The queue outside the Hong Kong Apple Store this morning – photo courtesy of Techgoondu buddy Dominic

A day before opening and as expected, the queue has begun outside Hong Kong’s first Apple Store that is scheduled to open tomorrow. But doesn’t look like a terribly crazy queue though.

So what are they queuing for? I’m guessing it’s for a chance to get one of 3,000 Apple Store HK T-shirts that they are giving out, and there’s a rumour that Apple CEO Tim Cook might be coming to town.

Oh, and if you want to meet the first to meet their Geniuses, better book a session now as the Genius Bar (located on the second floor) is open for bookings.

Hong Kong’s getting the real deal this weekend, and it comes in the form of huge Apple Store right smack in Central. And the curtains have literally come off. MIC Gadget has the scoop on that and has photos of … people taking photos of the store. Plus photos of the store.

At 20,000 sq feet spread across two floors, in one of the most expensive malls in Hong Kong – it sure sounds like a lot of money until you think about the US$7 billion in profits that the company raked in in a quarter.

Anyway, what CAN the average Apple fanboy/girl do at an Apple Store.

He/She could of course buy and learn how to use an Apple product. Get tech support from the beer-less Genius Bar. Sit in their many workshops to learn how to use their apps. And of course chat up fellow Apple fanboys/girls – where else would they rather be?

Oh but wait, can this be? Apple has JOBS in Hong Kong! No, not Steve himself, but salary-paying jobs. I can already hear the Magic Mice clicks and the frantic Magic Trackpad taps. They still have positions open – which leaves me wondering … have they already sucked up all the Geniuses in this Special Administrative Region?

No promises, but Techgoondu’s Hong Kong correspondent might just brave the Applemania this weekend to bring you some snaps of the madness.

I’d bet the most common question that any Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 owner would have gotten is,“How does it compare with the iPad 2?”.

So having spent more than two weeks with mine (a 16GB Wifi Galaxy Tab 10.1), here’s my take on it.

If you only have half a minute, my quick answer is it’s better than the iPad2 ONLY if you’re a power user, but you’ll be better off with an iPad 2 if simplicity is what you’re looking for.

And if you have a little more time, here’s why. …

Over here in Hong Kong, all you need is a high definition (HD) set top box (that’s of the DTMB standard) and you can receive free HD broadcasts – so you can watch your TVB serials in full HD glory. When my freebie HDTV box literally went out with a pop, I went about looking for a digital media player that would be able to stream music, photos and videos from my Synology DS210j network attached storage (NAS) AND integrate the HDTV receiver into a single box.

And my search ended with the HiMedia (海美迪) HD600B-TV – which is a squarish looking do-it-all box that’s the localised-for-Hong Kong version of the HD500D-TH.

HiMedia HD600B-TV

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One of the questions I often get from friends coming up to Hong Kong is if stuff is cheaper here or in Singapore. In many cases, the answer is “not really” or “just a little” – but in the case of the Synology DS210j that I bought for my bro recently, it was a helluva lot cheaper!

At HK$1530 (which is about S$278 at 1S$:5.5HK$), you’d be paying almost 50% more if you bought one from Synology’s dealer in Singapore (Memory World) which has priced it at S$408. Plus according to the Synology forum (post dates back to 2007 though), Synology does provide international warranty.

So why the DS210j? Only the Qnap TS210J II comes close to the DS210j’s transfer rates, but is more expensive. The rest of the 2-bay NAS competition, like the D-Link DNS-323 are generally slower. Oh, and its DLNA compliant too, so fits in with the plan of adding those ‘media extender’ devices to stream video and audio later.

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Voice search for your phone – sounds good yeah?

I thought so too – so I tried out the latest Google Mobile App‘s voice search feature on my Nokia E71 (which means the S60 flavour of the app).

