One marked improvement I’ve seen on my iPhone 3GS since upgrading to iOS 5 is that it has improved the speed of installing multiple apps or app updates from the iTunes App Store. In iOS 4 or earlier, each app would download and install one at a time, making installing updates for many apps a sometimes slow process.

In iOS 5, however, apps will download and install simultaneously, speeding up the process of installing many apps or updates. More specifically, what happens now is that once an app is finished downloading and begins installing, iOS immediately begins downloading the next app in line. This process of installing and downloading in tandem noticeably speeds up the process, which is good for those of us who are constantly updating the many apps installed on our iOS devices.

Kevin Rose posted on his Google+ page October 15, 2011 that he envisions iOS to include push updates for apps in the future. He doesn’t have any inside information on whether or not this will actually come to fruition, but I’m certainly with him as far as the idea is concerned. Everyone with more than just the stock iOS apps will agree that it’s a pain to have to manually poll the App Store to see if there are updates for your apps.

To take it one step further, I imagine App Store updates could happen automatically on all your devices, just like photos show up in your photo stream now. The apps are already stored on Apple’s servers, so it would just be a matter of including an option to turn on automatic updates. With all the money Apple’s been spending on servers for iCloud, I’m pretty sure they could handle the extra bandwidth of sending out push notifications.

Everyone and their dog has weighed in on the death of Steve Jobs. Will that stop me from throwing my hat into the proverbial ring? Hell no. I’ll try to keep it brief, though.

As a teenager in the mid-to-late 1990s, I was an ardent PC guy, while my best friend at the time was hardcore Mac. I never understood his fascination with this little niche market of computers that didn’t have a lot of games software and didn’t seem to be all that different from windows machines, save for the lack of a command prompt (I was ignorant of the terminal at that point).

Fast forward twelve years or so, and you’d see me purchasing my first Mac – a mid-2009 MacBook Pro, second hand (from a guy who works for Microsoft, no less). This came after two years in college, where most of the labs, recording studios and video edit suites ran Macs. The power and simplicity drew me in and when it was time for a new laptop there was only one clear choice.

Since then, the elements of my Apple ecosystem have grown significantly.

And I can say with certainty that every one of these things is the best product in each category that I’ve owned.

So long, Steve, and thanks for all the fish great technology.

I’ve been reading a lot of reviews on RIM’s recently-released BlackBerry PlayBook and it’s not looking good. Most reviewers agree that the PlayBook’s UI is shiny and its ability to display pages with flash components is a plus. But that seems to be where the good things, the differentiators from the other tablets in the market, stop. Most tech pundits have come down hard on the PlayBook, saying that as a standalone device, its functionality is severely, even terminally limited by its dependence on tethering with a BlackBerry phone to access the native email, contacts and calendar apps.

RIM has stated that the problems with their software are going to be addressed in updates to be released over the summer. That leads many to believe that RIM launched the PlayBook in advance of it actually being market-ready. Now it appears the company has recalled a large number of PlayBooks due to a hardware defect.

If the gadget-loving public stays well-informed on the PlayBook’s foibles since its launch, it makes me wonder if it will suffer the same fate as many other devices that may have been successful had it not been for overwhelming negative media. Or is it just that the PlayBook really is a half-baked device released before it was consumer-ready? RIM certainly has  its hands full with the competition – namely the iPad 2, which is the #1 selling tablet in the world.

It’s my first week as a Mac owner and I can tell you so far it’s been a hell of a lot of fun. I don’t know why I didn’t buy one ages ago. Oh yeah, the crippling hole it put in my wallet, that’s right. But this time around I had some extra cake from FINALLY selling my old car (a ’96 Acura Integra) and decided to spoil myself. So I finally did away with my old Toshiba laptop (it is sitting in its case in the closet, next to my old desktop PC) and got myself a lovely 15′ MacBook Pro – 2.66Ghz Intel Core Duo processor, 4GB RAM and a 320GB 7200RPM HDD. It is soooooo sweet. I’ve been diddling around in iPhoto, iWeb (which I didn’t even know existed until I installed the iLife suite yesterday) and my personal favourite so far, GarageBand. It’s all just TOO easy to use. I am still waiting for it to ask me for the right drivers, or for some weird hardware/software conflict to happen … but I don’t think it will. It’s so crazy.

So now that I own both the iPhone 3G S and a MacBook Pro, I really don’t see what possible use I could have for the new iPad. First off, what a terrible name. I’ve been reading for weeks that the rumoured names for the device were iSlate, iTablet, iPad … and iPad wins. Get ready for the maxi pad jokes, Apple. Actually, MADtv has that pretty much covered in this sketch from four years ago.

And okay, it’s a nice device for consuming media, and the iBook store is neat, but the iPad falls in its ability to be a do-everything device. It lacks a camera and it doesn’t multitask. I heard one defence for the iPad stating that it was made this way on purpose, as to not pull sales away from the MacBooks. That makes sense, but then what do I need the iPad for? I haven’t quite figured it out.

So the fanfare and the hype that has been building up for weeks didn’t quite deliver what it promised, but when does it ever do that? I’d say rarely ever. Maybe iPad version 2.0 will take some of the critics cries into consideration.

Another disappointment I felt during the whole Apple CES keynote was that I expected iPhone OS 4.0 to be released, but it looks like I’m going to have to wait for that, too. I guess that’s okay, though, as I don’t think I’ll upgrade to OS 4.0 until blackra1n or somebody else figures out how to jailbreak it. And my guess is Apple is going to make it a lot harder to do this time around.

All being said, yes. I’m a total Apple fanboy now.

And look at the super awesome shiny wonderful case I am getting for my MacBook! Excited!