Again, I must admit I deleted a total of 20 comments that screamed "April Fools' Day" in the thread. It's almost as if all my friends were vying to be the first one to call my bluff. And for every censor I had to send a PM explaining the need to strike off their comment.
Yah lah, must delete la.. otherwise how to troll those that really believe??
The 'smarter' friends will just quietly 'Like' and watch the trolling unfold.
The more spontaneous ones will just add on to the trolling.
To be constantly on the toes monitoring the iPhone/iPad for whistleblowers is really tiring you know!
Ok April Fools Day is officially over at Noon! (Or so I read somewhere before..)HAPPY TROLL DAY EVERYONE! Hope you all had fun haha!!Once again, sorry to the 20 people who I deleted your "baotou" comments :P This whole episode wouldn't be as fun if the cat is let out of the bag too early yea? HaaThanks to the 29 of you who just Liked the status and didn't call my bluff hoho.
And of course, good job to ALL of you who commented above to play along!! :D
Well, more impromptu epic trolling later in the day. For that, let me first get my hands on some videos we took earlier in the afternoon.
In the meantime, here's sharing some of the net's best April Fool's contributions!
Temasek Poly School Uniforms - we were just waiting for them to admit the joke ha
Google Maps for Nintendo - Blow the Cartridge to solve problems!
Gmail Tap - Type not one but TWO messages SIMULTANEOUSLY!
See I loaded Big Bang Theory on the iPad monitor? Smooth playback! IMPRESSIVE.
But, I'm not sure if it's the fact that the iPad constantly left switched on, or the heavy consumption of Wifi, or the graphics card on contant overdrive, the iPad battery DRAINS VERY FAST EVEN WHEN ON POWER.
Yeap, the iPad battery drained from 80% to about 40% while I was in office and it was PLUGGED IN.
Still, a cool app, wonderful feature, and very worth the purchase! :)
Ordered the monster almost immediately after the Keynote. Took longer than expected to arrive.. I mean.. turns out that I could have easily walked into any Epicentre at midnight to buy it rather than wait till evening to lay my hands on it. :/
Haha but glad that it came 80+% charged so I can use it for work straightaway.. Well, had a seminar that evening. So might as well use the new one!
And bless Apple for making transferring of info from the old to new iPad a breeze. Took me 15 minutes!!
And this pic: I guess this would be the ONLY time I'd see it (unless I reformat, lah):
So, reviews:
Resolutionary Retina DisplayNope. Didn't WOW me at first. Maybe it's cos I had a lousy background image. The WOW came when I fired up Twitter. Text really looked crisp and amazing!But, I believe, just like the iPhone 4, the display is just something any user will get used to and won't be a kick anymore after some time.And because the screen is so clear & rich, suddenly all my photos become ugly and grainy - something which I wouldn't have noticed on iPhone, iPad 1, or even my MacBook!What a bummer.
Speed - A5X Chip + 1GB RAMComing from the fact that I'm upgrading from a slow, crashy iPad 1, this new iPad naturally felt like a huge improvement in terms of speed.Though rather than feeling like "Wow this shit is blazing fast!", It felt more like "Finally I can use the iPad like normal and not expecting crashes every now and then."Yeah, blame my lousy experience with the iPad 1, which I probably put it into overdrive most of the time.Still, I wouldn't think it's much faster than existing iPad 2s for now. Wait till more apps get optimized for Retina display.. that's when the current slate of iPad2s will feel like slow old hags rendering unnecessarily high-res graphics.
Sleeve? Smart Cover? Protection?Yay fortunately it fits most iPad 2 covers - albeit with a little bit of squeezing (after all, the new iPad IS slightly thicker).Unfortunately, iPad 2 smart covers aren't THAT smart. Apparantely Apple moved the magnets slightly towards the edge of the iPad, hence if the magnet-alignment of the old covers are wrong, they won't work. Unless the Smart Cover magnets are super-strong, then it won't matter, right?Ordered my screen protector online which has yet to arrive. So now enjoying the oleophobic coated screen in it's full naked glory. Pretty shiok to use, i must say. :) But I very kiasee one. Once the screen protector comes I'll slap it on immediately. And yes, Gmasked.
iSight CameraStill lousier than even the iPhone 4 IMO - so it's a useless feature. Besides, I used to laugh at idiots taking photos using their iPads, and hence I shan't be one.
