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Archive for February, 2012
ARM-Based MacBook Air Unlikely Based on Analyst Talk with Tim Cook
Last year we reported some interesting rumors concerning Apple’s plans on the ARM (A5) based MacBook Air. The ARM processor is the same one that is used in the iPhone and iPad. An ARM-based MacBook Air, however, would raise a number of questions about what kind of device it might actually be. The use of ARM processor would allow reducing power requirements, but with a corresponding drop in computing power.
Citigroup analyst Richard Gardner who was able to meet with Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer on Thursday reports:
Apple’s Profit Share Among Top Mobile Phone Manufacturers Reached 75%
Asymco's analyst Horace Dediu has published his of profit and revenue distribution in the global mobile phone market. According to his analysis, Apple has increased its share of the top phone manufacturers’ profits to 75 percent. Samsung followed in second position with 16 percent of profit share, and no other manufacturer received more than 4 percent of profits.
First Apple TV prototypes "in the works"
Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster told that he had recently spoken to a "major TV component supplier" about Apple's rumored plans to release its Apple TV and received the following answer that Apple had contacted at least with one supplier "regarding various capabilities of their television display components."
In January 2011 Apple reportedly held a meeting in Asia that suggested Apple was investing in manufacturing facilities for LCD displays as large as 50 inches and in September 2011 the company held another meeting with a "contact close to an Asian supplier" who claimed prototypes of an Apple set are in the works. Now Piper Jaffray believes that Apple will likely release its television at the end of 2012, though, as usual, the timeline could be changed at any moment.
Apple Stands To Benefit From U.S. Government's Push For Digital Textbooks
The Associated Press that U.S. government plans to help schools and textbook publishers shift to digital textbooks during the following five years. As Apple has been in the forefront of digital textbook expansion with the release of iBooks platform, the company is likely to considerably benefit if its iPads become a primary tool in the transition to digital textbooks.
Analyst Expects iPhone 5 to Launch at WWDC 2012 in June
Last week we reported that Foxconn was gearing up for production of the rumoured iPhone 5 with the likely launch set for summer. Today, the Commercial Times citing the report from Daiwa Securities analysts has reported that the iPhone 5 is expected to launch at Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference (WWDC) to be held in June 2012. The official dates for the 2012 conference have not yet been announced, but a previously leaked guide suggested June 10th-15th as the likely dates. Now they are blocked off for a "Corporate Meeting" which typically acts as a placeholder for WWDC.
Daiwa Securities also claims that the next-generation smartphone will continue utilizing "glass to glass" touch panel technology.
The iPhone 5 will continue to utilize glass to glass (G/G) touch panel technology, which will benefit current touch panel suppliers TPK Holding and Wintek, the paper quoted the securities house as saying.
The summer launch claim is not new and has been echoed in previous reports. So this may be just another one rumor. Apple broke from tradition with the iPhone 4S by launching it in October of 2011. A significant change from the previous four generations of iPhone, which were released at or around WWDC in June.
Absinthe v0.4: jailbreak utility for iPad 2 and iPhone 4S is updated
The Chronic Dev-Team has released an update to its Absinthe jailbreak utility that brings support for Mac OS X 10.5 (Intel + PPC) and fixes several bugs.
@pimskeks announced the update:
#Absinthe 0.4 released greenpois0n.com/?p=173 - OSX 10.5 support (PPC+Intel). Re-jailbreaking not required. Changelog: pastebin.com/DdwGKstR
What's New in Absinthe v0.4:
- Mac: added support for OSX 10.5, PPC and Intel CPU
- added consistency check on startup to make sure required files are in place
- Windows: fixed bug in payload generator that might cause a crash
You can download Absinthe for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux from here.
Here are our step-by-step tutorials:
- HowTo untether jailbreak iPad 2 with iOS 5.0.1 (Mac OS X)
- HowTo untether jailbreak iPhone 4S with iOS 5.0/5.0.1 (Mac OS X)
- HowTo untether jailbreak iPad 2 with iOS 5.0.1 (Windows)
- HowTo untether jailbreak iPhone 4S with iOS 5.0/5.0.1 (Windows)
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iPad 3 Event in March, An 'Unusual' Apple Event in February
Japanese site Macotakara has issued a new report where it clarified earlier claims of an Apple event in February with the cryptic details that Apple will hold a "Strange" event in February to unveil the so-called "iPad 3" and iOS 5.1 with deeper Facebook integration and a Special Event to launch the third-generation iPad in early March.
Citing both an Asian supplier and a source in the U.S., blogger Danbo has now corrected the original claim telling that Apple will indeed hold an event in February, but it will be a "Strange" event rather than a full product launch.
One possibility is that the rumored February event could contain industry-related announcements similar to how last month's education event in New York City to mark the release of iBooks 2 and iBooks Author without showing off new hardware. "Special Event for new products will be hold in early March and will release products during March as usual," Danbo continued.
Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy Tab 10.1N escape German injunctions
Samsung's modified Galaxy Tab 10.1N seen on the left compared to the original model
A German Munich Regional Court judge has recently made a decision against granting Apple injunctions on two Samsung products. The judge also noted that at least one of the patent mentioned in the action was likely to be revoked at trial.
