Archive for 2011

In July Dutch site AppleSpot.nl posted some rumors regarding an iPod touch with 3G capabilities, now AppleNApps revives the rumors claiming that a 3G-capable iPod touch is indeed in development, and while Apple is reportedly planning for a launch this September.

After talking with multiple people over the past few weeks, we had a lengthy chat with one person who gave us great news about the next iPod Touch. We’ve used this person in the past, but they did qualify their remarks, saying that the iPod Touch changes should make it, but there’s no guarantee the changes will be ready for fall. The 3G iPod Touch idea intrigued us so much back in July, and we’ve been trying to find one of our contacts who can give some credence to the idea. A few have declined to comment, while others honestly have no idea, but the source for this report says that Apple is indeed working on a 3G iPod Touch. Apple is intent on announcing the device during their September event which they usually save for their iPod line, but will include the iPhone as well this year.

Evidence of iPod Touch 3G was reviled in July when there was discovered a new "iPod4,2" model mentioned in property list files in early iOS 5 builds.  Its designation as a minor "4,2" evolution of the existing iPod4  suggested that the new iPod touch could be similar to the fourth-generation iPod touch currently available from Apple.

According to Japanese website Macotakara, Apple is finishing developing a new version of its professional audio software Logic. The new version is named Logic Pro X.

According to the report, Apple will terminate the Logic Studio’s component Soundtrack Pro. Both Logic Studio and Final Cut Studio has included Soundtrack Pro 3, but this component is no longer offered within application set Final Cut Pro X.

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Pocketnow.com claims that it has found a photo taken by the iPhone 5. The EXIF data shows that the shot was made by the iPhone 4, but the original size of the photo, before cropping, was nearly 8 megapixels. The iPhone 4’s camera resolution is 5 megapixels, so the shot touched off rumors that it was made by the iPhone 5. The original image was taken by an Apple engineer working on Safari and WebKit for iOS eating lunch at work.

This (very attractive) photo claims to have been taken by an iPhone 4, but the rest of its EXIF data tells a different story: although the image has been cropped to 2235x2291 (5.12 megapixels), the original picture was a much larger 3264x2448 -- or just shy of eight megapixels. What's more, the lens was recorded as a 4.3mm f/2.4, which is closer to that of a point-and-shoot than the iPhone 4's actual 3.85mm f/2.8.

Voice input in Android

9to5Mac has reported that Apple seeded some mobile carriers with a “near-final” build of iOS 5 with the enabling of Nuance's Speech to Text as a system-wide service:

According to a source testing the feature, it works almost identically (video above) to the Android operating system’s speech-to-text feature. It’s also very polished, quick, and accurate said the source – which is obvious for being an Apple product but also is indicative of the product being nearly complete.

The special microphone button was already noticed in iOS 5. This allows users to dictate rather than type. It seems that Apple plans to release its Nuance speech recognition system alongside the public release of iOS 5 set for launch in this fall.

iOS task switcher that is activated when you double-click the home button is obviously not the best solution for task switching on handsets.More user-friendly solution is implemented in webOS devices. It is based on metaphor of card switching and allows you to easily manage running tasks on the screen.

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Recently in an interview on State of the Union of CNN channel, Jim Hoffa, International Brotherhood of Teamsters Union President, claimed that Apple is unpatriotic as it outsources manufacturing in other countries.

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Today Intuit announced that the QuickBooks for Mac 2012, financial management software for small businesses, was enhanced for OS X Lion. Over fifty new features were added to the software, including vendor and customer history panels, transaction list, improved search with filters and keywords. The software will be put on sale September 26 as a digital version for download on the Apple’s and Intuit’s online store, Amazon.com and other retail stores at $230 for a single user. Boxed versions will be available from October 9.

Today Adobe announced that Digital Publishing Suite will support Apple upcoming Newsstand service for iOS 5. Newsstand feature is designed to serve as the organization centre for digital subscriptions in Apple’s iOS 5, allowing users to easily access the recent content downloaded in background mode.

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After amazing lost of the iPhone 5 prototype, Apple seems to start worry about their forthcoming devices, having posted a job listing for two positions that are titled “New Product Security Managers”. Noteworthy to say, that these positions became available just a day after there appeared rumors claiming that Apple had lost the iPhone 5 prototype at a San Francisco bar. That’s probably somewhat of a coincidence, but it is obvious that the company does its best to protect future products and its intellectual property, describing the new jobs as follows:

The candidate will be responsible for overseeing the protection of, and managing risks to, Apple’s unreleased products and related intellectual property. Position will reside in Cupertino, California and will require up to 30% travel (international and domestic). The individual will collaborate with other security managers by contributing to, and managing execution of, strategic initiatives set forth by Director, Global Security.

