Not everything that will run on the iPhone 4 and 4S (which have superior video processors) will do so on the iPod touch, but most items, including GarageBand, will. Don’t expect the more graphics-intensive iMovie with its real-time video capture and splicing. Similarly, you don’t get the Siri voice-recognition app on the iPod touch version of iOS5 (as you do for the iPhone 4S).

The 960x640-pixel widescreen is ideal for gaming. With your Apple ID you can log in, create a gaming alias and do battle with friends. The Games Centre allows you to play online with friends and to issue friend requests based on who’s in your contacts list. When a friend accepts your request , you get a triumphant ‘do-do-do-doo-do-doo’. 

Music is, of course, still central to the iPod touch. Album art is displayed by default. Fingertip control of the volume – Apple has sensibly stuck with a large blob on a slider for this – and playlist creation is a breeze. You can delete items from a playlist as well as editing them, making it easy to lose the filler tracks on an album, for example.

The usual white ‘earbud’ earphones are included in the package, but you’ll want a better pair in order to enjoy the impressive audio that the touch can produce. We had to try very hard to introduce any note of distortion. It may be just 7mm thick, but the iPod touch can withstand being turned up to the max without noticeable vibrations or other aural discomfort.

There’s a new Newsstand icon where subscriptions to magazines and newspapers live. Click on the Newsstand icon on your iPod and browse the list of magazine titles available. Note that while there are many titles listed as ‘free’, most actually initiate a paid-for rolling subscription.

Contacts, reminders and email have been subtly improved, while Notes tapped out on other iOS devices are automatically synched to your email account once iCloud is set up. FaceTime works by calling a contact from your phone menu. When they pick up, a video call is initiated and the touch’s camera trains itself on you.

The touch’s camera is noticeably faster than before. You can’t quite take shots in burst mode, but we got suitable sharp shots of a highly detailed greyscale image that we quickly zoomed in and out of.  Colour reproduction tends to saturate elements, but is well-balanced.

Photos, video and other visuals all look absolutely great on the iPod touch’s screen, of course: it has the sharpest pixel pitch of any portable entertainment device. The resolution is a muted 960-x720 pixels, though.  
Items in the Photo menu now become part of your Photostream. Non-Mac users will still have the import images manually once the iPod touch shows up in Windows as a portable device.

Essentially, then, the iPod touch continues to be a lightweight but serious alternative to the iPhone. It weighs 102g compared with the 138g of the iPhone 3GS or the 141g of the iPhone 4 and is even more wafer-thin than the previous iPod touch player. A by-product of this, however, seems to be an increased susceptibility to scratches.

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The number of people waking up on Christmas Day to receive an Apple iPad 2 could rocket once the results of a new poll become known. According to the new Sunday Times Tech List's best gadgets of the year study, the new winner of the title is the Elgato EyeTV mobile.

This is described as a feature that allows users to watch and record their favourite television shows from a Freeview platform. Consumers do not even need an internet connection in order to take advantage of the technology, which could appeal to fans of the small screen.

The newspaper noted that such praise could now lead to thousands of "gadget-mad Britons" asking Santa for the popular tablet device and then using it to watch the Queen's speech on December 25th. Anthony Williams, creative director at The Comic Stripper, recently said the release of the Apple iPad 2 has revolutionised the way comic readers access their favourite publications.

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Have you made up your holiday shopping list yet—and will tablet computers be on it? We surveyed consumers to find out which of several hot-ticket items they were planning to buy as gifts this year. And not surprising, many must-have gifts on Americans’ 2011 shopping list are electronics devices and gadgets.

We found that 17 percent of respondents planned to buy an Apple iPad as a gift this year—and 10 percent plan to purchase the newly released Amazon Kindle Fire tablet. The kids aren't left out of the tablet frenzy: The Leapfrog LeapPad, billed as a rugged learning tablet for children, is on 14 percent of our survey responders' lists. (Look for a CR story comparing kids' tablets from four different manufacturers, including the LeapPad, coming soon.)

We had some other digital toys on the list, too. Nine percent of our respondents plan to buy a Sesame Street Let’s Rock! Elmo (a singing, instrument-playing Elmo for preschoolers) as a gift, and 7 percent will be shopping for a Fisher-Price Sing-A-Ma-Jig--whimsical characters, aimed kids age 3 to 6, that move their mouths and sing.

