Tech Industry

 We’re looking forward to the first handheld supercomputer, thanks to an Apple-developed technology the company is now working to see accepted as an open standard.

Apple announced Snow Leopard at WWDC last week, equipped with the technology – Open Computing Language (OpenCL) – that will allow the OS to use the processing power of graphics processors for non-graphics apps.

OpenCL is based on the C programming language and has been proposed as an open standard. As part of the standard-setting process, Apple has joined a consortium of companies (the Khronos Group) to develop OpenCL as a standard.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs last week told the New York Times a little about OpenCL. “Basically it lets you use graphics processors to do computation,” he said. “It’s way beyond what Nvidia or anyone else has, and it’s really simple.” Interestingly, both Nvidia and ATI are part of the standards-setting consortium.

The standards setting procedure is taking place under the aegis of the Khronos Group, which has set up the Compute Working Group to investigate how best to use the increasingly powerful capabilities of GPUs to share computational tasks with the host processor.

Khronos Group president, Neil Trevett, said, "The Compute Working Group potentially will be one of the most significant standardisation efforts at Khronos. Highly-accelerated parallel computation across GPUs and CPUs is essential to many emerging rich consumer applications that will transform the computing experience of diverse users."

Oh but the web we weave – Apple’s secrets continue to unravel, with Trevett’s next revelation: "Significantly, this initiative is aimed at both desktop and embedded devices – the day when you will be able to hold a supercomputer in the palm of your hand is perhaps not so far away."

Other members of the working group include AMD, ARM, IBM, Intel, and Nokia.

 It appears Apple is closing in on a deal to offer the iPhone in China, following months of discussion with carrier networks there – but optimism of this has since been denied by the company concerned.

Apple has been engaged in talks with China’s largest mobile carrier, the eponymously-named China Mobile. However, local reports now claim talks with that carrier have broken down, driving Apple to the arms of smaller incumbent, China Unicom.

Since these reports emerged this morning, however, China Unicom has gone on the offensive to deny them. "This rumored cooperation is nonsense," an unnamed Unicom executive told Trading Markets. "The company will not approach Apple at this moment when the nation’s telecoms regrouping has not come to an end, let alone discuss about the iPhone deal. Because it is not clear which 3G wireless license China Unicom will get after the reshuffle."

Talks with China Mobile allegedly broke down because the companies were unable to agree a mutually acceptable revenue-sharing deal. 

Reports currently suggest the iPhone 3G will ship in China this August, though there is a catch – Chinese users will be unlikely to be able to use 3G on their devices because the 3G network in the country hasn’t been implemented yet. The Chinese government is expected to allow operators to begin introducing 3G networks later this year, with China Unicom expected to receive a 3G license to operate services on the network.

China Unicom has declined comment on these reports.

Interestingly, China Mobile in February apparently reported it was aware of 400,000 iPhones already in use on its network, these models were purchased in Europe and the US, unlocked and returned to China.

 Just because Apple’s reaching deals to bring iPhone 3G to market at prices most of us can almost afford doesn’t mean the company’s making no money – far from it, according to a recent tear-down analysis from Portelligent.

‘Course. what makes the analysis just the tiniest bit speculative is that Portelligent has released its estimated cost of iPhone 3G manufacture based entirely on educated guesses as to what components are used in the device. 

The raw cost of materials to build the iPhone 3G could be nearly half that of the original model, according to Portelligent. While the first model had a build cost of c. $170, the new breed could cost as little as $100 to make, said Potelligent president, David Carey.

"Gen2 iPhone pricing is aggressive enough that it made me think Apple’s really taking the gloves off on this one," said Carey. "They are probably not as worried about iPhone hardware profits as they are about getting a piece of the action on service revenues and getting more Macs in homes and offices all around the globe," he added.

From speaking to suppliers in Asia, Portelligent believes Apple uses an Infineon baseband and RF transceiver, a Samsung processor, an Infineon GPS chip.

We love it, many of you love it, it gives Microsoft a headache and while we love Safari too, we’re ready and waiting for when Firefox 3 will ship at 10am (PDT) today.

