The Straits Times Blogs - Grace Chng

A model senior citizen

2009-10-06T09:40:00Z

Grace Chng meets a 68-year-old who surprises her with his e-habits.

ABOUT three months ago, I had bought a Kindle, an e-book reader from Amazon. It was such a useful device. No more thinking about where to put the new book shelves. With the Kindle, everything is digital.

I wrote in Digital Life about the convenience of owning a Kindle and how it was easy to buy and read the latest best-selling novels the instant they hit the stores.

A retiree, Mr Tang Wee Lip had read about it and was determined to own one. He emailed me to ask about it and how to go about buying it.

Online store Amazon sells the device but only in the US. There are workaround solutions for bookworms here and I shared them with him in my response to his email.

What impressed me in his email which thanked me for the workaround solution was the last line of his message: "I’m 68 years old. I was intrigued.

Seldom do I come across an elderly person who’s so interested in technology. At that age, most of my friends’ parents are complaining about the small font size on their cellphones or how they preferred to read the real thing, a book, instead of going digital.

Well, not only did Mr Tang, a former civil servant and financial consultant, manage to buy a Kindle, he bought the latest model. The Kindle DX sports a 9.7-inch screen, bigger than the original device so that he can enlarge the fonts and read better, he said, when I met him about two weeks ago, to show him how to buy e-books.

“The Kindle also has text-to-speech, it can 'read' to me which is good because my eyes tire when I read too much,” he said as he made me show him step-by-step the task of buying e-books and how to change to a bigger font size on the Kindle DX.

What I discovered in that one-hour meeting with him over coffee at McDonalds in Tanglin Mall was that the Kindle was not the only e-book reader he had. Neither was he a tech newbie.

He already owned the Elonex e-book sold in England which he bought early this year. But he was not happy he could not increase the size of the letters to make it easier on his eyes. Hence, the Kindle DX.

For our meeting, he brought along his netbook, the ultra-portable laptop that has a seven-inch screen and weighs less than a kilogram.

And you know how most PC users tend to use Internet Explorer as their web browser?

Not Mr Tang.

He was toggling between Firefox and IE when we met as IE had refused to launch on his computer. I was surprised his computer was running Firefox, a browser more popular with geeks, but my jaw dropped when I saw he also had Chrome, a new browser from Google which is still undergoing tests.

This is the thing about Mr Tang. He has a redundancy plan. He has an alternative so that, if one fails, he can turn to the other. It's the same reason why he has two other regular-sized laptops at home, "in case one fails", he explained.

His experience has been that often one laptop would hang, which prevented him from going online. So having a second computer allows him to continue with his cyber activities while he fiddles with the "hung" computer to find a solution.

"I just try various options to find a solution to the machine that isn’t working. You’ve to be patient to try various things before you can find one that will work," he advised.

But the laptops are too heavy to carry around with him. Hence, his choice of a netbook which is light and handy enough to slip into a small bag. It lets him check stock prices and his e-mail, not only from his doctor daughter in England, but from friends and fellow retirees here who want to share with him their favourite YouTube videos.

And to make sure he can go online wherever he is, he doesn’t rely on the free wireless hotspots. Instead he subscribed to a mobile "stick", a USB-like device that has a 3G SIM card in it and allows a user to go online anytime, any place.

This mobile "stick" was in his netbook so that I could show him how to buy content online.

E-books are not his only cyber interest. He also downloads news and current affairs podcasts from BBC which he listens to every night.

More senior citizens should be like Mr Tang. He is a model senior citizen when it comes to IT. He bothers to keep himself up to date with technology although computers are not second nature to him like it is with the millenials.

But he is willing to spend time to learn and to explore new areas like e-books. That surely is a good way to keep remain mentally active and prevent the cobwebs from dimming the brain.

Radio in an iPod - Aye or nay?

2009-09-24T02:02:00Z

Grace Chng weighs in on Apple's latest iPod Nano.

I was on leave when Apple unveiled the new iPod Nano on Sept 9. It was only two days later in Melbourne that I managed to check the Web to see the latest Apple gizmos.

Wow! The iPod Nano is a beaut. The colours it came in – green, pink, orange, blue, silver – looked brilliant. What caught my attention was the pedometer. That would be cool since it could replace my Polar heart rate monitor when I'm travelling.

At an Apple store in downtown Melbourne, I wasn't disappointed with the new Nano. It is slim and will fit nicely in the small pocket of pair of running shorts. In addition to being an MP3 player, it is also a video camera, a pedometer and a radio.

A radio in an iPod? That sounds odd. This is the first iPod from Apple that has a radio tuner built in.

