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.

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.

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.

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?

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..

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.

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?

Apple officially made available the white iPhone 4 last month in the US and it seems that South Africans wanting to get their hand on the device won’t have to wait that long.

MTN which launched the iPhone 4 here in South Africa at really affordable prices last year is again at it by being the first to introduce the white iPhone 4 to South Africa.

“From as little as R309 a month, with a 150MB data bundle included, MTN customers can experience world-class internet in their pockets,” says Serame Taukobong, chief marketing officer at MTN South Africa.

The white iPhone 4 will be available at MTN stores from 20 May 2011 without any pre-registrations.

South Africans had to wait almost a year before the iPad was released locally, in fact the first generation iPad was released in South Africa a mere 2 months before the release of the iPad 2 internationally. Good news is that this time around we will not have to wait that long.

Apple has announced in a press release that they will be launching the Apple iPad 2 in 12 other countries during this week and that includes South Africa.

Core, the local distributor for Apple products has also made recommended retail pricing available on their website from as low as R4399 for the 16GB iPad 2 Wi-Fi version.

The iPad 2 will be available in South Africa from 29 April 2011 at the following retail touch points:
Apple Premium Resellers
Digicape Cape Town
iStore Canal Walk
iStore Clearwater
iStore Gateway
iStore Melrose Arch
iStore Menlyn
iStore 1 Sandton Drive
iStore Sandton City
iStore Vodaworld
iStore Waterfront
Project 3

Incredible Connection
Incredible Connection Bloemfontein
Incredible Connection Canal Walk
Incredible Connection Cavendish
Incredible Connection Centurion
Incredible Connection Cresta
Incredible Connection East Rand Retail Park
Incredible Connection Eastgate
Incredible Connection Fourways
Incredible Connection Gateway
Incredible Connection Menlyn
Incredible Connection Nelspruit
Incredible Connection Pavillion
Incredible Connection Sandton
Incredible Connection Somerset West
Incredible Connection The Glen
Incredible Connection Woodmead

Dion Wired
Dion Wired Bedford Square
Dion Wired Fourways
Dion Wired Gateway
Dion Wired Hyde Park
Dion Wired Somerset West
Dion Wired Woodlands
Dion Wired Woodmead

Reuters

The iPhone is one of Apple’s most successful products to date with more than 16 million iPhones sold in the last quarter of 2010 and accounting for more than 1/3 of all Apple’s sales in that period.

People familiar with the matter has told Reuters that the new next-generation iPhone will have a faster processor, but will look very similar to the current iPhone 4.

Apple has not yet confirmed or denied the rumor but these same people report that the new next-generation iPhone will begin shipping by September 2011.

There are always lots of rumors leading up to the launch of Apple products with speculation as to how the devices will look and features it will have, what do you think, will we see the new next-generation iPhone in September 2011?