Just came across a mention of CardMunch, a free iPhone app that I think will become a must-have for me.

It’s a free app on the iPhone app store.  You link it to your LinkedIn account.  When you get a business card, you use the iPhone’s camera to take a shot of the card.  The photo gets sent off to – I don’t know, a computer in the cloud, a bunch of people sitting at desks somewhere in India, and a few minutes later it’s scanned the card and builds a contact list.  There’s also a link that if you click will automatically send a LinkedIn request to the person.

So the downside is that the scanning doesn’t take place instantly and the contact info remains within this app, it doesn’t get added to my main Contacts list in the phone.  But once the scan results are returned to your phone, you have the option to also add them into your main contacts list or you can go into settings and turn on an option that will automatically add them to your contacts.  The upside is that I am a pretty frequent LinkedIn user and this speeds up the process of linking to people I’ve recently met.

CardMunch was independently developed and the company was subsequently bought by LinkedIn.  I don’t know what the future development plans are for this.  But, as I said, if you’re into LinkedIn, this is a great add-on.

After the utter debacle at the Apple store yesterday (check M.I.C. Gadget blog for reports and photos) things have calmed down, sort of.

The Apple store at IFC has announced that it will be selling the iPhone 4S by appointment only.

Typical of the SCMP’s lazy reporting, they write “The store has now introduced an iReserve system, under which customers can seek an online appointment and – if successful – pick up their phones the next day” without bothering to mention how one might make such an appointment.

I don’t know how you make an appointment with them though I note that the web site has a blurb for an iPhone Apple Store app and one of its features is that it lets you make appointments.  Which is fine if you have an older iPhone but doesn’t help those who may be looking to buy their first one.  The 16 gig model is HK$5,088, the 32 gig model is HK$5,888 and the 64 gig model is HK$6,688.  Even Apple bows down before Hong Kong’s practice of prices ending in lucky 8′s.

Buying grey market?  Price.com.hk (a Chinese language-only web site) reports lowest price for 16 gig is HK$6,780, HK$7,180 for 32 gigs, HK$7,880 for 64 gigs.  I suspect there are still plenty of people out there willing to pay a premium to avoid lines, hassles and contracts despite receiving only a vague (at best) warranty.

The mobile carriers claim to have plenty of stock.  Buying through a mobile carrier such as 3 or SmarTone means you can get the phone at a subsidized price but it also means you have to sign a 2 year contract.

Apple is only selling the 8 gig version of the iPhone 4 right now – that’s HK$4,288 and shown as currently unavailable on the Apple site. The 8 gig 3GS is selling for HK$2,888 and that one ships in “1-3 business days.”

In the U.S., the Apple store shows orders for iPhone 4S ship in 1-2 weeks.

I think the supply chain situation will continue to be messy for awhile.

So, day 1 of iPhone 4S madness in Hong Kong.  The phones went on sale at 7  AM.  I’m not sure what time they sold out but it was well before noon.  Is the Apple store getting new stock daily?  I’ve got no idea.

But, pretty much as expected, the first day’s buyers were mostly people who were paid to be there and buy as many as they could so that they could be sold at a nice mark-up elsewhere.  Here’s the SCMP report, timestamped 1:42 PM todady:

Tempers flared at the flagship Apple Store in Central on Friday morning as thousands of people, some of whom had queued for three days, finally got their chance buy the new iPhone 4S when doors opened at 7am.

Other buyers, some carrying suitcases and duffle bags, waited anxiously at the store’s two upstairs exits.

Many of those waiting at the entrance were professional queuers including Chinese, Africans and South Asians. At the exits, buyers handed over wads of cash for bags containing five phones – the maximum Apple staff allowed an individual to buy.

The company had installed specialist cash counting devices to deal with the consumer influx.

Queues at the entrance were mostly orderly, but there was some jostling at the exits. A scuffle broke out when some professional queuers grew angry with the fees re-sellers were paying.

