News from category ‘Other’

DigiTimes today reports that Apple has placed an order for 15 million iPhone 5 devices with Pegatron Technology and those devices will start shipping in September 2011.

The sources pointed out that as the iPhone 5, which does not seem to have any major update from iPhone 4, is already set for shipment in September, they are already started supplying components to Pegatron with Pegatron's plants in Shanghai, China also recently started hiring for manpower.

DigiTime is a quite reliable source. They already predicted that Pegatron received an order for the CDMA iPhone 4. Moreover, Apple this year does not follow its yearly upgrade cycle, not making any announcement concerning iPhone 5 at this year's WWDC.

The Japanese website Macotakara claims that the new MacBook Air will include SSD drive with adopted a new Toggle DDR 2.0 type of NAND Flash Memory.

Current SSD device Blade X-gale supporting SATA 2.6 will be abolished and new 19nm flash memory will be packaged into smaller chip and will be soldered on base circuit directly.

The new Flash chips will be built directly in the MacBook Air's motherboard; they support speeds of 400Mb/s, and will allow future controllers to run faster than today’s SSDs with "half the number of channels, providing both a cost and space savings", and could improve battery life for an hour or more.

The resulting power throttling capability enables the drive’s high-performance levels without any increase in power consumption over a 40nm-class 16Gb NAND-based 256GB SSD. The controller also analyzes frequency of use and preferences of the user to automatically activate a low-power mode that can extend a notebook’s battery life for an hour or more.

If you plan to upgrade to OS X Lion this month, then there is a good resource to visit. Roaringapps.com is a public sourced database that is designed to help you determine whether your application is OS X Lion compatible. The site uses information entered by users about the compatibility of existing apps that run on Snow Leopard or about the need for  Rosetta to work properly.

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In April a lawsuit against Samsung was originally filled by Apple in which the company accused Samsung of copying the iPhone and iPad in its Galaxy. Shortly afterwards Samsung filled a counter suit against Apple asking to see the iPad 3 and iPhone 5. But judge denied this request earlier this year. This week Samsung abandoned their counter-patent suits.

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AT&T included Apple’s iPhone (all models) to their insurance program for mobile devices. Starting on July 17 customers can stay calm paying just five dollars per month. With this coverage not only your iPhone but also your other wireless investments on the AT&T network will be protected from loss, theft, electrical failure and accidental damage that standard Apple’s warranty doesn’t cover.

If your handset is stolen, damaged or lost, you will have the right to replace you handset with the deductible ranging from $50 to $125 per claim providing that you file no more than two claims for twelve consecutive months. Here is a citation from AT&T’s mobile insurance page:

Effective July 17, 2011, the Apple iPhone (all models) will be eligible for coverage with the AT&T Mobile Insurance program (formerly Wireless Phone Insurance). Enrollment restrictions apply. Customers can only enroll within 30 days of a new activation or upgrade, prior activations or upgrades outside of 30 days are not eligible.

Also customers can consider an option of replacing AT&T’s insurance with Apple’s insurance plan as it is known that Apple replaces accidentally broken and out-of-warranty iPhones for a fixed $199 repair fee, but the warranty doesn’t cover theft or loss. Also you should know that there are some cases that neither company covers, for example, liquid damage.

If you have ever wished to get iPhone that was tested by Apple engineers, then you can fulfill your wish by blowing a 5 figure sum on non-working iPhone 4 prototype on eBay. The listing was put by a person by the nickname jtmaxo, who describes the item as ‘Apple iPhone 4 black APPLE GENUINE PROTOTYPE, GENUINE’. In the description the device is presented as a GSM iPhone with model number XXXXX FCC ID: BCGAXXXXX IC ID: 579C-AXXXXX.

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Asian sources claim that touch panels for the iPad 2 that do not meet Apple quality requirements are used for production of iPad clones. In second quarter of this year 12-15 million of 9.7-inch IPS panels were manufactured by LG Display and Samsung Electronics, but Apple produces only 7-9 million iPad 2s. So it seems that the rest of panels that don't pass Apple's quality standards was sold to China-based white-box vendors.

