At the time of writing this, Apple's annual iPhone keynote is just 1 hours and 45mins away. As always, I'm among one of the millionth fans from all around the world waiting anxiously/excitedly/nervously, x-x-ly of whatever they might announce.
First of all, I would like to make some sort of prediction based on all the rumors and "leaked" info floating around the net before the actual event.
Looking at the picture above, it's the one sent out to the tech journalists around the world as an invitation. People started analyzing this. All icons are obviously from iOS itself or to be more accurate, iPhone itself. first 3 icons (top left, top right, bottom left) seems to be pretty straight forward.
Top left = Calendar app = 4th Oct 2011 = date of the actual event today
Top right
= Clock app
= time of the event = 10 a.m. P.S.T.
Bottom left = Map app = Cuppertino office , Apple's campus where the keynote is held
the mystery one would be the 4th icon :-
Bottom right = Phone app = with 1 badge above signifies a miss call.
now people have been speculating about this. some say the number 1 represent only 1 new iPhone model that's going to be introduced. This excludes the model of iPhone 4 which would be dumbed down to just 8GB of storage and would be available with contract for $99 in the States. The new model would be of a new design (be it radically new or just moderately new) of iPhone 4s or 5.
the last part of the invitation reads "Let's talk iPhone". Now, when Apple held its annual keynote during last June 2011, it has a tag line "back to the Mac". When i see that, I read it as "Apple is now focusing its attention back to the Mac lines, not just purely iOS devices" which makes sense. It's still part of the company's product although now their main income mostly comes from the sale of iOS devices. So based on that knowledge alone, this sentence today might not be so straight forward. It could literally means "lets talk, iPhone". Apple acquired Siri - developer of personal assistance app for the iPhone awhile back. Many speculate that they will debut the "Assistance" feature today for the new iPhone which would be astounding. It should be regarded as a fundamental improvement to the way voice command works. Right now, the current version of iOS supports limited voice commands to call a person, dial certain numbers, play song, ask for the song title, artist name but it's all fairly limited. Google's Android allows the user to use voice over to capture and perform search as well (although there's a similar app for that for iOS called Dragon Dictation) but i guess all these still requires fair amount of accuracy and only accepts certain verbs/noun as inputs. If Apple does this right (usually they do), it would be a high selling point, not major, but could be a potential hit.
With that said, looking at another perspective is that iPhone generally is being iterated by Apple averagely about 12 months (plus/minus). This time around, it took them more than 15 months to even announce a new model. Other competing company e.g. Google and Microsoft with their Android and Windows Phone 7 (except this one, Mango a.k.a. 7.5 was just released a few days ago) is already catching up to iOS not to mention about the phone manufacturer for these OS e.g. HTC, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson, etc. These people releases new or reiterates new version of their phones every few months or so and with the rate that they do this, it's already surpassed the mighty iPhone 4 in terms of CPU and ram. They still fall behind Apple's gorgeous ultra high density - Retina display though. So with that said, all eye's on Apple today and if they merely just release a new iPhone with the same housing a iPhone 4 just like what they did with iPhone 3Gs vs iPhone 3G they are going to disappoint a lot of fans and maybe lost a few along the way as well. I would not budge, but would not be that compelled to upgrade to it.
With all these pressure from competition and there's really not much breathing space left anymore in the mobile phone market, wrong move or being ignorance over your success will be costly. think Nokia and Blackberry, they were giant once and look at them, struggling right now to even keep up. They have loyal fans still but how far that will take them in the future? Palm tried, failed, bought over by HP, tried again, failed. Competition is always good, and it's good for the consumers like us.
With that said, here's my final prediction and hope for today's event.
1) new iPhone design (I don't really mind the name, 4S, 5, iPhone HD, whatever)
2) perhaps higher resolution screen (3.7" or 4", currently iPhone 4 has around 70% of iPad's resolution, they could cramp in another 30% if they increase the screen size, which in turn would allow the new iPhone to perhaps run all of the existing iPad apps?)
3) iPhone 4 to be released alongside the new iPhone with trimmed down storage of 8GB and sell for $99 for contract.
4) iOS 5 launch today for existing customers
5) iPhone (new) availability in the states from next 2 weeks or even 3
6) most likely no new iPods holiday lineup (unlikely as they said it's "let's talk iPhone" event)
Okay, here's the final stretch and I'm all fired up for the keynote later.
Let's go Apple. Ball's in your court. your move.
Made 3 version, 1st one is clean from Sketchbook Pro for iPad. 
From Snapseed, a powerful photo editing app... adds the bokeh effect around the sides.
