Apple has lost its iPhone game team leader, Graeme Devine, who quit the iPhone Game Technologies division last Friday.
Formerly of id Software where he had a hand in development of Quake 3 for Mac, Devine says he quit Apple in order to return to game development — with a focus on titles for the iPhone and iPad.
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Apple has patched a problem which afflicted some MacBook Air displays, in which 11- and 13-inch models would wake to a black screen or become unresponsive.
The company recommends all MacBook Air users should install the update, which addresses that problem of flickering horizontal lines sometimes appearing on the display of the 13-inch model or displays being discoloured when waking from sleep.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlUGAhKHoyM&w=640&h=385]
Wow. Just Wow. I guess we should remind you that Parallels 6 is available in Box form ($63) or for immediate download if that video just roused you to make a purchase.
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COMPUTERWORLD: Apple CEO Steve Jobs made the news today with a promise his company will make its online hosted MobileMe service much better next year. Other than improved stability, reliability and consistent performance, just what exactly do we want Apple to give us? Here’s a few suggestions.
Looks like there’s action being taken against China’s grey iProduct market. Just weeks Apple was forced to close its retail stores there as price-gougers became a high-street problem, Chinese customs have detained 14 iPad-smuggling housewives, a report claims.
Customs officials in Shenzhen caught 14 housewives trying to carry 88 (presumably 3G) iPads and 340 mobile phones into China. One of the women had 65 phones strapped around her waist along with another 20 in her handbag. (The report doesn’t say what the phones were, but we have a hunch…)
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Repetitive sync, record-keeping inccuracies and slow performance, for some of us that’s what we think we pay $99/year for when we sign-up for MobileMe, well, that and an over-priced image sharing service and an online storage facility that’s almost as good as Dropbox — but don’t worry, keep paying your subs because Steve Jobs says MobileMe is going to get better (next year).
Many industry watchers had hoped Apple would take a bite on the bullet and make the service free earlier this year. To an extent it did, bowing to public pressure (and potential feedback from lawmakers sick that such a powerful feature wasn’t available to every owner of an iDevice) and making ‘FindMyiPhone’ free for all.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRo3mExpl30&w=670&h=401]
This video clip purports to show yet another accomplishment from the iPhone Dev Team, this time they’ve managed to boot an iPod touch without using wires.
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At the ChromeOS event today, Google announced some significant improvements to the Chrome browser including their new Crankshaft Javascript rendering engine which should make it to Mac builds at some point soon.
Crankshaft uses adaptive compilation to improve both start-up time and peak performance. The idea is to heavily optimize code that is frequently executed and not waste time optimizing code that is not. Because of this, benchmarks that finish in just a few milliseconds, such as SunSpider, will show little improvement with Crankshaft. The more work an application does, the bigger the gains will be.
Also, Google announced that the Chrome browser is used by 120M users which is 300% increase over a year ago.
Most importantly, they announced their ChromeOS beta, which seems pretty impressive but won’t launch until the middle of next year. Until then, they are passing out little unmarked 12-inch black notebooks to beta testers that will be on Verizon’s network. Initial hardware partners (again, next year) will be Intel, Samsung and Acer with more to follow.
In an interview with Beet.TV, Joe Ambeault, Verizon’s Director of Consumer Product Development, says (1:55) that Verizon will get around to putting television programming on iOS and Mac at the beginning of next year. Comcast will have iPad video working this month, it said earlier. Pffft.
http://blip.tv/play/goRrgpKnNQI%2Em4v
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COMPUTERWORLD: Apple’s plotting course for the release of iPad 2.0 in February today’s hot rumor claims, but there’s some signs Apple plans a massacre as it prepares the ground for 2011’s expected battle with tablets powered by Android’s more tablet-friendly “Honeycomb” software. Apple has price, subsidy and many more options open to it as it moves into next year.
Apple’s decision to end the Xserve has attracted criticism from some of the company’s existing enterprise users — critics who’ve managed to raise their voices on CNN.
What is interesting is that despite their general displeasure at being given just four months to plan the change away from Xserve, “many Xserve customers say they’re sticking with the Mac plaform.”
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Andy Rubin gives the audience a Shocker
According to some reports, Apple will be introducing iPad 2.0 this February. Meanwhile, Google is getting ready for battle with a future introduction of Android Honeycomb, software designed to drive Android tablets.
