Khaled rambles technology, tea/coffee, consumer rights and other interest from Saudi Arabia

April 17, 2010

iPhone OS 4

Filed under: General — Tags: , — Khaled A. @ 3:00 am

Apple has previewed their next iPhone OS, make sure to watch the video.

As a member of the iPhone developer program I have access to iPhone OS 4 beta and got to try it. Of course I can’t talk about the details in respect of the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) I agreed to when I signed up. I can say this: Apple continues to incrementally improve their phone operating system, something Nokia should have done many years ago.

Check out the official iPhone OS 4 preview page on Apple’s site.

Something should be clear: this is a software update, do not expect Apple to reveal the next hardware until June (WWDC 2010) and don’t bother believing any of the rumor sites.

I hope Mobily will get the next iPhone to Saudi Arabia earlier this time.

February 25, 2010

Horrible STC DSL and Mobily iPhone 3GS problems

Filed under: General — Tags: , , , — Khaled A. @ 1:43 am

For over an hour I have been staring at my Linksys DSL modem status. The DSL connection is “Up”, Downstream is 8190 Kbps, Upstream is 486 Kbps and QoS is UBR which I assume is UBER which is supposed to be good (since I’m offline I can’t even go and check). Everything seems to be okay yet somehow the gateway interface is “DOWN” and has been down for almost 2 hours.

The fact that DSL connection up means that the signal should be good, yet somehow I cannot “dial in” the beloved STC Afaq DSL servers. That’s the only assumption I have: STC’s servers simply can’t handle the load and they should buy some servers already!

Why did I reboot the DSL modem in the first place? Because the Upstream was only 100Kbps and it made accessing the web slower. That’s it: I won’t reboot my modem even if the Upstream was 1Kbps. It’s not worth being offline for that.

Now we have Mobily: the iPhones in some parts of Riyadh are having problems connecting to Mobily’s cell towers. iPhones simply lose the cell network and stuck on “Searching”. So now I can’t even use the iPhone to connect to the Internet, leaving me offline for this night.

Update on Mobily: disabling 3G fixed it. Thanks Tom Merritt!

I will probably post this by the morning and hopefully Internet connection should be back.

Offline Update 1: Down for 3 hours.

January 21, 2010

My favorite iPhone Apps

Filed under: General — Tags: , — Khaled A. @ 8:00 am

I have made a list of my favorite iPhone Apps (some free, some aren’t). Make sure to check them out:

In English: My favorite iPhone apps in 2009.

And in Arabic: برامج الآيفون المفضلة لي في العام ٢٠٠٩.

November 28, 2009

Add points of interest to the Saudi map using Gowalla

Filed under: General — Tags: , , , , — Khaled A. @ 7:31 pm

I gave up on Google. After so many posts asking for Google to simply allow us to contribute to our own map, Saudi Arabia and UAE are still editable. The rest of the GCC: Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman have been available for a while. Of course the only alternative is not even good for that.

So I highly recommend using Gowalla to add points of interests in the Saudi map. It’s available as an iPhone app and you can read more about it at TechCrunch. A group of iPhone users in Saudi Arabia are already using Gowalla and we are slowly populating it with actual data!

I hope to see Gowalla’s data being used in other databases, but right now it is the only acceptable method of adding points of interests.

November 5, 2009

Mobily iPhone 3GS prices and release date

Filed under: News — Tags: , , — Khaled A. @ 6:02 pm

Update: iPhone 3GS in Saudi Arabia on November 7th. If you did not receive an SMS from mobily then you might have a problem with your pre-order!

Mobily’s iPhone 3GS will be sold in Saudi Arabia this Saturday November 7th 2009. The prices are out for the iPhone 3GS 32GB and 16GB models as well as iPhone 3G 8GB and can be found on SaudiMac.

Only people who reserved an iPhone 3GS on mobily’s site will be able to buy it on the first day.

October 24, 2009

iPhone 3GS by Etisalat October 27th

Filed under: News — Tags: , , — Khaled A. @ 3:53 pm

UAE’s Etisalat has posted on their website that the iPhone 3GS will be released on October 27th. This confirms what I said earlier that the iPhone 3GS by Mobily will be released on the same day.

iphone-3gs-etisalat

Follow SaudiMac (English) and (Arabic) sites for more updates.

