Nike+ FuelBand SE - How to Use - Where's The Documentation?

I've had a Nike FuelBand for over a year now and I recently upgraded to the Nike+ FuelBand SE. When it comes to technology products, I have always been in the camp that "If you have to read the documentation, you need to find another product". With the Nike FuelBand, from the moment someone asked me what a NikeFuel Unit was, I discovered I needed to read the documentation. However, unlike many new Tech Products these days, the documentation for the FuelBand isn't in the box, it's online. It's also somewhat like an Adventure Video Game, you discover new features as you use the product (is this another time I can use the word "gamification" which my wife, "The W" says isn't a word). The information on the Nike Support site and FAQs is very limited.

Here are some of my discoveries using my new Nike+ FuelBand SE.

DOCUMENTATION

Nike+ FuelBand SE Manual
Nike+ FuelBand Manual

SUPPORT 
Nike+ FuelBand Support Page
@NikeSupport (Twitter)
@NikeFuel (Twitter) 

SOFTWARE / FIRMWARE 

1. There is Nike+ Connect Software for the Mac 
2. There is Nike+ Connect Software for the PC 
3. There is the Nike+ FuelBand App for the iPhone in the Apple AppStore. 
4. The Nike+ FuelBand App is not available for the Android yet as of December 2013 
5. The FuelBand has Device Firmware that will be updated.

GLOSSARY

• NikeFuel Earned
• Hours Won
• Calories Burned
• Number of Steps Taken
• Current Time FPM - NikeFuel per Minute (Average from entire session)
• ELAPS - Elapsed time in-session FUEL - NikeFuel earned in-session

UPGRADING NIKE FUELBAND to NIKE+ FUELBAND SE

1. 1. I updated my updated my Nike+ Connect Sofware on my iPhone. 
2. I synchronized my original NikeFuel Band to my iPhone by pressing the button. 
3. I plugged my original Nike FuelBand into my MacBook Pro and synched. 
4. I removed my old Nike FuelBand from my MacBook. I thought about putting it in another room to get out of the BlueTooth range, but ended up not doing that. 
5. I inserted my new Nike+ FuelBand SE into my MacBook and enabled it. Since I had just under 1 Million NikeFuel Units, I concerned about using these units even though a Nike Rep had told me that there wasn't a problem. My MacBook Nike+ Connect Software recognized my new Nike+ FuelBand SE and even installed a device Firmware Update. The day I synchronized, I had about 5K NikeFuel Units and these were transferred to my new Nike+ FuelBand SE. 
6. I accessed my Nike FuelBand App on my iPhone. It correctly synched the updated FuelUnits from now new SE. 
7. I was finally able to access the new Nike+ FuelBand Sessions feature that is only available with the new SE.

TIPS

1. With the new SE, you no longer have to press the button to synchronize. 
2. You can now press the FuelBand SE button twice to get the time.

NIKE+ FUELBAND SE SESSIONS

More on Sessions later. This feature rocks!

VIDEO TUTORIAL

28.2 Inside the Miami Heat #28.2

The Miami Heat 28.2 Video

Some Sports Analysts are calling Ray Allen's shot as one of the greatest clutch 3-pointers in the history of the NBA Finals. I was very fortunate to have been at the game. I was less than 40 feet from where Ray put up his three. What a great experience for this basketball fan. Go Heat!

#MiamiHeat #RayAllen #JesusShuttlesworth #Game6 #NBAFinals

iPhone iOS 7 - so many new features

I updated an iPhone 5, iPad 2 and iPhone 4S. I didn't encounter any issues. There are so many features in this new release, I had to study this list several times. The new user interface is going to take some time to get use to.

Here are the top things that I've used so far.

• Spotlight - Swipe Down from the Middle of the Home Screen
• Control Center - Swipe Up from the Bottom the Screen - Easily turn on & off Airplane Mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth; adjust screen brightness. 
• Notification Center - Swipe Down from the Top of the Screen

iPhone iOS 7

This update features a beautiful new design and also contains hundreds of new features, including the following:

