Use Siri for Directions in South Africa

Update:
It appears in iOS 7.0.6 that you can ask Siri for directions to any of your contacts(if you've added their address to them) or a specific address. Asking for directions to the closest restaurant still isn't supported.

Update:
As of iOS 7 , this work around sadly no longer works :'(

You all know by now, Siri for iOS (iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad) is a wonderful feature where we can ask her, or him, to do some things for us such as run timers, set reminders, cancel meetings, look for notes, remember who's your daddy, etc. Of course you can also ask her for directions to your friends' place, to a city, some landmark or any address in your contacts. And if you try, you'll probably get something like this:

A big fat NO in your face.
If Apple doesn't support your country with directions for Siri you get nothing.
Although you can manually get directions in Apple Maps and it works okayishly. In South Africa we do have Maps support, meaning we can look for places using Maps through Siri but it wont help you get there automatically, you'd have to do a few taps in the Maps app for that and you will be able to get Voice Guided Navigation which is officially supported by Apple in South Africa.

When looking at iOS Feature Availability you'll see under the Siri section that "Siri Directions" is only available to 14 countries, none of which is named South Africa, Siri just told us when we tried. In contrast Maps Directions is available to about 96 countries and Standard Maps is available to about 181 countries.

So people, we just can't have a mini electronic creature giving us our directions here in good ol' South Africa ...

unless you know how to fool said creature , which is surprisingly easy.

Here I've successfully gotten the darn thing to get me directions to Soweto, as an example of a local area. Why don't you go ahead and try do the same thing if you can, it's quite simple. It's very possible to look for business's listed and get directions to them or even local restaurants, or to your work(if for some reason you don't know how to get there) through Siri.

The trick is not to ask for directions but rather to get a result of the distance between two places.

Such as "What is the distance between 'here' and 'work' ?"

The Trick

And that's all there is to it, you can use this method for restaurants and business's

Directions to a nearby Spur and a specific company

So you ask for the distance between here and where you want to go, Siri will think about it for a bit and suddenly you will start being guided to your destination as Apple intended, indirectly. Go now and good luck playing around with Siri and Directions in South Africa unofficially!!

Water and Life

Recently I moved to a new home with a fairly better garden than my previous home but it was quite dead looking and dried up. It was initially my girlfriend Christina's idea to rejuvenate and improve the garden. So during the middle of Winter it bagan.
Let picture depict quintessence lest words be scanty.

All it took for the difference is some water every day or two to bring back life to these plants and the rain from the past couple of weeks really helped out , some of the smaller plants that we've added have just begun to sprout.

iPhone users are better off with Apple Maps

Yes that is right, users of iPhones are better off with the in house mapping solution from Apple. Just not right now.

As a regular consumer this is of course an insane notion, you have the chance of getting lost or confused with the new maps app. That's how it is and it is what it is. You don't know what it is until you see what it is and sadly wee seen it.

Now that we've seen it directly are you seeing everything else? Regular consumers will not agree or relate to my opinions. Yes it is a fact that to the vast majority the iOS 6 Maps is a spectacular fail. I don't deny it I accept it.

"Sometimes it takes a step back to take two steps forward"

What I do not agree with in another light is a Mapping software that is better on one device than it is on another, Google Maps. Albeit this is a double edge sword philosophy.

You can agree to be a company that gives free software to everyone , open source, non restricted, total unchained freedom to users. You can even provide your software for your competitor and even have it as  a standard feature, sounds familiar right , sounds amazing in fact. You can say that your software is the best at what can do and it's free. There are restrictions to your software however only by hardware levels according to devices. Lets go with 3 levels of hardware and with two or three manufacturers. Google Nexus One(2010) made by HTC, Google Galaxy Nexus(2011) made by Samsung, Samsung Galaxy S3(2012) and the iPhone(2007), iPhone 4(2010), iPhone 4S(2011) and iPhone 5(2012).

It's hard to pick phones which use Android since there are so many, although there are few which are that good hardware wise and which are actually branded by Google which makes things kinda fair to compare.

You could pair them Nexus One vs iPhone 4, Galaxy Nexus vs iPhone 4S and Galaxy S3 vs iPhone 5. You then can compare the iPhone 3GS with its other iPhone brothers you'll see why this makes sense soon.