As for smart phones, ten percent of survey respondents said they’ll be buying the new Apple iPhone 4S. And 3D TVs and Internet TVs each will appear on 7 percent of responders' lists.

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There may be some disappointment today regarding the Apple recall of first generation iPod nanos. When news of the worldwide recall due to a battery issue first came to light there was a lot of talk that the replacements could well be the latest iPod nano. However it seems that’s not to be and that Apple will instead be supplying iPod nano 1G replacements, a move that may disappoint the owners concerned.

News of the recall came at the weekend when original iPod nano owners found that there was a small risk of the device’s battery overheating with a possibility that it could actually catch on fire. Apple asked owners of the iPod nanos concerned to stop using them and detailed that the devices concerned in the recall were first-generation iPod nanos sold between September 2005 and December 2006. The Apple website said, “This issue has been traced to a single battery supplier that produced batteries with a manufacturing defect. While the possibility of an incident is rare, the likelihood increases as the battery ages.”

The recall does not affect any other iPod nanos than the first-generation models. You can check out the Apple iPod nano replacement program details here, as reported by Charlie White over on Mashable, and you’ll see that you can order a replacement via the web where your can check your iPod nano serial number to make sure it’s eligible for the replacement. Although a recall is a pain many consumers got pretty excited about the idea of being able to replace their 5-year-old iPod nanos with a shiny brand new one, especially as the consensus seemed to be that the replacements issued may be the latest iPod nanos.

Mashable for example, said that while it had not been confirmed which replacement models would be sent, they presumed that Apple wouldn’t be digging up old iPod nano saying “If our guess is correct, you’ll be able to trade in that old beat-up and scratched-up iPod for a shiny new one.” A report on Beatweek also spoke about the iPod nano 1G replacement program and while saying it was not yet clear which model consumers would be receiving instead also said, “Apple ceased selling the black and white hued original nano five years ago. The company likely kept some stock around for inventory replacement for at least another year, but any trace of first gen nano inventory is long gone by now. So unless Apple has taken the extraordinary (and expensive) step of putting the original nano back into limited production just to fulfill this replacement program, participants are likely to receive something much more modern in return.”

Sadly though a later update on Mashable points out that they attempted to contact Apple officials with the question of replacements with no success. When they eventually contacted Apple Support and asked if replacements would be new iPod nanos they were told “Your guess is a good as mine.” Finally however they did receive further communication from Apple who confirmed that the replacements from the company would be first-generation iPod nanos. This news will no doubt disappoint many who had hoped for a free trade up to a later iPod nano. At least though if you find a first-gen nano that you’d forgotten about you’ll be able to get a shiny new replacement even if its not the latest model.

We’d like to hear your thought on this. Did you get excited about a more recent iPod nano replacement? Do you feel a bit letdown that you’ll be receiving an old model that hasn’t been sold in five years instead? Let us know with your comments.

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Everyone was biting their nails and full of excitement went Apple was ready to announce their new product line and talk about potentially launching a new version of the iPhone. Everyone was ready for the iPhone 5 and would have lined up to buy one. The Apple iPhone 5 release was canceled just a few months before the actual release of the iPhone 4S.

A tech industry insider was interviewed by one of the best technology scoop finding publications out there, Business Insider. The story is still a bit of a rumor mill but this person has been credible in the past and provided insider knowledge. So if the iPhone 5 was canceled before it’s launch, who canceled it? It’s been suggested that it was a call by Steve Jobs to postpone the iPhone 5 release. Apple employee rumors state that Steve Jobs could have been unhappy with how the prototype of iPhone 5 had a bigger screen and it paired it up against the tablet leader, the iPad.

The truth is no one really can verifty why the iPhone 5 release date was postponed but the more interesting dirt on this whole issue is what could have been. What could you have been playing with in your iPhone 5 with features that the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S don’t carry?

The things that your iPhone 4S doesn’t have but your iPhone 5 probably would have had were things like a larger screen that was 4 inches diagonally. The screen was to be bigger but it also is rumored that it would have had better colors and better quality. Liquid metal was supposed to be part of the iPhone 5 production line so that the iPhone would have different colors, skin deep, no matter how much it was scratched. The backs of the iPhone 5 were suppose to have aluminum backs that resembled the iPad 2. The familiar home button on iPhones for the iPhone 5 wasn’t physical and could reboot the phone. Just like every evolution of sexy Apple devices the iPhone 5 was to be slimmer and flatter. A thinner iPhone 5 was going to be the new trend but in fact, you got that fat iPhone 4S.

