Apple

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Apple just issued a 4.2.1 update to AppleTV that is meant to fix a few nagging bugs:

4.2.1 Direct Download.
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We are hearing from our connections with sources at Foxconn that the next-generation iPhone will include an iPhone 4-like design, and now we have some more information: parts.

Replace Base helped us get our hands on the dock connector and headphone jack flex. While these parts don’t look all to interesting to the normal eye, we had our friends at the iFixYouri iPhone repair shop take a look at these parts to basically confirm a few things.

First is that, indicative of these parts, the fifth-generation iPhone will have color options: black or white. This isn’t all too surprising – seeing we’re seeing a white iPhone 4 soon – but it’s still worth mentioning for fans of white devices.

Next is the iPhone home button. Some rumors from earlier this year pointed to future iPhones lacking physical home buttons. The dock connector for the iPhone 5 seems to refute all that as the home button connector is present on the piece.

Next is the headphone jack flex: It’s redesigned. Although the redesign of an internal part that the consumer will never see does not seem exciting, the engineering aspect of it certainly does. The connection piece to the iPhone’s motherboard usually sits at the top of the cable but on the next iPhone, it sits on the middle of the cable.

Apple moving the headphone jack flex motherboard connector elsewhere could mean that Apple might be making room for something new in the device. Our speculation ranges from a beefier processor, more storage, a bigger battery, a better camera, a 4G chip, a Gobi CDMA/GSM chip, to NFC. At this point there is no way to tell.

What we do know is..

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Apple’s A5 chip has debuted with iPad 2, but the company’s already hard at work designing the A6, contemplating the A7 and thinking about the A8. Apple added more chip experts to their in-house silicon team and poached veteran engineers from Samsung and ARM earlier this month. A LinkedIn profile belonging to chip expert Eunseok Ji reveals he recently came on board as a senior Apple engineer, the role he played for years at rival Samsung. He counts advanced semiconductor skills in his profile, hard core stuff such as logic design, DFT, silicon testing and hands-on experiences on post-silicon bring-up and debugging of complex mixed-signal design for system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions.

Why antagonize your silicon manufacturer by poaching such an expert? Okay, Samsung is a frenemy. But why lure an engineer away from ARM? This fabless semiconductor firm makes designs that power Apple’s iOS gadgets and the vast majority of mobile gear, for that matter. ARM’s Steve Ravet, who also joined Apple in March as an SOC prototyping engineer, is a twelve-year veteran who worked as a system verification engineer at Compaq and verification engineer at International Meta Systems prior to joining ARM as an electrical engineer.

His competencies include CPU validation and design, focused on FPGA emulation, silicon and board bringup, top level simulation and debug for ARM microprocessor cores and SOCs. I’m just speculating here and your guess is as good as mine, but I think you’ll agree such a hiring spree might be a tell-tale sign of a greater number of unique hardware features in upcoming Apple gadgets. Look no further than Apple’s current lineup of iOS devices.

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People awaiting iPads in the Czech Republic were told they’d be in the first group of countries (outside the US) to get an iPad on March 25th.

We’re not sure why but the Czech Republic iPad website now shows they just got pushed back a month. (for those not in the know, Dubna=April).

Update: Apple has removed (not corrected) the launch date.

Update 2: Apple has finally got its Czech translator on the ball – says Brezna (March) now

Could be some issues with equipment and government specific to Czech Republic, a translation error or could be supply constraints like last year.

Time to hit eBay?

(Thanks Pavel!)
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Unlike the App Store mobile bazaar which is the home to 99-cent quick sellers, with about one third free items, inexpensive software takes a back seat on the Mac App Store. According to a Distimo study based on an analysis of major application stores, less than one in eight apps on the Mac App Store are free of charge and games comprise 29 percent of all submissions.

Less than two months since launch the Mac App Store has 2,225 applications versus 8,099 iPad apps two months post-launch. Mac applications on average cost $11.21 – seven times the average selling price of iPhone apps ($1.57) and almost three times higher than on the iPad ($4.19). I have a feeling price drops on the Mac App Store are inevitable and here’s why.

