2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

I already knew Kuwait was in the top 10 but 74.2% overweight sounds too high. Follow the link for the full infographic on Obesity Worldwide [Link]

Thanks Vineeth

This is going to be my last post on the iPhone 4S since there is only one thing left to discuss and that is battery life. When I first got the phone I noticed the battery life was similar to the iPhone 4 but this weekend the battery life got so bad I actually went and purchased a car charger.

But I also found out why the phone started draining a lot more battery than my iPhone 4 ever did and that’s because I was using the Reminder App a lot because of Siri. When I tell Siri to remind me to pick up tea once I get to the supermarket, the phone starts checking my location at intervals to see if I’m at the supermarket or not so it could remind me to pick up tea once I am.

Once I turned location based reminders off I noticed the battery life went back to normal. It’s not hardware related since the Reminder App is also available on the iPhone 4 but Siri makes it more fun and easy to use. So to summarize things, the battery life is the same if you use the iPhone 4S like the iPhone 4, but once you start taking advantages of some of the iOS 5 features, battery life on both the iPhone 4 and 4S starts dropping considerably.

On a side note, check out this tip on how to make the Reminder App even more useful [Link]

Ok so you won’t really be destroying Aramex but it’s still fun specially if you’re upset with their recent price increase. State Farm Insurance in the US has a website where you could plug in a street address and then watch a giant robot destroy it. People are supposed to put their home address and their real names but it’s a lot more fun my way. Just put your KWI XXX mailbox as your name and copy paste this address “182-21 150th Avenue” and then watch the robot do it’s part. [Link]

Some guys from Kuwait took a Rolls Royce Phantom out on the Bahrain Formula 1 track and filmed it for YouTube. Sadly they just took it for a cruise and didn’t speed or anything with it. [YouTube]

Thanks Burhan

I spotted the flyer above at the gym. If anyone is interested you can call them up on 22520407. If you don’t know what Core Fitness is click [Here]

Here are some of my favorite posts on 2:48PM from last week:

– Non-stop Nyan cat!
– Siri alternatives for Android
– Bill Gates & Steve Ballmer Night at the Roxbury theme
– 8-Bit Bike Light
– iPhone 4S vs Canon 5d MKII

A new action figures shop is opening up in Rihab Complex in Hawalli this Friday. What makes this shop different from the rest is that they will be focusing mostly on Grendizer toys and merchandise. You can take a peak at the shop in the video above, I’ve already emailed the owner a few times already asking about different items in the video since sme of the items look very cool. The shop is called Mughamarat AlFathaa and they’re opening this Friday at 6:30pm. They’re located on the ground floor in the basement. [YouTube]

A friend of mine figured out a way to get Siri to learn your home and work address as well as other addresses. Just follow the steps below:

1) Open the Maps App
2) Find your home, office or other location
3) Place a pin on the street in front of your location. Street not building or land etc…
4) Click the blue arrow that appeared over the pin
5) Click on Add to Contacts
6) If it’s your office address add it to your contact info
7) Go to your contact info, click on edit, then go down to the address you just added and make sure the label for that address is work (or if it’s your home address then home)

And that’s it. You can now tell Siri to remind you when you get home or to your office and she will do it. You could also add locations like super markets for example so you could tell teach Siri where Sultan Center is and then tell her to remind you to pick up milk once you get to Sultan Center and she’ll do that.

Thanks Saleh!

The coolest/freakiest/creepiest thing I’ve seen online for ages. I’m not going to ruin it, just visit the website and connect it with your Facebook then sit back and watch. [Link]

Fatburger is finally opening up their Burj Jassem branch in Kuwait City on the 25th of this month. Burj Jassem is located opposite the Ice Skating Rink.

The 99 Unbound film premiered at the New York Film Festival earlier in the month. The animated series will be starting soon so this featured film was a way to launch it. I’m not sure when we’re going to get to watch it here in Kuwait but for now you can watch a short clip from the film above. You could also read a review of the film [Here]

Yes it exists. If you’ve got a cat you can join the Kuwait Cats Club. [Link]

My iPhone 4S arrived from the UK yesterday and so I managed to spend more time with the device and now have a few things I want to highlight, mostly the negatives.

