News tagged ‘design’

According to BGR Apple will released a cheap $350 iPhone this year. They also claim that the price for the iPhone 4 will be reduced too and Apple will unveil a new iPhone 4S/5 in late August.

We just received some new information from an incredibly solid source of ours. According to our source, Apple will indeed be launching a prepaid / lower cost iPhone this year. We are told the handset will retail for no more than $350 without contract. Ready for the really interesting part? It's entirely possible that the low-cost iPhone will in fact be the iPhone 3GS.

BGR also confirmed previous rumors that iPhone 5 will feature a radical new design. It is still unclear whether iPhone 5 or iPhone 4S is to be released next. Source says that new device will be "at least announced by the end of Summer, late August-ish.". And yes, Apple will continue to sell the iPhone 4.

Lot's of rumors lately. We will keep you informed.

Sales of $40 magnetic smart covers designed to protect the iPad 2 amounted to collective $300 million for Apple in recent quarter, as BMO Capital's analyst Keith Bachman said on Monday in his note to investors. Half of that figure makes up pure profit for the company.
Read the rest of this entry »

The new MacBook may come with a return of the backlit keyboard. The backlit keyboard was omitted from the October 2010 redesign of the laptops line, as rumored, due to design issues and battery life constrains. The new MacBook Airs will feature the design of 2010 MacBook Airs. A backlit keyboard may be helpful in low-light conditions, and it’s currently implemented in all versions of Apple’s MacBook Pro line. Appleinsider’s sources, who are familiar with the matter, claim that the new laptops will be launched any time this month.

With the release of new models later this month, Apple is set to reinstate a feature to its MacBook Airs that went missing when the company overhauled the ultra-thin notebooks into more cost-affordable products late last year, AppleInsider has learned.

According to people familiar with the matter, backlit keyboards will join the string of hardware enhancements planned for the new 11.6- and 13.3-inch notebooks, which are also expected to adopt high-speed Thunderbolt ports, an upgrade to Intel’s Sandy Bridge architecture, and possibly high-speed 400MBps flash memory.

Last week United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) published a new patent application that describes new multitouch gestures for imitating physical metaphors and allowing users to share documents across devices, for example, by “pouring” files between devices (showed in the picture above).

Read the rest of this entry »

Besides Apple's patent application about multitouch gestures, USPTO has published another another patent concerning 3D gestures.

In another filing (number 20110164029) the company describes new three-dimensional gestures (showed in the illustration above) which might be used in professional content creation software, such as 3D modeling, CAD applications, image editing programs and many others. The 3D gestures could also be used in alleged iPhone HD to run such professional apps as Final Cut Pro and Aperture.

Read the rest of this entry »

According to Bloomberg’s report, Apple has kept on lowering the buy-in fee for its iAd mobile advertising by reducing package prices for main advertising companies from the original buy of $1 million down to $300.000 in some deals.

Read the rest of this entry »

There have appeared new rumours about a higher-resolution iPad. The iPad HD will be launched later this year and will be sold alongside the iPad 2. The device was developed for pro-users in the video and photo-industries. There will be also launched the iPad-versions of pro-level apps such as Final Cut Pro or Aperture.

Our sources are saying that not only will there be a newly designed iPhone coming in the fall, but there is going to be a new entry into the iPad family as well. As hard as it might be to believe, the new tablet is said to sport a double resolution screen (2048 x 1536), and will be dubbed the "iPad HD." The idea behind the product is apparently that it will be a "pro" device aimed at a higher end market - folks who work in video and photo production possibly - and will be introduced alongside something like an iPad version of Final Cut or Aperture. This product is specifically said to not be the iPad 3, rather a complimentary piece of the iPad 2 line.

Read the rest of this entry »

This year Amazon released its Cloud Player and Cloud Drive services that allow users to store music and other media data on Amazon’s servers and access them from different devices connected to the Internet. After Apple announced iCloud last month, some showed an interest in Amazon tweaking its products to keep with iCloud.

Read the rest of this entry »

According to information from Apple’s supply chain, Apple is set to ship about five million iPad 2 devices during July. As a brief report by DigiTimes reads, orders for five million touch sensors specifically designed for second-gen iPad were placed by the company:

Read the rest of this entry »

If you plan to upgrade to OS X Lion this month, then there is a good resource to visit. Roaringapps.com is a public sourced database that is designed to help you determine whether your application is OS X Lion compatible. The site uses information entered by users about the compatibility of existing apps that run on Snow Leopard or about the need for  Rosetta to work properly.

Read the rest of this entry »

AT&T included Apple’s iPhone (all models) to their insurance program for mobile devices. Starting on July 17 customers can stay calm paying just five dollars per month. With this coverage not only your iPhone but also your other wireless investments on the AT&T network will be protected from loss, theft, electrical failure and accidental damage that standard Apple’s warranty doesn’t cover.