Apple has tried its best to shield users from radio ads, endless DJ chattering and music you don't like since it unveiled its first iPods in October 2001.

However, companies like Creative Technology, Diamond and Samsung had always offered radio tuners in their MP3 players. I recall the sharp remarks these companies made about the iPods: "Who would want to listen to only canned music when you can listen to fresh music played on radio?"

I remember how on many occasions, Creative Technology which was fighting with Apple for dominance of the MP3 player market, would claim that its Nomad MP3 players were superior in engineering quality and that no one would buy a digital music player without a radio.

Creative was Apple's biggest competitor then because it launched the first MP3 player in the world at the end of 1999. Apple made a stupid move by not offering radio on the iPod, it said. Moreover, my friends also complained that they can’t listen to news when they use the iPod.

Ten years later Creative still sells digital music players but it does not dominate the MP3 market while Apple has gone on to grab more than half the global market.

At heart, Creative is an engineering company that believes that every gadget should be stuffed with all sorts of features. In its eyes, this is giving customers value for money. Customers reciprocated by buying millions of these devices.

For Apple, it's about fit for use. Find out what customers need and match it accordingly with feature offerings. Don't fill gadgets with too many features that people don’t understand and won’t use.

So in my view, the radio in the new Nano fits the market segment Apple is targeting: the outdoor and active person. The Nano slips into any pair of gym shorts or it can be worn on an armband. Together with the Pedometer function (it measures the number of steps you take), perfect for the jogger, gym rat or exercise fanatic who wants to know the intensity of his workout.

Predicting consumer behaviour is an art rather than a science. Was Creative right that radio is a must-have feature in iPods or was it ahead of its time? Let me know your thoughts.

chngkeg@sph.com.sg

Addicted to fat burnt and calories spent

2009-09-01T06:50:00Z

Grace Chng muses on how heart rate monitors have changed her habits.

SINCE I stopped playing competitive squash nearly 10 years ago, I've had to look around for a sport to replace it.

I've been using squash to get fit. Friends have told me for years that I should get fit to play squash, but what the heck, it's easier to play squash to get fit!

So when it came to retirement, I had few workout options. Jogging and running was out of the question since my knees are injured after over two decades of punishing my knees in the squash courts. Yoga was difficult because I couldn't bend my knees. So it was walking on the treadmill and weight training.

Morning workouts at the gym have become my routine for the last 10 years but I don't know if I'm really fit, whether the fat accumulated around the tum-tum is being burnt.

That's when a friend told me about the Polar heart rate monitor about 10 months ago. Not only does it monitor the heart rate, it also can tell you how many calories and fat you've burnt.

I'd read about the Polar watches but was sceptical. Coincidentally, the annual medical check-up revealed a rather high sugar level. Lose a few kilos, said the doctor. So with the help of a trainer, I set out to do brisk walking wearing a heart rate monitor - and I was wowed by the numbers it gave.

After one particular good workout of a 5km brisk walk on the treadmill and a weight programme, I had spent 700 calories and burnt 15% fat. I was encouraged to continue the next day... and the next. Soon I had a notebook filled with these numbers: Pulse rate, calories and fat burnt and distance walked.

It was addictive, recording to those numbers. I was always eager to find out how many calories was spent and how much fat I'd burnt after each workout. The thing about numbers is that it pushes you onward. Every day, I wanted to do burn more fat, walk faster and longer distances. If I forgot to bring the heart rate monitor to the gym, I would be irritated not knowing how I'd performed that day.

The 5 kg weight loss added to the high feeling. It was worth it all. I can shed a few more kilos, I thought.

Then my knees started to ache. I wasn't running but the brisk pounding on the treadmill every day for at least 3km soon did my knees in.

I haven't stopped the workout routine. In fact, I've changed the programme - one that is as intensive as the first plan - so that the body doesn't get an opportunity to get used to one exercise plan.

But I've learnt one thing: To listen to my body. If something hurts, stop and attend to it. If I feel tired in the morning, workout at night or go for a walk instead. Never mind if the numbers from the digital trainers are not as high as they use to be. The idea is to have a workout programme that is sustainable and most importantly, enjoyable.

I still keep a record, but I've learnt to be pleased not by the numbers but by how lose my clothes have become. At the very least, I can get a new wardrobe as a reward.

Read Digital Life's cover story tomorrow on digital workout buddies that let you meet your fitness goals.

Cellphones change behaviour

2009-08-24T04:20:00Z

Grace Chng on how social behaviour's changed under technology's influence.

CELLPHONE penetration is at an all time high with many users owning two devices.

As of June this year, statistics from the Infocomm Development Authority show that total mobile subscriptions reached a high of about 6.51 million, which includes both 2G and 3G services.