We have to be completely honest, the Business Insider did a great job of scooping this story but it’s just a rumor for now. The industry insider has rarely ever produced information that wasn’t true and he talks of testing and using an actual prototype. The most important thing to take from all of these potentials for a failed iPhone 5 release is that you can expect the next version of iPhone to have these attributes. People will be behind the new tech trends as soon as the iPhone 5 hits the market and already new iPhone 5 release dates and being rumored on the streets.

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Consumers may be disappointed that the iPhone 4S is not a redesigned iPhone 5, but it's not really surprising that Apple stuck with a design that was universally lauded when first unveiled last year. Lightweight, slim, and elegant, the iPhone 4 in one year made the company more money than most people will make in a lifetime.

The iPhone 4S may look like the iPhone 4 and - as long as the 4 is up-to-date - run the same operating system, but there are loads of differences. All of them are relatively minor on an individual basis, but they add up.

Siri: intelligent voice assistant

The biggest change from the iPhone 4 to the 4S is undoubtedly the inclusion of 'intelligent voice assistant', Siri. Siri is an app integrated into the phone that can understand voice commands, even if the commands are said in informal language. Siri is also rather sassy - so much so that blogs have been dedicated to the funny things it replies with when you say something silly or inappropriate. If you ask Siri, "Did you fart?" it says, "No comment." If you say, "I hate you", it says, "I'm trying my best."

But Siri can do a lot more than respond to your toilet humour. I was extremely sceptical about Siri, as I am about all voice recognition services, but the app, when adjusted so that English (Australia) is the default language, works remarkably well with a strong Kiwi accent. I could dictate messages and as long as I didn't mumble (and sometimes even if I did) Siri would translate it perfectly.

Siri can send text messages, set reminders and alarms, take notes and more if you ask it to, and you can phrase your question in multiple ways. Not only that, but if you tell Siri that, for example, Zara is your boss, Siri will add that to your list of relationships and remember it if you say "Siri, call my boss". The amount of effort required is minimal, and it really is much easier than searching through contacts to find the right person. The applications for blind people, in particular, are tremendous.

The app can also act as a search engine, if you want it to, with the help of Google and WolframAlpha. Ask it, "What is the gravity on Mercury?" and Siri brings up a WolframAlpha page within the app, without opening your browser.

One of Siri's most exciting features - searching for businesses, such as by asking "Siri, where can I get great Mexican food in Auckland?" or "Siri, can you recommend a masseuse?" - is currently available only in the US. Apple hasn't provided a rollout date for this feature in New Zealand as yet.

Hardware changes from iPhone 4

Because of Siri, the microphone and speaker both have to be very clear, which means call quality on the iPhone 4S is fantastic. No calls were dropped thanks to the 4S's dual antennas, but keep in mind that we were using the Telecom XT network in Cenrtal Auckland, and experiences may vary.

The rest of the hardware of the iPhone 4S has also had an upgrade, although most people won't be able to tell by looking at the outside of the phone. Pick it up, though, and you'll immediately notice the extra weight that the 4S's new dual-core A5 processor gives to the device. The iPhone 4S is certainly snappy and responsive, although the new processor does get noticeably hot at times.

The camera is also vastly improved on the iPhone 4's - photos from smartphones are finally getting to the point where I could take a picture on my phone that are of a high enough quality to use in print media. The camera is comparable to the stellar Carl Zeiss lenses that have been used on Nokia's N8 and N9, and also quicker to take pictures. It's so quick, actually, that sometimes I wasn't aware that I'd taken more than one picture of the same thing. The only disappointment is that colours, particularly reds, are slightly washed out, so brightly coloured things look just slightly duller on screen than they do in real life.

It's disappointing, because the iPhone 4S's screen is fantastic. The device has a 3.5-inch, 960 by 640 pixel display, so individual pixels are too small to be visible and the colours on the home screen are vibrant. However, a lot of Android phones that have released recently have had an upgrade to up to four inches in screen size, so the 3.5-inch iPhone screen is getting a little small comparitively.