Battery LifeHey.. I actually felt that the battery drained FASTER than the iPad 1! The iPad 1 was like a freaking battery silo - lasting more than a day or even TWO even with heavy usage.But this new guy drained out within a day! Maybe it's due to VERY HEAVY usage cos it's new.. have to use a few more weeks and see how.And to be fair to Apple, yeah it probably still lasted around the 10h or so as they claimed.
4G LTEBefore the launch I actually did tweet Starhub to ask about Starhub's LTE's plans. And here's their reply:"RT @StarHubCares: @clementchio Hi there, We are definitely looking into offering 4G or Long-Term Evolution (LTE) to our customers.To provide the best possible LTE coverage for our customers in the future, we are currently extending our LTE trials to the new LTE 1800MHz band as it has twice the coverage area compared to 2.6GHz and is better suited for indoor coverage.We will likely launch our LTE services in the second half of 2012 as that is when more LTE enabled mobile devices are available in the market.Stay tuned to this page for our updates. Thanks."But as we all know now, New iPad can't 'talk' to local 4G networksFurther confirmed by Starhub themselves: http://www.starhub.com/content/support/mobile/faq/ipad.html "The new iPad allows you to be connected on-the-go with StarHub’s advanced nationwide 3.5G mobile network. Local LTE connection is currently not available on the new iPad, which has been designed to work on LTE frequency bands used in US."In conclusion - useless feature. Bleah.
Others
Bluetooth 3.0 is pretty fast. Bluetooth keyboard seems snappy and much less laggy.Friends who own iPad 2s immediately noticed the significant weight increase. I'm ok - it's still much lighter and slimmer than the iPad 1 so Yay.Also, the lower left part of this bugger actually heats up after a while. Will it explode? Nah. But it's actually irritating to have 1 hand hot and the other cold while using the device.
All in all, getting this was more like a much-desired upgrade for me.
I use the iPad entirely for work and leave my MacBook at home nowadays.
If you are an iPad 1 user, and have your whole electronic life centred around the Apple ecosystem (iTunes, iCloud, Apps..), then go get it.
If you're still holding on the the iPad 2, no need to upgrade lah. Waste money.
But if you want to get it as a toy, maybe a second hand iPad 2 may be more suited for you. (Screw the Apple 16GB ones la huh? You definitely NEED more than 16GB to really enjoy an iPad)
If you're new to the whole Tablet ownership market, you may want to wait. There definitely will be interesting launches in the Android and Windows Tablet space in the near future that may give the iPad a run for it's money.
And now, I'm still learning/exploring how to enjoy the machine to it's fullest. I already have a bluetooth keyboard, bought an iPad envelope, and a iPad-to-VGA output display cable.
If you are a power iPad user, tweet me some tips yea? Cheers. :)
Went around scouting and there are a total of EIGHT shops in Clementi Central! 1. KOI 2. Each-a-Cup 3. SweetTalk 4. OK TEA 5. 茶十二歺督曲 メロデイお茶 Tea & Cafe 6. Bubble Orange 泡泡橘子 7. 5° C Tea 五度茶 8. Ding Tea 鼎茶
No Gong Cha 貢茶 though.. Now, place bets on how long each of them will survive...
Ok gotta admit, after over a decade of ZoukOuts, this is my virgin experience. And I gotta say, I never regretted a single cent spent on the $71 ticket.
Yup, $71 cos I got the Happy Hour ticket (with Citibank discount) so I had no choice but to go in before 8pm.