Today Apple controls approximately 60 percent of the world's touch panel capacity and actively obtaining components that are in short supply. Now Apple has booked up much of the available production capacity, so other manufactures experience problems with release of their own tablets. For example, Amazon that could face difficulty with display orders for its LCD tablet.

DigiTimes reports that iPhone 5 и iPad 3 components suppliers are preparing materials for production of the rumoured devices expected to debut in September and to be launched officially in October.

DigiTimes sources claim that production of the iPhone 5 and iPad 3 will begin in August. They predict that in third quarter 6-7 million units of the iPhone 5 will be produced.

Upstream component makers including Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry), which is in charge of assembling the devices; Simplo Technologies and Dynapack International Technology, in charge of manufacturing batteries; TPK Holding and Wintek, in charge of touch panel modules; Catcher, in charge of chassis; and Largan Precision, in charge of webcams, are all expected to benefit from the orders.

Today Adobe has presented a new "switcher" discount program that is intended to take advantage of harsh criticism directed  to Apple’s new Final Cut Pro X. This promotional program provides 50% discount on either Premiere Pro CS5.5 or Creative Suite CS5.5 Production Premium to people who currently use Avid’s Media Composer or Apple’s Final Cut Pro. Some current users of Adobe products are also allowed to get this discount.

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Apple released MAC OS X Lion Golden Master seed to developers in anticipation of its official release at some time this month. The download of Golden Master seed is available on the Mac Developer website. The number of the build is 11A511. Also, Apple released Developer Preview 7 seed of Xcode 4.1.

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MIC Gadget has posted an article that tells us about some details of the upcoming Mac Pro update that may come out in August. MIC Gadget also posted a screenshot of the App Store that shows a Mac Pro with Promise Thunderbolt RAID system. The current generation of the Mac Pro doesn’t support Thunderbolt technology. Of course, that image could be just an error of the graphics department, but if it doesn’t, we should expect Mac Pro with Thunderbolt that is slowly being rolled out onto every Mac.  The MacBook Pro, iMac already received Thunderbolt input/output ports, and recent rumors claim that the MacBook Air refresh will similarly get Thunderbolt capability. The image also shows that the Mac Pro design won’t be changed. MIC Gadget also believes that the Mac Pro will feature an 8 core CPU that will be ‘exclusive’ to Apple for a few months before other PC manufacturers can have access to it in Q4 of this year.

Our sources indicate Apple is making headway with access to this technology, and they are investing heavily into the Mac Pro. Sandy Bridge will be integrated with the new Mac Pro CPU as well, but issues remain with the heat being produced by such powerful CPUs.

As Reuters writes, a consortium consisting of Apple Inc, Microsoft, EMC Corp, Ericsson, Sony, Research in Motion and BlackBerry placed a winning bid in the auction and bought Canadian telecommunications equipment maker Nortel with its collection of more than 6,000 patents.

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As noted by MacStories, App Store offers now more than 100.000 applications specially created for 9.7-inch iPad’s display.

This 100.000 milestone was reached by Apple this week. The total figure refers to iPad-specific applications, and does not count iPhone apps, which can work but doesn’t enjoy advantages of the bigger screen size.

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Apple is going to renovate its SoHo store to increase its space in the next three months. This step is necessary because the SoHo store, opened in 2002, is the smallest Apple Store within Manhattan and it scarcely accommodates the thousands of customers every day. During the renovations, the SoHo Apple store will be relocated to a temporary location. There is no information about what exactly location Apple chose but it obviously will be somewhere within Manhattan. The renovations will apparently include reconfiguration of the first floor, but the glass staircase that was the first one in Apple’s store, won’t be changed.

MacBooks have been running out of supply at resellers such as Amazon, J&R, and MacConnection. European distributors have also run out of MacBook supply and are not expecting future shipments. Apple’s MacBook Air supply is also decreasing, giving birth to rumours that their update may coincide with the release of Mac OS X Lion.

Apple’s white MacBooks are quite expensive and their hardware is outdated. So they may receive newer processors and Thunderbolt technologies, or Apple could simply reduce price. Some analysts suggest that the second variant is more preferable for Apple. Cutting price Apple will make MacBooks more valuable for students. So, the new MacBook could be priced closer to Apple’s entry-level Mac Mini.