•  New design
        ◦  Redesigned interface updates the entire system and every built-in app
        ◦  Subtle motion and animation; layers and translucency provide depth
        ◦  Elegant new color palette and refined typography
        ◦  Updated system sounds and ringtones
•  Control Center*
        ◦  Quick access to commonly used controls and apps with a swipe up from the bottom of the screen
        ◦  Turn on & off Airplane Mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Do Not Disturb; adjust screen brightness; access media controls; turn on AirPlay and AirDrop*
        ◦  Quickly access flashlight, timer, calculator, camera and music controls
•  Notification Center improvements
        ◦  New Today view gives you an overview of your day, including weather, calendar, and stocks
        ◦  Notifications dismissed on one device dismisses across all your devices
•  Multitasking improvements
        ◦  Preview screens of open apps when you switch between them
        ◦  Permits any app to keep content up-to-date in the background
•  Camera improvements
        ◦  Swipe through different camera modes – video, still photo, square aspect, and panorama
        ◦  Real-time photo filters with iPhone 4S or later, and iPod touch (5th generation)
•  Photos improvements
        ◦  Automatically organizes your photos and videos based on time and location into Moments*
        ◦  iCloud Photo Sharing supports multiple contributors and videos, plus a new Activity view
        ◦  Add photo filter effects
        ◦  Flickr and Vimeo support
•  AirDrop
        ◦  Quickly and easily share content with people nearby
        ◦  Securely encrypted transfers with no network or setup required
        ◦  Supported on iPhone 5, iPad (4th generation), iPad mini, and iPod touch (5th generation) and requires an iCloud account
•  Safari improvements
        ◦  New iPhone tab view that lets you easily switch between open web pages
        ◦  Unified smart search field for both search terms and web addresses
        ◦  Shared Links shows web pages shared by people you follow on Twitter
•  iTunes Radio
        ◦  Streaming radio service
        ◦  Pick from over 250 featured and genre-focused stations
        ◦  Start your own station from your favorite artist or song
•  Siri improvements
        ◦  New, more natural sounding male and female voices for US English, French and German
        ◦  Integrated Wikipedia, Twitter search, and Bing web search results
        ◦  Change settings including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and brightness
        ◦  Supported on iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPad with Retina display, iPad mini, and iPod touch (5th generation)
•  App Store improvements
        ◦  See apps relevant to your current location with Popular Near Me
        ◦  Discover age-appropriate apps in the Kids category
        ◦  Keep your apps up to date automatically
•  Find My iPhone Activation Lock
        ◦  Turning off Find My iPhone, erasing your device, reactivation, and signing out of iCloud requires your Apple ID password
        ◦  A custom message can be displayed on your device even after a remote erase
•  iTunes Store improvements
        ◦  Preview and buy songs you've heard on iTunes Radio while inside the iTunes Store
        ◦  Add to, and shop from, your iTunes Wish List
        ◦  Scan code with camera to redeem iTunes Gift Cards
•  Music improvements
        ◦  Play music purchases from iCloud
        ◦  Rotate your iPhone or iPod touch to browse your music with the Album Wall
•  Videos improvements
        ◦  Play movie and TV show purchases from iCloud
        ◦  View similar movies and TV shows from Related
•  Maps improvements
        ◦  Turn-by-turn walking directions
        ◦  Automatic night mode
        ◦  Bookmarks shared across devices via iCloud
•  Mail improvements
        ◦  New Smart Mailboxes, including Unread, Attachments, All Drafts and To or CC
        ◦  Improved search
        ◦  View PDF annotations
•  FaceTime audio calling
•  Block unwanted Phone, Messages and FaceTime callers
•  Support for sending long MMS messages
•  Pull down on any Home Screen to reveal Spotlight search
•  Scan to acquire Passbook passes
•  New ringtones, alarms, alerts and system sounds
•  Definitions of a selected word for additional languages: Italian, Korean, and Dutch
•  Inclinometer in the Compass app
•  Wi-Fi HotSpot 2.0 support
•  Accessibility features
        ◦  Individuals with limited physical motor skills can now control their device using Switch Control
        ◦  Customize closed caption style
        ◦  Handwriting input support in VoiceOver
        ◦  Math input support using Nemeth Braille in VoiceOver
        ◦  Select from multiple premium voices for speak selection and VoiceOver
        ◦  Support for Made for iPhone Hearing Aids and stereo audio for iPhone 5 and iPod touch (5th generation)
•  Enterprise features
        ◦  Manage which apps and accounts are used to open documents and attachments
        ◦  Per App VPN
        ◦  App Store license management
        ◦  Enterprise single sign-on
        ◦  Remote configuration of managed apps
        ◦  Automatic data protection for third-party apps
        ◦  Exchange Notes syncing
        ◦  Install custom fonts
        ◦  New management queries and restrictions
•  Education features
        ◦  Mobile device management for Apple TV
        ◦  Request AirPlay Mirroring from a student device to Apple TV
        ◦  Pre-configure AirPlay destinations and AirPrint printers
        ◦  Streamlined MDM enrollment
        ◦  Ability to restrict changes to accounts
        ◦  Web content filtering
        ◦  Authorized apps can initiate single app mode
        ◦  Configure accessibility settings for single app mode
•  Features for China
        ◦  Tencent Weibo integration
        ◦  Chinese-English bilingual dictionary
        ◦  Improved handwriting input with improved accuracy, stroke order independence and support for simultaneous multiple character input
•  Bug fixes

Some features may not be available for all countries or all areas.