The two products, Samsung's Galaxy Nexus smartphone and its revised "10.1N" version of the Galaxy Tab (redesigned by Samsung to escape the original injunction on sales Apple won last September) will be available for sale in Germany while the case against them continues.
As for the Galaxy Nexus, Apple argued for an injunction on sales based on a "patent granted last year protecting some technology related to touch screens."
Apple climbs two spots to become world's third-largest mobile phone maker
Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales in 2011 in Millions of Units
Research firm IDC has recently released its estimates of global mobile phone sales for the fourth quarter of and full-year 2011. The results show that Apple passed LG and became the third world largest mobile phone vendor for the first time. Apple was closing to LG by the middle of 2010, but during the third quarter ZTE pushed the company back on the fifth place. However, thanks to the iPhone 4S launch, Apple moved up in the year’s final quarter and passed LG in full-year numbers as well.
According to the estimates, Apple was neck-and-neck with Samsung for the crown of top smartphone manufacturer, Nokia and Samsung firmly hold down the top two spots in the overall mobile phone rankings on the volume of their lower-end feature phones.
iPad Drives Apple to Perch Atop List of Top-Selling PC Manufacturers
Research firm Canalys predicted last year that Apple might become the world's largest PC manufacturer during the fourth quarter of 2011, but with one exception, if tablets were counted alongside more traditional computers. Now Canalys may confirm its suggestions that Apple has indeed taken the lead on the strength of the iPad.
Canalys today announced that Apple, after reporting stellar results, became the leading worldwide client PC vendor in Q4 2011. Apple shipped over 15 million iPads and five million Macs, representing 17% of the total 120 million client PCs shipped globally in Q4. Overall, the total client PC market, including desktops, netbooks, notebooks, and pads grew 16% year-on-year. Excluding pads, the client PC market declined 0.4%. The report notes that tablets such as the iPad accounted for 22% of PC sales during the quarter, with the Amazon Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook also contributing to the strong tablet performance.
Canalys predicts that the iPad would have been able to top the list even without the help of the Mac. Apple sold 15.43 million iPads during the quarter, while the non-tablet market leader HP's shipments were between 14.7 and 15.3 million units.
Photos of Debug Software Show Alleged Details of iPad 3 with Quad-Core A6 and LTE
BGR reports that it has managed to obtain from its source photos of what are claimed to be screenshots from Apple's iBoot development and debugging software for the bootrom showing details on an iPad 3. The photos showing references to the known "J1" and "iPad3,1" code names indicate that the next-generation tablet will indeed be using a new application processor carrying an S5L8945X identifier, presumably as part of a new A6 system-on-a-chip.
For starters, the model numbers are J1 and J2 (iPad3,1 and iPad3,2), and while DigiTimes reported this a few weeks ago, these two models are not different devices, just a single iPad available in two versions — one with Wi-Fi only and one with Wi-Fi and embedded GSM/CDMA/LTE for all carriers. Also included in the photos is, for the first time, confirmation of which processor Apple will be using in the iPad 3: an A6 processor with model number S5L8945X. For reference, the Apple A4 model was S5L8930X and the A5 is S5L8940X.
New Photos of Camera-Equipped iPod Nano Casing Surface
Last April, Apple.pro posted a photo of what appeared to be an iPod nano with a hole in the rear casing that was said to be for a camera. A second photo showing a clipless design casing for the device and claiming that it would carry a 1.3-megapixel camera.
Apple ultimately made no changes to the design of the iPod nano in September of last year, instead opting to update the software and lower pricing on the 8 GB and 16 GB models. But the idea of a camera-equipped iPod nano was revived in November with the publication of a May 2010 patent application on speaker design that appeared to show a hole in the iPod nano's clip in the same location as the rumored camera hole seen in the leaked photos.
Update to Corona untethered jailbreak released
New version of Corona Untethered Jailbreak for iOS 5.0.1 has been released in Cydia. Corona v1.0-8 features recent iBooks fix from planetbeing (the one that was recently released in redsn0w 0.9.10b5).
Saurik tweeted that all users jailbroken on iOS 5.0.1 should install the update. UPDATE: This doesn't apply to "old bootrom" iPhone 3GS users.
@planetbeing put a lot of work into solving iBooks image loading bugs. All users (however jailbroken) on 5.0.1 should install.
So, most of the feedback I have received from "all users (however jailbroken) running 5.0.1" has been "even me? I did X.": yes, even you. ;P
You can find the Corona package in the System section of Cydia.
Foxconn Ramps Up iPhone Production And Hires Thousands Of New Employees In China
In late December, reports indicated that Foxconn was planning a significant expansion of its iPhone production capacity in Zhengzhou, China. Reportedly, the company invested $1.1 billion and was working with the Chinese government to hire 100,000 employees to the facility.
Court upholds ban of Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany on new grounds
A German appeals court on Tuesday upholds ban of Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 8.9 sales in Europe's biggest economy.
The decision by the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court (DHRC) upholds a ruling from last September but does so based on Germany's unique unfair competition law rather than the earlier court's finding that Samsung committed a violation of a Community design. As such, Apple won't have success replicating the decision in other European countries, according to legal analyst Florian Mueller, as Samsung succeeded in defeating design-right claims by Apple that could have contributed to a broader, more material ruling covering most of the European Union.