The first time Google was seen to have their Maps on a mobile multi touch device was on the iPhone. And it was wonderful, you could zoom in and out with the touch of your fingers man! And on a device that could fit in your pocket that was cool stuff , first on the iPhone in 2007 five years ago. Even though it was on the iPhone it was googles software. Just some software running on some hardware right? Happens all the time. Then some new hardware came out and google could do some new tricks like 3D buildings, Navigation with voice and visual guidance. Fantastic enhancements. Now we all know google loves their customers and that's why we've hit all these cool things to use , everyone can use them and best of all its free! Free for everyone! Where the hardware is available on the device you have everything. And not just one manufacturer takes advantage of this. HTC has a piece of the action, Samsung of course , Motorola yes , Acer , Asus , Panasonic, LG , Huawei , Sony. I'm just talking software and Apple is no exception not at all I mean they had it first , YouTube , Google Maps and Google Search built right in on the original iPhone. Google is concerned about their customers even if they use an iPhone. There's just one strange thing. Google Maps is not quite the same on the iPhone 4 as it is on the Nexus One which is in the se hardware tier I mentioned before. Neither is it on par on the iPhone 4S and the Galaxy Nexus. The fact is the original iPhone and the iPhone 4S has the exact same mapping Software that comes standard with the Hardware. And that went on for 5 years. And do not be mistaken in believing this is Apples fault here, Google Maps belongs to no one but Google. Ever since Android was acquired by Google and adapted for touch interfacing there has been some strife between Apple and Google , mostly from Apple. However the lack of features from Google Maps on iPhone since 2007 can be seen as the same conflict on Googles side. It is war on both ends and Google fought well , Trojan Horse style ladies and gentlemen. We could have seen improved Google Maps on iPhone years ago comparative to other devices such as the Nexus One and S3 with features like Turn by Turn Navigation but it was held back on Googles terms.

Here's an Article from TechCrunch
http://tcrn.ch/UJxEsK
Detailing a report from AllThingsD's sources that Apple requested turn by turn navigation from Google but were reluctant to "give up a key competitive advantage for Android. Google also wanted more control over Maps on iOS and its attendant features, including clear Google branding within the native iOS maps app, and the addition of friend-finding geolocation service Google Latitude. Apple didn’t want Google having so much access to users of its platforms, the report says, hence the eventually decision to part ways."

Double edge sword.

Google wanted more and Apple wanted more and neither were willing to compromise and in the end Apple customers were compromised.So Apple creates their own solution with technology acquired and agreements from other mapping specialists and ,on paper, has something truly exquisite that has most of the features it's been withheld from Google but unfortunately has fundamental problems.

It's better for Apple to have their own built in Maps software on the platform they created , iOS. It wasn't working either way with Google Maps as standard software. Yes, on the basic level, the maps were working without any hitches but it was behind on every other level with the lack of advanced features Google gave to its Android users.

For the first time in 5 years Apple has turn by turn navigation as a standard feature only because they did it themselves.Sometimes it takes a step back to take two steps forward and that's what Apple is doing and it will be better for us as consumers so that indirectly Google doesn't screw us. Google is making an app for iOS as they did with their YouTube app(which also never saw improvements), who knows when that will be released and with what features, we may not need it when Apple Maps is really ready.

iPad Tethering on Vodacom

Update:
As of iOS 7 , Personal Hotspot has been enabled by default on MTN and Vodacom.
I can't say for sure if it on Cell C or Telkom Mobile , but it's probably also enabled.

There's been a fair struggle with Vodacom users relative to tethering their New iPad's.
It just doesn't seem to be there no matter how many times you try different settings or reboot the tablet. Why?

Personal Hotspot, the missing setting

The Truth About Tethering ... on Vodacom.

When the iPhone 4 was released in South Africa in 2010 it came with a feature called "Personal Hotspot" , previously on the iPhone 3G and 3GS it was known as "Tethering" where you could share your iPhone's data connection to your computer through a connected USB cable or through Bluetooth or both.
With the iPhone 4 though , you could share the data connection with WIFI as well and this works on Vodacom right now, there may be an issue for some users with the iPhone 4S but I'll come to that later. The iPad( ofcourse only the 3G/Cellular models ) has never had Tethering or Personal Hotspot until the release of the "New iPad", only the New iPad , not iPad 2.  For Tethering or Personal Hotspot to function at all, you first need the correct Access Point Name(APN) to be entered into some settings on the device.

