPods. But they managed to sell their 2nd million 6 months later. By end of 2004, Apple had sold 10 million iPod. And the rest is history…..

How to re-create it:
1) Lock a password protected iPad 2
2) Hold down power button until iPad 2 reaches turn off slider
3) Close Smart Cover
4) Open Smart Cover
5) Click cancel on the bottom of the screen

The good thing about this is that you can only access the last opened Apps. And if you are on the home screen before you lock your iPad 2, then whoever bypass the password using this method can only see what kind of apps you have on your iPad.

It’s not a very major flaw. Apple will definitely fix this bug soon in the next update. In the meantime, if you have anything confidential, just make sure you exit that app before locking your iPad 2. Or disable Smart Cover unlocking.

PS: This is not the first time Apple have such security flaw on their iOS. Previously there is a flaw which allows people to bypass iPhone password via the emergency call.

Actually, there’s no surprise in the announcement. Most of the things have been leaked previously. The iPhone 4S will have a A5 processor chip which is 2 times faster than the current iPhone 4. And dual core graphics which are said to be 7 times faster. This is good news for game developers.

iPhone 4S will come with improved antennas which allows it to intelligently switch between the 2 antennas between transmit and receive. I guess this is to address the antennagate issue. The new iPhone 4S will now support data download speed of up to 14.4Mbps (up from the 7.2 Mbps from iPhone 4).

The camera on the iPhone 4S is awesome. It’s a 8 megapixel (3264 x 2448) camera with back illuminated CMOS which allows 73% more light. There’s a IR filter for better colour accuracy. The camera has a f/2.4 aperture. And it’s 33% quicker to snap a photo. Starting up the camera is pretty fast too. It takes 1.1 seconds to take the first photo and 1/2 second for the second photo.

Apple is really focusing a lot on the camera. There’s a new image signal processor designed by Apple which enable face detection and 26% better white balance.

Video recording on the iPhone 4S is impressive too. You get 1080p HD video recording with video image stabilization and temporal noise reduction.

Another interesting feature on the iPhone 4S is Siri. Siri is a intelligent voice recognition assistant. You can ask him things like “What is the weather like today?” using speech and it will give you the correct answer. Alternatively, you can also ask “Do I need a raincoat today?” and Siri will respond accordingly based on the weather. Impressive. You can also get Siri to do more complicated stuff like finding a restaurant nearby, setting an alarm clock or ask for directions. Siri can also read your SMS messages for you. Siri gets better as you use it more often.

Not sure how well Siri will work with Singapore accent and local addresses. We will find out soon.

Personally, I think the best part of the announcement is that iPhone 4S will have the same form factor as the iPhone 4. This means that all the 3rd party accessories for iPhone 4 can be used on the new iPhone 4S. Existing iPhone 4 users will still get new 3rd party accessories which are suitable for their phone for at least a year.

The iPhone 4S will be launched in US on 14 Oct 2011.

And here comes the most important part. When will Singapore be getting the new iPhone 4S. Surprisingly, the date was announced during the keynote. Singapore is the 2nd batch of countries that is getting the new iPhone (as usual). iPhone 4S will be launched in Singapore on 28 Oct 2011. It is interesting to note that we are the 2nd Asian country to get the iPhone 4S. (Japan is getting the iPhone 4S on 14 Oct)

Oh, by the way, iPhone 4S comes in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB version and will be available in Black and White.

By the way, since Tim Cook is presenting this keynote, can we call it Timnotes instead of Stevenotes? Haha.

There won’t be any official live video streaming. Not sure if any of the attendees will be able to sneak live video out. But most of the time, those live video steaming won’t be very stable. Your best bet is the live blogs. Here’s some of the live blogs that I’ve found.

Engadget
gdgt
Cnet
Arstechnica
Gizmodo (Meta Blog)

OK, I’m not going to bore you with all the new iPhone rumors. I’m sure you have heard enough of them.

But I only got 1 wish for the next iPhone. Please keep the same form factor as iPhone 4. So that the existing iPhone 4 users will still get all the new 3rd party accessories.

If you remember, I blogged about th iPhone 10mb 3G download cap previously and mentioned how stupid it was.