We’ve signed up to support the release by downloading it the moment it’s made available – hopefully putting the release into the Guinness Book of World Records for the most downloaded software ever released. 

Firefox 3.0 will be fast, loading pages up to four times faster than the previous version and an astonishing seven times faster than Internet Explorer (why does anyone still use Microsoft’s stuff, anyway?).

So – roll along to the Spreadfirefox website and take a look at the tons of new features that we can look forward to in Firefox; get ready to download it, and don’t bother downloading those files named Firefox 3 that seem to be circulating right now – some of these are just re-named versions of the last beta, and in any case, these downloads don’t count as part of the world record attempt. And we really hope to see an explosion in its market share in next month’s Net Applications stats…

Updated to add: As of 10.05 am PDT, the Firefox servers are clearly being hammered – we’re just trying to get in!

 Apple seems to be growing ever cosier with games developers, with news this morning that the company’s head honcho in Europe has taken a seat on the board of French games developer, Infogrames.

Apple’s vice president for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Pascal Cagni, has taken a seat on the Infogrames board, that’s in addition to his normal duties at Apple.

Infogrames chairman Michel Combesof said: "We are convinced that Cagni’s competence, his experience in the consumer technology and internet sectors and his independence will help to strengthen and enrich our board".

Cagni’s response? "I’m delighted to join the exemplary board at Infogrames. Infogrames and Atari especially are world-class brands that should experience the full benefit of a new, strong leadership team." 

Does this mean Apple’s growing cosier with games developers? We know the company has a blooming relationship now with Electronic Arts? Anyone remember the Apple buys Atari rumours of the olden days? Does it need to when Infogrames owns 51.2 per cent of Atari. It also owns 72 per cent of GT Interactive; owns Hasbro Interactive….

So, games the Apple executive and new board member has a say in include: Civilisation, Dungeons And Dragons, Missile Command, and Pong. And many more. Filed in the , "watch this space" collection.

Apple took almost five percent of the global laptop market in the first quarter of 2008, new data from DisplaySearch explains, further confirmation of Apple’s continued resurgence.

Apple took 4.6 per cent of the world market for laptops putting the company into seventh place, states DigiTimes, up from its previous number eight position. As the wider market grew 35 per cent, Apple’s sales nearly doublied to to 1.43-million portables from 891,000 units in Q1 2007, the report explains. Apple has also been explained as up 61 per cent in the second quarter overall, Mac sales overall climbed 51 per cent, year-on-year, a rate of growth an astonishing 3.5 times that of the overall PC market. 

Recently, NPD revealed that two-thirds of laptops costing $1,000 or more and sold across US retail chains are Macs. And while that share slides to just 14 per cent for computers costing under $1,000, the news still confirms Apple’s growing footprint in retail Mac sales.

NPD vice president Stephen Baker said, "iMacs are growing and the Windows desktop ain’t. No matter how you look at it, Apple is outperforming Windows,” Baker said.

Apple accounts for 25 per cent of its manufacturer, Quanta’s, revenue, which climbed 18 per cent in the just-gone quarter. "Notebook growth is coming in faster than we expected," said Quanta Vice Chairman C.C. Leung. "There’s some slowdown from the U.S., but Asia and emerging markets are still seeing growth. So far things look positive for overall notebook demand."

According to AT&T’s new iPhone website, the maximum download speed you can expect to achieve with the device is 1.4mbps.  That is much different than typical 3G phones like the Motorola Q for instance which comes in at a hefty 3.6mbps.  HSDPA data cards can get as high as 7.2 mbps.  What gives?! 

It is unlikely to be a webpage error because the 1.4mbps speed is also quoted in the official press release.  While this may still be twice as fast as the previous iPhone, if true, it won’t impress anyone who has used full 3G enabled devices.

Motorola Q?  3.6 Mbps!!!

Update: For more information, check out Gizmodo’s writeup.  According to them AT&T caps all 3G smartphones.  If that is true, why do they list the Q at 3.6mbps?  From Gizmodo:

But the iPhone 3G is rated for 1.4Mbps, a nice clip but not the 3.6Mbps downstream that AT&T’s HSDPA is capable of. (The carrier loves to brag that it’ll have 7.2Mbps by the end of the year.) So why not crank up the iPhone to those better data rates? Turns out, according to AT&T people we talked to, 1.4Mbps is the capped bandwidth for all mobile smartphones on the network for a few reasons.

