News tagged ‘iPhone’

All Things D reported on Monday that Apple is reportedly planning an event scheduled to take place in New York at the end of January. The company is said to use the event as a platform for an advertising or publishing announcement. Of course, many anxiously await the announcement of a much anticipated iPad 3 or new Apple TV, which some think will be launched later in 2012. Apple usually reserves product launches and important announcements for its home-state like the latest iPhone 4S, which debuted on Oct. 4, 2011 at Apple's campus.

According to sources close to the situation, Apple is planning an important — but not large-scale — event to be held in New York at the end of this month that will focus on a media-related announcement.

Per the usual caveat, the tech giant is well known for moving around their public show-and-tells, so this could certainly change at any moment.

Several of Apple's media and advertising units have significant presences in New York City, and Apple Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue (Cue is currently heading up the iTunes Store, App Store, iBookstore) is said to take part in the end of the event that has caused rumors suggesting that Apple’s announcement may be connected with advertising or publishing.

Andy Hertzfeld, one of the original members of the Macintosh team published the photo to his Google+ page on Thursday in memoriam of the late Apple co-founder and his rebellious spirit. The photo captured nearly 30 years ago shows a shaggy-haired Steve Jobs, clad in blue jeans and a leather jacket, expressing his affection for then rival IBM. In the early days of Apple, IBM was largely considered the company’s biggest competitor and enemy of sorts.

In memoriam for Steve Jobs as 2011 draws to a close, here’s one more rare photo that illustrates his rebellious spirit. In December 1983, a few weeks before the Mac launch, we made a quick trip to New York City to meet with Newsweek, who was considering doing a cover story on the Mac. The photo was taken spontaneously as we walked around Manhattan by Jean Pigozzi, a wild French jet setter who was hanging out with us at the time. Somehow I ended up with a copy of it. My editor begged me to include it in my book, but I was too timid to ask for permission, especially since IBM was still making CPUs for Apple at the time.

In late 1990s, when Apple had some financial hardships the company elected to turn over its trove of materials to Stanford University's Silicon Valley Archives. Apple had been collecting the materials with the intention of forming its own company museum. The materials include "hundreds of box" requiring more than 600 feet of shelf space and has early photos of a young Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, blueprints for the first Apple computer, user manuals, magazine ads, TV commercials, company t-shirts and drafts of Jobs' speeches.

The university hopes its efforts will ultimately help historians, entrepreneurs and policymakers understand how a startup launched in a Silicon Valley garage by two college dropouts grew into the world's largest company.

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The latest figures from Net Applications show that Apple closed out 2011 with a commanding 52.1 percent share of mobile devices tracked browsing the Web.  In second place was Java ME with 21.3 percent, while Google's Android came in third with just 16.2 percent.

Apple's share slid from 54 percent in November of 2011, and is down from its high of 61.5 percent in October. But it's also up from the 46.6 percent share iOS was tracked at in February of 2011. Coming in fourth in the data was Nokia's Symbian platform, with 5.8 percent, while Research in Motion's BlackBerry holds 3.5 percent. Interestingly, while sales of new BlackBerry devices have been weak, December of 2011 proved to be the best month of the year for RIM.

If dividing Apple’s devices shares in mobile web-browsing, the iPhone took 25.2 percent and leads all mobile devices. The iPad, though, was the second most popular device, with a 24.5 percent representation.

In the PC market Apple’s Macs platform finished with 6.4 percent in December of 2011 comparing with the 92.2 percent share Microsoft held with Windows. Windows XP, despite being 10 years old, is still leading the market with 46.5 percent. Windows 7 is in second with 37 percent, while Windows Vista holds 8.44 percent. As for Apple's Mac OS X, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard platform remains its most popular at 3 percent, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, released in July, closed out 2011 with a 2 percent share in December.

Digitimes has reported that Apple will be utilizing IGZO (indium gallium zinc oxide) flat panels instead of IPS (in-plane switching panels) in its "next-generation mobile display products" such as the iPad 3.

Starting with the new iPads, Apple will utilize IGZO panels from Sharp in order to upgrade the display resolution of the new tablets to full HD level, the sources indicated.