Last but not least, with Halftone with all the crazy comic balloon conversation boxes to go.
I think I have missed creating 1 piece of Christmas art last year. I don't want to miss it out this year. Painted half way and the app crashed with only partial save, frustrated but picked myself up and continued immediately to make the date. 
You know, from where I work now. I sit on the 1st floor, those people at ground floor will put up nice Christmas deco on month Dec (which is now) yearly. Some of them went a bit extra by putting in cottons on top of cubical wall to simulate snow... very very nice looking. Especially if your whole department is doing it as well. :) 
These goes at the bottom of the trees... courtesy of me and ah Nee (mostly hers.. )
Dear Steve,
At the time of writing this, Apple's annual iPhone keynote is just 1 hours and 45mins away. As always, I'm among one of the millionth fans from all around the world waiting anxiously/excitedly/nervously, x-x-ly of whatever they might announce.
Hope you had a wonderful 中秋节，2011. 明年见!
Finally, wanna take a moment to thank each and everyone for organizing this dinner for us. Kam siah! 
Special shot dedicated to all the children who attended the fun :) cute! 
Earth quake and tsunami hit Japan just 6 days shortly after I depart from Japan from biz trip at 11th Mar 2011.
Casual kimono try outs for RM10 for photo session, too bad mum didn't want to try. If I were here, I'd give it a shot :)
Reading the letter from the organizer, touching.. just realized that the event was 100% donation event, self funded by kind volunteers, kudos!
Today's afternoon skies were particularly bright and blue, can't help myself but shot and stitched up a panorama for my collection :)
1st painting for 2011 and just in time for Chinese New Year 2011 - year of the rabbit! 
Witnessed the live show of Dark Knight (Batman) at Queensbay mall last Saturday with Julian. I was at QB mall when i saw the posters promoting the event. Thought I'd give it a look since I have nothing much to do at this holiday. Brought out my camera n headed out.
The participant below finished first.... well.... a bit too fast n rushed that they made a mistake...
Can you spot the mistake that they made from the photo above? hahahahhaa.. it was quite funny, click on the photo for a larger version if you need to spot the mistake.
I forgot the actual story but I will watch "Batman Begins" once again for this, i loved that movie compared to the rest. Basically it saids Bruce went on a journey to discover himself and actually ended up being trained by a tribe in ninjitsu (art of ninja) by Ra's al Ghul his mentor who later became his enemy.
A few bat performance by some ladies.
The story then continued as a reporter from GCTV (i think its Gotham City Television) interviews a fake Batman. Fake Batman said he supported what Batman stands for, justice, peace, bla bla bla.. hahhaha.. Actually, to be honest, if they didn't say he's the fake Batman... i would have thought he's the real one. Come on, this is a free live show, that costume is good enough to me as a real Batman. With fake Batman looking this good, I'm actually looking forward to the real deal.
The scene then continued on showing villains dancing around after robbing bank... not bad.. their dance moves are actually pretty entertaining.
All the villains then gave way to the master villains himself... who's this dude in purple suit?
Taking off the mask and unveiling his true identity....
The Joker! then had his men cornered and defeated the fake Batman, and choke him.. mocking him in the process... But a voice then shouts out.. "LET HIM GO!".... and lights were directed to the top of the stage, waay high up at the 3rd floor where a clock tower was situated along with a Batman sign.
It was the Batman! He grapples down from that roof top, slowly... not to slow.. LOL. it was quite funny when he landed, he's taking his time to unclip himself from the safety harness while Joker and the rest waited.. hahahhahaa.. oh well, sorry.. it's funny to us adults but for kids i'm sure it is believable. :)
The Dark Knight himself... looking pretty good I must say, don't you agree?
Said something before fighting Joker's men.
Which he failed when 3 of them ganged up on him... keeping him down while the Joker has his say...
The Joker enjoying the moment as he managed to keep Batman onhold, showing his joy.. ah.. full of achievements are we?
Batman later somehow managed to summon all his strength and broke free of the goons' hold and fight each of them off before defeating Joker himself. Not so surprising here isn't it? hahahahhaa...
The victory stance, Dark Knight then said out some lines from the movie Dark Knight (which is also my favorite batman movie of all time) before ending the show...
The casts then lines up and gave the audience a bow... thanks for the great show! well, check the schedule, for those who missed this and would like to check it out you may do so before the schedule ends. To me, to be honest, this live show is really well put up. It is worth the watch even though you're just a minor fan of Batman. Give it a try, I didn't wait for the Meet and Greet session though, not sure what is it. Perhaps its meeting up with the casts and taking photos with them. :)
Live Show and Meet & Greet
