With the iPhone 4S set to launch at midnight in South Africa, details have emerged about MTN’s pricing and packages for the iPhone 4S.

MTN will offer the iPhone 4S on three different packages that start from R499pm to R819pm, all packages will include a 250mb data bundle every month for the duration of the 24 month contract.

MTN are yet to announce at what stores the iPhone 4S will be available from tomorrow, but they have confirmed these pricing on their Facebook page. What I do find dissapointing is the fact that even though they opened up pre-registration of the iPhone 4S they are now requesting that you go into a store tomorrow to get the iPhone 4S.

Yesterday I spent most of the day phoning around in Cape Town to find a MTN store that will have the iPhone 4S on 16 Decemeber 2011, but I was told by every store I phoned that they will not have the phone on launch date, shocking considering I phoned most of the bigger stores.

Both Vodacom and MTN has however told MyBroadband that users should not be concerned and that there will be stock at certain stores where customers can go to on launch date to apply for iPhone 4S contracts. These customers going into stores to take out iPhone 4S contracts will be treated on a first come, first serve basis.

Vodacom has also revealed the stores where the iPhone 4S will be available on launch date, see table below.

With the news of the iPhone 4S launching in South Africa, MTN has now also opened up pre-orders for the device.

Vodacom was the first to officially announce that they will be launching the iPhone 4S in South Africa on 16 December 2011, with the news Vodacom also opened up pre-orders for the device on their website. MTN soon responded saying that they will also be launching the iPhone 4S in South Africa on the 16th of December but there were no word on pre-orders.

MTN has now also opened up pre-orders for the iPhone 4S. Users wanting to get they hands on Apple’s latest iPhone can pre-order their devices on the MTNSP site, the pre-orders are open to new or existing customers wanting to upgrade to the iPhone 4S.

The iPhone 4S features Apple’s lightning fast A5 dual core processor, an all new and impressive 8 Mega Pixel camera, iOS 5 and the much talked about digital personal assistant called Siri that responds to your voice commands.

According to Business Insider, Apple is ready to launch the next generation iPad, the iPad 3 or whatever it may be called.

Analyst, Richard Gardner, from Citi has told Business Insider that Apple is ready to roll with a new iPad. Several industry sources has told Gardner that Apple will be launching their next generation iPad in February 2012.

Not much is know about the iPad 3 except that it will have double the resolution of the current iPad 2. Should the iPad 3 launch in February it will be less then a year since Apple launched the iPad 2.

When Apple announced the launch of their new iPhone 4S, South Africans has been holding thumbs that just maybe the iPhone 4S would launch here. Unfortunately as with most tech products, South Africa is not always on top of the list to get things first.

Apple then announced the second launch wave of the iPhone 4S to a few additional countries and yet again South Africa was left behind, but it seems like we are in for a Christmas surprise.

Vodacom yesterday revealed in a tweet that they will be launching the iPhone 4S in South Africa on 16 December 2011. Rumors was doing the rounds that the iPhone 4S would have launched on 30 November 2011, but later industry players stated that the launch was postponed to December.

MTN has also responded and said that they will also be launching the iPhone 4S on 16 December, but pricing are yet to be confirmed.

If you are a Vodacom customer or would like to become one you can pre-register for a iPhone 4S here.

It’s no secret that FNB, First National Bank, is at the forefront of innovation at banking in South Africa, and actions are pointing at another first for South African banking from them.

FNB was the first bank that embraced social media, and since then has seen great success with its twitter consultant account, RBJacobs (FNB Guy), that helps FNB customers with quick solutions to problems they are experiencing as well as providing them with advice when they need it.

The last couple of weeks allot of FNB customers started asking about dedicated smartphone apps for the internet banking service, even though FNB gives customers access to mobile banking through their fnb.mobi site and through a USSD service, the company seems to have listened to their customers’ request and yesterday on twitter started asking around at what mobile platforms users would like apps for.

Shortly after users responded, FNB changed their profile picture by adding Apple, Android and BlackBerry logos to it, making it even more obvious that they will be launching smartphone apps. The FNB twitter account also mentioned that they will be announcing something today and questions answered by the account hinted that it may relate to dedicated smartphone apps for internet banking. This morning RBJacobs confirmed that today today they will be talking about the FNB App launch, confirming all the rumours.