Though, such rumors aren’t new ones. We have already heard that Apple could use this technology in the next-generation iPad. A research note from Jefferies analyst Peter Misek back in November made very similar claims:

Also, we believe that Apple and Sharp together have a modified IGZO (indium, gallium, zinc) technology to achieve 330 dpi, which is sufficient for an HD display while not using IPS nor having to include dual-bar LED backlighting. In our view, this should lead to several design advantages, namely the device can be thinner, battery life should be longer, and the overall experience for users should be meaningfully improved.

In April, Sharp revealed its plans to commercialize new IGZO panels for mass production later this year. DisplayBlog recaps the advantages of this new technology:

The benefits of IGZO are plenty: lower cost of manufacturing, up to 30x higher electron mobility than a-Si (amorphous silicon), increased aperture ratio for improved light transmittance, higher resolution in terms of ppi, etc. IGZO would allow for significant cost reductions compared to LTPS (Low Temperature Poly-Silicon).

The new technology is said to allow Apple not to use a second light bar system that is presently used in the iPad and to avoid making the iPad 3 thicker than the current iPad.

A Korean forum (via MacRumors) published on Friday an unverified photo of the much rumored iPad 3's high-resolution display, and reveals a subtle change from the iPad 2 that could suggest a higher resolution panel is being sourced for the upcoming tablet. An image shows a component that has three ribbon cable connectors instead of the two found on current iterations of the device.

Little to no information accompanied the photo. It is only believed that the image is a comparison shot of a current iPad 2 panel sitting above an alleged iPad 3 display.

As you can see there are 3 brown ribbon cables leading from the screen itself to the circuit board. The small brown cable to the far left is the power cable, while the other two wide cables are for display data. This configuration matches with the top display in the leaked photo (though the power cable is missing).

The claimed iPad 3 photo shows 3 wide ribbon cables that might be used for data. The iPad 3 is expected to carry a high resolution screen of 2048x1536 which is four times the number of pixels of the current iPad 2, so the need for additional data bandwidth would be understandable.

Sources in Apple's supply chain told DigiTimes that Apple has begun reducing orders for the iPad 2 ahead of the unveiling of an anticipated third-generation iPad. While iPad 2 orders are being reduced, orders for the next iPad, reportedly set to launch in March of 2012, remain steady. It's not yet known whether Apple will keep the iPad 2 around at a discounted price. There are some rumors claiming that Apple would remain it available at a discounted price in order to take on Amazon's $199 Kindle Fire. It is known that Apple has gained great success in continuing to sell older iPhone models at discounted prices. The iPhone 3GS is still remaining the number 2 smartphone in the United States.

Various reports have suggested that Apple will continue to sell the iPad 2 at a discounted price after it launches a third-generation iPad. Apple already employs that strategy in offering the iPhone 3GS, first released in 2009, as an entry-level handset, in addition to the iPhone 4, released in 2010, and iPhone 4S, which just launched in October.

There are also lots of rumors suggesting that in 2012 Apple plans to introduce new models of the iPad with different features at a number of price points. Many analysts believe that Apple indeed will launch the next-generation iPad with a high-resolution Retina Display.

The BBC reported on Friday that Jonathan Ive, Apple's senior vice president of industrial design, has been named a Knight Commander of the British Empire in the U.K.'s 2012 New Year Honours list for "services to design and enterprise”. In 2005 he was awarded the title of Commander of the British Empire. Ive responded that he was "both humbled and sincerely grateful" by the commendation.

"I am keenly aware that I benefit from a wonderful tradition in the UK of designing and making," he said. "I discovered at an early age that all I've ever wanted to do is design."

Ive’s father was the first who inspired him to study design. Ive went on to study Industrial Design at Newcastle Polytechnic University. It was there that he first realized the potential of designing on the Mac.

"I discovered the Mac and felt I had a connection with the people who were making this product," he said. "I suddenly understood what a company was, or was supposed to be."

After graduating, Ive worked at the U.K. design agency Apple cooperated with. Then the company noted his talent and offered him a full-time position. During his 19 years at Apple, Ive and Steve Jobs became close friends and even "spiritual partners", according to Jobs' biography. While Jobs and Ive were close friends, Ive did admit to Isaacson that he felt Jobs had stolen some of his ideas.

