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Hello my name is Graham Royston, I work in the entertaiment industry for a large cinema chain. I love taking photo's/video and creating things. 

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Entries in apple (5)

Sunday
Oct092011

What a week

Wow, what a week it's been. So much happening and no time to blog. Work has had me tied up all this week which delayed me making a very important post. I think Lotti is gonna forget what I look like soon. So time being precious i'll try to keep it short but there were few things I saw to talk about in between one of the longest weeks of work ever. 

Swimming 

Me n Lotti made our 1st visit to the gym we joined last week. We just used the pool. It's a public pool which might turn out to be a pain in the ass. People who go aren't really serious swimmers or even aware of other people in the bloody pool! It isn't hard is it? I stick to my lane and you stick to yours. Nope, for some reason they feel they have the right to swim in my lane even though i've been there for the last 20 mins grrr. Think i'll stick to swimming when everyone else is at work or school. Rant over. Having said all that so far i'm very happy with the facilities so far, should be using the actual gym area next week after my induction. Having a gym membership again has given me motivation to get a bit fitter.  

TV

We are now officially into the winter season which is usual perceived as bad news to most people especially us in the UK as it's when the weather turn decidedly miserable. The good news is that TV get's good :). New seasons start to run. I've been watching two of my favourites Castle and Merlin please to say both are off to a good start. I caught the last episode of Dr Who in the week. It was ok, don't think it lived upto the build up it had through the season. It just created more questions. Best episode of the season was the week before last with James Corden. Still loving the show though, bring on next season. 

Gaming

The Battlefield 3 beta has begin for XBL gold member so i've had a few rounds on that. Looks promising, keep a look out on the blog i'll do a mini review erm.. at some point. 

Weather

It was officially crazy weather this week. This time last weekend the weather was the hottest we've seen all year. I even cracked out the shorts, something i'm not really know for, whilst we walked down to Blackpool to watch the final fireworks show of the year. Not a bad show btw but Australia really did show us all how it's done. From a heat wave within a day or two we were hit with some intense storms. I was caught in one on Thursday night. I was driving down the M65, this sky was literally pitch black then all of a sudden I was blinded a massive flash of white light which covered the entire sky. I was sure lightening had struck close to me. The strange thing was no thunder. The light was so harsh in the darkness it took my eye a second or to to re-adjust. Then a band of hailstone came down so hard that I could see past the car bonnet.. weird but very cool ;0).

Strange Happenings

Had the strangest thing happen to me this week. I was clearing out a storeroom at work and came across a stack of photo's. One set was photo's of a night out with the staff of the place I work years ago. I instantly reconised the location in the 1st photo it was Utopia, the 1st Nightclub I worked at. As I flicked through there was a photo of the bar I used to run and would you Adam and eve it? There was a photo of me behind the bar working! mental, I must have been arround 19/20 when that photo was taken. It brought back some good memories. 

Music

New albums i've bee n checking out are the latest from Ed Shernan & James Morrison both are very solid albums. They're both great chillin albums you should check em out. I've also been listening to David Guetta's album. It's a fun album to listen to in the car, especial with the windows down and the volume up. The tracks which are collaborations are by far the best. Check out Nothing Really Matters with Will.I.am, not what I expected but loved it. When you get to disc 2 stuff it gets a little too hardcore for me. 

Iphone 4S

Defiantly the highlight of my week. Apple announced there latest iphone. I'm not gonna talk about it here i'm putting together a 2nd post to put together my thoughts on what we saw. Check out this post where I talk about my excitement for Apple events. 

Sad News

Can't really submit this post to without mentioning the death of Steve Jobs after battling cancer for years. I've said all that I need to say on this post. But none the less we lost a great man this week. 

Ok, time to sign off, i'm thinking I need to blog more in the week so I don't have to write such long post at the end of the week. I'll see if time permits, watch this space. 

Have a good week

G

Monday
Oct032011

It's that time of year again...

Once a year I get very very excited! It's a special time of year were people of all walks of life come together to celebrate a joyous occasion. They will go to bed early the day before getting a good nights sleep in preparation of the big day ahead. All the excitement culminating in the receiving of something very special.

NO i'm not talking about Christmas, that's for kids! I'm talking about something much cooler, the launch day of the new iphone! Whilst there is no release date or even confirmation a new phone is about to be released, tech blogs are on fire regurgitating any wild rumour they hear on a daily basis. Unless you've been doing peace work in a war torn country or simply you have an actual life, you would have heard that invitations have been sent out for an Apple event being held on there own campus on Tuesday 4th October. This my friends can only mean one thing, it's time for them to announce the next iphone! BOOM :D 

 

The invitations simply read "Let's talk iphone". Brilliant, you've really got to admire the Apple marketing department as they really know how to create hype through saying very little. This however could mean so many things, not necessarly an brand new device but it could just be about ISO 5.0 update for example. Of course any Apple fan would bet their 1st born that a new phone is about to be released but will it be a semi upgrade release in the form of an iphone 4S or a more substantial iphone 5 launch? We are about to find out but my money is on the latter.  So as every tech blog in world worth it's .COM domain name is doing, I thought I would give you a little heads up about the various rumours floating around and add my 2cents in. Here we go... 

