So you have your new iPhone 5 and you love it; good for you! The first time you access iTunes you'll need to provide a payment gateway of some kind. Unlike with Android-based devices, you'll need to give Apple financial access in order to be able to get to the free stuff. My advice, especially if you have children, is to use a debit card with a low ceiling on spending, or something similar, so that when your children use your phone and inadvertently start paying for stuff, your liability will be kept within acceptable limits.
The second thing you'll want to do is turn off IDFA. You may remember that Apple put its foot down as far advertiser tracking was concerned and that iPhone users were protected up until September. With iOS 6 that changed. The new OS turned on tracking again and this has made the advertising executives very happy. So IDFA or IFA (identifier for advertisers) is a random number assigned to you and your new iPhone. This number is passed to advertisers from the site you are visiting to allow ad targeting. If, for example, you visit a number of financing sites then you will get financing ads. Your app downloads are also tracked. This function is turned on by default and was not advertised by Apple in the marketing lead-up to the latest release. The turn-it-off option is hidden under General, About, Advertising and not under Privacy. Just to make it that little bit harder, the item is labelled ''limit ad tracking'' and must be set to ''on'' to turn tracking off! In other words, Apple has made it as difficult as possible and most users will either never find it or won't even bother looking. On the plus side, theoretically your individual details are not tracked _ theoretically.
The well-known torrent site Pirate Bay went down recently, for a total of five minutes. No, it wasn't some kind of government attack; it was caused by the switch from a server-based service into the Cloud. For those unclear on the concept, a torrent is a small file that contains a list of trackers that ultimately connects millions of computers together to allow the sharing of files, of any type. This technology can be used to download a large file as efficiently as possible and, for some, provides the fastest download times possible across an internet connection. It is also the most common way to pass along copyrighted materials and so has been the target of many an organisation and government.
Servers are targetable, but the Cloud is not so easy to attack. Pirate Bay's new approach is to use two virtual machines in two different countries that allow almost instantaneous switching if there is a problem. It provides greater privacy for users and makes the content practically non-raidable because it's only the load-balancers and routers that could possibly be seized in a raid. If authorities take a router they then need to find the balancer, from there it is a diskless server in some Cloud provider containing encrypted images. This pathway is protected so that if the first part is taken out it initiates an access protocol. The Cloud providers themselves won't even know they are carrying the information because to them it is an encrypted bit stream and the load-balancer is never in the same country as the Cloud provider.
The latest instalment in that never-ending saga is that Apple has appealed the pro-Samsung decision in Japan. In case you haven't been following the latest news: Apple was overturned on appeal in the US and the earlier judge chastised for her decisions. The best description of this long-running war I've heard to date comes from the guys over at TheRegister in the UK who refer to it as the ''Sam-a-rama ding-dong''.
According to the market-watching firm StrategyAnalytics, the world's smartphone usage has passed the one-billion-unit mark. It took 20 years and the first acknowledged device was the IBM Simon; it was shipped out in 2004 and I never saw one. This was followed by the Nokia 9000 Communicator, dubbed the first modern smartphone, that I first saw in the hands of Peter, brother of Thai musician John Nuvo. I remember thinking at the time that it looked cool, but it was actually a rather bulky device in those days _ and monochrome to boot. Nokia dominated the market until Apple released the first iPhone back in 2007. The two-billion mark is expected to be reached a mere three years from now.
Finally, I was hoping to do a review of the new Kindle Paperwhite for this week's column, but the postman hasn't delivered it yet. My second run-through with a different character type on Torchlight 2 is also going well and I found some places I hadn't visited the first time. Enjoy your week!
James Hein is an IT professional of over 30 years' standing. You can contact him at jclhein@gmail.com