(UPDATE: AT&T is saying they’re not capping the phone at 1.4mbps, but that’s what its capable of doing now, due to factors below. There’s no difference except intent, and AT&T is careful around words like "Cap" these days.)

A major one is battery life—the faster you burn, the faster your battery dies, so going full steam at 3.6Mbps would cut you well short of that nice round five hours. A second one is cell site congestion and backhaul (carrier-speak for size of the wired dataline that connects cell sites to the actual telecom infrastructure). While everyone at AT&T, from the top down, is adamant that AT&T is "comfortable" with their ability to meet the huge data draw once 3G iPhones hit the streets, it’s not like the pipe is unlimited.

AT&T wasn’t able to give a breakdown as to how many of their towers have fiberoptic pipes as opposed to slower copper T-1 lines. Nor could they say how quickly they could add capacity to a site that is pummeling their demand expectations, since it varies from site to site. Ones in dense urban areas are loaded up with more backhaul and can handle more users than one closer to the edge of their 3G footprint. Still, generally speaking, more users on a site means more congestion, so if you’re slurping from a site that’s really slammed, it will be slower. As with all radio technologies, proximity also matters. (Hint: For the absolute fastest speeds, wait until 3am and then go sit right next to your favorite cell site.)

digg_url = ‘http://9to5mac.com/3g-iPhone’;

Digitimes today speculates on Apple’s future Intel Chip roadmap.  Basically they are saying that Snow Leopard’s Grand Central feature sounds a lot like what Intel’s Nehalem processor will be able to offer with more cores and more threads/core/cycle.

The main optimization Apple describes as a target for Snow Leopard is Grand Central, a technology it says will make all of OS X multi-core aware and optimize it for allocating tasks across multiple cores and processors. Apple also says Grand Central will make it easier for OS X software developers to create programs that make the most of multi-core platforms.

With the adoption of Nehalem, Apple’s server and workstation configurations are likely to jump from eight threads (their current maximum) to 16 threads initially, with the potential to scale to 24 or more treads over the lifetime of Nehalem and its successor Westmere. Meanwhile mobile-based product lines are almost certain to see thread counts ranging from two to eight, up from the current two.

Apple is making it easy for developrs to take advantage of Intels newest technologies.  Digitimes sees Apple’s roadmap as:

If Apple plans to continue with its current product mix, Intel’s roadmap gives Apple the opportunity to hit the ground running with a June 2009 (or thereabouts) launch of Snow Leopard accompanied by a completely revamped Nehalem-based – Clarksfield-based MacBook Pro and iMac, Auburndale or Clarksfield-based MacBook, MacBook Air and Mac mini, and Gainestown-based Mac Pro and Xserve – product lineup.

We hope this is fake.http://static.koreus.com/flvplayer.swf?file=http://media3.koreus.com/00064/200806/telephone-portable-mais-popcorn.flv

Walt gives his early take on the 3G iPhone. Of course he now has one in hand unlike us or you… http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/452319854

We’ve just received some exciting news for our UK readers from an O2 insider.  It seems that O2 is really taking advantage of the 3G iPhone and giving their customers some real value.  Unfortunately AT&T in the US doesn’t seem to be as aggressive with their plans.