Google Android boss Andy Rubin showed an Honeycomb powered Motorola Tablet at the All Things D Dive Into Mobile conference last night, saying this product would ship next year.
The alter ego at Fortune reports that Google hasn’t announced any Android growth since August 4th. That’s when Google CEO Eric Schmidt said they had surpassed 200,000 activations a day. Four months later? Still “over 200,000 activations per day”. Today’s Gingerbread announcement would have been a good time to announce some growth, wouldn’t it?
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The January 2011 edition of Consumer Reports comes out with an extremely negative view of AT&T carrier performance, likely just in time for the release of the Verizon iPhone. The Houston Chronicle cut out the carrier reviews and it is a painful one for AT&T. AT&T failed miserably in each and every category, rating the worst in every area except texting in which it was second to worst. That being said, only regional carrier US Cellular had any significant “Better” notations with most carriers ranking in the middle.
In response to the Consumer Reports survey, an AT&T spokesperson e-mailed the following statement:
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Apple’s taken yet another slice of the enterprise market with the introduction of the all-new iPad-savvy version of Cisco’s industry-leading Webex platform!
This will let you schedule and start meetings on your PC — and host meetings on your iPhone — when you sign up for a WebEx account.
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COMPUTERWORLD: Apple works in partnership within the in-car entertainment systems sector, but somehow solutions there lack a certain ‘Apple’ touch. So just what might a fully integrated future Apple-focused in-car entertainment system be capable of?
The eBook wars have just become a tri-partisan dispute, with Amazon versus Apple now seeing a third gorilla enter the room as Google launches its long-anticipated ebookstore.
Google eBooks is apparently “all about choice”, so you can get an app for iPhone, Android, Nook and Sony and for your computer. The service isn’t yet available outside the US.
Interestingly, your books are stored in the cloud, suggesting ad opportunities for the company.
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Apple may have hatched a deal with Verizon under which T-Mobile and Sprint will be locked out of the sexy, beautiful iPhone everywhere post-ATT exclusive in the US next year, an analyst said.
I hasten to note that the analyst here is one Kaufman Bros., Shaw Wu, and I’ve noted that his analysis while widely reported is often incorrect. But here’s the story.
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What’s this we hear? Apple’s going to open up its Mac App Store for business just on time for Christmas? That’s how it seems with the latest claimed insider gossip suggesting Apple’s gonna open its doors on the new big consumer software online retail outlet on December 13, hurrah!
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The LA Times posted an interesting story on the iPhone and iPad in business this weekend. In a nutshell, Apple is winning over many corporate converts because it is good enough as an emailing device but does so much more (sidenote: see here on 23 devices that an iPhone replaces)…
For decades Apple has been the specialist in consumer electronics, with its iPod music player and Macintosh personal computers. It has never been more than a niche player in the corporate market. Lately, though, the Cupertino, Calif., company is putting forth a novel argument: When it comes to smart phones and tablet computers, the distinction between a home and office device is becoming less necessary. “We’re not developing two different lines like many companies do with enterprise versions and consumer versions,” Apple’s chief operating officer, Tim Cook, said in an October conference call with investors. “This is another part of our simplistic approach to things that I think will pay us great dividends, and it’s already starting to do so.”
And an interesting case study on iPads vs. laptops. This is the walled garden paying off:
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It kinda just looks like a regular Android slider…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6cxaVRs60w&w=640&h=390]
…with some keys missing. (Like the one below). The real issue is game selection which iOS absolutely destroys Android. Oh and Sony: You missed Christmas.
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Interesting breakdown of who uses what platform. Is it un-PC to say that richer countries seem to have embraced the iPhone while developing countries/regions still trend toward Symbian? (Note: iOS numbers include iPod touch but not iPad) Pingdom via Daring Fireball
When it comes to staff recruitment, loyalty and retention, it seems pretty clear Apple has the advantage — others may approve of their CEOs more or less as much, but Jobs is also the least disapproved of CEO, according to Glassdoor.com and BusinessInsider.
COMPUTERWORLD: Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Nokia — these big name firms are locked into eternal struggle in the ever-changing world of technology, but Apple may hold the central skill in this new world order, as building tomorrow’s dreams demands that old engineering adage, “less is more”, and “better is not necessarily better than best”. Why? Because they can’t get the staff.
(Image c/o, Wired)