Of these more than 2.73 million are 3G subscriptions.

With more people looking favourably on using two cellphones, the figures will inch up again.

Why do you need two phones? Well, NSmen may need two: One for in-camp where no-camera phones are allowed and another latest smartphone for out-of-camp use.

I’ve seen contractors who use two phones, presumably one for customers, the other for workers.

My friends are also turning up with two phones: a Blackberry device so that they can access corporate e-mail and an another to make calls.

With everyone owning a cellphone, social behaviour has changed too.

Among the teens and young adults, they are seen everywhere phone-in-hand. They’re naked without the gizmo.

When they’re seated together, it is perfectly alright to talk, send text messages, access e-mail or browse the Surf.

For the older generation, this would be considered rude.

But how do you assess the behaviour of a person who uses the phone in the toilet? Is it rude, unhygienic or both?

Most times I can’t help but overhear whispered arguments, gossip about other people or making arrangements to meet. Isn’t the toilet the last place for these private discussions? Usually the toilet partitions are thin and they don’t go all the way up to the ceiling.

So much for being private, not to mention how unhygienic it is to hold the gizmo with one hand and ahem, wipe your comely private parts with the other.

Another occurence is in the cinema. Have you also seen little bright screens popping up here and there among the movie goers in the pitch dark cinema hall?

Movie perators have succeeded in getting 99.99 per cent of viewers to put their phones on silent. So they don’t talk now but they are inclined to peek at their messages and reply to them.

While the cellphone coverage in Singapore is good, there are instances where spotty signals can cut off the conversation.

Some people don’t call back even if the call was already ending when it was cut off.

When it happens to me, I call back to apologise and end the call properly. I don’t want to appear to have hung up on my friends or newsmakers.

New technology provides conveniences and influences our behaviour.

Generally, friends and even people you’re meeting for the first time would not mind if you’ve to check your email or text messages.

If there’s an urgent call to take, they would not mind if you excuse yourself.

But technology’s conveniences shouldn’t be taken to the extreme when private affairs are played out in the toilet, thanks to cellphones.

Really, the toilet should be used for just what they are meant: disposing organic waste.

chngkeg@sph.com.sg

Cellphone preoccupations

2009-08-04T08:44:00Z

Grace Chng muses on how cellphones have taken over our lives.

CELLPHONES have had such a large impact on our habits and lifestyle, that I've always been curious about the brands of cellphones people use.

In fact, people must think I’m being a bit "kaypoh", because I'm always trying to look at the cellphones in their hands.

But this is an eyeball survey that helps me ascertain the popular cellphone brands even before the market research reports land in my inbox.

My observations have turned up a few interesting tidbits.

Like how people make appointments but they don't agree on a venue immediately. How often have you heard of or done this yourself: "Let's have lunch at Takashimaya. When you get there, call me, we'll decide where to eat."

Or general impatience. Even before the appointed time for my meeting with friends, some would have arrived early by 10 minutes. I'll get an SMS that they're already waiting. Hopefully, I think, they're early to get a seat the restaurant.

Have you also noticed how people whip out their cellphones the minute lunch or dinner ends? Even before the waiter has cleared the plates, the cellphones are out.

Ostensibly, people are checking for SMS. In reality, I think, conversation has run out or it's time to move on from the meal.

The other night at the cinema, small pockets of light dotted the theatre; the screens of cellphones.

In-between eating the popcorn and nibbling at the nachos, people were checking SMSes, sending e-mail or even playing games before the commercials and movie came on.

These habits made me think about the days before we had cellphones.

Venues for appointments were always fixed and people were always on time. Companies did not collapse and no one lost their job because they didn't have a Blackberry to check that urgent e-mail from the boss.

Often, I think that the fiddling with a cellphone is for the lack of something to do with your hands.

Even during conversations, I’ve noticed people can't leave their cellphones alone, even if it's just flipping through photos stored on their phones.

I love my cellphone because my life is in it. No, my bank passwords are not in the contact list masquerading as a person. But all my appointments and contacts including e-mail addresses of newsmakers and friends are in it.

So are the To Do notes to remind me of urgent tasks. While waiting for people, I read the New York Times and Techcrunch blogs on my phone.

An e-book reader on my phone lets me read soft copies of bestsellers bought from online book store, Amazon.

I can access both the office and personal e-mail on my cellphone. I play my favourite puzzle game, Sudoku, on it.

I guess, I'm as guilty as some people who whip out their phones after meals to check for messages.

Cellphones have allowed me do more, but it's increasingly difficult not to let it be the centre of all my activities.