For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

Another Photo of Filomena Tobias and Joakim Noah

Filomena Tobias & Joakim Noah

Here's another photo of the Bird Lady Filomena Tobias at the Miami Heat Game versus the Chicago Bulls.

Google Apps Downtime still better than 99.9% This Year

This morning a little after 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time, Google Apps went down. I received a text message from a client that they couldn't access their email. After a few minutes, I discovered that Google Apps or Google Mail was down.

Google Apps or customers most likely noticed this when using their iPhone or Outlook Client, the message received was:

 "Cannot Get Mail" The user name or password for "user@domain.com"is incorrect.

Or, when they tried to login to their mail via their web browser, the message received was: "502. That's an error. The service encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request." or the other message below.














Google Apps Mail Outage Error Messages

Like many other Webmasters, I took to Twitter to find out what's going on. Despite Google promising 99.9% Uptime Guarantee for those of my clients that have a paid plan, the Google Enterprise Support Number 1-877-355-5787 was busy. The first thing Twitter users pointed out was that the Google Apps Status Dashboard did not display the Service Disruption. After more than 30 minutes of downtime, there was no indication that Google was acknowledging the Outage. However, by the number of tweets,  you could easily see the severity of the outage.

 Google Apps Status Dashboard


When these outages occur, the first question many of my clients usually ask is if any email will be lost. That prompted me to send a test message to myself to see if Google was able to receive mail during this period and if they will hold it their queue for later delivery. More on that later. 

When these events occur, I also

Eventually, the Google Apps Status Dashboard was updated and I learned for the first time that Google was acknowledging a "partial" Service Disruption. This was for Google Mail, Google Drive, Google Documents, Google Spreadsheets, Google Presentations and for Admin Control Panel / API.

The problem with an outage like this one is that most users immediately think that the problem or issue is with their computer, their email client or their password. Since Gmail or mail was still working for their personal account and Google Apps Mail rarely goes down, they think it might be something they did. The error message in this case "the user name or password is incorrect" is certainly deceptive or misleading. In addition, between 8 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time is probably the worst time of the day to have this type of a issue. You could also see that the webmasters in the Twitter Community were starting to get anxious about the length of the downtime, with no detailed official word from Google.

On or around 9:30 a.m., after almost 90 minutes of downtime, I noticed from a Google Support Forum that users were reporting that their service was back up and running. When I checked my email, I saw email with the correct time stamps (between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. ET) started to arrive in my inbox including the test email I sent to myself.

Finally, I also took the time to review the Google Apps Guaranteed Uptime. It was 99.9%, which means that even after 90 minutes of downtime, this was still in the acceptable level. If you do the math, even though their service was only up 94.75% today, 99.9% per year uptime would be 8 hours, 45 minutes and 20 seconds of downtime per year. Google Apps still has over 7 hours of downtime this year to stay under the 99.9% threshold. Luckily, that's unlikely and when reading tweets from earlier this month, like the one below, I'm still a big fan of Google Apps.



For information on my company's products and services, visit www.OgawaDesign.com.

Displaying a Twitter Tweet on Your Website

Like many basketball fans, I too saw the infamous Miami Heat Harlem Shake Video. So as a Social Media experiment, I decided to post of photo of my company's attempt to identify the players in the video. For example, it certainly wasn't difficult to recognize @KingJames or the King, Mario Chalmers or Bosh but which player was wearing the Bear or Ted-like head? Which player was the #Horsetronaut or was the Horse? Who was the Clown? Which ones were Joel Anthony and Jarvis Varnado? So we took my firm's best guess and sent it to Miami Heat Sun Sports TV Reporter Jason Jackson's Twitter Account. And he tweeted back: The Twitter Tweet

RT @martinog: @thejaxshow - Did we name the Miami Heat Players correctly in their Harlem Shake Video? #nba twitter.com/OgawaDesign/st… <--perfect
— Jason Jackson (@TheJaxShow) March 1, 2013

Miami Heat Harlem Shake Video

The code from the Tweet could be embedded on a company's website as a Social Media Promotion Tool.

YouTube.com Video - How To Post

Posting a YouTube.com Video

This video was imported to iMovie, edited, then uploaded to YouTube.com.