  • Faster - Not really stunning news but always welcome. The new phone will almost definitely contain the latest A5 processor currently running in the ipad 2. This ones a no brainer but hey ho there you go. 
  • Assistant - Now this one has me very excited if it becomes real. In a nutshell the new phone is expected to have some very sophisticated voice recognition software inside, very similar to the one found in android powered phones. This function is said to be deeply tied into core functions of the phone such as the GPS, web browser, email, phone and SMS programs. This will mean you can talk to your phone to carry a wide range of tasks such as compose and send an text message, dial a contact or conceivably book a hotel room all by using just your voice. The likelihood of this one is looking good as Apple bought the company pioneering this technology, Siri some time ago but no results have been seen from this acquisition, just yet. Since then there have also been rumors that Apple are trying to tie up a partnership deal with Nuance who are market leaders in this field. Slightly bad news on this excitiing new feature is that it will only be availible on the new hand set, so if you want your own personal atomus assisant you have to upgrade... shocker ;0)
  • New design - Tones of photo's from manufacturing companies have been posted on the interwebs depicting spare parts for the new handset which clearly show that the new iphone will be a different form factor. Most speculation is around the new iphone being thinner with a tapered back. Some evidence is suggesting the new handset will have a large 4.5' screen but the jury is still out on that one, whilst a bigger screen would be nice the extra power required and subsequent reduction in standby time might be a deal breaker.  I'm a fan of the current glass front and back design but I get why there is a call for this to be changed. There's only so many time you can pay to have the glass back replaced because you keep dropping your phone 3 feet. My favorite photo is the artist impression photo's from Mac Rumours if one of these came into being I would be a happy chappy. 
  • Better Camera - Another obvious one but one i'm very pleased to hear about.  I love using my iphone to snap photo especially on instagram. I don't think Apple themselves expected their iphone to become such a prolific contributor to the world of photography.  Quiet rightly the iphone camera is considered to be the best smart phone camera and better than some point-n-shoots. A higher resolution camera can only help with the adoption for photography enthusiast.

Some people make an event out of The Oscars or even the final of XFactor, for me my Oscar party is the Apple announcement.  I'll take over any device that has a screen in my home and fill them with live blogs from the event from different sources and any bootleg live stream's from a brave developer in the audience who has the stones to face his webcam at the stage. I know it's seriously sad but I love it.  Watching as the rumor mill goes into overdrive, as we lead up to the offical announment event is crazy. Every tech blog trys to out do each other with who can produce the most fantastical rediculous rumors. Then the tech pundits spend hours debating the merits of each rumour exploring a) the likelihood of said rumour coming true b) would it be a good thing if it happened. Of course after all the hype the announcment comes! The new iphone is unveiled faster, shinnnier and slimmer than it's predicesor. We must have it my precious, and as we follow the breaking news with baited breath we wait to hear not the price, the price doesn't matter, we just want to hear WHEN Mr Steve Jobs, When!? (moment of silence for his Jobsness stepping down as CEO).

See we've not even got up to buying the dam thing yet and we're having a ball. Launch day is another big day. Fan's will go down super early. Some will have been queuing for almost a week just to have the prestigious award of being 1st in-line. Silly Americans don't they know Apple stores in Austrailia have been open sellig iphone for hours by now? The whole thing fasinates me. When do we ever see a line of perfectly inteligent, learned people queuing outside an O2 store in the pouring rain since 2am just for a phone!? and don't forget the bloody Morarola Razor was massivly popular. And i'd also like to make a bet now to all you iphone users out there especially the ones with an iphone 4 in your pocket, right now your thinking this is the greatest phone in the world with absolutely nothing wrong with it. But once that new phone is released the once faithful companion will now become a clunky piece of junk ;0)

So I know where I'd be tomorrow eveing where will you be? having tea, watching TV, problably doing something much more normal but if you are interested in following the event here's some places i'll be keeping an eye in for breaking news.

  • Twit.TV - Live commentry from the king of tech Leo Laporte from his personal little empire.
  • MacRumors - no 1 stop shop for all things apple related. Macroumors will be live blogging from the event
  • Engadget - Another live blog. If your a tech fan then you already know this site.
  • Twitter - Of course there's good old twitter the river of all realtime info. Just do a simple search to get in on the conversation and breaking news. You can guarantee a hashtag will be trending tomorrow.

So the fun kicks of at 6pm GMT tomorrow, no matter what tomorrow brings it's sure to be some good news and fingers cross we'll have IOS 5.0 availible to download by the end of the day. Before I get off just want to ask will you be buying the new phone? and if you are, are you in the comfortable position of being out of any contract or you going to be selling off anything you can get your grubby hands on to pay through the nose to get your hands on it?  

This is my Christmas 

God bless us everyone

Thursday
Jan062011

Review - Mac App Store

Here's a very quick look around Apple brand spanking new App store the the Mac. 

As always I wanna hear you thoughts in the comments below.

Happy shopping 

G

Tuesday
Nov162010

Push Notifications come to Official Twitter App (video)

Short Video on todays update to the official twitter iphone app.

Graham

Thursday
Jan282010

Ipad is here

Finally Apple have announced there new 'tablet' device. It's called the ipad. Unfortunately I couldn't follow the live coverage as I had to work so I was picking up bits of info and what I was hearing wasn't really floating my boat.

Having gotten home and took proper look at the coverage from Engadget, Gizmodo, Twit.tv and the official apple video's I now really want one.

Now lets be clear I know I have an Imac, Macbook and Iphone so I can't possible need this device for any reason but guess what... I don't care! I admit part of my want for this is simply because its cool. Having said that I can see this being very usable in my house. I can envision it having pride of place in the living room ready to go when its needed. I can even see it replacing the macbook as we already have the imac for when a real computer is required. 

Price is very affordable, having said that no official UK prices have been announced. Like the Iphone the apps are going to be the driving force behind this device and if the apps already developed for the Iphone are anything to go by we are in for a treat. 

I do think it remains to be seen weather or not this device will take off but I have a feeling when people start to get their hand on these things they wont be able to resist the affordable and stylish ipad.

Ok thats my thoughts on the ipad, please feel free to post your thoughts bellow. 

Peace out 

G