A peek into people's lives

2009-07-10T22:00:00Z

Grace Chng takes a look at the digital media industry.

THE digital media industry is huge. Revenue earned in 2006 was $19.5 billion. Its scope of coverage is also large for it comprises not only film, broadcasting, publishing but also interactive digital media, game development and post production.

Today’s Saturday Special Report gives a flavour of the improvements since the government decided to seriously promote the industry by pumping in hundreds of millions of dollars to help companies make movies and games.

There were many takeaways for me from this assignment. But what I remember most were the experiences of two cameraman, Mr Joe Phua and Mr Jone Chang.

TV cameraman cum producer Joe Phua of Infocus Asia has been producing documentaries on different topics in Asia for years. His father, Phua Tin Loon, also a cameraman for Australian Broadcasting Corporation, covered Gulf War I. He covered Gulf War II.

Both had worked for ABC and then BBC in different Asian countries. After 11 years of doing this, Mr Phua returned to Singapore and started Infocus Asia with Mr Chang in 1996. They produced many documentaries that were aired on Discovery, Animal Planet, National Geographic, BBC and CNN.

Both have covered so many wars, political upheavals and disasters and they have interesting snippets of information to share.

Mr Phua for example, as a runway bag by his side – with a change of clothes and underwear and toothbrush and passport - in case he has to leave for an assignment immediately.

His tip for professionals that travel to wartorn countries: Choose a hotel room that faces away from the main road. Keep the curtains closed so that if a bomb goes off and the glass windows shatter, the shards don’t cut you. Sleep with the passport, wallet, watch and other important stuff on the bedside table so that when you need to evacuate, you can do so right away.

I wondered for a cameraman who has always a front row seat of key events in the world including disasters, how do they cope with the situation?

Mr Phua’s partner, Mr Jone Chang has to remind himself to distance himself from the situation. It’s not easy, he said, because as the cameraman, he’s already up close and personal. Looking through the lens, he sees every emotion on the interviewees’ faces.

It’s tough when he cover deaths because it’s tough to get away from his emotions. He recalled on many occasions when he has to shoot the survivors of a crash or accident. The interviewees are wailing and the bodies are lying in the sun. Yet he has to shoot the interviewees’ face and show their emotions . Yet when the emotions get too much and the interviewees’ are really crying, he must zoom out to give them privacy.

I haven’t been to wartorn countries nor seen dead bodies strewn on the ground like when the tsunami struck Phuket and Aceh. They have and their stories let me experience a little of what they feel.

Read about their passion for their award winning work in today's Saturday Special.

What price new iPhone?

2009-07-04T17:57:00Z

Grace Chng looks ahead to what the launch of the 3G S will be like this week.

FANS will get their hands on the next gen iPhone 3G S (S for speed) this coming Friday when SingTel starts selling it in Singapore.

Peek at SingTel’s website on Monday morning to find out how much you’ve to shell out for the fancy cool phone.

Before I share my views on pricing, let’s find out what has happened since SingTel started selling Apple’s cool phone on August 22 last year. Prior to the launch, tens of thousands of people signed up on SingTel’s website to book the phone and SingTel planned an elaborate event which included fireworks to welcome the iPhone to Singapore.

Fans queued around ComCentre, SingTel’s headquarters near Orchard Road, some for as long as 24 hours before the first customer got his hands on the iPhone just after midnight on August 22. They paid anything from about $0 to over $800, depending on their data usage and calling habits.

Yet after being in the market for less than a year, people are again excited by the prospects of a new iPhone.

Discarding the fan boys who will buy anything that comes out from the California-based Apple, the excitement is in the improved hardware and significant new software features.

It’s common knowledge now that the new iPhone can cut-and-paste, forward messages and send MMS (multimedia messaging) which are common features on other phone brands.

Existing iPhone users who have upgraded to the 3.0 operating system software in the last two weeks would have found that they could do this, plus search their entire phone contents and view anything in landscape mode from SMS to web pages.

However, it’s only with the hardware that you get two significant features. The 3 megapixel camera is miserly and is still way behind what other phone makers are offering.

But the focus feature gets my top marks. A blue square focuses on the centre of the image when you camera is switched on. Move the square to another spot on the screen and it focuses there. The camera does the rest and you get sharp images

Capturing video clips, I believed, has always been a pain. Not the actual shooting but the hours of editing that has to go with it when you only want a 5-minute clip. The iPhone’s on-screen editing makes this a snap.

Once you’ve shot what you want, you can playback the video clips. A toolbar appears at the top of the iPhone screen. Tap on where you want the clip to start and tap again on where you want to end.

Then select: Post to YouTube, send it as an e-mail or save it as a file. Voila! It’s that simple.