AT&T International Plan for my iPhone 5 and iOS 6

Today, I signed up for an International Calling Package for a Family Member for a short to Europe. AT&T continues to change their International Calling features and for this trip, my family member wanted to leave on her iPhone during the entire trip, check email, receive text messages and use her the iPhone for browsing the web. Here are the details:

1. AT&T International Plan Customer Service 1-800-335-4685 - I decided to call AT&T Customer Care rather than use the myAT&T App on my iPhone. In the past, the AT&T Customer Care Reps were very helpful and courteous.

• AT&T World Traveler- $5.99 per month (calls in most European Countries and back to the United States are $.99 cents per minute)
• AT&T Global Messaging -- They had plans for 50 messages-$10.00/200 Messages-$30/500 Messages-$50. These plans are for Sending Text Messages since Text Messages Received are covered under your current U.S. Plan. Some things to consider: 1) A $.35 cents per text message applies to overages; 2) Photos and Video Sent/Received will apply against your International Data Plan. 
• AT&T Data Global Add-On for the iPhone -$30-120MB; $60-300MB; $120-800MB. These rates have decreased against since the last time I was abroad. That said, some of us in the U.S. are use to Unlimited Data Plans. AT&T bills this Data on a Monthly Plan so your vacation dates and the AT&T Billing Cycle will affect the pro-ration. In my case, the AT&T Rep back dated the Data Plan to the beginning of Billing Cycle and also inserted a Termination Date. This was a huge benefit that AT&T didn't previously provide, I no longer had to  remember to cancel the plan after the trip. In addition, see the example from a older blog below on how AT&T calculates the Data Plan Charges.  
• Here's an Example: AT&T takes your total MB per month and divides by the number of days until the next billing period. If you travel started 1-day before your new billing period, then you would have 1.67 MB and $5.00 per MB for any overage. So if you used 3.67 MB the first day of your trip, you would be charged $59.99 / 30 days or $2.00 per day + $10.24 (2MB overage @ $5.12 per MB ) = $12.24. The second billing period you will be billed at $59.99 under the same formula. (Yes, it sounds complicated but worst case if you you pay$119.98 for two months for 50 MB iPhone data usage. (more later on data usage) In my case, the Rep back dated my contract 30 days so I had 7 days to use 50 MB which was more than enough.

2. Forwarding -- Before leaving the United States, I recommend forwarding calls to a Free Google Voice number. When someone leaves a voice mail message and you are Forwarding your calls to Google Voice, you receive a text message with a text transcript to your iPhone. This is a great feature.

3. iPhone Usage Reset Statistics - Before your plane takes off from the United States, Reset the iPhone Usage Statistics Settings: Settings > General > Usage > Cellular Usage: Reset Statistics

4. Location Services - Settings > Privacy > Location Services -- Before leaving, I would recommend disabling all Apps with Location Services using this setting. You can individually turn them on as you need them.

I would recommend turning off Location Services and Keep it Turned Off.

5. General Tips for Using your iPhone while Traveling Abroad

• Use +1 or 001 when dialing U.S. Phone Numbers if the 10-digit phone number does not work from your iPhone Address book. 
• +19168434685 is the phone number for AT&T International Care when you are abroad. There is no fee for this call. 
• iPhone vs iPad -- During my last trip, I enabled a Data Plan for my iPad. With the larger Screen Size, the Data used was exponential more and I went through my Megabytes in several days. I would suggest enabling your iPhone instead. 
• Wi-Fi - In your Hotel, make sure you get the user name and password for Complimentary Access during your check-in. 
• Email - Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Fetch New Data Fetch: Manually - Make sure Fetch New Data is set to manual. Retrieve your Email in the Hotel Room using your Wi-Fi connection as often as you can. Use this time to send email with Photos or Video.  
• Call Forwarding - Settings > Phone > Call Forwarding: On - Forward your Calls when you are traveling Internationally until you need use your phone. 
• Text Messaging - Use text messaging. 
• Friends - Notify your friends that like frequently call you or that Group Text Videos or Photos that you will be traveling abroad. 
• Facetime - Skype or Google Voice - If you have a Wi-Fi connection, use one of these to call back to the States. For Skype and Google Voice, you will need a separate account. 
• Location Services -- Turn off Location Services on each App before you leave the country.  

AT&T LTE on iPhone 5 - How to Disable, if you have poor coverage.