In some countries there is a charge for using Tethering on a mobile device like an iPhone or iPad, lucky for us Vodacom and other ISP's in South Africa don't charge for it and I don't see why they should since using one data connection for multiple devices consumes more data resulting in the need for more data.

Using Vodacom that APN would be "iphone.vodacom.za" . However , this does not work for the New iPad. The reason it's not functioning is actually not a fault by Vodacom, Apple is restricting the iphone.vodacom.za APN and Vodacom needs Apple's blessing in order for their subscribers to use Personal Hotspot on the New iPad regardless if the feature works on the iPhone. Vodacom is currently in negotiations with Apple on a high level to bring Personal Hotspot  to the New iPad on Vodacom and from what I heard from it's going well , we should see the feature enabled on New iPads on Vodacom later on , they couldn't give me an ETA on when this will happen.

For some users the problem with Personal Hotspot on the New iPad is also effecting the iPhone 4S.
Confusing isn't but there you go , works on iPhone 4 but not 4S . I am not certain but this may be an iOS 5/6 difference for the iPhone 4S.

If you do want to use this feature on the New iPad, using 8ta or Cell C works quite fine, might need to reboot your device after editing the APN but it sure does work. I can't say if it works on MTN or Virgin Mobile but i'm guessing it does. The APN for 8ta and Cell C is "internet" , for Virgin Mobile it would be vdata, probably need to chop that Virgin Mobile SIM to fit.

iPhone 4 MTN vs Vodacom

As you may be aware, the iPhone 4 has finally come to our dorpies in good
ol' SA and was launched by MTN and Vodacom with Midnight Launch Things.
From what I've read MTN had a spectacular show compared to Vodacom's dismal approach.

This blog at Zahira.co.za describes how MTN targeted specific people and
how well they managed their event relative to technology

Cape Town Girl also describes how holograms were present at MTN's launch
and the type of crowd who were invited , like popular tech bloggers such as Marc Forrest
and everyone could try out the phone and have a decent relative conversation with each other
because everyone was in the same mindset. What I found to be really cool was how they threw
in the #iYoba hashtag, now that's thought.

I have hardly seen anything blogged about Vodacom's launch but my impression was that they
just had an open party not much planning and most of the show was chilling until 12am.

I wasn't at any of the events sadly, wish I was though.

Now everyone's been blogging, micro blogging and chatting about the prices..
It looks like MTN K.O'd Vodacom with tags of:

R379(150MB data bundle) , R429 (300MB data bundle) for the 16GB iPhone with R200 "Airtime" per month.
R429 (150MB data bundle) , R479 (300MB data bundle) for the 32GB model with R200 "Airtime" per month.



Each package has the once off fee of R209
for the SIM and Connection story
and the iPhone is free, with terms and conditions ofcourse.
MTN iPhone deals


Initially Vodacom only had one offer on the table(and strangely has been selling out)

R925 per month for the 16GB , you get the iPhone for free on this high end package but
it is seriously high end.
It includes:
500 "Minutes"
250MB Data
100 SMS's
That is the iPhone 4 16GB on the Talk 500 package, Terms and conditions apply.
Vodacom iPhone 4 Deals

Update:
Vodacom now have another deal for the 32GB iPhone 4:
R364 per month on the Business Call  package
click here




If you're not aware there's a difference between "Airtime" and "Minutes".
Some packages offer you 200 Minutes whether it is off-peak only or anytime.
Now Airtime is not just for calling and spending minutes talking, Airtime is charged at a
specific rate which could change depending on peak or off-peak time.

The beauty of Airtime is that once your data runs out you don't immediately get additional
charges on your monthly bill but instead are billed from the included Airtime,
same goes for SMS.
Once you've depleted your included SMS bundle it will be deducted off the included Airtime.
So if you play your cards right you can decide to be an SMSer a Surfer or a Caller in priority.
Pretty cool right?