• O2 in conjunction with BTOpenzone and The Cloud are creating a Wifi "wireless mesh network" across London and other UK metropolitan areas.  The coverage is supposed to rival the coverage of cell phone towers.  iPhone users should be able to use this network seamlessly.  Also, O2 customers will be able to log into this mesh with their laptops or desktops.
• The 3G iPhone WILL allow Bluetooth Tethering for laptops.  We asked about Wifi tethering and got a blank stare.  We’ll take what we can get.  They said that this was 99.9 percent certain and "Apple can always change their minds".  Since O2 controls the network and costs involved the decision would largely be theirs.
• O2 will control everything network related on the iPhone (APN, etc.).  Their settings will be on the iPhone you buy from the Apple Stores as well.
• O2 is EXTREMELY happy with the Apple partnership.  They were in a fierce bidding war with Vodafone for the contract to carry the UK iPhone and the underdog.  At the end they settled on giving Apple 15% of their iPhone revenues across the board (for Generation 1) which Vodafone declined.  Had all things been equal, Apple would have gone with Vodafone because of their size and scale.  Their take is that Vodafone is very sorry that they let the deal slip away.  O2 is also happy to be associated with the Apple brand which is helping theirs climb up the ranks in the UK and the world.
•  They will offer free iPhones (even 16Gb on their largest plan) with a plan and pay as you go iPhones but obviously they won’t be usable with other carriers as we stated yesterday.

Will AT&T and the other carriers follow O2’s lead?  We can only hope!

Update: It does appear that there is a SIM card tray on the 3G iPhone though it isn’t as pronounced as before.  Perhaps there was some miscommunication about "the hammer"…

Apple has responded to widely-reported concerns at the health of CEO Steve Jobs, saying the company co-founder has been suffering from a "common bug" in recent weeks.

Concerns as to the health of Jobs, who suffered a rare form of pancreatic cancer four years ago, were raised following his appearance at WWDC this week, when the Mac web noted that he seemed to have suffered some weight loss.

Responding to these concerns, an Apple spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal Jobs was hit with a “common bug” in recent weeks but that he still felt it was important to participate in the Apple conference. Jobs is now recovering with help from a course of antibiotics.

Jobs is seen as nearly irreplaceable at Apple, where he has conducted the most dramatic turnaround of a company in corporate history.

Jobs had what is called the "Whipple Operation" to deal with his cancer…

In the Whipple operation the head of the pancreas, a portion of the bile duct, the gallbladder and the duodenum is removed. Occasionally a portion of the stomach may also be removed. After removal of these structures the remaining pancreas, bile duct and the intestine is sutured back into the intestine to direct the gastrointestinal secretions back into the gut….

…..What are the long-term complications of the Whipple operation?

Loss of weight: It is common for patients to lose up to 5 to 10% of their body weight compared to their weight prior to their illness. The weight loss usually stabilizes very rapidly and most patients after a small amount of initial weight loss are able to maintain their weight and do well.

So all par for the course…

 Despite being 3G, Apple’s new iPhone won’t allow users to download music from iTunes using 3G networks – at least, not yet.

According to Apple’s product page, the mobile version of the iTunes Music Store will remain solely accessible using WiFi. Is this a missed opportunity? We think it might be – but, equally, Apple has a practise of dribbling new features out during the life of a product, in order to stimulate and to maintain sales.

Look to Napster Mobile, Rhapsody and the numerous (but not particularly widely-used) mobile music services. These already allow users to purchase and download tracks using 3G connections. With the movement to mobile music and music anywhere continuing (as noted in this Guardian report yesterday), the only reason Apple may not yet have introduced a 3G music store has to be the reluctance of the carriers to allow the company to undercut their own music services, simply by offering a better service.

We think that reluctance will fade as iPhone market share improves, we also think we may see more movement to support mobile music within the next major version of ITunes, which we’d anticipate for September/October this year, around the traditional iPod refresh season.

We’re very surprised at the lack of A2DP support in the Bluetooth stack used in the iPhone – that’s an incredible shame, we’d like to be able to use the device to stream music to speakers and our choice of Bluetooth headphones (though, let’s face it, those Bluetooth headphones with their little flashing lights are always a fashion crime).

We’ve been talking about it for years.  Finally, Apple has some rock solid plans to introduce ZFS into the MacOSX operating system.  As of now, plans are for Snow Leopard server to allow read/write capabilities for ZFS.  No word yet if it will operate as a boot partition or not.  Snow Leopard Server is supposed to debut with it’s client counterpart in about 1 year according to Apple.  Developers are being shown a preview this week at Apple’s WWDC.

No word on whether this technology will be available to current Leopard Server users.