I ended up upgrading to the iPhone 5 and discovered that with the upgrade, AT&T will switch you to their new AT&T LTE or "Long Term Evolution" Cellular Service. This service is being currently being aggressively rolled out to new Cities in the U.S. The first thing I noticed that the Cellular service is much better than the 4G, except in some areas such as inside certain building. In one particular case, I was unable to call from a Conference Room where I had previously made many phone calls. So in this case, the only way I could make a phone call (I had only 1 bar using the AT&T LTE Service) was to use the manual procedures below to disable AT&T. Apparently, there are some phone using other services that don't allow this option, but the iPhone 5 with iOS 6 has this option. Below are those instructions. Unfortunately, to re-enable LTE, you need to power off and power on your iPhone.

Finally, for those non-techies, AT&T LTE is not "Lite".  AT&T says that it is 10X Faster than 3G.

Instructions to Disable AT&T LTE

1. Setting -> General -> Cellular -> Enable LTE: Off

2. Your phone should switch to 4G

Instructions to Re-enable AT&T LTE

1. Settings -> General -> Cellular -> Enable LTE: On

2. Power your iPhone Off, then Power On

(otherwise, your the data only will switch to LTE, your cellular connection will not change back to LTE)

AT&T LTE Coverage http://www.att.com/network/

Installing iOS 5.1.1 on my iPhone & iPad

Apple released iOS 5.1.1 today this morning and I installed this release on both my iPhone and iPad in about 15 minutes. Here are some observations:

• Wi-Fi - You can install this release over your Wi-Fi connection, you do not have to be connected to your computer.
• Power Source - You do not have to be connected to a Power Source, although Apple warns you that it will save you device battery life. 
•  Here's the Link to Apple's iOS 5.1.1 Support Article with a list of the bug fixes and security updates.

Ticketmaster is Blocking IPs - 403 Forbidden Error

When you try and access the Ticketmaster.com website and receive the error message:

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access / on this server.

If this occurs, it is likely that Ticketmaster.com has blocked your IP Address. This can happen since Ticketmaster the IP Address every time a user makes a request to buy tickets. The problem is that in many large Condo Buildings, the IP Address for the High Speed Internet Connection is shared. Therefore, if one user in the Condo Building makes too many Ticketmaster requests, the IP Address rather than just that registered users account is banned automatically by their system after 24 hours.

After this occurred to me, I tried calling Ticketmaster Customer Service at 800-653-8000. Of course the Rep was aware of the situation and was able to lookup my IP Address and tell me it was blocked for 24 hours. He said there was nothing that could be done, assuming that I was the one that was submitting numerous ticket requests to their system. I was thinking to myself, the idiot that did this must have been on their computer for 3 or more hours considering how long it takes to get past the Captcha characters. I told the Rep. The Rep told me there was nothing that could be done and he refused to escalate my request. He said I could send a letter to customer_support@ticketmaster.com.

Instead of sending the letter that probably wouldn't get responded to in the next week or so, I decided to send a Tweet to @Ticketmaster. After 3 hours, still no reply which was irritating, since I noticed they must have read the message. I followed it up with a second tweet, this time including the Ticketmaster CEO @nathanchubbard who as before been accused of blocking the IP of ticket brokers.

What I simply don't understand is with all that technology at Ticketmaster, why would you prevent your good customers from downloading their season tickets. Instead, why don't you find a better business process for addressing those that hit their site too many times for new tickets or different seats. Why don't you base your system on the registered account user and ban him or her rather than the entire IP Address?

If I were the professional Sports Teams, I wouldn't use Ticketmaster for managing the ticketing process. They should either build their own or ensure a more customer friendly system is in place so that there is 0% downtime for printing and accessing tickets. They certainly do not understand their customer.

Text Message Spam Beta Test iPhone 5

This message is spam to sell insurance 646-330-1276.

iPhone 5.0.1 Update Wi-Fi Settings, General, Software Upate

Update your iPhone to 5.0.1 by wi-fi, easiest iPhone update ever. Why did it take so long to make it this easy? Make sure you synch or backup first.

Siri Can't Connect to the Network Fix - Reset All Settings, iPhone 4S

After using Siri on my iPhone 4 all day, I received the Siri error message that it can't connect to the network. Meanwhile, all the other iPhone 4S users that I was having dinner with were abe to use Siri. After trying to hard reset my phone, turn Siri off and reset my network setting, I finally found a way to get Siri working. Here it is:

1. Tap Settings, General, Reset, Reset All Settings. Note, no data or media will be deleted.

2. After the phone resets the original factory or default settings, you will be asked to setup your phone including Location Setting, Wi-Fi, Siri as well as accept the License Agreement Terms.

