I have resigned myself to the fact that the Apple eco-system is a pain to get into, but paradise once you’re in. My history with my iPhone 4 and my two iPads should have prepared me for my experience thus far with iOS 5.

First, my wife’s iPad took a whole weekend to get up and running, thanks to the Melrose Arch iStore giving me an out dated version of iTunes (how I love to hate iTunes), and the inability of 8ta to sell airtime through internet banking and/or ATMs. But once I got Paddy (my wife’s iPad) up and going, I could not put him down. What a pleasure!

Then I decided I NEEDED an iPhone. After searching all over Gauteng for a shop in stock, I finally landed at MTN in Centurion Mall. But alas, I arrived there at 4pm on a Saturday, and the MTN system couldn’t upgrade me at such an ungodly hour… grrrr! So I had to wait till the Sunday for my iPhone 4, 32Gig (droooool). I finally got it at the MTN in Rosebank, which did not have the small iPhone SIM cards… so off to Sandton at full speed to get the SIM and finally got going with the AMAZING and AWESOME Tango (the name of my iPhone).

The Apple bug had bit… so I too NEEDED an iPad. But the earthquake in Japan meant that 3G iPads were about as rare as a Nokia smartphone in Joburg. So I found a 64Gig white iPad 2 on Gumtree. Big mistake! The iPad was advertised as a 3G model, but it turned out that it only works with 3G in the US – on the Verizon network. So now I have a 3G iPad which is not a 3G iPad… grrrr! But she’s beautiful. Her name is Perl, and she works well with my 3G wifi modem from Huawei. I have a pay as you go SIM card from Cell C which performs much better than my Vodacom 3G dongle for my PC, or the MTN network on my phone. Well done Cell C!

My latest story of woe relates to iOS 5 – the latest operating system for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch (I’m not sure about other iPod models). Last Friday I excitedly called the iStore to book an upgrade to iOS 5. The call probably lasted 15 minutes between calling the Melrose Arch store, then the iStore head office, then the Eastgate iStore all because their phone systems aren’t working properly and they don’t have enough people manning the phones. But not to worry… I got my appointment for 11am on Saturday at Eastage. I dutifully lugged Pearl, Paddy and Tango to get their new shiny operating system. I walked out after two hours of waiting with only Tango getting upgraded – the iPad 1 doesn’t do iOS 5, and they had some long story about why my iPad 2 couldn’t get upgrade.

It’s been two days with iOS 5 on my iPhone 4 and I’m really enjoying it. The changes are subtle so far, but I keep discovering new little enhancements all over the phone. Yesterday I discovered Reader inside Safari and it has revolutionised reading news websites on the phone. I’ll possibly write a post about the wonders of iO5 in the coming weeks, but for now, please excuse me while I try downloading the 800 MB iO5 software update for my iPad, for the 5^th time today.