MacRumors reports that Apple is shipping its new 27-inch Thunderbolt Display to its retail stores and resellers this week. Early online customer orders are expected to begin shipping on September 15. Apple unveiled this 27-inch LED display in July. The display is the first display that can boast about of the new Thunderbolt I/O technology. The display requires a Mac with a Thunderbolt I/O port. Such Thunderbolt compatibility allows the displays to act as a docking station using a single Thunderbolt cable.

“The Apple Thunderbolt Display is the ultimate docking station for your Mac notebook,” Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, said when the display was first unveiled. "With just one cable, users can dock with their new display and connect to high performance peripherals, network connections and audio devices.”

The Thunderbolt Display features a built-in FaceTime HD camera, 2.1 speaker system, three USB ports, one Firewire 800 port, one Gigabit Ethernet port, and a second Thunderbolt port to enable daisy chaining, a 16:9 edge-to-edge glass design with an ultra-wide 178 degree viewing angle.

Apple reportedly has made a deal with Simplo and Dynapack to produce and supply a thinner and lighter battery for the iPad 3. Such battery means that the company may work on the iPad with a potentially thicker high-resolution Retina display. The cost of new batteries is 20-30% higher that the current iPad batteries but provides longer service life and higher safety.  Mass production of such batteries are planed on the first quarter of the next year.

With the upcoming iPad 3 to feature a thinner, lighter battery module that is widely believed to be priced 20-30% higher than iPad 2’s, Simplo Technology Co. and Dynapack International Technology Corp., both Apple Inc.’s contract suppliers of iPad and Macbook battery packs, will hence secure a surefire profit drive for the near future.

Institutional investors pointed out that the battery pack for iPad 3, scheduled to be massively produced in the first quarter of next year, has been redesigned to be thinner and lighter with a longer service life than iPad 2 edition’s.

Apple’s current generation of MacBook Air is very popular with customers. Apple sells up to 500,000 units per month. MacBook Air’s success has drawn the interest of “Ultrabook” models’ manufactures whose aim is to compete with the MacBook Air. Intel and Windows PC seem to test the waters, limiting initial shipments to a combined 50,000 units.

First-tier notebook brand vendors Acer, Lenovo, Toshiba and Asustek Computer, understanding that demand for notebooks is unlikely to recover in the fourth quarter, while Apple's products are taking up all the glory in the market, will limit their initial Ultrabook shipment volume to below 50,000 units for testing the water, according to sources from notebook makers.

Intel planed that Ultrabook pricing will start under $1000 but the company faces difficulties trying to bring costs to the point where they can compete with the MacBook Air.

We already reported that in the second quarter of 2011 Apple had passed Nokia as the world's largest smartphone vendor as measured by shipments. But Nokia still excelled Apple in sales to end user. Digitimes Research now projects that Apple will be a top smartphone vendor of 2011 with nearly 19% of the market at 86.4 million units.

Apple is expected to overtake Nokia as the top ranking vendor in terms of shipment volume in 2011, while Huawei Technologies will enjoy robust growth in shipments enabling the China-based company to close its gap with Sony Ericsson and Motorola.

Apple's smartphone shipments are projected to top 86.4 million units in 2011, up 82% from 47.5 million units in 2010. In contrast, Nokia's smartphone shipments in 2011 will decline to 74.4 million units from over 100 million in 2010, said Luke Lin, analyst for Digitimes Research.

Here is a great step-by-step video describing how to:

• install iOS 5 Beta 7 without Apple Developer account
• preserve baseband for future unlock,
• jailbreak and hactivate iOS 5 Beta 7

Let's watch:

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Apple’s sales in China are up sixfold and reached $3.8 billion in second quarter revenues. Chinese market remains largely untapped and Apple could increase iPhone sales there by reaching agreements with additional Chinese carriers. However until now Apple hasn’t succeeded in reaching the agreement with the largest wireless operator China Mobile, and the sole Apple’s carrier in this country remains China Unicom. Moreover, according to DigiTimes, Apple’s iconic smartphone will compete with devices from both carriers:

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