 Apple has published the QuickTime feed of today’s keynote session at WWDC, making it available online and (eventually) through the new Apple keynotes session on iTunes.

 Apple’s playing it quiet on Snow Leopard, revealing only that the upgrade is focused on ensuring a future for OS X, with the implication that rumours of a move away from PowerPC is now in the company’s sights.

Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering describes the new OS stating, "We have delivered more than a thousand new features to OS X in just seven years and Snow Leopard lays the foundation for thousands more.  In our continued effort to deliver the best user experience, we hit the pause button on new features to focus on perfecting the world’s most advanced operating system.”

Snow Leopard will enhance the performance of OS X, set a new standard for quality and lay the foundation for future OS X innovation. Snow Leopard is optimised for multi-core processors, taps into the vast computing power of graphic processing units (GPUs), enables breakthrough amounts of RAM and features a new, modern media platform with QuickTime X. Snow Leopard includes out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 and is scheduled to ship in about a year.

Expectation is already building on the software, which is expected to ship next year. It’s thought it will offer support for 64-bit computing, speed and stability improvements, and a unified development engine for all Apple devices. A new technology called Grand Central is expected to help developers design more efficient multi-core programs for Macs, and to offer more support for exploiting the processor power of graphics processors for non-graphics apps. Well, that and support for 64-bit computing and 16TB of memory – and an improved version of QuickTime.

Using media technology pioneered in OS X iPhone, Snow Leopard introduces QuickTime X, which optimises support for modern audio and video formats resulting in extremely efficient media playback. Snow Leopard also includes Safari with the fastest implementation of JavaScript ever, increasing performance by 53 per cent, making Web 2.0 applications feel more responsive.

For the first time, OS X includes native support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 in OS X applications Mail, iCal and Address Book, making it even easier to integrate Macs into organisations of any size.

Although Steve Jobs didn’t reveal any surprises, our expectations were pretty high…and Apple met them.  The devil is in the details and the location-based stuff is going to be really cool when developers (and Advertisers) start utilizing them.

Bravo Apple. 

Now we want to know more about Snow Leopard…

 Apple has confirmed what we first said it would – the debut of the new Mobile Me service, which pushes essential information to iPhone users.

It’s Exchange – for the rest of us, pushing email, contacts, and calendars over-the-air, ensuring everything remains in sync between the iPhone, Mac, or PC, syncing data both ways. It works with Mail, iCal, and Address Book on a Mac and Outlook on Windows.

iDisk is integrated as well, while Mail allows panes to be resized, multiple messages to be selected an more. iDisk lets users send files to people through the application, over-the-air. There’s also features for iPhoto users, it’s incredibly effective.

Oh, yes, a 60-day free trial of the service will be made available along with the iPhone 2.0 Software in early July. And, indeed, MobileMe replaces .Mac, subscribers to which will automatically upgraded to the new service. 

We’re doing the 9to5mac Livepanel again.  If you’ve got a big monitor and lots of bandwidth, you can pull in 4 feeds in one window.  Click here for head exploding coverage today from Macrumors, Engadget, Gizmodo and Computerworld.

 Apple Stores are down worldwide, while the iPhone Dev Center is also unavailable in the prelude to the WWDC 2008 keynote today.

Queues are already beginning to form at the Moscone Centre as hundreds jostle for the best seat at the keynote, which is expected to see the introduction of the 3G iPhone.

Likelihood of new product introductions has increased now, with the non-availability of the Apple Store.

Here’s a late breaking hypothesis: the landmark event is not just about the iPhone SDK’s GPS hooks, Core Location, and the incredible possibilities they represent.  The Snow Leopard OS mystery is about Apple branching off into 2 diverging Major ‘desktop’ OSes.  Leopard for large traditional computers, Snow Leopard for MacBook Air and smaller – like Tablets?  Stuff that would run on the Intel Atom.

This makes sense across a lot of lines.  Intel Atoms are extremely energy efficient, but they are also underpowered for a desktop OS.  Apple could be releasing an Intel Atom optimized version of OSX today….

Or this could all be hooey and they might be talking about 2 versions of the iPhone (right mykbibby?)….What do you think?