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As the debate over whether Apple will put an NFC chip inside iPhone 5 continues, a new report hints at interesting possible uses that go beyond contactless payments. Specifically, an iPhone 5 with this chip could double as a portable login system allowing you to run your purchased Mac App Store applications on a guest Mac system as well as access, edit and save your documents remotely via the MobileMe cloud, an unnamed insider told Leander Kahney in an exclusive Cult of Mac story:

According to our source, who asked not to be named, when a NFC-equipped iPhone is paired with a guest machine, part of the user’s profile includes the apps they’ve purchased through the Mac App Store. The icons for their apps appear on the remote Mac, but aren’t downloaded, our source said. But if the user opens an app, it is downloaded temporarily to the computer for use. When the NFC connection is broken, the apps are deleted and the computer returns to its previous state.

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You can’t always be there at bedtime to read your kids their evening stories.  However, Nursery Rhymes with StoryTime let’s you read them their favorite stories remotely using an iPhone.  While it doesn’t replace being there, it is a nice stopgap and a great idea.  The artwork on these stories is top notch.

I see this as being fantastic for parents that are split up or even parents that travel often.  Perhaps v2 could have a little FaceTime window.

$3.99 at the App Store

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The New York Times made the announcement today that marks the end of free news on their website. From now on, you will be able to access up to twenty online articles per month free of charge. Reading the news on your smartphone will set you back fifteen bucks a month and five more bucks if you’re accessing their content from a tablet. They also offer a combined $35 per month plan that buys you full access to the New York Times website via the web, as well as smartphone and tablet apps.

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An unknown portion of the latest MacBook Pros with Sandy Bridge processors and high-speed Thunderbolt connection appears to be affected by an issue where the computer has trouble maintaining connection with iOS devices, even with the latest iTunes 10.2.1 installed. And if more than 215 posts in a thread on Apple’s Discussion forums are an indication, numerous 2011 MacBook Pros are plagued with this issue.

From what we’ve hearing, it’s a software issue easily patched with an upcoming software update (10.6.7). Here’s what the affected owners are saying.

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Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs has sent out an email to the company’s team in Japan to share the message of support and help local employees cope with a series of terrifying disasters that have brought the country to standstill. The Macotakara website first published (and MacRumors confirmed it) the contents of Jobs’ email, posted here in its entirety.

To Our Team in Japan,

We have all been following the unfolding disaster in Japan. Our hearts go out to you and your families, as well as all of your countrymen who have been touched by this tragedy.

If you need time or resources to visit or care for your families, please see HR and we will help you. If you are aware of any supplies that are needed, please also tell HR and we will do what we can to arrange delivery.

Again, our hearts go out to you during this unimaginable crisis.

Please stay safe.

Steve and the entire Executive Team

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Life is definitely good in the land of iPad. In 2016, sales of Apple’s tablet should top more than a hundred million units annually and half a billion units cumulatively. It’s projected to grab the biggest chunk of an estimated 60 million slates in this year, another indication that 2011 and 2012 will be the years of iPad. This notion is shared by analyst Jennifer Colegrove who says tablet PCs are “the fastest growing application for touch screens.”

A simple armchair analysis suggests cumulative iPad shipments nearing a whooping half a billion units by the end of 2016. Yes, five years is too long a time for crystal ball peering, but even the most outspoken naysayers coming out of the woodwork should acknowledge the iPad’s enormous potential for Apple’s fortunes.

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Mac database application Bento has been updated with several noteworthy features and made its Mac App Store debut. Additionally, companion iPhone and iPad apps, each costing five bucks, have been enhanced with support for Bento 4 for Mac and the ability to record voice memos and sync iCal tasks. Mac folks who own a previous Bento version can upgrade for just $29 with a $20 instant rebate upgrade and newcomers are free to download Bento 4 from the Mac App Store for fifty bucks. Here’s a quick rundown of the new stuff.

