News from category ‘Hardware’

New rumors about the next-generation iPhone claim that Apple may launch the iPhone 5 “during summer at the earliest”.  In October, rumors suggested the iPhone 5 had hit the engineering verification testing stage. Moreover the company has also added new suppliers to the iPhone 5 production chain. Foxconn is said to become the new earphone supplier. Foxlink will produce earphone jack sockets for the iPhone 5. GCE will be added as a HDI board supplier.

The latest iOS SDK code for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad revealed evidence that shows that the next-generation iPad will in fact offer both front- and rear-facing cameras. The first one will be a 1 MP rear camera capable of shooting photos and videos, and the second one will be a VGA front-facing camera for FaceTime and other camera functionalities. Such camera is pretty close to the fourth-generation iPod touch’s 0.7 megapixel back camera. That means you’ll be able to take 720P video with your new iPad. A 1-megapixel camera on the iPad 2 would be significantly lower than expected 5-megapixel lens on the iPhone 4.

A new patent from Apple shows a display embedded in the Magic Mouse touch surface. Such display will be able to present some information or allow contextual input options. The display on the mouse would change according to what the user may be doing on their Mac. The display will be working in conjunction with actual Mac apps. For example, it will be showing a calculator when using the Numbers app on Mac, or a magnification of text when using Pages. The application notes that the dynamic touch-display input method could be employed on other devices like a keyboard, or even a mobile device like an iPhone or iPod touch.

This week another blog about iPhones called blogdoiphone.com found a mention of a proximity sensor in the beta-version of iOS 4.3. Its developer build includes two strings entitled "PAD_CASE_LOCK_FOOTER" and "PAD_CASE_LOCK".

Both of them were found in the Settings application for the iPad. They allow user to enable or disable a new feature, which is described in description:

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The iOS 4.3 first beta revealed Multi-touch gestures for iPad but they also fit for the iPhone and iPod touch. Although Apple already announced that Multi-Touch won’t actually be available to the public with the iOS 4.3 release, some rumors claim that the company may be willing to  implement the multitasking gestures both on the iPad and iPhone. Somebody believes that they could even replace a Home button on the next-gen iPhone and iPad. But such four and five-finger gestures on the iPhone’s screen look a little bit troublesome, as your hand easily covers the entire screen. Watch the video proof above!

An image found in the iOS 4.3 beta 2 reveals not only icons of FaceTime, Photo Booth and Camera applications but also indicates a day when the rumored iPad 2 may be announced. If you take a look at the image above, you may notice that the left iPad wallpaper has a 27 on the Calendar app icon. That’s because the first-generation iPad was released on January 27, 2010. When looking at the preview for a chosen background in iOS 4.3 beta 2 you can see that the calendar-icon shows a 9. Someone believes that this is clear evidence confirming that the iPad 2 will be unveiled on February 9, 2011. It is possible that this could be the 9th of a more distant month.

Apple's developer release of iOS 4.3 Beta 2 includes the three new app icons. This includes FaceTime, Camera and Photo Booth. The images were found in the latest beta and are used by iOS to show a preview of your wallpaper selection. These icons do not exist on the images contained in iOS 4.2. Such icons might be new evidence confirming that the next iPad will carry both a front facing and rear facing camera as well as the Apple Camera App and Photo Booth App.

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Yesterday we reported that Apple might discontinue some of its server-relating products at the end of this month and cut Mac OS X Server from Apple’s lineup. One of MacRumors readers emailed Steve Lobs to let know if the serve might be discontinued.

MacRumors’ reader: “If you are abandoning enterprise solutions by eliminating the Xserve, does that mean OS X Server is not far behind? It seems that way. I would hate to see that because I like the product.”

Steve Job’s answer: “No”

His response might mean that Mac OS X Server is not under the danger. Though, Jobs always addresses questions selectively and in rather clever way.

Here is a quick iPhone 4 speed test. Guess which network is faster?

White iPhone 4 will be available starting February 27th according to Best Buy inventory system and Vodaphone Europe. Rumors say that both 16 GB and 32 GB model will be present.

The newest next-generation iPad case designs from Chinese accessory manufacturers show off two additional openings that haven't been seen before. The images above and below reveal a left-upper slot and a top-middle slot. A recent report from Engadget claimed that the new iPad will have an SD card slot. The most likely location for that seems to be the top-left opposite the current volume buttons. The top slot is more of a mystery but it could be for a video output such as mini DisplayPort.

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In early November Apple announced that it would discontinue its Xserve line of rackmountable servers at the end of this month. This statement has caused turmoil among the product's fans, while Steve Jobs has suggested that poor sales were the reason for the decision. But the Xserve discontinuation may only be the beginning of a move by Apple to pare down its storage- and server-focused offerings. Xsan and Final Cut server could be among the programs being discontinued, as Apple's management would be wondering whether to continue to develop and support them in the future. Apple could opt to do away with its Mac OS X Server releases entirely, although the company is still expected to release a server version of Mac OS X Lion later this year.

With the rumors of a 2048x1536 high resolution screen for the iPad 2, one question that has emerged is what graphics processing unit (GPU) can adequately power the device. AppleInsider claims that the new iPad and iPhone 5 will use a dual-core SGX543 GPU from Imagination Technologies. The company will not only be upgrading its video core, but also going to multiple cores. The most likely configuration of Apple's next custom chip is reportedly the SGX543MP2, which pairs two SGX543 cores to work as one, offering around four times the capability of the previous A4 in graphics and video tasks. We had previously revealed that the latest iOS 4.3 beta SDK had drivers for the new SGX543 GPU, so it should be no surprise that it is the most likely contender to be the next GPU for the iPad.

One parts supplier began selling the screen part for Apple's next-generation iPad from Globaldirectparts.com. The part listed is the "iPad 2 LCD Screen" which is "out of stock" but is listed for a price of $218.19. Since the website currently offers replacement screens for the original iPad for $63.35, the higher price of the so-called "iPad 2 screen" could possibly corroborate reports of a 2048x1536 resolution display on the second-generation tablet. Globaldirectparts.com is also selling an "OEM Apple iPad Vibrating Motor" for $9.99. No photo is provided, but it's a curious part since the iPad currently has no vibrating motor. It's possible this is simply a mislabeled iPhone part, but does raise the possibility of the feature making its way into the next iPad. The part may be evidence that Apple is working on vibrating alert functionality for the second-generation iPad.

New post on Consumer Reports' blog written by Mike Gikas and Paul Reynolds reveals that the company thinks Verizon iPhone 4 will have a short life as soon it will "be replaced by a newer, cooler version more quickly than is customary even for the die-young life expectancy of most smart phones."

It is true that Apple made the CDMA-enabled iPhone a mid-year carrier expansion, and most observers expect new iPhone 5 will not replace its less than 6-month old predecessor as at launch it will support only GSM / UMTS technologies. However, Apple's rivals do not propose any product cycles anyway and release new handsets every few months, so the position of Consumer Reports looks pretty inconsistent.

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