Anyway as of tonight Vodacom has matched MTN's offers
albeit with subtle differences in Data and Airtime.

R379 per month gets you:
R275 minutes of Airtime, not minutes,
110MB data
absolutely no bundled SMS's

That's the iPhone 16GB free on the Top Up 275s Package, terms and conditions apply.
At the moment the Vodacom site doesn't state whether you get 275 Minutes or R275 Airtime.
But consider "Talk" packages are the one's that come with Minutes and "Top Up"
packages are the one's with Airtime.




Now I've been phoning around and around about the iPhone 4 at various stores.
You can purchase the iPhone 4 in cash without a contract if you so wish.
from Vodacom and MTN you can pick it up from around R8200 - R10000 for the 16GB.
I say R10000 because when I phoned the Vodashop in Sandton City they had no idea how
much it costs and just hit a ballpark for 10k , mean while not too far away at the
Mandela Square the clued up lady who answered my phone call distinctly stated R8200 for 16GB

Other places like CaCell have it for +R10000 , but should drop soon as their current
prices are from the importing they've been doing.

Now the best I've seen for a cash deal is from Digicape:
R7219 for the 16GB , not on their site at present.

One insanely bizarre and annoying thing that's been happening is freakin' pre-ordering or
getting on a waiting list and still not getting anything because stock being sold out.
WTF

I signed up on that darn Vodacom pre order they had a few months back as soon as it appeared
and they sent me and alot of people an SMS saying, oops too bad but it was sold out any way.
What?? I mean we sign up for these things for more info and keep up to date but you still hear
about everything in blogs and tweets and not one damn peep from Vodacom's email or SMS systems.
Nee boet. I phoned Digicape in Sandton Yesterday Morning and registered on their site as well ages ago but they still went and sold out todays stock! Why Patricia Why!!??

My last interesting thing left I have to tell you is something I picked up today from MTN.
Vodacom isn't going to do this at this stage by the way.
On MTN , as you know , you can get the iPhone 4 16GB free for R379 per month.
Now , throw in R3700 and you can reduce your subscription to R200 per month.
I think it's R200 , it could be R250 or so , I can't remember what the MTN man said right now.
But that's another KO(ish) punch from MTN into Vodacoms already Blue face.

I can show some hectic tables and graphs on how much value this all works out for you per month
and per 24 months but i'm sure you can do the math.

Thanks for reading.
Peace.

on a side note, you don't actually get the phone free with those R379 deals.
The iPhone is being financed into the specific package over the 24 months.
That actually means you pay for the airtime , lets say on Vodacom, R275 x 24 = R6600 and then R104 x 24 = R2496 for the phone . hmmmm....

Vodacom and their useless Data Bundles

Last month I purchased a 2GB Data Bundle (Standard) for my prepaid number from Vodacom which

cost a hefty R389 the reason I purchased it was because I had a serious deadline for a website I was

building and needed the data as I wasn't at home or at the office where I have access to an ADSL line, now I purchased 2GB for the Rand/MB rate , I don't know who in their right mind wants to spend

R2 per MB especially when you're uploading lots of media or downloading it. 19 cents per MB is a lot better than R2 and unfortunately you need to spend over R300 for a bundle to get that rate. Granted that

Vodacom will be giving up to 50% more data for free on Bundles under 3GB starting on the 1st of May , which is quite nice you can read about it here , here and here , I will tell you something that will make you think twice about that.

When you're buying a data bundle from Vodacom , think carefully how you're going to use it because for you to make it worth while you have to use it all , when the time comes for it to expire (which can be confusing to figure out) you will lose every last kilobyte you didn't use and all your Rand you spent buying them. Take me for example two days from now I'm going to lose about 1.9GB of data , as it will expire and there's not a thing I can do about it. I want to try to use it all up if I can but so far I've only been able to use about 100MB from the bundle I purchased , mainly for that emergency I had with the deadline. 95% of my bundle will certainly go for waste and so will 95% of my money. In a fair world , or what I think should be fair , it should cost me R19.45 for the 100MB I used. Instead it will cost me R368,55 for the 100MB I used which equates to R3.70 per MB, fantastic deal from Vodacom. I will never buy a bundle ever again. If you're like me who thought you could extend your expire window by adding more data from buying another bundle you're wrong. And it's easy to have that misconception , if you're used to buying more prepaid data for your ADSL line , you will know that it wont expire at a certain date and be rendered void. I purchase prepaid data from Webafrica or Afrihost and that NEVER expires , and it costs much less. I should have just used the standard rate of R2 per MB and I wouldn't have been in this ridiculous situation with Vodacom, I've phoned them about options on how I can keep my data and extend my expire window and they just kept telling me how it will expire and it's how the network operates and I can't do a damn thing about it.