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As if yellow tinting wasn’t enough, some early adopters are reporting dead pixels on their brand new iPad 2 and other spooky stories. Matt is our north Texas reader and he sent this in:

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Floorplan comparison: Apple’s A4 chip (left) and the latest A5 processor (right)

Reverse engineering wizards over at Chipworks put the A5 chip under a microscope. Yes, it’s a Samsung – confirming our hunch. The experts came to this conclusion by putting the chip under a microscope and examining dielectric layers and the shape of the transistor gates. The teardown analysis also revealed a die almost twice the size of the A4 chip from the previous-generation iPad and iPhone 4, the 45-nanometer manufacturing process and other interesting tidbits.

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With iPad 2 now in the picture (no pun intended), exhaustive camera benchmarks from numerous publications paint a pretty bleak picture for Apple’s magical device. Like it or not, iPad 2 cameras mostly earn lower scores when pitted against Motorola’s Xoom, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and even Apple’s own iPod touch. The empirical testing backed by real-life footage proves what we’ve been suspecting all along, that iPad 2 takes substandard stills and grainier video than most tablets.

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Image credit: John Ferguson

Many Apple fans will disagree with such a strong statement about the charismatic CEO who has single-handedly shifted the balance of power in the music industry and persuaded youngsters that stealing music is bad for their karma. That’s exactly what Jon Bon Jovi said responding to a reporter’s question about the state of music today. Read on…

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In a strange turn of fate, California-based Apple is moving to trademark the famed fruity logos once used by the Beatles, following a 23-year legal dispute between the two companies. Furthermore, Apple makes specific mention of a social network in the fourteen international classifications that cover possible uses for the two logos. How can Apple, Inc. claim ownership of the Beatles’ logos in the first place, you ask.

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The iPhone repair experts at iFixyouri have determined that most of the weight savings in the iPad 2 – a fifth of a pound, is in the LCD and Glass assembly.

Here’s a breakdown weights of the Wifi iPads:

iPad 1 – 712.60g
iPad 2 – 600.60g (iPad 2 – 112g lighter)

If we break that down even further, the iPad 1 LCD/Glass is almost half the weight of the original iPad.

iPad 1 front half(LCD & Glass assembly) – 347.90g
iPad 1 back half – 364.70g

However, breaking down the iPad 2, we find a much lighter glass assembly accounts for most of the weight loss.  The glass we found out last night is 27% thinner than the original iPad. Eliminating the frame that the glass sits on, using thinner LCD and thinner glass, Apple saved 84.7g. That makes up for 75% of the weight reduction.

iPad 2 front half(LCD & Glass) – 263.20g
iPad 2 back half – 337.40g

Apple was able to shave almost 30 grams off of the rest of the device, and with a slightly bigger battery, that is significant.  But the lightness you feel is mostly the glass weight savings.

Our report on the iPad 2 glass from over a month ago first detailed Apple’s effort to save weight in the LCD/Glass assembly.

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Just like the previous iOS device launch days, today’s iPad 2 launch is spawning reports of some minor issues.  We’re getting some images of the yellow tint we saw last year.

Reader N. Peach sent this in. In all likelyiehood they yellow will dissipate just like last year’s issues as the glue from the factory dries.  Another reader’s is below:
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British media magnate and entrepreneur Richard Branson heaped praise on Steve Jobs and his consumer electronics powerhouse Apple, which he says is his favorite brand. Contemplating about a theoretical merger between Virgin and Apple, he said it would be a great fit. As if that weren’t crazy enough,  in a stroke of inspiration the UK billionaire calls Apple a “brilliant global company” that he admires the most. We have a video clip to prove it all right after the break.

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Apple has been the leader in miniaturization since the original iPod’s debut, which marked their entry into the ultra-portable gadget market. Fast forward ten years later and we have iPad 2 and iPhone 4 that are just 8.8 and 9.3 millimeter thick, respectively. Matter of fact, iPad 2 is actually thinner than your shiny iPhone 4. Even though Apple has come a long way in a short while with such ultra-portable devices, they might hit a  roadblock soon, which is your regular 3.5 millimeter audio jack. Needles to say, there’s a patent for that.

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