One queuer, named Abokr, from Somalia, said he had earlier agreed a fee of HK$2,000 for queuing for the owner of a store in Mong Kok. However, before Abokr handed over the iPhones to the re-seller, he demanded a higher commission after learning other re-sellers were offering HK$5,000. The re-seller refused to pay and called the police.

Michael from Pakistan, another professional queuer, said he had subsequently received HK$4,000 from the same re-seller.

Alex, a re-seller from India, said he bought 60 phones from queuers, paying HK$6,350 for each phone. He said he planned to sell the new iPhones in India, where they have not yet been released. Alex said he could charge a higher price there.

Mainlanders were also buying the phones to sell in China before the iPhone 4S is officially released there in a month’s time.

Consumers who were actually purchasing iPhones for themselves were rare.

Zhou Xiang from Wuhan said he had not joined the queue and was trying to buy a phone from re-sellers.

Zhou wanted to pay HK$6,400, but said he was finding it hard to attract re-sellers at that price.

City University student Tang Chun-bun, wanted HK$7,600 for one of the phones, but said he might drop the price later in the day.

The situation outside the store had become tense on Tuesday when, according to witnesses, professional queuers had muscled their way to the front of the queue.

The men may have been among those paid around HK$300 a day by dealers at Sincere Podium, a Mong Kok shopping mall famous for discounted electronics, to buy up all the iPhones they could.

The iPhone 4S has been billed as most advanced iPhone ever – and the latest product from Apple, the company co-founded by Steve Jobs, who died early last month.

Yes, I know, a couple of days of silence here.

I’ve been busy preparing for a visit from my mom, who arrives on Tuesday and will be staying for three weeks.  Which means either very few posts from me in the coming days or a million posts bitching about her and how crazy she is.  Time will tell.

This will be her 4th visit to Hong Kong.  Now that she’s 90, I’m trying to think of ways to accommodate her.  I can’t do anything much about the stairs in the house.  But I was thinking that since she’s going to want to get out and get around (and in particular do a lot of shopping), perhaps a wheel chair would be a useful thing?  So I spent time researching how and where to rent one in HK and once I had the answers, told her about it and she practically screamed.  Okay, I can understand the pride aspect.

But then she suggested that I get her something that I later found out is called a Rollator.  It’s one of those walkers but with wheels on the bottom and a fold-down seat for when she wants to sit and catch her breath.  Found out there’s a company here in Hong Kong that makes ‘em and arranged with them to get it from their headquarters and then basically she told me she doesn’t want it.  I’m kind of thinking I might get it anyway – maybe by the time she leaves I’ll need it for myself.

I’ve also sorted out our Xmas vacation.  Viet Nam.  Saigon and Nha Trang.  I’ve only been to Viet Nam once and when I was in Saigon, everything was closed for Tet so I’m definitely looking forward to returning.  My gf has never been there and loves Vietnamese food so she’s excited.  And as weird as this sounds, in our 3+ years together, this will be the first trip we take together that’s not to the Philippines.  Finally!  Tips on Saigon restaurants and street food would be greatly appreciated.

And last, yes, my insanity prevailed and I got an iPhone 4S today.  64 gig, black.  (Judging by the set-up screens I saw, it found its way here via New Zealand.)  No, have not had a chance to try out Siri or much of anything else on it yet.  But I have just synced over 40 gig of stuff to it in half the time that it took to copy 20 gig to a microSD card so I’m already feeling happier.  An ad will be going up soon at DCFever for my Samsung Galaxy SII, in case anyone’s interested.

Okay – Siri is working and it’s cool.  Almost as expected, in answer to the question “Where am I?” it responded “I can’t provide location services in Hong Kong.”  But “what time is it?” worked just fine.  In answer to the command “Play the Doors” for some reason it chose to play “The Robots” by Kraftwerk.

Many of you will be pleased to know that.