"[Jobs] will go through a process of looking at my ideas and say, 'That's no good. That's not very good. I like that one,'" Ive told Isaacson in an interview. "And later I will be sitting in the audience and he will be talking about it as if it was his idea. I pay maniacal attention to where an idea comes from, and I even keep notebooks filled with my ideas. So it hurts when he takes credit for one of my designs."

Seas0nPass has been updated to perform an untethered jailbreak of the Apple TV running iOS 4.4.4.

Happy New Year! Today we are happy to release an updated version of Seas0nPass that supports an untethered jailbreak of the latest 4.4.4 (iOS 5.0.1) AppleTV software. Big thanks goes to the world famous @pod2g for doing the lion's share of the work to make this new version possible.

Most of the apps are working just fine:

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Market research company comScore published their latest estimates of market shares taken by the main players on the mobile market. Apple’s share continues to slowly move upward with 11.2 percent of all U.S. Mobile Subscribers.

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UPDATE: Apple released iOS 5.1 that is only tethered jailbreakable with redsn0w. Apple has stopped signing iOS 5.0.1, so you can NOT restore to 5.0.1 any more (both original and custom), unless you have saved your SHSH keys for 5.0.1. If you are on 5.0.1 you can jailbreak with redsn0w.

This is step-by-step instructions on how to perform untethered jailbreak of your iPad on iOS 5.0.1 firmware using RedSn0w 0.9.10 for Windows.

Untethered jailbreak means that each time you restart your device you will NOT need to connect it to a computer and run utilities.

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Like the controversial face unlock functionality in Google’s Galaxy Nexus, a new Apple’s patent application points out that the company is developing similar but more sofisticated face detection solution. As PatentlyApple reports, Apple said that these user detection system could be included in a future MacBook, iPad, iPod touch and iPhone.
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Kevin Rivette, managing partner at intellectual property firm 3LP Advisors LLC, said in an interview with Bloomberg that if Apple were to abandon its lawsuits against Android smartphone manufacturers and instead negotiate licensing fees for its patented technology, Apple could collect $10 for each Android device sold. But as far as we know Apple is not interested in licensing Apple's patented technology to Android manufacturers. Steve Jobs called the Android products as the “stolen” ones and wanted “to go thermonuclear war” against Android.

"A scorched-earth strategy is bad news because it doesn't optimize the value of their patents -- because people will get around them," Rivette told Bloomberg.

"It's like a dam. Using their patents to keep rivals out is like putting rocks in a stream. The stream is going to find a way around. Wouldn't it be better to direct where the water goes?"

Such approach makes mobile devices manufacturers to modify their infringing products and work around Apple's intellectual property. For example, earlier this month, the U.S. International Trade Commission found that HTC was in violation of an Apple patent related to "Data Detectors," but only a day later HTC said it was testing new devices that work around Apple's patent.

There have been a few attempts at releasing a physical game contrloller for Apple’s smartphone. ThinkGeek iCade has apparently been the most successful among them.

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Digitimes now claims that it has obtained new portion of information on the rumored Apple’s television. The main role in manufacturing and assembling of the new TVs is expected to be played by Foxconn, Apple's primary iOS device manufacturing partner.  The company is likely to win the contract for assembly of the television set products.

Following sources' claims that Samsung Electronics and Sharp will manufacture chips and displays, respectively, for the so-called Apple "iTV," others have suggested that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE) and Siliconware Precision Industries (SPIL) have the potential to win orders for Apple's smart TV.

Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) likely will obtain assembly orders for the Apple smart TV, according to industry sources.

We have already reported that Apple is going to finalize Apple’s TV design by the end of the second quarter and launch the television sets by the end of the year. Moreover, the analyst Shaw Wu at Sterne Agee has suggested that Apple may be interested in disrupting the television industry on the content side by launching its own television services which, obviously, will be connected with Siri.

"This is obviously much more complicated (than current offerings) from a licensing standpoint," Wu wrote in a note to investors on Wednesday. "And in our view, would change the game for television and give AAPL a big leg-up against the competition."

Hardware and technology are not the issues holding back Apple from releasing a television set, he said. Instead, Apple must negotiate unique content deals that will allow the company to differentiate its product from other televisions on the market.