News tagged ‘Apple’

This Thursday Apple issued the second build of Mac OS X 10.6.6, namely 10J537, which is a 1000 MB download.

The first build was released almost a month ago on November, 4.

It is said that Mac OS X 10.6.6 "contains developer support for fetching and renewing App Store receipts". That suggests that 10.6.6 update will be released just in time for the opening of the new Mac App Store, which was announced to arrive in the next few months.

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This week the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office released another pile of Apple's patent applications that reveal the company’s interest in further improving of its technology of keyboard backlights. It is said in the documents, that though current keyboards have a light feedback, for example, when the "Caps Lock" is enabled, more informative keyboards would be more beneficial for users.

"Most conventional keyboards lack the ability to convey complex information to a user (such as, for example, more information than just whether the CAPS lock key is on). And while some conventional keyboards may include backlit keys, conventional keyboards with backlighting do not offer the ability to dynamically control lighting schemes for each of the keys individually based on interaction from the user."

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To promote its new musical social networking service Ping Apple landed an exclusive track from Michael Jackson called "Much Too Soon".

The song is included in the pop star's forthcoming album "Michael" and can be streamed within iTunes if you access Ping and navigate to the official account of Michael Jackson. This is a new way Apple successfully promotes its social network, as over a million users had listened to the song within first 48 hours after its release.

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Today Nielsen released another research that aimed to study mobile phone users and their plans on the next possible smartphone to buy. Here are some interesting facts that were revealed:

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As you may know, today's StatCounter published its fresh report based on web analytics about mobile users. Unfortunately, StatCounter can monitor only web traffic, but not the way the smartphones are being used. However, the results of such research can offer many different data that can be organized in different ways.

For example, a vendor of network server monitoring tools Pingdom also took the Statcounter's results but analyzed only mobile OS usage, including the stats for iPod touch (iPad wasn't included). It was found that though the sales of Android-based smartphones have overtaken the sales of the iPhone in the US, such a statement does not take into account the fact that iPod touch is the most popular portable media player, and it is also based on iOS, which makes the latter the most popular mobile OS in the country.

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Today's StatCounter published its fresh report based on web analytics about mobile users, where it is said that 34.3% of all American users generate web traffic from RIM's smartphones, while 33% browse the Internet with their iPhones. Two years ago Apple beated RIM in this stats, as iPhone users generate three times more traffic than those who have BlackBerry.

StatCounter reveals that a year ago Apple's iOS had 52.9% share in terms of mobile web usage, so such a drop is pretty huge. To make such conclusion the company analyzed 3 million websites with 15 billion page views per month.

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On Tuesday Apple revealed the patent application, which depicts a laptop that slides into tablet. On the shots above you may see how the standard laptop with a traditional keyboard, body, display frame and display might be transformed into a tablet by sliding the display across the keyboard. The patent relates to scrolling operations but it does not depict real convertible laptop to tablet form factor. The idea of the patent was expressed by Apples CEO Steve Jobs while the presentation of the new MacBook when he wondered what would happen if a MacBook and an iPad hooked up. So this patent with a touchscreen and a keyboard, laptop and tablet configurations reveals implementation of this idea and possibility of integration between the two products.

Piper Jaffray reports that iPads were walking out of the stores at a rate — 8.8 units per hour during the Black Friday. That translates into 25,000 iPads sold nationwide. There are no other Black Friday iPad sales to compare with. The iPad is expanding Apple’s market and that is significant, even though the per-hour number cited looks small by comparison to those when the iPad debuted in April. Macs were leaving the stores at 8.2 units per hour per store, down from 8.3 last year and 13 two years ago.

Last week we reported that the next iPad will be equipped with a gyroscope, a Retina Display and USB ports and it’s very likely will get FaceTime capabilities with a front-facing camera. Unfortunately, there is no mention of how many megapixels the cameras might be. So, resent rumor claims that Apple already selected the camera lens maker for the iPad 2.  As expected, such suppler might be the Taiwanese company called Largan Precision. Largan reportedly supplies 5-megapixel lenses for the iPhone 4. It’s also unknown whether the company was selected to ship a VGA front-facing camera, a higher resolution rear one or both.

Recently Apple posted the new iPad commercial called “iPad is amazing” on their official webpage. New ad is aimed to showcase new iOS 4.2 features, including AirPlay, AirPrint, multitasking and the usual selection of apps. Surprisingly that no folders are shown in the video. Enjoy!

The head of Apple's global data center operations Olivier Sanche died at the age of 41 of a heart attack last Thursday.

Olivier Sanche was well-known as a pioneer of data center efficiency technologies, who was appreciated for its way of thinking and eventually became a leader in planning and construction of data centers. Apple and the data industry in general were shocked by his loss.

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Yesterday ChangeWave released another study based on a survey of the owners of e-readers. There were 2,800 consumers that had been polled, and 47% of them told they have an Amazon Kindle, which appears to be continually losing its market share to Apple's iPad.

In terms of the market of e-readers iPad now has a 32% share, according to the survey, conducted in November. This is twice as more in comparison to August. For the same period Kindle's share fell down from 62% in August to 47% in November.

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This Tuesday Epic Games and Chair Entertainment announced that their much-anticipated game Infinity Blade will appear in the App Store on December, 9. The title will be supported by iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch 3G and 4G, and the iPad. The price will be $5.99.

Infinity Blade is announced to be a universal game, which means that users will be able to purchase and then play it on multiple devices, like an iPad and iPhone. It will also feature a support with Apple's social gaming network Game Center.

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Richard Branson, who is a British millionaire, has finally launched his iPad-only magazine called Project.

The magazine application with the same name recently appeared in the App Store and may already offer its debut issue. The latter was released this Tuesday and has actor Jeff Bridges on its cover to promote his new movie titled Tron:Legacy.

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Apple seems to have grate plans for 2011. So, we’d summarized all rumors and official statement, and formed the following list, which shows Apple's plans for the new year:

• Lion OS;
• Mac App Store;
• iPad 2
• Implementing of Light Peak optical interconnect technology developed by Intel to replace such things like USB, DisplayPort and HDMI. In future, the technology has the potential to reach speeds of 100Gbps. it is also requires smaller connections and thinner cables;
• New model of MacBook Pro notebooks equipped with Intel's Light Peak, 512 GB of SSD storage, without an optical drive. These MacBook Pro's will last longer, run quieter and be lighter and more power-efficient;
• Apple-branded Blu-ray player/burning device which is also capable of burning standard optical media such as DVD or CD;
• Subscription service via iTunes, which would be focused on video services.