I had two days of off-site company meetings this week.  Each day I had to leave my house before 7  AM, sit in a conference room for 10 hours, go out with co-workers for drinks and dinner, home by 10 PM.  We were forbidden to check our phones or email during the meetings which meant my phone was sitting in my pocket, untouched, in silent mode and only being used briefly every couple of hours.  And still as the afternoon would wear on, I’d watch my battery meter reading drop till it would be at around 30% before dinner.  Granted, I kept WiFi and Bluetooth switched on all day and I would have done better on the battery if I’d switched those off.

Not to mention that during the week I’d downloaded several albums that I would have liked to have loaded onto the phone but it was too much hassle and I didn’t have the time to deal with it.  And after filling up the tank on my car a couple of days ago, I realized that I couldn’t find an Android app as nice as Gas Cubby (no idea about the name) for tracking my mileage and spending.

The Samsung Galaxy SII is selling used in places like DCFever.com for a hair under $4,000.  Mine’s a month old and has 11 months to go on the warranty.

The 64 gig version of the iPhone 4S is now going for around $8,500 in Mong Kok, which isn’t too bad a premium over the roughly HK$6,600 that Apple charges for an unlocked one in the U.S.  My mom’s coming over next week, ever so slightly before they will start selling unlocked ones in store.  My good friend who used to work for FedEx and would let me ship things to her address and then ship to me (and pass along her employee discount to me) changed jobs just last month.  The premium charged by these US forwarding services would make the price almost equivalent to the Mong Kok price.

In other words, I’ve got this notion in my head ….

Via M.I.C. Gadget blog, a detailed report (with photos) of the scene at Sin Tat yesterday when grey market iPhone 4S’s went on sale.

The price?  Try HK$10,500 for 16 gigs, HK$11,800 for 32 gigs and a whopping HK$13,800 (that’s almost US$1,800) for the 64 gig model.  The report goes on to say that about 80% of the people buying are from Mainland China.

The same article has a report on people lining up at HK’s Apple store to buy the iPhone 4 because they can make a tidy profit on that in China (if they can get it in).

Today’s the day that people expect grey market iPhone 4S’s to start showing up in Mong Kok and around town.  Hong Kong isn’t included in the first or second wave of releases worldwide.  There’s no release date announced for HK yet – 3′s web site will let you “register” to let them know you’re interested and probably other mobile companies are doing the same.  I expect that this early in the game, and it is indeed something of a game, the iPhone 4S will sell for at least HK$10,000 in Hong Kong (that’s US$1,300) and possibly the 64 gig model will go even higher.  I’m sure we’ll see breathless reports about this in the media by tonight or tomorrow.

Once you get beyond the normally ecstatic reviews from the Walt Mossbergs and David Pogues, I’ve read some interesting speculation.  Mostly it centers around why a 4S now and not a 5 and the concensus is that people who bought the 4 are still only midway through their contracts – the 4S is targeted primarily at people who are still on the 3GS or never bought an iPhone before.  Of course that’s not likely to stop probably millions of fans who need to have the latest and greatest.

I found out that I have a year and a half left on my contract with 3.  Li Ka-Shing owns my mobile soul through June of 2013.

I did upgrade my iPad to iOS 5 on Thursday night.  Aside from finally having the ability to do wireless sync, I’m not seeing too much difference so far.  I suppose I’d be more interested in iCloud if I hadn’t given my iPhone 4 to my gf and bought an Android phone for myself.

The next big Android announcement, curiously enough, will be made in Hong Kong on October 19th.  It’s expected that this will be the official word on the next upgrade of Android (Ice Cream Sandwich, blecch) and Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus or whatever it will be called.  As of now my only real dissatisfaction with the Samsung Galaxy SII is the screen resolution.  Yes it’s bigger than an iPhone and brighter and all that but the reduced resolution calls attention to itself whenever I look at photos on it.  I also wish that there was a 64 gig microSD card because having to remove the battery to swap memory cards is a pain in the rear.  So the new one is rumored to have a very slightly larger screen at a higher resolution.

But aside from the screen resolution and the amount of manual labor required to sync music (Spotify is sort of working but well under 100%), I’m kind of enjoying the Galaxy SII.