تابعوا آخر التحديثات من موقع سعودي ماك.

October 16, 2009

iPhone 3GS in Saudi Arabia from Mobily on October 27th

Filed under: News — Tags: , , — Khaled A. @ 11:44 pm

Update 6: This could be the final update. iPhone 3GS in Saudi Arabia on November 7th. If you did not receive an SMS from mobily then you might have a problem with your pre-order!

Update 5: Mobily iPhone 3GS prices and release date. SaudiMac is having server problems from the webhost and we are working with them to get it back up.

Update 4: Mobily did not send an SMS regarding the iPhone 3GS until now, so there is a possibility that the iPhone 3GS won’t be released October 27th as expected. Did Etisalat UAE decide to abandon their Saudi partner?

Update 3: Mobily is now taking orders for the iPhone 3GS. موبايلي فتحت باب حجز جوال الآيفون الجديد في موقعها.

Update 2: Mobily issued a press release that they will release the iPhone 3GS (nothing new there).

Update: Etisalat has confirmed that they will launch the iPhone 3GS on the same day.

It is all but officially confirmed, the Apple iPhone 3GS will be available in Saudi Arabia officially by Mobily.

Etisalat and du in UAE are taking pre-orders for the iPhone 3GS. Du made a deal with Axiom, which is odd considering that Axiom is decieving Mobily and Apple in Saudi Arabia.

iphone-3g-s

I will keep you updated with what’s going to happen regarding the Saudi iPhone 3GS on SaudiMac and the Arabic edition سعودي ماك.

July 7, 2009

Where is the Mobily iPhone 3GS?

Filed under: General — Tags: , , — Khaled A. @ 12:52 am

Make sure to visit SaudiMac for more iPhone 3GS news.
تابعونا في موقع سعودي ماك لأخبار الآيفون.

Apple announced and released the iPhone 3GS last June. Saudi Arabia and UAE won’t get the iPhone 3GS until August 2009.

My theory (conspiracy theory) is because Mark Davis, Program Director for iPhone at etisalat was not quiet about the next iPhone. He said (in February 2009) “And the next version of the device, which is due out in June, will be launched in the UAE at the same time.” The next version of the device was released in June but it was not launched in the UAE at the same time, probably because you couldn’t make a real deal with Apple!

Another thing that annoys me is this, the iPhone 3G sold by Mobily is officially unlocked by Apple yet Mobily employees claim that it is locked until now! Here’s a message from a friend “the next iPhone 3GS would be locked As per mobily marketing team”. Locked?? against CITC‘s regulations regarding locked devices? Mobily need to get a clue on what they are doing!

We are closely approaching the iPhone 3GS release month (Mobily hasn’t announced a date) and Mobily hasn’t mde any announcements or even decide to reduce the prices of the current iPhone 3G!

One more thing, a Mobily employee did show me his iPhone 3GS that the company gave some of it’s employees for testing purposes. But there is nothing to test really, the iPhone 3GS is fully functional under Mobily, tethering and MMS work fine. I think he was just showing off. He didn’t know anything about the exact release date or price.

March 23, 2009

Remember this when buying an iPhone 3G from Mobily

Filed under: General — Tags: , , — Khaled A. @ 12:45 am

Mobily’s method of billing is always billed each month. No matter how late in the month you start your contract. For example they billed the 6 days between 22nd and 28th of February 2008 as a full month.

So remember to buy the iPhone 3G in Saudi Arabia from Mobily at the beginning of the month, the first 5 days if you ask me.

March 18, 2009

Finally, Arabic on the iPhone!

Filed under: News — Tags: , , , — Khaled A. @ 12:19 pm

Finally Apple added Arabic language support the their latest iPhone OS 3.0. This update is currently available as a beta for iPhone developers. The iPhone is now available in 4 Arabic speaking countries: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan and Egypt. And it will be available in Qatar soon. (via SaudiMac).

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