For these reasons, people are excited about the new gizmo. SingTel is planning another big event – maybe with fireworks again – as tens of thousands have again signed up on SingTel’s website to book or ask for more information on the new phone.

The telco is one happy company as the iPhone has been its bestselling smartphone, topping the charts each month since it hit the street in August last year. It carries no more inventory of the older 16GB iPhone as customers have cleared out its shelves.

But what of the pricing for the iPhone 3G S?

Contracts of the earliest SingTel iPhone customers are shy of a year. To get a new phone, they would have to break their contracts and pay full price for a new phone or they would have to add two extra years to the contract and pay a subsidised hardware fee. This may cause SingTel to lose a few customers.

Instead, I think customers will get to continue with their existing contracts but pay for the hardware. When the new phone was announced, the price was US$199 (S$289) and US$299 (S$433) for the 16GB and 32GB versions respectively.

I think SingTel will charge less than those prices, in the range of $150 to $350 for either of those two models.

The money is not in the device but the data revenue that SingTel will get. I, for example, have been accessing the Web more frequently from reading news to booking movie tickets since I’ve been using the iPhone. It’s a similar story with other iPhone users.

I’m waiting for Monday morning when SingTel announces the prices. But I’m 80% pretty sure that I’ll be getting one.

Grace Chng has been following Apple’s fortunes for more than two decades.

Will Steve Jobs return?

2009-06-22T22:35:00Z

Grace Chng hopes Apple’s founder will be back soon.

BY APPLE'S WorldWide Developers Conference held in early June in San Francisco was an interesting event. As expected Apple announced the new iPhone 3.0 software and a new iPhone 3G S.

After the media filed out of the conference hall at the Moscone Centre, an Apple staff member from Taiwan showed me a photo of what looked like Steve Jobs, Apple's mercurial chief executive officer, sitting in the audience.

Could the gaunt guy in black turtleneck and jeans – Mr Jobs' trademark colour and outfit – be really him? My heart missed a beat.

But then reason took over and we realised that if it was really him, he would have made a cameo appearance on stage. He wouldn’t be too happy just watching. He would want to participate.

Besides, there's no media rush to mob him. So sadly, we realised that that person in the photo was only a lookalike.

When the real Mr Jobs reports for work again next week after a six-month medical related hiatus, speculation on his role in the company will intensify.

Since the Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend that he has had a liver transplant, the question has been: Will there be Apple after Steve?

No business executive embodies the vision and products of a company so completely like Mr Jobs. So his absence or presence inevitably is in the interest of Wall Street, industry observers and Apple fanboys.

On the first day that Mr Jobs returns to work, I want to see how healthy looking he is more than anything else. That would be proof that he is recuperating well.

He would not have fully recovered as a liver transplant — reported to have taken place only two months ago — would take a person some months to regain normalcy.

So, he may not be back at the top for long. He may give up his CEO seat for Mr Tim Cook, Apple's chief operating officer, who had been running the company in his absence. And running it well, I may add.

In the last quarter which ended in March, Apple's profit was US$1.21 billion (S$1.76 million) on US$8.16 billion revenue.

Mr Jobs has also been building up the core management team that has been running the product divisions and operations with no visible ill effects. More significantly, the essence of his thinking and management style has been instilled into Apple.

So he may end up with lighter duties as Chairman and be involved in strategic projects. That way he'll remain at the helm of the company he co-founded 33 years ago.

In September, the world may catch him on stage. That's when Apple usually announces a new iPod range for the year-end holidays. He may use the occasion to show the world how well he is.

Having covered and followed the fortunes of Apple and Mr Jobs for more than two decades, there's still a wild card: Mr Jobs could extend his medical leave for another three to six months.

Read more about what's happening at Apple: Jobs' first speech since January

No front page story for the iPhone 3GS

2009-06-10T08:31:00Z

Grace Chng tracks the less-than-stellar media coverage for Apple.

MR STEVE Jobs kept his word. Apple’s chief executive officer who took six months medical-related leave in January this year said he would return to work end-June and would not be making public appearances during this period.

So the Apple Worldwide Developers’ Conference which started here on Monday proceeded sans Mr Jobs. The job of opening WWDC fell to Apple’s senior vice-president of product marketing, Mr Phil Schiller.

Yesterday at the WWDC.
ST Photo: Grace Chng

In January, when he replaced Mr Jobs to deliver the keynote address at the Macworld expo also held here, he appeared stiff and tense. This week, Mr Schiller looked more relaxed and confident – and a little trimmer - on stage as he unveiled Apple’s latest line-up of notebook computers and the iPhone 3GS.

