Tim Cook...

Apple's CEO Tim Cook has announced he is gay. Samsung's CEO is expected to announce tomorrow he is waaay gayer.

Joan Baez...

Last night Stuart treated me to a night out to see American folk singer Joan Baez at the Royal Festival Hall on London's glitzy South Bank.

Moany Joanny (as I like to call her) was in fine fettle - telling jokes... singing other people's songs. OK, I'm doing her a slight disservice as she did sing her own songs too. But it was only in her interpretation of other people's songs like Imagine, The House Of The Rising Sun and Swing Low Sweet Chariot that made the gig really came to life for me.

I was in the minority though - the venue was sold out and the adoring, if aging, fans applauded and sang along to each and every song. Stu too was clapping his hands and beaming throughout. Bless him.

Her finale was a rousing rendition of Diamonds and Rust which is a corker of a song.

Baez has definitely been there and done that. A protest singer who has been imprisoned for her beliefs she continues to be a prominent songwriter, musician, and human rights activist.

Little known fact: Joan Baez dated Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs during the early 1980s.

IOS7...

Apple's new IOS7 does look a bit Micky Mouse. Reminds me of the Windows XP and Windows Vista makeovers. Oh well, I suppose I got used to those pretty quickly...

Apple Maps - 3D London Landmarks...

Apple's new iOS6 brings with it Apple Maps. Not quite as good as Google Maps but it's 3D images of central London are fab. You can fly down streets, twist and zoom around buildings. So close you can almost think you're looking in the windows.

iPhone 5...

iPhone5 is evolution not revolution. Bit taller, bit thinner, bit faster, bit lighter, bit better battery life, bit better camera, bit of a shame about the new smaller cable though. iOS6 has no built-in YouTube, no Google Maps but new Apple maps instead, passbook (a virtual wallet), shared photo streams, Siri can now update Facebook, and few other improvements. Same prices, same capacity, same colours. Out 21st Sept. iTunes has newish interface and iCloud built-in.

Or in techie terms:- 802.11 a/b/g/n, 802.11n 2.4GHz & 5GHz (dual band 5GHz) up to 150Mbps

A6 is 2x fast processor and 2x graphics

battery life is now 8 hrs 3G talktime, 3G browsing. 8hrs LTE browsing, 10 hrs Wi-Fi browsing, 10 hrs video, 40 hours Music. 225 hrs of standby.

camera 8 megapixel sensor, 3264x2448 resolution w/backside illumination, hybrid IR filter, five-element lens, f2.4 aperture. 25 percent smaller.

camera panorama function

video face-detection

take photos will recording

Facetime over cellular

3 microphones (front, back, bottom)

earpiece has noise-cancelling

new smaller connector

iOS6: no built-in YouTube, no Google Maps but new Apple maps instead, passbook (a virtual wallet), shared photo streams, few other improvements.

Same prices, same capacity, same colours.

iPhone 5 out 21st Sept

iOS6 out 19th Sept

iTunes has new interface

iPhone Tracker...

This is some of my tracking data that Apple's IOS has been collecting and storing on my iPhone. The recent IOS 4.3.3 update reduces the scope to 7 days and doesn't copy it to the backup folder on the computer anymore but before I install this update I thought I'd take a look where I'd been recently.

I have shown you the UK data only statically, but you can display the day by day movements too. The full world map also tracks me visiting Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Northern Ireland, Holland and Germany. Scary.