That said, the screen is big enough to use Apple's own video calling service, FaceTime, comfortably and in relatively high quality. Over a Wi-Fi connection the frame rate is high and the quality of the front-facing camera isn't bad, at least compared to your average webcam. Of course, you can only use FaceTime with people using other Apple products, like the iPad 2. It's also a little tougher to find the app this time around - on the iPad 2, FaceTime had its own icon, but on the iPhone 4S it's integrated into your contacts. Once you choose a contact from your phonebook, a FaceTime button will appear underneath their phone number. It's a little tougher to figure out, and I'm not sure why Apple chose stronger OS integration over ease of use.

iCloud: sharing over Apple devices

One new addition to the iPhone 4S's native operating system, iOS 5, is the ability to use iCloud. Again, this requires more than one Apple device, such as a MacBook, iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad. Of all the things I experimented with using the 4S, iCloud was the most frustrating to set up. Both devices - I was using an iPad 2 - need to be logged into the same iCloud account, which can be done through the iCloud settings. The rest of iCloud's settings, however, are scattered all over: some are in the Store section of the settings, others are in the Photos section. They're also named different things, so I had to consult the Apple website to get a good idea of what features actually worked with iCloud and how to turn them on. Only stuff downloaded (or photos taken) after the set up will be uploaded to the iCloud. Allow for about half an hour of set up and mild confusion, though, and you'll manage to sync everything up and have access to up to 5GB of your media on all your Apple devices.

Other features and final thoughts

Another handy feature is the ability to easily play video from your iPhone to your high definition TV, using either an Apple TV box or Apple's iPhone-to-HDMI adaptor. This means you can download a video from iTunes, connect your iPhone, and play it right away on a big screen. Unfortunately, the video doesn't necessarily scale up very well, as we discovered after downloading a music video and connecting it to a 42-inch screen. Watching a music video, or a home video, would be acceptable as it's generally only a few minutes, but you wouldn't want to watch a whole movie.

While many people have been reporting battery issues with the iOS5, with the 4S losing up to 10% of its power per hour while on standby, I didn't experience any issues with battery life whatsoever (before or after the 5.0.1 update). Even with location services turned on for every app that could use it, the battery lasted more than two days without needing a recharge, even with heavy use of tougher features like GPS, Wi-Fi, and Siri. I acknowledge these problems exist, but I can't mark the phone down based on an issue I didn't have.

The iPhone is a bit of an institution in the smartphone market, and each one certainly improves upon the last. If you like iOS over Android or WP7 but are still rocking a 3GS, it could be time to upgrade. If you've got an iPhone 4, you still might want to consider it for Siri alone. As an Android user, I'm loath to admit that Siri is a game changer. That sassy robotic Aussie voice has won this sceptic over.

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At the start of the relationship, things were great – you couldn't wait to take them home. But, over time, things changed - your interest levels dropped and you found yourself spending less and less time together. If this sounds a familiar situation, you may be an iPad owner: according to research by myvouchercodes.co.uk, a sizeable proportion of those with an Apple tablet get bored with their new device pretty quickly. When asked how often they use their tablets, 26 per cent of iPad owners said once a week, while another 11 per cent said with even less frequency.

Among those who said they only use their slate once a week, 46 per cent said they didn't think they got value for money from the hardware, and 27 per cent said they didn't use the device very often as they didn't see a need for it. According to the survey, 18 per cent of those using their iPad once a week would consider selling their iPad because they used it so infrequently.

Apple needn't be too put out, however – the survey also found that 42 per cent of iPad users turn to their tablet every day. Apple sold 11 million iPads during the most recent financial quarter - a 166 per cent increase year-on-year and a record for the company.

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Today marks the 10th anniversary of the iPod. More than 300 million have been produced and sold as of October, according to Apple. Walter Isaacson, the man who wrote Steve Jobs: A Biography, said with the iPod, Steve Jobs changed the music industry, changed Apple and really changed the world.

"Steve Jobs was able to transform whole industries by putting inventive things together, and the iPod is the best example," he said. Isaacson talked of the white earbuds that seemed to sprout like weeds from people's ears. He said the iPod really changed the relationship people have with music, from one focused on building an album collection in your home, to one that focused on building a song collection in your pocket.

And he did it in a beautiful way. "It became part of your digital lifestyle. No longer was your music collection something you kept at home, it became something you kept as part of your digital lifestyle," Isaacson said. "I think putting together technology and art is the value added in our era," and that's what Steve Jobs did.