The news did make headlines in all the major print, TV and online media. But there was no Page One coverage save for the USA Today which had the iPhone 3GS on the top banner on its front page with news about the new device making the lead in the business section.

There were no Page One story about the gizmo or Mr Schiller on the major dailies like the New York Times or Washington Post, or even The San Francisco Chronicle.

Was the announcement of the new iPhone 3GS not important enough or was Mr Schiller not cool or glam enough to draw the attention of the print media?

I think it’s a little bit of both. While Apple thought it had a breakthrough product, the price drop of the existing iPhone 3G to US$99 (S$145) from US$199 was the exciting news.

It looked like Apple was reacting to rivals like Blackberry-maker Research In Motion, HTC and Nokia which have released new products recently to snag more of the smartphone market, the only segment in the cellphone business to register growth this year.

Apple has responded by not making a more affordable iPhone. Instead, it took the opposite approach. It came out with a high-end, feature-packed phone which will appeal to current users looking to upgrade.

At the same time, it reached out to new consumers by pricing the phone at a compelling price. At US$99, the iPhone 3G now comes within reach of the masses whose phone contracts are ending and are eyeing to change their phone.

I’ve spoken to Mr Schiller and has seen him make public appearances but, no insult to the man, he’s not mercurial like Mr Jobs.

So when will the world see Mr Jobs again?

Apple's head honcho in action at MacWorld 2008.

As a public-listed company, Apple has to release a statement when Mr Jobs goes back to work full-time. He may have exclusive interviews then with the key media like Wall Street Journal, New York Times and CNN.

But his first public appearance could be in September when Apple usually releases new iPods for the Christmas season.

Until then, the guessing game will continue.

New iPhone set to impress

2009-06-07T22:00:00Z

Grace Chung anticipates the unveiling of the new Apple iPhone.

IT'S not a secret that the iPhone 3.0 operating system will be unveiled when the five-day Apple Worldwide Developers’ Conference (WWDC) starts on Monday.

Among other features, it would allow iPhone users to forward text messages and do cut and paste, tasks that other cellphone owners can do for quite a while.

Apple has made it clear that the new iPhone software as well as a new version for the Mac OS X software will be the key highlights at this year’s WWDC starting Monday in San Francisco’s Moscone conference centre.

Yet rumours swirl. There’ll be a new iPhone, with a higher capacity of 32GB than today’s 16GB device, said one report. Another said there’ll be a low-priced iPhone at US$99 (S$145) or an iPhone with a built-in keyboard.

Most interestingly a report in the Wall Street Journal said that Steve Jobs, Apple’s mercurial chief executive who went on six months medical leave in January, is healthy and will be returning to work as scheduled at end June. Read between the lines and one indication is that Steve may make an appearance at WWDC.

Wow, Apple fans will rock while his competitors will privately wish he had gone away, permanently. Apple’s stock price will certainly rise and concern that Apple will be left rudderless without him at the helm will disappear.

I’m not holding my breath to see if Steve really appears. Since Apple doesn’t confirm rumours, if Steve comes on stage, so be it.

Meanwhile, I’m concerned about my breathing … especially in the airplane as I make my way to San Francisco. The airplane provides a captive audience for the H1N1 flu bug. Anyone who’s ill with H1N1 in the plane can spread the bug via the air circulation system in the plane, thus exposing all the passengers to the bug.

Doctors say only those who’re in really close contact with H1N1 patients, that is, sitting close to them will get the disease. But I’m uncomfortable that I’m part of the captive audience. Short of not covering this assignment, I’m going but taking precautions.

I’ve had a flu vaccination and I’m be carrying Tamiflu tablets that will fight the H1N1 flu if I get it. On the flight, I’ll be wearing a surgical face mask for the total of about 15 hours from Singapore to San Francisco. I’ll have to sneak food and drinks under the mask.

I don’t know if these steps are sufficient preventive measures, but they’re things I can do to keep the disease at bay. Certainly my friends and family will feel better knowing that I’ve taken precautions.

So this trip to San Francisco has been more of a challenge than my other overseas trips. I’m looking forward to completing the assignment successfully and return in good health.

The Sun is setting

2009-04-22T03:45:00Z

Grace Chng is saddened by Oracle's purchase of Sun Microsystems.

I WAS sad to discover that a long-time technology-rich company, Sun Microsystems had been bought over by business software firm Oracle for US$7.4 billion (S$11.2 billion). From the mid-1990s, I’d been covering this company, making many trips to its events in San Francisco and elsewhere to find out more about its technology and to meet its charismatic co-founder, Scott McNealy.