I did notice when Siri started working that the Siri screen with all the options briefly flashed. This might have caused my iPhone 4s to lock up when The Siri program crashed.

Good luck!

Just Installed iOS 5 on my iPad

Just finished installing iOS 5 on my iPad. Had to re-visit the Apple site to find some of the new features: Many new features

1) Safari has tabbed interface;

2) Camera uses side button;

3) Wizard like interface for setup;

4) Photo Stream auto uploads new photos to iCloud, downloads to all devices;

5) Newsstand feature allows you to download magazines.

6) New Messages, includes a Send Read Receipts setting (default off). A new Messages App was installed on my last iPad screen.

7) New Reminders feature. A new Reminders App was installed on my last iPad screen.

8) The new native Twitter App was installed over my previous one. It supports multiple Twitter accounts.

9) There is a Split Keyboard, but couldn't figure out how to get it to work.

A great lineup of features!

You should use your Mac or PC log-in to http://icloud.com to check out iCloud.

I didn't lose any data during upgrade but it took 2-3 hours including backup time.

Apple iOS 5 Features

http://www.apple.com/ios/features.html

New iOS 5 Software Update

iOS 5 Software Update

This update contains over 200 new features, including the following:

• Notifications
◦ Swipe from the top of any screen to view notifications in one place with Notification Center
◦ New notifications appear briefly at the top of the screen
◦ View notifications from lock screen
◦ Slide the notification app icon to the right on the lock screen to go directly to the app
• iMessage
◦ Send and receive unlimited text, photo, and video messages with other iOS 5 users
◦ Track messages with delivery and read receipts
◦ Group messaging and secure encryption
◦ Works over cellular network and Wi-Fi*
• Newsstand
◦ Automatically organizes magazine and newspaper subscriptions on Home Screen
◦ Displays the cover of the latest issue
◦ Background downloads of new issues
• Reminders for managing to do lists
◦ Syncs with iCloud, iCal and Outlook
◦ Location-based reminders when you leave or arrive at a location for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4
• Built-in support for Twitter
◦ Sign-in once in Settings and tweet directly from Camera, Photos, Maps, Safari and YouTube
◦ Add location to any tweet
◦ View twitter profile pictures and usernames in Contacts
• Camera improvements for devices with cameras
◦ Double click the home button when device is asleep to bring up a camera shortcut on iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch (4th generation)
◦ Volume Up button to take a picture
◦ Optional grid lines to line up shots
◦ Pinch to zoom in the preview screen
◦ Swipe to camera roll from preview screen
◦ Tap and hold to lock focus and exposure, iPad 2 and iPod touch (4th generation) only support exposure lock
• Photo improvements for devices with cameras
◦ Crop and rotate
◦ Red eye removal
◦ One tap enhance
◦ Organize photos into albums
• Mail improvements
◦ Format text using bold, italic, or underlined fonts
◦ Indentation control
◦ Drag to rearrange names in address fields
◦ Flag messages
◦ Mass mark messages as flagged, read or unread
◦ Customize mail alert sounds
◦ S/MIME
• Calendar improvements
◦ Year view on iPad and new Week view for iPhone and iPod touch
◦ Tap to create an event
◦ View and add event attachments
• Game Center improvements
◦ Use personal photos for your Game Center account
◦ Compare your overall achievement scores with your friends
◦ Find new Game Center friends with friend recommendations and friends of friends
◦ Discover new games with custom game recommendations
• AirPlay Mirroring for iPad 2 and iPhone 4S
• Multitasking Gestures for iPad
◦ Use four or five fingers to pinch to the Home Screen
◦ Swipe up to reveal the multitasking bar
◦ Swipe left or right to switch between apps
• On-device setup, activation and configuration with Setup Assistant
• Software updates available over the air without tethering
• iCloud support
◦ iTunes in the Cloud
◦ Photo Stream
◦ Documents in the Cloud
◦ Apps and Books automatic download and purchase history
◦ Backup
◦ Contacts, Calendar, and Mail
◦ Find My iPhone
• Redesigned Music app for iPad
• Hourly weather forecast
• Real-time stock quotes
• Wireless sync to iTunes
• Keyboard improvements
◦ Split keyboard for iPad
◦ Improved autocorrection accuracy
◦ Improved Chinese and Japanese input
◦ New Emoji keyboard
◦ Personal dictionary for autocorrection
◦ Optionally create keyboard short cuts for frequently used words
• Accessibility improvements
◦ Option to light LED flash on incoming calls and alerts for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4
◦ Custom vibration patterns for incoming calls on iPhone
◦ New interface for using iOS with mobility-impairment input devices
◦ Option to speak a selection of text
◦ Custom element labeling for VoiceOver
• Exchange ActiveSync improvements
◦ Wirelessly sync tasks
◦ Mark messages as flagged, read or unread
◦ Improved offline support
◦ Save a new contact from a GAL service
• More than 1,500 new developer APIs
• Bug fixes

Products compatible with this software update:
• iPhone 4S
• iPhone 4
• iPhone 3GS
• iPad 2
• iPad
• iPod touch (4th generation)
• iPod touch (3rd generation)

* Normal carrier data rates may apply. Messages will be sent as SMS when iMessage is unavailable, carrier messaging fees apply.