Just the fact that today can even be the 10th anniversary of the iPod is a tribute to Jobs. In mid 2001, Jobs said the iPod would launch before Christmas. Most of his colleagues told him it would never happen, but it did. "He bent reality and did it. Could he have been kidner and gentler and sweeter in the process? Probably so. But when I asked him about it, he said that's not who I am."

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When the iPhone 5 reaches its release date next year it’ll arrive, like all iPhones and iPads before it, without the mobile Flash Player. The difference is that any Android based phones and tablets arriving next year will be sans-Flash as well, as Flash maker Adobe announced today that mobile Flash has been discontinued. Adobe instead says mobile developers should use HMTL5, the same technology which Apple has been championing as a Flash alternative for a few years. This also means that Flash must die on the desktop, as website developers will need to cease using Flash across the board in order to ensure that mobile users never encounter it. It’s a victory not just for Apple but for the late Steve Jobs specifically, who publicly railed against Flash as being a buggy, insecure, resource-draining, outdated technology in an open letter a couple years ago. It puts the iPhone 5 in position to not have to fend off competing devices which ran Flash very poorly, but technically ran it nonetheless. And it leaves Android manufacturers, who had been using Flash as a marketing point, sulking while they look for their next marketing angle…

Apple’s argument for leaving Flash off the iPhone and iPad all these years was that while Adobe’s mobile Flash player existed, it crashed frequently and drained a mobile device’s battery unacceptably quickly. But that didn’t stop competing Android based devices from not only including mobile Flash, but building their marketing campaigns around Flash. That seemed to be a tenuous position, both because of how poorly Flash runs on mobile devices and because Adobe’s recent moves with new technologies like EDGE hinted that the company was leaning toward leaving Flash behind in favor of HTML 5. Now, Android makers are left holding the bag, having heavily marketed their devices as “Flash compatible” and now left having to explain to customers why, once the current and final mobile Flash iteration fades away, there’s no Flash after all. That leaves Apple with one less thing to worry about as it prepares to launch the iPhone 5 with a release date somewhere near the center of 2012…

In the bigger picture, the real burden is on website developers who’ve relied on Flash as a crutch, either because it’s part of their ideology, or because they don’t have the skills to use anything else, or because they’re lazy, or because the website proprietor had been insisting on it. Regardless of the prior reasons, the Flash era is now over. Officially killed on mobile devices, also dead on desktops as a result. With the long-obsolete Flash no longer available at a marketing tool, one has to wonder if Android manufacturers might now turn their attention to adding a floppy drive or some other equally outdated technology they can brag about having. In the mean time, chalk it up to a posthumous victory for Steve Jobs, who fought hard to convince the world to move beyond Flash to HTML 5. And those eyeing next year’s iPhone 5 should feel some excitement at the notion that web developers now have no choice but to begin removing Flash from all corners of the internet and replacing it with more modern web components which the iPhone and iPad will have no trouble displaying. Here’s more on the iPhone 5.

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A German court granted a preliminary injunction against Apple Inc in a patent infringement case that banned the California company from selling some devices in Germany.

But the ruling should not impact Apple's sales in Germany as the company sells all its product there through a local subsidiary, which was not covered by the injunction.

The district court in Mannheim, Germany, said on Friday Apple may not sell certain mobile devices in Germany that infringe on two Motorola Mobility patents related to wireless technology. If Apple does sell the devices, it has to pay a fine of up to 250,000 euros, according to the court.

"This is a procedural issue and has nothing to do with the merits of the case," Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet said on Monday. "It does not affect our ability to sell products or do business in Germany at this time."

Motorola Mobility is in the process of being acquired by Internet search giant Google Inc, which is also a major player in the mobile market through its Android operating system.

Apple is already embroiled in multiple patent infringement battles with rival mobile handset makers -- primarily against Samsung Electronics -- in the United States and other countries. Its main wireless devices include the iPad and iPhone.

Apple has scored preliminary injunctions against some Samsung products in Germany and the Netherlands, and is seeking to block sales of Samsung models in the United States, the key smartphone battleground.

"Motorola Mobility's patented technologies are increasingly important for innovation within the wireless and communications industries," Motorola said in a statement in response to the German ruling.

"We will continue to assert ourselves in the protection of these assets, while also ensuring that our technologies are widely available to end-users. We hope that we are able to resolve this matter, so we can focus on creating great innovations that benefit the industry."

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