Would you make use of a dedicated FNB smartphone app to do you internet banking? If so what platform would you prefer?

If you are an Apple fanatic then you have by now heard of the Apple TV, if you are not, well the Apple TV is essentially Apple’s answer to the media player in you living room.

The Apple TV is a small device you hook up to your HD (High Definition) television through an HDMI cable and then allow you to access media such as Movies, Music and Podcast through WiFi on you iTunes enabled PC’s and even allows you to use AirPlay, Apple’s proprietary feature that allows you to stream content from your Apple iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad wireless with the single touch of a screen.

Misplaced or lost your Apple TV remove, or are just too lazy to stand up to go get it, no worries. Apple allows you to control the Apple TV from your iPhone or iPad. If you are too lazy to pick up the remote to control the Apple TV, simply get out your iPhone or iPad and then control the Apple TV straight from that, browsing through photos or starting and stopping videos.

But the Apple TV is so much more than just a wireless media player to stream you movies and music from your computer, it also give you access to YouTube content and you can even play your HD podcast videos on your TV. In addition to that you also get access to TV series and Movie rentals through the use of a US iTunes Account, where you can watch the latest TV series the day it gets released for a mere $0.99 or get access to the latest Movies the day they get released on DVD for only $3.99 per movie, all of this in glorious HD right here in South Africa.

Unfortunately, the Apple TV is not officially available in South Africa, but luckily my favourite iTunes Gift Card provider has just informed me that are now also selling the Apple TV with free courier shipping on their site.

The Apple TV is going for about $199 when you import it through them, much cheaper than Kalahari.net is asking for the device, and also offering better value when compared to other media devices such as the XTreamer which sells at the same price here in South Africa and has no WiFi.

You can get the Apple TV at the following South African outlets:
WildTwig (Recommended)
Kalahari.net
Have2Have

Alternatively if you know about someone that lives in the states and will be heading to South Africa soon, you can always ask them to pick you one up for $99 at an Apple Store and bring it back for you.

Remember, to make use of the Apple TV’s TV and Movie rental services in South Africa you will need to have an US iTunes Account, follow this guide to help you set up a US iTunes Account for use in South Africa and then grab some iTunes Gift Cards to buy content from the iTunes store..

If you are into coding and own a Mac then this post is for you. GitHub, the web-based project source hosting service has announced an official client for Mac users.

GitHub users normally has to make use of command line tools to update and commit to repositories, but the company has now released an official Mac client for GitHub with a complete GUI.

GitHub for Mac will allow you to manage all your repositories from an easy to use GUI, allowing you to view switch between branches, view commit history, see the diff between certain commits and allow you to perform operations on it.

For more information on GitHub for Mac and to see some screenshots see the official post on GitHub or go download GitHub for Mac for free here.

A few weeks back Apple announced at their annual WWDC that the new Mac Operating System, Max OS X Lion, would only be available in digital form from their Mac Store.

Like iOS upgrades the Max OS X Lion upgrade also comes in at a hefty size, a 4GB download infact, the problem with this is not everybody has high speed internet or caps that high, even in the United States.

Apple has however seen this as a problem and are offering consumers free WiFi access at iStores to upgrade their Max OS to Mac OS X Lion. No word yet on whether South Africans will also be able to upgrade their Max OS for free at local iStore’s, I have also reached out to Digicape but have not received any word yet on whether they will give customers free WiFi access for the upgrade.

I am glad to see that Apple are actually passing the savings on to their consumers this way, as they are saving on packaging by distributing Mac OS X Lion digitally. I do however not see customers unplugging their iMac’s and Mac Pro’s and taking it to stores to upgrade, MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro users would be the ones that would benefit from this.

Today Apple will be having their annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) keynote, and with this keynote usually comes announcements of exciting new products and service from the trendy gadget maker.

This year I believe will be no different, we already know that Apple will be announcing their new Mac operating system called Mac OSX Lion, the new iOS 5 operating system for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch and their new cloud music service called iCloud.

Apart from the things we already know will be launched, Apple usually has something exciting to announce and who knows maybe we will see them announcing the new iPhone 5 or iPhone 4GS as some has reported.

What do you think will Apple announced at the 2011 WWDC?