READ FIRST!!! VERY IMPORTANT UPDATE TO THIS POST. READ FIRST!!! 

Three days ago I updated all of the apps on my iPhone 4 and from then on my battery lasted only a few hours after usually lasting all day. The decline in battery power was significant from maybe 12 hours down to 3 hours. I was able to fix it through the help of the Apple support chat. Here is what I had to do:

Follow these steps to erase your device and to install the backup to fix the components that suck up your battery.

1. Install all iOS updates! Check for software updates and install them if available.

2. Transfer the content! Before you erase your device, take few minutes to transfer your content from your device to your computer to ensure that all your critical data is safe.

3. Back up your iPhone! Back up your device before you erase it. Review the steps below, depending on your backup method, to ensure that you have a recent backup in case you decide to restore your device from a backup.
Important: Double check the backup history and settings in iTunes while your iPhone is plugged in and also check the settings you used, e.g. whether you once entered a security password and make sure you know that one!

a) iCloud: Cloud backs up your device automatically once a day when connected to power and Wi-Fi. Review when your device was last backed up by tapping Settings > iCloud > Storage & Backup. You can see the last time the device was backed up on the bottom of the page. If you need to back up, tap Backup now. Ensure that your device is connected to Wi-Fi and connected to a power source before backing up.

b) iTunes: To back up your device using iTunes:

1. Ensure that you have the latest version of iTunes installed.
2. Connect your device to your computer.
3. Select your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch when it appears in the top right corner of iTunes.
   
   Note: If you have the Sidebar enabled, your device will appear there.
4. Select the Summary tab. In the center portion of the Summary tab, click Back Up Now.
   
5. When this is finished, view the date and time of your latest backup by clicking Preferences > Devices.
   

For more information on backing up your device, see iOS: How to back up. If you wish to copy your backup to another folder, disk, or location for safekeeping, see this article in the section titled "Where iTunes backups are stored on your computer." For more information about what iTunes backs up, see this article.

4. Turn off iMessage! If iMessage is active, turn off iMessage at Settings > Messages > iMessage. No idea why this has to be done, but I did as per Apple instructions

5. Erase your device! Erasing all content and settings will delete all the data from your device, including songs, videos, contacts, photos, calendar information, and any other data. All device settings are restored to their factory condition.

To remove all settings and information from your device, tap Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings. For more information about this feature, see iOS: Understanding 'Erase All Content and Settings'.

6. Restore your device using a previous backup

Plug in your iPhone into your computer running your itunes

iCloud

1. Erase all content and settings by tapping Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings.
2. When your device turns back on, complete the setup assistant. When prompted to set up your device, choose "Setup from iCloud" and then enter your user name and password.
   
3. iCloud will prompt you to choose a backup. Select the backup you wish to use and then tap Restore to continue.
   

iTunes:
To restore your device using a previous backup, connect your device to iTunes. When your device appears in the source list, right-click your device and click "Restore from backup…". iTunes will ask you to choose the desired backup from the list provided and may also ask you to enter the security password.

Note:
Some Apple services (such as two-step verification for your Apple ID) require Find My iPhone to be turned on. After testing the issue, sign in to your iCloud account and enable Find My iPhone.

Reference: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4137?viewlocale=en_US

READ FIRST!!! VERY IMPORTANT UPDATE TO THIS POST. READ FIRST!!! 

Apple yesterday announced the design improvements in its new IOS7. Has Apple nailed the new design of its iPhone IOS7 without Steve Jobs? What do you think? Apparently this is the biggest change for Apple since the launch of the iPhone back in 2007 and it better be good as Apple has been struggeling in recent months...

The download numbers of popular social media apps and messaging apps on Google's Android app store Google Play are breath-taking. While Instagram reached 1 million downloads in just 24 hours when it arrived on Android last April, now a predominantly Korean messaging service took over the home screen of 500,000 Android users within only 9 days and now already has 50-100m installs. Google shares rough download numbers for each app on its Google Play page and the classical Facebook app is currently listed with 100 million to 500 million downloads, while Facebook's Android launcher Home received 500k downloads within a week, but also a fair bit of criticism through the review function still only with 2.5 stars out of 5. 

Google and its mobile hardware partners seem to have found a winning formular and it is no wonder that Apple is now under pressure. 90 percent of Korean smartphones are already Androids.... pretty much the opposite to the still Apple-dominated Australian mobile landscape.

It is amazing to watch how the internet and mobile space get disrupted by open APIs, open IDs or single-sign on solutions like google+ Sign-On, Sign in with Twitter or Facebook-Login, which already allowed social games or instagram - to just name two examples  - and to grow at unprecedented rates. Most modern websites today have either a Facebook or Twitter sign-in.

In addition to the massively reduced technical entry barriers / switching costs and quicker reach of app users, the Android operating system also allows apps to play dominant roles around the whole usability of a phone and even take over the Home screen as the app launcher of Facebook demonstrates:

Looking into the future, the above means that we will see many more apps that grow at explosive rates e.g. like Instagram, leveraging a clever mix of existing authentication mechanisms, smartphone features,  viral sharing through existing social network APIs plus through running a website with unique content owned by the app developer. Will Facebook and Twitter facilitate the growth of their own competition in the future through opening up so much? How easy will it be in the future to replicate a Facebook or Twitter through simply better usability and more cleverness by tapping into the smartphones of customers and enriching existing Facebook or Twitter experiences plus by introducing value-adding or completely new features that will allow the app developer to then own the user completely? Luckily the big existing social networks incl. Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo+Tumblr!? or the Kakao's of the world, still have the instrument of simply acquiring fast-growing apps such as Instagram once they become too dangerous... Happy days for app developers...

I set up my companies on google apps for businesses, since the solution has tremendous advantages in collaborating online and in using Gmail's comprehensive suit of tools. With only $50 AUD per year per user it is relatively cheap as well. One advantage is the compatibility with iPhones and it allows me to set up IMAP Exchange accounts for my company emails on my iPhone synching not only my emails, but also my contacts, notes and calendar entries. I recently had to delete an email account on my iPhone though and had to find out the hard way that suddenly many of my contacts were gone as well. My iPhone didn't even know the mobile phone number of my wife any more...

I did a bit of investigating and found out how to recover, export and install these lost contacts again. Here is how it works.

1. You need access to your old gmail account with all the contacts that you would like to keep. Open Gmail / google apps for business and click on "Contacts" in the main menu.
2. Click on "More" and then "Export". You can now select all your contacts as vcard export.
3. Unzip the file and you will find different vcards. I found the one called My_Contacts the important one with all my telephone numbers. All_contacts would have every email in it that you ever contacted and the other files are from your google plus account, so I did not import these.
4. Next I opened up my current gmail / google apps account and basically did the same steps above, except now I clicked "Import" in the drop down under "More". Since I have this email also set up as an IMAP exchange account on my iPhone all my lost contacts popped up again. 
5. The importing function has a cool feature by the way to remove duplicates. You will see the import job on the left hand side. Simply click on your import, go to "More" and then select "Find&Merge Duplicates"

Hope this was helpful and you read this blog article while you still had access to your old company email account. ;-)