For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

Why is my iPhone 4S still in Anchorage, Alaska?

So less than 24 hours to go, all of my family member's iPhone 4S Shipping Notifications have their phones in Miami except me. Mine shows it has left China but is still in Anchorage, Alaska. I will sure be disappointed if it doesn't arrive tomorrow. My family members enjoy asking me where my iPhone is!

Ordering the iPhone 4S - Deja Vu - Felt like June 2007

At 3 AM Eastern Time, 12 PM Pacific Time, I awoke to find our Family IT Dept trying to pre-order the new iPhone 4S phones. As loyal purchasers of the very first iPhones back in 2007, this was perhaps a RIP Steve Jobs purchase more than the iPhone 5 Must Have Phone Upgrade. I walked in the Family Data Center and found 4 screens fired up, most with ATT website and Apple website error messages. Ouch, it felt like the June 2007 ATT Activation Debacle all over again.

When issues like this occur, there is rarely any word or update from the vendor so you have thousands of Early Adopter Apple and ATT Customers unable to pre-order their iPhone 4S. These are some of ATT's most sophisticated and powerful users - ATT Premier, Corporate and Business customers, many of them now resurrecting their Twitter accounts searching for information or venting their frustrations. Many of these customers are the ones that you see in the First or Business Class ticket lines at the airports; with their names on the boards at the Rental Car Agencies or the Special Check In Desks at the Hotels. But tonight, they are in the Apple iPhone 4S line or queue with the rest of the general population.

With Verizon and Sprint now offering competing services and rumors that only Verizon 4S orders were being processed, I noticed the tone in some of these outraged customers this morning using the S word ("Switch"). I would hope that ATT might eventually start to direct their resources at the L word ("Loyalty") and start to pamper their loyal customers. Being loyal to a company or brand should mean something as Netflix found out. I just simply don't understand why the service level ATT customers received this morning when ordering their new iPhone 4S shouldn't be similar to a visit to their Airlines Flight Club or a phone call with AMEX.

A little after 5 AM this morning after I had "given up" I heard some cheering from the family IT room. I fired up my iPad and looked in my mailbox and received the message: "Your iPhone has been reserved." Next, we'll see when our phones arrive next week!

Using Your iPhone and/or iPad Abroad

When traveling abroad to Europe or other countries, many of my friends always ask how do you enable your iPhone for Phone Calls, Text Messages and Internet Usage when traveling abroad so you don't end up with a phone bill more expensive than your plane ticket. Here is my plan this trip to Prague.

Phone Calls

When on vacation with my wife or "the W", I do not take incoming business phone calls to my iPhone. In Prague, that would be $2.29 per minute and $1.99 with the AT&T $5.99 per month International Plan reduces this rate (You can subscribe online and cancel when you return.) If I need to make a business call or phone family or friends, I will use Skype from my laptop or iPad in the Hotel Room. Skype now has an iPhone/iPad App so it is possible to use a Free Wi-fi connection from a Restaurant, Cafe or Hotel Lobby to call from my iPhone or iPad using my headphones. Skype rates for calls back to United States landlines are 2.3 cents per minute or just over $1.00 per hour so $25.00 in a Skype Account should give me 20+ hours of talk time which would be plenty. I can then use my iPhone for outgoing calls in an Emergency situation rather than walking around Europe without a cell phone.

Before Leaving the U.S.

- Add the AT&T International Plan to your account by calling AT&T International Care at 1-800-335-4685 or adding this service online.

AT&T Online Account Management

- Go to your Skype Account and ensure you have enough money in your account. The last thing you will want to do is to try and add money to your Skype account from overseas.

Skype Account Management

- iPhone Settings - Make the settings changes on your iPhone to ensure you don't have huge Cellular Data charges.

Settings, General, Network, Data Roaming: Off (Turns data roaming off when abroad to avoid substantial charges when using email, web browsing and other data services.)