The app is basically kinda like a one-stop-shop to quickly link to and search through Google stuff, so you will need a data connection (wifi or cellphone network), and the other mobile apps (Gmail, Google Maps etc) loaded if you want to fire it up from the above home screen.

If you enable its location-based function, it’s supposed to yield more relevant results. But it didn’t seem to do anything for me in terms of returning more relevant search results so I shut that feature off.

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What’s one of the best ways to go one up on the competition? Hire their former CEO.

That’s just what StarHub announced today, when it said that its current CEO Terry Clontz will be retiring in January 2010, and former M1 CEO Neil Montefiore has surfaced to fill his shoes – pending regulatory approval.

Earlier this year on Feb 1, Neil stepped down from M1 and its then CFO Karen Kooi stood in as acting CEO, only to be confirmed as CEO a little more than two months later.

Now Neil, whom Terry has known “on a professional and personal level for ten years”, will take the reins of the number two telco in Singapore – a position which he probably wanted M1 to reach during his tenure.

Will this fuel further speculation of consolidation in the local telco scene? You bet. StarHub and M1 were already partners in the Infinity consortium, which put in a failed Netco bid in the Next Gen NBN project. And M1′s fixed broadband service essentially rides off StarHub’s cable modem infrastructure.

And if being pals doesn’t work out, StarHub can have the dirt on M1 – where they are good, and where they can hit it hard.

StarHub, 1 – M1, 0.

With the telco regulator in Hong Kong giving its stamp of approval for fixed mobile number portability last Friday, fixed line phone numbers here can finally be set free. Right off, I can think of a couple of scenarios where its useful to port fixed to mobile.

• You can move your business fixed line to a mobile and not miss any calls without the need to subscribe to call forwarding.
• Stop paying for your monthly fixed line fees just because you feel nostalgic about the number – port it to a prepaid mobile number.
• Going from fixed to a prepaid mobile might actually lower your phone bills if you’re an extremely infrequent voice user.

I’m sure there’ll be more scenarios and benefits, but unfortunately, this is expected that it will take a while before the fixed line carriers here actually let you do it, as the regulator’s left it to the telcos to sort it out commercially.

And I can’t think of too many reasons why the fixed line folks here would be wanting to open the floodgates to the fixed line exodus, but hey, at least they can start the conversation on how they want to do this and work out fixed to mobile migration options.

Now that’s what I call true number portability.

Meanwhile in sunny Singapore, can someone tell me where we are on our quest for telco liberalisation and true number portability? Since the implementation of “full mobile number portability” in 2008, I still can’t port my post-paid mobile to pre-paid *sigh*! Worse still, a review on number portability doesn’t seem to be on the horizon!

A touchscreen with a tactile keypress. That’s probably the most strikingly unique feature about RIM’s first touchscreen device – the BlackBerry Storm … aka its 9500 series.

The concept of its “SurePress” touchscreen certainly sounds good … on the screen – a capacitive touchscreen that you can not only tap, double tap, flick and drag your finger on, but also click on.

Click on a screen? Hmm. But will it make typing faster and easier?

While the idea of a clickable touchscreen sounds great, in reality, it didn’t quite click with me. The touch and tap aspects of the screen were great – you could highlight, copy and paste, swipe your finger to scroll etc. But when it came to typing, which I’d imagine you’d do a lot of on a messaging-centric device like a BlackBerry, that’s when the idea of a clicking screen started to come apart. First, it takes some effort to click the screen – more so than needed for a light tap on the touchscreen. And closer to the edges of the screen, the clicks needed even more effort. Will it have worked better if the screen required less effort to click? I think not.

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Went to the first ever WordCamp Hong Kong today and the highlight for me was certainly hearing from the founding developer of the WordPress platform Matt Mullenweg, which this site – and millions of others – run on.

Affable Matt took the WordCampers, which I’m guessing numbered around maybe 50, on a journey back through time – from how he started working on it and ending off a little into the future – with features request for the next version of WordPress. But there was much more.

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