Here's a screenshot from my phone of my Data Balance

See how I've added 5MB , which has a completely separate expire date. Who ever thought that was cool should be pointed at and stared down in public constantly.

Why don't they let you extend the time for your bundle to expire? Why can't the support guys help me out? Why are they being so stuck up?

On the other hand with the "Advanced Data Bundles" Vodacom offers , which includes the "Out of bundle rate = In Bundle Rate" feature. it costs R4099 to get a rate of 20c per MB , how in Sam Hill does that work? Yes yes it's twice as fast as standard , cool awesome.
R389 for 19c/MB versus R4099 for 20c/MB . Yeah...
I'm not sure if I'm correct but according to this Vodacom states “The offer applies, regardless of whether the customer subscribes to a Data Contract or buys a once-off bundle to use on an ad-hoc basis and is available on both the Broadband Advanced and the Broadband Standard services,”
Excuse me if i'm wrong here , what the hell , the only "feature" the Advanced Data Bundle would offer is the out of bundle rate = in bundle rate

Take a look at this
According to what Vodacom said from the 1st of May things will look like this:
Using 2GB as the bundle

• For Advanced it will cost 23c/MB (if it costs R599 for 2GB adding 512MB free(2048+512=2560)
• For Standard it will cost 17c/MB (if it costs R389 for 2GB adding 307MB free(2048+307=2355)

If you're not going going out of your bundle which one would you pick? Remember both will be 14.4Mbps since someone(Vodacom) said
"available on both the Broadband Advanced and the Broadband Standard services"

Seriously why should there even be a charge for going out of your bundle? Is it because None of the ADSL ISP's offer the amazing benefit of going out of your bundle? Because I prefer those other ISP's who can let me buy my data at a far better rate with no flippin' out of bundle rate and no bundle expire date. Heck you can get unlimited data from Mweb and Afrihost for less. Thank you Vodacom for wasting my money you greedy rapist.

Follow Me CrimsonZA
complain to this guy


Peace.

iStat Menu's?

So for my first blog , ever .. I'm going to write up on a utility app called iStat Menus for Mac OS X because I find it fairly informative and useful every day and a Snow Leopard Version came out just recently.

As you can see from the screenies I've set up a basic configuration of menu's which display the CPU activity Fan Speed and CPU Temperature , upon clicking each of those menu bar items displays a plethora of useful info. I should also mention that I've replaced the standard clock (or stock clock) with the iStat Menus Clock which displays a handy calendar after you click on it. You can launch the iStat Menus Preference Pane from each of the menu's you add and some of them have shortcuts for some specific applications, the Disk Usage Menu has an alias for Disk Utility for instance.

iStat Menu's heart is in the System Preferences which is 64bit for those on 10.6 Snow Leopard. That is where you add and customize the items you'd like to see on your Menu Bar. Every Menu is fairly customizable such as the Clock
which you can edit the format to a far greater extent than you can with the Stock Clock, on the other hand you can't make it an analog clock if that's your thing but you can put an anolog clock next to the digital one by making the Stock one analog and keep the iStat Clock, not sure why you would want to try that though but it can be done.

I would recommend this application to anyone on a Mac who tends to monitor their computer's inner bits or just want to have a quick access calendar , yes there's iStat Pro in your dashboard already , fair enough but iStat Menus is always on your screen and if you have a dashboard full of widgets you can clear out that old dashboard iStat and throw on a new Menu look! If you enjoy using iStat Pro you should at least consider trying out iStat Menus.
It works well, it's reliable and it's light on the processor , go on and try it out for yourself.