Again a great choice because of the uber awesome free party blingblings that were being distributed throughout the beach. Thanks to HTC & their flashing white-green bracelets/anklets, HTC again for chains (in however way you wanna wear them), Havaianas for keychains & THUMBDRIVES and Citibank for finger lights & lighted clappers.
Felt like a freaking Tron character with all the blings lighted up around me. This party is already off to an awesome start!
While I must say the booze isn't exhorbitantly expensive here, queuing to purchase drinks can be a bitch.
Fortunately, Citi Clear Card Platinum holders were granted access to their booth with freaking FREE-FLOW DRINKS from 8pm-10pm.
Hell yea, FREE-FREAKING-FLOW!
Of course, at the other end of the beach, Singtel was also giving out free flow drinks as long as you are a Singtel user, which is.. 1/3 of the population? Did I mention earlier that queuing is a bitch? Oh well... *smugface*
After countless shots, Vodka-Redbulls, Barcadi Breezers & beers, we were high enough to parttaayyyyy!!!
If you haven't known (or at least read from my profile on the right of this page) by now, I'm a self-confessed hardcore Mambo Jambo addict. So naturally the 4 solid hours of Mambo was something I couldn't miss at all.
And it was PaRtY RoCkkiNgGggg on the Beach!!! One of the best mambo sets under a totally different setting facing the vast beach under the starry sky.
Best thing is, you don't get the usual touristy drunk Ang Mohs in Zouk on Wednesdays trying to oust you off the podium and then decide to NOT mambo away. (I guess they're probably be at other Arenas partying to the other DJs.)
Which leaves us locals and Mambo lovers enjoying and swishing our hand actions to what we love best - true authentic blue Mambo Jambo.
#MamboFever <3
Was actually disappointed when the set ended at 2am.. 4 hours passed by like that so fast?? I could go on the whole night!!
And then.. Sheer wizardry thundered through the skies. :D
Hearing the crowd chant to his chart-topping beats brings the fervour to one climax after another. To me, soaking in the beautiful live house music with amazing pyrotechnics is nothing but enchanting.
Heard a lot about this guy and thrilled to finally could hear him spin live. Awesome. :)
The below video is for you to play Armin's music in the background as you read the rest of the post / view the rest of the photos. Unless you wanna look at the girl, then make sure you loop the music a 2nd time before you continue reading. :P
On a side note, I must say the humongous background LED had some beautiful visuals.. But well, this is Trance.. Everything's beautiful in trance.
Somewhere amidst the set, the sky was filled with confetti pouring endlessly from the heavens. Nothing short of surreal.. with confeti, lights and lasers mixing into a myriad of colours floating in the sky.
Even at dawn, the party is still going strong. At 6.30am, the CrAzYiNeSs factor of the crowd doesn't seem to be dousing at Arena A!!
You know the feeling when you read storybooks with the good claiming victory over evil? And the sun rises after long drought of darkness to bring peace to the world?
Armin's music just brought us through that feeling - and you get the triumphant happy ending as the dawn caresses the beachfront.
Party's almost over. But it was a party that ended with pure satisfaction. :)
Oh, did you see a large group in my early photo? Most couldn't make it to the sunrise, unfortunately.
Introducing - the final 3 survivors. :)
In conclusion, ZoukOut's definitely EVERYTHING I could ask for in a party - Free party blingblings, bikini babes (hell yeah), fringe activities, 4 SOLID hours of SUPERB Mambo Jambo, FIREWORKS, AWESOME guests DJs with AMAZING myriad of visuals & pyrotechnics and the SURREAL feeling of trancing to the sunrise.
Thank you, ZoukOut, for an out-of-this-world party. *thumbsup*
The event was a frenzy of unlimited ice cream tasting. Notable flavors were Wasabi, Tom Yam and Curry!
The range of flavours were simply amazing! Yeah, I got myself Vanilla, Chendol, Chocolate Stout & Lychee Martini ice creams. The lychee martini was the ultimate awesomeness.
