Author: Toby Shapshak

The Competition Commission last week confirmed what all South Africans have been telling each other for years: the cost of cellular data is too high. Releasing a provisional report from its data services market inquiry, which has been dragging on since August 2017, the commission’s finding no doubt contributed to the fall of Vodacom and MTN shares. They said the convoluted pricing structured “lacks transparency” and it is “anti-poor”. It’s hard to disagree. Just looking about Sub-Saharan Africa show how cheap data can be – often from the same South African networks operating in our neighbouring countries. “Consumers of small…

In 2004 at a Nokia event in Helsinki a nerdy engineer showed off a fancy new concept that he hoped would be a big hit. Calling it an “automatic multimedia diary” it was a way to upload pictures, thoughts and other titbits from a mobile phone to an online site. Using the then popular concept of blogging, he called it a Lifeblog. “Lifeblog is a PC and mobile phone software combination that effortlessly keeps a multimedia diary of the items you collect with your mobile phone,” Nokia’s Christian Lindholm told me at the time. “Lifeblog automatically organises your photos, videos,…

The most astounding thing about Uber’s long-awaited announcement of its listing is not its expected $100bn valuation but the admission that it “may not achieve profitability”.

But a new upgrade to the SIM card means life can even simpler.  Called an electronic SIM or eSIM, it is a way of linking your phone, using software, to a SIM (usually in a server rack at the service provider). The new iPhone Xs, which I am using, has an eSIM built in.

The good news is Facebook has shut down white supremacists and hate speech. The bad news was that it happened after the live streaming of the horror Christchurch massacre in March. The even worse news is that Facebook’s notoriously lax policies around data privacy were confirmed when it was revealed that hundreds of millions of its users’ passwords were stored in an unencrypted plain text format.

This week Apple announced its much-anticipated news service, as well as a streaming service to rival Netflix, a games arcade and a credit card. Instead of the usual hype around physical product launches, Apple casually announced a new iMac, two new iPads and new AirPods as a warm up to Monday’s hype-filled launch of these new services. That alone is remarkable.

If you want a good picture of what Facebook seems to be pivoting itself to become, start using that great everything app WeChat.

South Africans tend to think of it as just a messaging app, an alternative to WhatsApp.

In what seems to be a daily hardware update before next week’s major services announcement, Apple has revealed upgraded AirPods that include wireless charging and better battery life.

If ever Alanis Morrissette wanted a definition of “ironic” it was Mark Zuckerberg’s use last week of the word “privacy”. He says bizarre things like Robert Mugabe used to, oblivious to the reality on the ground, and how absurd his utterance sound.

The newest sensation to hit these all-important devices are foldable screens. Last week Samsung got the jump on its competitors by announcing its Galaxy Fold before the annual Mobile World Congress. As the cellular industry gathered in Barcelona this week, Huawei announced their own foldable, the Mate X, the day before the main conference began on Monday.