Don’t forget!

GUYS GUYS GUYS

Just in case you’re not one of the lucky few who will be buying a shiny new iPhone, you can still get a lot of shiny new features by downloading iOS 7.

And you can do that! Today! Today today!

Going on release times from previous years, you should expect to be able to download it from 10AM PST. You will probably even get a push notification reminding you as well, as this happened about mid-afternoon last year Californian time.

iOS 7 is FREE and will work on the following Apple products: iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5. The iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S will come with iOS 7 already loaded. iOS 7 is also compatible with iPad Mini, iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad 4 and iPod Touch 5G.

You should  DEFINITELY make sure your phone is backed up first, so go here and follow the instructions.

You can download iOS 7 by plugging your device into your computer and using iTunes or directly on your phone. Make sure you have the latest versions of both iTunes and iOS – these should be 6.1.4 for iOS and 11.1 for iTunes.

For iTunes, once your iPhone or iPad is plugged into your computer, select it under Devices in iTunes and then click Check for Update. Choose download or download and update. The second is what we would suggest.

If you choose to do it directly on your phone, and you don’t want to use up data on your phone plan, then you should probably be somewhere where you can use Wi-FI.

THEN;

Go to settings on your phone, and there should be a number 1 next to the word General. If you click on that, you should see the same number 1 sitting pretty next to the words Software update.

Click that, and you will have the option to install now. Do that.

Dance.

Image courtesy of maclife.com

Iranians can use twitter now!

As of Monday, Iranians can now access Twitter and Facebook for the first time since 2009 when their government blocked social networking sites.

As we know most famously from the Arab Spring, social media can be used to raise awareness and to organize protests in times of uncertainty, to try to uprise against repression and to rally for hope in times of conflict.

Before any of that happened, this specific use of social media use was seen in Iran. In 2009 there was a presidential election won by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that many believed to have been fraudulently won. People began protesting, and these were described as the biggest since the revolution in 1979, with hundred of thousands (if not millions) of people protesting.

It was named the Green movement. The Iranian government soon became aware that sites such as Facebook and Twitter were being used to organize their protests against the regime, and they shut access down.

Since then, people in Iran who wanted to access the sites had to use complicated software such as virtual private networks in order to bypass the firewalls put in place by the government.

However…

Three months ago, Iran held elections which saw Hassan Rouhani take the office of president on August the 3rd. Rouhani is seen as being much more moderate than his predecessor, and the government under his leadership has said that it will be liberalizing the internet and improving online access for all Iranians.

This seems to be the beginning.

So far not all parts of Iran have access, and not all social media sites are unblocked, but in our humble opinion, this is an excellent start.

Images courtesy of Mashable & Engadget