Game Over: Five Reasons the iPhone 5 Will Dominate

Apple reinvented the mobile phone, and revolutionized the smartphone when it introduced the iPhone. It has been surpassed in overall market share by the me-too, copycat Android OS, and Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 is a worthy challenger as well, but this fall Apple has an opportunity to set the bar for the industry once again, and leave the competition in the dust with the iPhone 5.
1. Verizon (et al). The iPhone 5 will be the first new iPhone model introduced since the exclusivity with AT&T ended (no, the white iPhone does not count--not even a little). The Verizon iPhone 4 has been a huge success anyway, but many Verizon customers held off knowing that a new iPhone is just around the corner, and not wanting to be shackled to an iPhone 4 with 18 months left on the contract. The new unlocked iPhones will make a difference as well.

2. iOS 5. Apple has already shared with us the details of iOS 5. The new iOS will finally free the iPhone (and iPad) from the PC--syncing and updating wirelessly instead of requiring a physical connection to a USB port. The improvements in the iOS mail client, the addition of iMessage, tabbed browsing in the default Safari browser, and the behavior of the Notification Center will all contribute to the success of the iPhone 5.

3. iCloud. Along with iOS 5, Apple will also officially launch iCloud around the same time the iPhone 5 is expected. iCloud will enable effortless, seamless syncing of email, files, music, contacts, calendars, and other content between the iPhone, iPad, and Windows or Mac PCs.

4. The Specs. The iPhone 5 is expected to (or rumored depending on your perspective) to use the same dual-core A5 processor Apple uses in the iPad 2. The processor really just plays catch up to the status quo rather than blowing rival smartphones away, but Apple somehow squeezes better performance and a superior experience out of equivalent, or even inferior hardware.

5. The Camera. The smartphone is quickly replacing the point and shoot, and emerging as the camera of choice for most consumers. It has already put the nail in the coffin of the Flip video camera. But, there is more to digital photos than maxing the megapixels, and most smartphone cameras take inferior quality photos. Speculation suggests that the iPhone 5 will have an 8 megapixel camera, with dual-LED flash for better low-light photography, and that the iPhone 5 camera will set the bar for smartphone photos.
Some of this is based on speculation--we don't really know what the camera functionality or hardware specs will be just yet. But, just the things we already know for a fact are enough to make the iPhone 5 the king of the hill and leave all smartphone competitors playing catch-up.
It will be like June of 2007 all over again.

When Will The iPhone 5 Actually Launch?

iPhone 5 have been circulating the net ever since Apple announced the next iteration of its mobile operating system, iOS 5, last June at the WWDC. Up to now, conflicting reports have said Apple might be planning either a September or an October release for the much-loved iDevice.

You may remember that although there were several major announcements made during the WWDC, particularly the iOS 5 and iCloud, there was nary a trace of news for the iPhone.  This makes the event a peculiar one since for three previous years/events, there has always been something up Mr. Job’s sleeve especially when his iPhone baby is concerned.

This void – this lack of official announcement – from Apple creates a furor of rumors fueled by the frenzy of the media to get the “freshest” bit of news and to get one up against competitors which may hint on the true release date of the iPhone 5.
The latest of the rumors, as reported in The Guardian, involved some “highly secured” boxes allegedly containing iPhone 5 prototypes shipped to carriers for network compatibility testing. Logically, with this report we would assume that the iPhone may be released in September because when these network compatibility tests are finished and positive results are achieved, the iPhone 5 goes into mass production by Apple’s partners, Foxconn and Pegatron. So why delay the inevitable release when Apple could cash in on the frenzy and capitalize on the public’s clamor for next “IT” phone, right?

Another theory supporting the September release is the report about an alleged email from an AT&T employee claiming that the carrier is denying vacation request from employees during the last two weeks of September – because of an event blackout. This is similar, the employee said, to vacation requests being denied during the same period in prior years when a new iPhone was released.

On the other hand, some quarters, like an article from AllThingsD, claiming insider’s knowledge of Apple’s plans, say that the iPhone 5 will be released in October and that AT&T’s event blackout has nothing to do with the launching on the iPhone 5.
Anyway, one thing is certain: whether the iPhone 5 will be released in September or in October, I know that all of us will be camping out and lining up in front of the Apple Store to get our hands on Apple’s sexy, new iDevice. Why? Because I, for one, cannot resist being an early adopter and I just love the iPhone and to NOT get one upon its release would be a sin.

QuickTime Player gains advanced features in Lion

The latest major release of QuickTime, named QuickTime Player X, was installed by default on Snow Leopard. It lost a lot of advanced features from the previous release, QuickTime 7. With Lion, a new version of QuickTime Player drops the “X” and gains a few more advanced features.

Editing video

There are three new features in QuickTime for Lion when it comes to editing videos. The first is the ability to merge clips together, which is a feature a lot of users missed in the first version of QuickTime X. If you have a clip already open, you can click and drag another video file onto it, and QuickTime will merge the two together. It will even automatically scale or crop the added clip so the videos’ dimensions match.

Another new feature is the ability to rotate a video clip if it’s upside-down or sideways. Under the Edit menu are four options: Rotate Left, Rotate Right, Flip Horizontal and Flip Vertical. So not only can you rotate a video that’s the wrong way round, you can also flip a video. That’s useful if you use a built-in iSight camera to capture a video, since the iSight captures a mirror image.
The final new feature related to editing video is the Export Audio Only function. Found in the options once you click File > Export, this lets you save the audio from a video file out in AAC format, which can then be added to iTunes to sync with an iOS device, for example.

Screen recording

As well as new editing features, QuickTime has gained a couple of new abilities when creating a screen recording. The first of these is the ability to capture video from a chosen area of the screen, rather than having to record the entire screen and crop afterwards. When you click File > New Screen Recording, after you click the record button you’ll be prompted to either click to record the entire screen, or drag a selection to record a part of the screen.

The other new feature is the ability to have mouse clicks show up in the recorded video. When starting a new screen recording, under the drop down menu next to the record button is an option called “Show Mouse Clicks in Recording.” If you select that, any time you click the mouse during the recording, a black circle will appear around the cursor in the video.

QuickTime Player still doesn’t quite have all the features that QuickTime 7 Pro had (like the ability to open image sequences), but it’s gotten a bit closer with the addition of these new features. What are you still missing from the old version?