What I remember most of Sun is its prescience about the future of IT. Long before the Internet became a buzzword, Sun’s slogan had been "the network is the computer". It’s been proven correct for today every organisation is linked via the Internet. There’re 1.6 billion Internet users worldwide – about one in four people globally - according to the Internet World Stats.

Founded in 1982, Sun also proposed that software should be considered a utility, delivered on tap as and when users needed it. This came in the 1990s, years before the IT world came up with a similar concept called cloud computing.

Way before the sub-US$500 netbook wave took the world by storm last year, Sun had suggested in 1997 that Net PCs, small computers priced below US$1000, was the best for surfing on the Internet. Well, PCs are still kicking, but its sales have dropped while netbooks are flying off the shelves. .

Sun is a company that is steeped in technology. I was present in San Francisco in 1995 when the company unveiled Java, a special programming language that let developers write applications that can be used across computing devices regardless of brand. Java is used in 800 million PCs and 2.1 billion mobile phones. Sun receives royalties from PC makers and cell-phone vendors for using Java in their equipment.

Java is the main reason Oracle is buying Sun. Last night during a conference call to announce the acquisition, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison called Java the single most important software asset it had acquired. This coming from a CEO who had spent in excess of US$40 billion to buy more than 50 software companies since 2005. Analysts expect Java to be vital to Oracle’s plans to ensure that its many software products would work smoothly together.

An Apple (app) a day...

2009-04-13T22:30:00Z

Grace Chng explains why Apple's apps have been so successful.

ON APPLE'S App Store is a sign: over 945 million apps downloaded. By the end of the next few weeks, 1 billion apps will have been downloaded.

Apple's success with the App Store is the envy of the entire cellphone industry.

For years, smartphone pioneers like Palm and RIM (Research In Motion) - who makes the Blackberry cellphones, famous for pushing e-mail messages to users - have been trying to get its users to download third-party applications.

I do know of a couple of developers as far back as seven or eight years ago who were building such applications. But they were doing it out of passion and they didn't have a way of marketing their software to global customers.

Apple's App Store has changed all this.

By creating a tightly integrated system between the online App Store and the iPhone and the iPod Touch, Apple has successfully convinced users to get these third-party applications for which they may pay as little as US99 cents.

Now the entire cellphone industry is in a tizzy as they try to emulate Apple's way of doing things.

Competitors and application developers are already complaining that Apple's system is proprietary and that it can't be used on other systems.

Who cares, when it can get 1 billion downloads of applications in a mere nine months? With 30 million iPhones and iPod Touches that have been sold so far, it works out to about 31 apps per unit.

So why have the other cellphone makers who also have third-party applications failed to have similar success?

Apple's secret is in the user experience that it has created. It has made it not only easy to browse, search and download applications, but also makes it really fun to do so too.

I've downloaded 10 apps onto my iPhone so far. Some, like restaurant reviewer buUuk, are free. So is Al Jazeera news. Others like iFitness, Sudoku and Tetris cost more than US$5.

I expect I'll be buying more in the next few months. I've bought many of them for my iPhone on a whim while waiting for a friend. It's painless and all it takes is less than a minute before the app is on your phone.

It's this easy user experience and the element of fun that Apple's competitors have to copy before they'll be as successful.

Keeping an eye on advertisements

2009-04-07T10:16:00Z

Grace Chng points out that ads can tell an acquisition story.

EVEN though there was no official confirmation that IBM was in talks to acquire Sun last week, I had a hunch that the reports from Wall Street Journal, which first broke the news based on information from an insider source, were true.

And when the news was released on Monday that the deal was called off, I finally knew that my instincts was correct.

How could I have known this?

No, I did not talk to either company's CEOs nor did someone high-up in either company leak the news to me.

It was simple really – Sun Singapore suddenly pulled out all their planned advertisements in Digital Life last week.

That was uncharacteristic of Sun, and I had a hunch it was because the acquisition was about to take place.

Then on Monday, just as quickly as the ads were pulled out, they were re-instated.

That's when I knew IBM wasn't going to buy Sun.

Lesson of the day: Keeping an eye on the advertisements could well be the insiders' way to get ahead of the res of the market!

Forwarding and MMS - finally!

2009-03-19T22:00:00Z

Grace Chng rejoices at Apple's inclusion of more features for the iPhone.

FINALLY, my cellphone can forward text messages and send MMSes.

It’s been a challenge since I’d bought my iPhone over a year ago. To forward messages, I’ve had to re-type or summarise text messages received from one friend so that I can forward it to another person.

The latest software upgrade iPhone 3.0, released on Tuesday, has these two essential features. However, I can only upgrade them mid-this year. Apple said this upgrade will only be available “from the summer” which I estimate could be anytime from June onwards.