If your handset is stolen, damaged or lost, you will have the right to replace you handset with the deductible ranging from $50 to $125 per claim providing that you file no more than two claims for twelve consecutive months. Here is a citation from AT&T’s mobile insurance page:

Effective July 17, 2011, the Apple iPhone (all models) will be eligible for coverage with the AT&T Mobile Insurance program (formerly Wireless Phone Insurance). Enrollment restrictions apply. Customers can only enroll within 30 days of a new activation or upgrade, prior activations or upgrades outside of 30 days are not eligible.

Also customers can consider an option of replacing AT&T’s insurance with Apple’s insurance plan as it is known that Apple replaces accidentally broken and out-of-warranty iPhones for a fixed $199 repair fee, but the warranty doesn’t cover theft or loss. Also you should know that there are some cases that neither company covers, for example, liquid damage.

MIC Gadget has posted an article that tells us about some details of the upcoming Mac Pro update that may come out in August. MIC Gadget also posted a screenshot of the App Store that shows a Mac Pro with Promise Thunderbolt RAID system. The current generation of the Mac Pro doesn’t support Thunderbolt technology. Of course, that image could be just an error of the graphics department, but if it doesn’t, we should expect Mac Pro with Thunderbolt that is slowly being rolled out onto every Mac.  The MacBook Pro, iMac already received Thunderbolt input/output ports, and recent rumors claim that the MacBook Air refresh will similarly get Thunderbolt capability. The image also shows that the Mac Pro design won’t be changed. MIC Gadget also believes that the Mac Pro will feature an 8 core CPU that will be ‘exclusive’ to Apple for a few months before other PC manufacturers can have access to it in Q4 of this year.

Our sources indicate Apple is making headway with access to this technology, and they are investing heavily into the Mac Pro. Sandy Bridge will be integrated with the new Mac Pro CPU as well, but issues remain with the heat being produced by such powerful CPUs.

According to Business Insider analyst Chris Whitmore reports that Apple plans to release not only the iPhone 5 this fall, but they will also release a cheaper version of the iPhone, the iPhone 4S.

This means that Apple will release a minor update to the iPhone 4, the iPhone 4S, as well as a major update called the iPhone 5.

"With Nokia and RIMM struggling," he writes, "the time is right for Apple to aggressively penetrate the mid range smart-phone market (i.e. $300-500 category) to dramatically expand its [total addressable market] and market share."

As Whitmore sees it, an iPhone 4S that is unlocked, priced around $349, and comes with a pre-paid voice plan would "drive significantly greater penetration" into an addressable market that has grown to include 1.5 billion potential customers in 98 countries, two thirds of whom prefer pre-paid plans.

The rumors about cheaper iPhone have been reports floating around for a long time. It's a pity that Whitmore only offers us his prediction without any evidence or inside knowledge.

Here is a summary of what we have in mind right now:

iPhone 5:

• 4" screen
• new design
• dual core
• 8MP camera
• possible dual LED and/or dual camera
• 64GB
• 1080p video

iPhone 4S:

• 3.5"
• old design
• single core
• 5MP camera
• 4GB Storage
• 720p video

Bloomberg says Apple is planning to release a new faster iPhone this September.

The device will include the A5 processor, the more powerful chip that Apple added to the iPad 2 earlier this year, along with an 8-megapixel camera, up from the 5-megapixel model in the iPhone 4, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the details aren’t public. Apple is also testing a new version of the iPad that has a higher resolution screen, similar to the one now used in the iPhone 4, one of the people said.

Earlier today, another rumor source BGR reported that the new iPhone would be released even earlier, in late August. They have also mentioned that new iPhone 4S or iPhone 5 would feature a radical new design.

CNET writes on a comment made by analyst Doug Freedman at Gleacher & Company, who says that it is estimated that 48% of all Apple’s laptops will be of MacBook Air family:

“How big is this opportunity? In the 4-year lifespan of [Apple's] iconic MacBook Air, units sold as a percentage of its total notebook supply was 8 percent in 2008, 9 percent in 2009, and 17 percent in 2010 to an estimated 48 percent in 2011,” he stated.

Advanced Intel Sandy Bridge processors designed for ultraportable laptops (chips can “turbo” or overlock to much higher speeds) were priced today:

Core i7-2637M: 1.7 GHz (turbos to 2.8GHz), 2 cores, 17 watts, 4MB cache, priced at $289

Core i7-2677M: 1.8 GHz (turbos to 2.9GHz), 2 cores 17 watts, 4MB cache, priced at $317

Core i5-2557M: 1.7 GHz (turbos to 2.7GHz), 2 cores 17 watts, 3MB cache, priced at $250

Possibly more important that these chips are based on Intel’s newish fab process that will make power efficiency much higher. But the drawback is that they will utilize Intel’s slower chipset that doesn’t make use of Nvidia’s 3xx series graphics.

New MacBook Airs are expected within a month.