Everyone is expecting Apple to release a Tablet. And I guess Apple have to release a Tablet tonight or rotten tomatoes will be thrown at them. (Kidding kidding) I think the last time an Apple keynote had so much rumors and excitement was when Apple announced the iPhone. We all know that is huge. And so most of us expect tonight’s keynote to be huge too.

I had this wild guess that Apple will release a colour E-Ink touchscreen tablet which is able to play video. But like I said, it’s a wild guess. E-Ink, as far as we know, aren’t able to produce fast refresh rate for video playback. Unless Apple had a breakthrough in E-Ink technology, I doubt we will see that tonight.

But what we should be expecting to see tonight is a tablet of roughly 10 inch. Definitely touchscreen. There should be some new services that comes together with the tablet. Something like magazine or newspaper subscription. A E-book reader is also highly possible. It might have a 3G SIM card slot for internet connection or be like the kindle where it comes with internet access out of the box. The tablet will most likely be running the next version of iPhone OS and might be able to run existing iPhone apps. We might see a few new gestures on how to interact with the tablet. I think we might see a new way to type on touchscreen. I doubt it would be a standard virtual keyboard you see on a iPhone. Unless Steve Jobs doesn’t want you to type while holding the device in your hands. Perhaps the virtual keyboard will be split into half and placed at the 2 corners so that your thumb can reach them.

There have been several rumors about the name of this tablet that Apple will be launching tonight. Some say it would be called the iPad. I highly doubt that this is possible. If you remember, Compaq (which now belongs to HP) has a PDA line call iPaq. Do you think Apple will launch a device that sound so similar to a PDA? After all, the tablet can be considered an oversized PDA. HP should be able to stop Apple from using iPad as it sound very similar to their product line. I guess the most likely name for the tablet is iSlate.

Having said all these, I still feel that tablet will not be a big hit. It just doesn’t fit into any category. There will be people who buy tablet, but it won’t be as popular as iPod or iPhone. But then, we never know. This is Apple we are talking about. They say that Steve Jobs is able to create things that you didn’t know you need.

So what will the announcement be tonight? We could only wait and see. If you are staying up tonight, join the Tech65 crew as we watch the Keynote together. 28 Jan 2010, 2am Singapore time. Bring your own pom poms.

PS: Everything I said here is based on my speculations. I don’t have any neighbour’s boyfriend’s sister’s classmate’s cousin working in Apple.

Update: Looks like Jason Calacanis‘ NDA is over and he is releasing some info about the Tablet that we will see tonight. Check out his tweets.

Tweet 1
Tweet 2
Tweet 3
Tweet 4
Tweet 5
Tweet 6
Tweet 7
Tweet 8
Tweet 9
Tweet 10

Interesting. 2 camera, one in front and one in back. Thumbpads on each side for mouse guestures, reads fingerprint for security. OLED. WAIT! Did he say solar pad for recharging?!?!?! Expected to sell at $599, $699 and $799 depending on size and memory

Update: Jason is pulling our legs

The HP Mini is used for Plurking and twittering. Surprised that there are quite a few of us staying up and reading the keynote. Had a great discussion with Bernard, Miccheng and Dorothy on plurk.

My iMac, as usual, is used to read sites like Macrumors, Engadget and Gizmodo. But halfway thru the keynote, some hackers managed to bring down Macrumors. Damn. Macrumors is always the best site for all the Apple keynote. They are usually the fastest and most stable.

I managed to find a ustream that is streaming live from the keynote. Although the camera wasn’t pointing at the stage, it is good enough just to hear the things that are happening at the keynote. I managed to dig out my headphone and plug it into my iMac so that I won’t disturb my neighbors. But sad to say, the live stream went down towards the end of the keynote. So I went back to reading from Engadget and Gizmodo.

Plurk and twitter survived thru the keynote without crashing. Well done guys.

The rumors this time round aren’t really accurate. No announcement of new Mac Mini or iMac. No new iPhone or iPhone Nano (expected). No talk about Snow Leopard.
But there is an update on iLife and iWork. iWork going online to fight with google docs. But sad to say, it will be a paid service.
iTunes store get variable pricing and DRM free. iTunes store on iPhone can now download songs over 3G. (But none of those concerns us as we don’t have iTunes in Singapore)
And the new 17 inch MacBook Pro. 8 hr battery life, but non user replaceable battery. Give and take ba.

Interestingly, the keynote ended with Tony Bennett singing The Best Is Yet To Come. Is this a hint or something?