The upgrade is only for iPhone 3G users. For the iPod Touch, users would have to pay US$9.95 for it and they can buy this probably through the App Store.

Before I say what the other key features are, here’s some interesting trivia.

Apple has sold about 13 million iPhones in less than two years since it was first launched in June 2007. There are an astounding 25,000 applications on the online App Store and - hold on to your chair - there’ve been 800 million downloads! Some apps are free (including the ST.com application) while others are priced from US$0.99 and up.

Analysts estimate about 30 million iPhones and iPod Touches in use globally right now. For developers who’ve sold their apps in the online App Store, it’s going to be financially rewarding. I’m sure Apple has this in mind when they make new business models available for developers (as I'll explain in a bit).

For users, the new features – about 100 of them – will make it easy and convenient for iPhone 3G and iPod touch users to retrieve email, look for info on their devices, play games with people nearby, and send photos easily in text messages.

Users of other cellphone brands may not understand what the brouhaha about the forwarding and the MMS feature because these are routine features available on all phones today.

Except for the iPhone. Hence the celebration.

From the demos that’re available on the Web, Apple’s implementation of the forwarding feature is different. You first copy by double tapping on the word, phrase or sentence. Then you paste the text on the new email message you want to send.

At the bottom left-hand corner, you can choose whether to attach a photo. You can take a fresh photo or you can choose to append one from your phone’s photo library. So the MMS feature is also relatively painless.

What is also neat is that you can now type messages or see stock quotes (not that many people will want to see their stock charts during these gloomy times) in landscape mode.

Spotlight, the search function on Mac computers, is now available for the iPhone with the upgrade. This is great because you can use it to search for anything in your phone including e-mail messages.

What is definitely a plus is that now Apple has incorporated push technology. Apple has been adamant about including this in the first versions of the iPhone because of battery issues.

Everyone who has used a Blackberry know how convenient it is to get e-mail because the messages are sent to you without you having to go into the e-mail application to extract the new stuff. But this “pushing” of e-mail has a disadvantage: Battery juice dries up quickly.

According to Apple, it spent the last six months strengthening their server technology so that they can offer push technology without draining battery life. For consumers, it means you can read e-mail messages as they get delivered into your phone. For corporate users, this is definitely a big plus.

Another feature is that iPhone users now can pair up with other users near them to play games or exchange information. Apple is using Bluetooth technology which uses less battery power but only has a radius of about 3m. Kids who want to play games in a restaurant, or between two siblings in a car, can just send a request to each other and receive approval to join the game.

For developers, the iPhone 3.0 provides them a seamless way of getting paid for upgrades to their software, extra game levels or fresh content on an app without having to exit the application.

I’m glad that Apple has promised that if an app is initially listed as free in the App Store, the developer can’t turn around later and say upgrades have to be paid.

Unfortunately for me, a copy of the software is not available for testing yet. So I’ve to wait a while to get my hands on it.

Tiny became tinier

2009-03-13T00:44:00Z

Grace Chng is dashed that Apple's latest offering wasn't the bigger product.

ON Tuesday, I was alerted to a hush-hush product announcement that Apple will make today.

Finally, I thought, Apple is lifting the wraps on a slim netbook that had been rumoured for months.

A report in the Taiwanese newspaper called Commercial Times, gave me hope that Apple would do just that. The story said that Taiwanese company Wintek was supplying touch panels for Apple's ultra-thin netbook and that shipments will start in the third quarter.

Wow! An Apple super thin netbook priced below $1000 would surely storm the market.

But Apple Singapore PR cautioned me that none of the rumours in the market referred to the product that would be unveiled today.

Nevertheless, I did my due diligence, researching what was being said on the Web to prepare for the early morning call today with a marketing vice-president from Apple.

My hopes were dashed at the press release that came out on apple.com last night.

The company that invented the iPhone is unveiling a really tiny iPod Shuffle that can talk! Is that the big news?

It's half the size of the old Shuffle, carries twice as many songs at 4GB (1000 songs) and can tell me the title and singer of the music that is currently being played.

Plus, all the controls have been shifted to the headphone cord. So clicking once, twice or thrice on it and you can control volume, play, pause or move one song forward or backward.

Once I digested the information, I realised that the talk feature, called VoiceOver, is good.

Because the Shuffle would be so miniscule, it could disappear in my bag or briefcase.

So instead of fumbling for it, I could get it to tell me what I'm listening too.

But I better be careful not to drop it on the floor or one of my four dogs will mistake it for a chewie.

Okay, at $128, I may consider getting one. But will it be the black or silver?