Reception
According to Apple they’ve improved the reception on the iPhone 4S. I never had any issues with the reception on the original iPhone 4 but I do have an issue with the new “improved” reception on the 4S. Although the phone signal now spends most of its time with full signal bars which is great for people who use the phone to call people, another problem has come up instead. The phone now spends a lot more time on Edge instead of 3G internet. I hadn’t seen the little “E” icon on my iPhone for ages but now it’s popping up all the time. I first noticed it in my underground parking, I used to get a weak phone signal before (say 2 bars) but would have 3G. Now I have full signal bars but Edge instead of 3G. I figured it’s not an issue since I don’t spend too much time in the basement checking email or tweets. Once I got out of the parking it swapped back to 3G, but then once I hit the traffic light near Corniche Club on the Gulf Road it was back on Edge. It swapped back to 3G again before going to Edge once I got near TGIF. I even got the Edge signal at the Kuwait Stock Market traffic light. And I’m not talking about Edge appearing briefly and disappearing again, I’m talking about Edge being there the whole time while I’m waiting at the traffic light.

Edge SUCKS. I might as well not have internet since Edge is that horribly slow. I don’t know what Apple did to the reception but I hope this is just a bug that will be fixed in the next software update because I would rather have 2 signal bars and 3G instead of full signal bars and Edge.

Siri
She’s great but I have an issue and it’s not that she doesn’t understand me sometimes (check above). In my previous post I mentioned how I wanted to use Siri to remind me of stuff when I get home or get to work. For example “Remind me to walk my dog when I get home”. Siri is supposed to know when I get home and remind me to walk my dog. Problem is because we are in Kuwait we can’t teach Siri where home or office is. Siri uses Google Maps address to learn our home and office locations and right now Google Maps addresses only work in the US. What I don’t understand is why Siri won’t learn the locations using GPS positioning. If you use the Reminder App without Siri you can teach it locations using your GPS position. I already has a saved location in the Reminder App called “Work” and I can tell the App to remind me to do something once I get to the location “work”. Why can’t Siri use the already saved location information or why it can’t learn locations using GPS instead of street addresses doesn’t make any sense.

Finally another issue with Siri and I don’t know if this problem is only happening with me or not but Siri refuses to make phone calls. If I tell her for example to call my wife or call my brother, she will start the calling process and show me she’s dialing the number but then she replies back apologizing that she can’t call them. I’ve tried it with a bunch of different people in my contact list, I’ve removed the +965 from numbers, I tried everything and Siri will keep telling me she can’t call them. Again a strange issue which hopefully will be fixed in the future.

Speed
The phone is fast, for day to day operations it’s not noticeably faster than the regular iPhone 4 but just run any game and you’ll instantly see a huge difference. Most games were loading and opening instantly and even games like Rage were loading in just a couple of seconds. If you’re a gamer you’re gonna love the 4S.

The only thing really left to test is the battery life and I can’t do that right now since I’m too busy playing with Siri and the new features. Maybe once my phone use goes back to normal in a weeks time I’ll be able to compare it to my previous iPhone.

If anyone has any questions or anything they want me to try just ask in the comments below.

Update: My guy at Alghanim just called to tell me they’re selling the iPhone 4S 16GB for KD289 and they already started delivering the phones to people from yesterday. I purchased the phone from the Apple Store in the UK and with shipping it ended up costing me around KD230. But I guess if you want the phone right now and don’t want to wait 2-3 weeks for it then this is probably your best option.

A bagel place opened up in Kuwait City which I think is pretty cool I haven’t tried them yet but some friends at work did. Their website is horrible (slo-mo 90’s style flash) but they’ve got their full menu up there for you to download and order from.

Here is a link to their website [Link]
Here is the link to their menu bypassing their website [Link]
Finally here is their Facebook [Link]
Their phone number is: 55444303/313

The Radio Control Car Club of Kuwait track next to 360 Mall is one of the largest offroad tracks in the world and it’s currently getting a makeover in preparation for the new season.

They’re changing the layout and rebuilding the whole thing to make it even better than it was before. I can’t wait till it’s done so I could race my car there.

If you’re interested in becoming a member it’s just KD20 a year but you need to have a car and it needs to be 1/8 scale. The weather is becoming a lot better so if you’re interested in getting a car there are four shops I know of that sell the best 1/8 scale cars:

Extreme Hobby – 24348123
Pro Hobbies – 24313277 (where I got mine from)
Hobby Time – 24346744
Al Hamar – 22431989

You can check out more pictures of the track underconstruction on the RCCCK Facebook page [Here]