Well, the announcement has been made.  It’s official – no iPhone 5 for now.  Apple is releasing the iPhone 4S this month.  Same form factor as the iPhone 4, same black and white colors, just some seriously bumped up specs.

* The CPU becomes Apple’s A5 processor, the same chip that’s in the iPad.

* A bumped-up graphics processor.  This and the A5 mostly impact the hardcore gaming crowd, of which I’m not a member.

* A very bumped up camera – 8 megapixels, backlit CMOS sensor, 5 element lens that opens wide to f/2.4, 1080p video, and claims that far less lag time to get to your first shot and from shot to shot.  All of which means very little to me.

* 4G network speeds (but not 4G LTE) which doubles throughput, 14.2 mbps downloads.

* New software includes what could be a revolutionary voice assistant called Siri that allows one to speak in “natural” language rather than remembering specific commands.  If this works as advertised, this will be setting the bar pretty high for the competition.  Apparently in order to function correctly, internet access is required.

* Increased storage; a 64 gig model will be available.

This gets rolled out to the first batch of countries on October 14th and the next batch on October 28th.  The question many HKers are asking this morning is if the Apple Store opening last month was so monumentally successful, why isn’t Hong Kong included in the first or second wave of releases.  No official word, of course.  I am guessing it has to do with that 4G network speed.  Probably 3 and SmarTone don’t have their 4G networks ready yet and maybe Apple has made that a prerequisite for country rollout?  But by now we all know what that means – grey market iPhone 4S’s selling at Sin Tat for double (or even triple?) the retail price.

Aside from that, Apple also announced iOS 5, which can be downloaded on October 12th.  A key part of that is their new iCloud service with 5 gig of free cloud storage, more available at a price.  But so far, many of the iCloud features appear to be US-only.

The US Apple web site is accepting pre-orders for the iPhone 4S starting on October 7th.  On Apple’s HK web site, it merely says “coming soon.”

So what will I do?  The 64 gig upgrade is meaningful to me.  The voice assistant has potential.  Better chip set and camera are not deciding factors for me.  So I’m going to be very interested to see what next week’s Android announcement is.

My best guess is that the iPhone 5 is another 6 months away.

My gf lost her iPhone last week.  Did it drop out of her bag or did she leave it on a bus seat or did someone snatch it from her bag?  She’s not sure.  We went to Sin Tat over the weekend and got a used middle-of-the-line Nokia to tide her over.   I’m already hearing on an almost-daily basis about how it doesn’t do Facebook.

Next week is when Apple will announce the next … something.  Analysts are divided over whether it will be the iPhone 5 or a lesser upgrade that would probably be called either the 4S or 4Gs.  The new whatever will come out, I will buy it once it’s available and pass my iPhone 4 on to her.  (Mine is less than 6 months old – I got a free replacement from 3 when I ran into some dock connector problems with my original one.)

Alternatively, if the next announcement is less than impressive, the Samsung Galaxy II S is starting to look more impressive to me.  And in particular, the Galaxy II S LTE (is that one even available in HK yet?).  It’s not the larger (but lower resolution) screen.  It’s not the higher megapixel camera.  It’s the micro-SD slot.  Expandable storage is mighty attractive.  It seems as if 3 times a week, I have to thin down the contents of my iPhone to make room for new stuff (mostly recently rips of the 3 audio CDs in the Dark Side of the Moon Immersion box set).

I’ve always said I wouldn’t switch to Android because of the huge investment I’ve made in iOS apps.  Sure, I can still run all of them on my iPad.  But I don’t want to go out and re-invest in dozens of Android apps.  But thinking about it, I wouldn’t be buying Angry Birds again … it runs on my iPad and I’d just continue to play it on that.  The stuff I really use every day on my iPhone – stuff like Evernote, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare – that’s mostly free stuff anyway.

So I’m curious if I have any readers who’ve made the switch from iOS to Android for their mobile device.  What did you gain?  What did you lose?  If you could do it all over again, would you?

Hey folks!  Wanna use your $2,500 Nikon lenses on your iPhone 4?  Check over on my other blog, Spike’s Photos, to find out how.