Settings, Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Fetch New Data:Manually

Google Voice - To signup for a Google voice, sign-in to your Google Gmail Account then go to http://www.google.com/voice

Right Before The Plane Takes Off

iPhone Usage Reset Statistics - Reset the iPhone Usage Statistics

Settings, General, Usage, Reset Statistics (This allowed me to track my Cellular Network Data Sent and Received).

Before I get on the plane, I will do is Forward my iPhone number to my Google Voice Account. Google Voice provides this really cool Voicemail Transcripts feature so if a caller leaves a voice message, a SMS message will automatically be sent to my iPhone. The transcription feature will make a "best efforts" attempt to provide a text message of the callers actual message. It's not extremely accurate but good enough.

SMS Messages

I would like to communicate with "The W" or my wife during our trip. To me, this is extremely important since she likes to shop and I'd rather not follow her in and out of each store since she will cover 1 or 2 shops for my 10-20. Although to keep her as the W, I need a way to contact her in the event we can't find each other or she want's my opinion on some item she wants to buy. I enabled the International Plan on both our phones, that will enable outgoing text messaging at $.50 per message. Incoming messages are covered by our Unlimited U.S. Plan. In the past in some smaller cities in Europe, I have found AT&T International SMS unreliable. Hopefully, AT&T SMS to AT&T SMS will work. This is huge if it works and while she is shopping, I can be taking pictures, sipping a cup of coffee or checking ESPN on my iPad.

Internet Connection

For this trip, I decided to subscribe to a 3G Internet Connection on my iPad 2 rather than my iPhone. Some of us in the United States are really spoiled having "Always On" or Unlimited Connectivity to the Internet 24/7. Having an Internet Connection when traveling is important if you need directions or want to check your email. I added this service directly from my iPad as follows:

Settings, View Account, Login Information (email/password), Add International Plan

At the screen below, select your plan. Remember, you will need the email and password you used to activate your iPad 3G Connection.

You can check your wireless phone bill to see your past data usage in the United States. My gut feeling is if you do graphics intensive searches like maps, you will eat through the bandwidth very quickly. You should frequently monitor your usage.

Before the Plane Takes Off

Settings, General, Usage, Reset Statistics

Settings, Cellular Data, Data Roaming: Off

After the Plane Lands

Settings, Cellular Data, Data Roaming: On (see if it works)

Settings, Cellular Data, Data Roaming: Off (AT&T recommends keeping it off if you don't need it)

Settings, General, Usage (frequently check your usage!)

*Note: if you don't have a 3G iPad, you can use your iPhone with the same general instructions above.

When Traveling

1. Frequently check your Data Roaming Usage: Settings, General, Usage. I received an email notifying me toward the end of my trip that I had less than 25MB remaining.

2. While Traveling in Prague, Czech Republic and then to Vienna Austria, my 3G Service kept switching between T-Mobile and Czech Wireless. Every so often, I would lose the connection completely. I knew something was wrong with my iPhone or iPad because sometimes one had service and the other one read: No Service. Toggling the Phone to Airplane Mode On/Off did not fix the problem. The only way to resolve it was to Hard Reset the Phone/Ipad: Home, Power.

3. The Skype Application worked perfectly from most Wi-Fi connections, especially the ones from the Internet Cafes that give you the password after you order your Latte. I found the Skype App on my iPhone much easier to use than the headset with my iPad.

Returning Home

1. Cancel your AT&T International Voice Plan. Remember to use the AT&T Wireless Online Interface to cancel all phones. You cancel the AT&T World Traveler Plan by selecting the Expanded International Roaming Plan.

FEATURE	MONTHLY COST
Expanded International Roaming (Effective Date:)	$0.00

REMOVED FEATURES

FEATURE	MONTHLY COST
AT&T® World Traveler(SM) (Effective Date:)	$5.99

2. The iPad Data Roaming Plan is good for 30 days. You will not need to cancel it. It will not automatically renew. When you subscribe, you will receive an email letting you know this, if you take the time to read the details. Although, when I returned home, I did call AT&T International Customer Care, spoke to Reuben. He was not able to see that I had purchased an International Plan in his system. He said I had $2,000 in International Roaming fees. After I explained to him the emails I had received, he reluctantly agreed that I was correct. Apparently, it was not covered in his training.

Other Notes

1. In Prague, T-Mobile and Czech wireless were horrible, much worse than AT&T. At times, it felt like their Phones were turned off at night. If you absolutely need to talk on the phone to someone locally, I would bring an extra iPhone and get a Vodafone Simm card as suggested by a friend that lives in Prague. Unfortunately, I left my extra iPhones at home.