News from category ‘rumors’

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.

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.

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.

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.

Mike Abramsky, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets, expects that Apple might offer the iPhone 3GS for free with 2-year contract after the iPhone 5 launch; that step will obviously attract mid-market buyers.

"While a $49 iPhone is already available (AT&T), psychologically a $0 iPhone provides a compelling offer," Abramsky wrote in a note to investors. "Proprietary survey data... suggests 14% are very/somewhat likely to buy the iPhone 3GS for free with 2-year contract, exceeding buying interest for the iPad (13%) and original iPhone (9%)."

Abramsky suggest that free iPhone 3GS will increase iPhone numbers to more than 150 million smartphones. That will be unusual for Apple, because the company always discontinues its two-year-old smartphones. For example, after launch of the iPhone 4, the iPhone 3GS, first released in 2009, was dropped to $99, and the iPhone 3G was discontinued. Noteworthy to say that despite the fact that the iPhone 3GS was first released in 2009, it will be compatible with the iOS 5.

DigiTimes reports that Apple is planning to increase significantly the iPad 2 shipments for the third quarter of this year. The company is going to ship about 12-14 million devices over that period. These numbers are obviously larger than the 7-9 million units reportedly shipped during the previous quarter.

In order to significantly increase its shipments in the third quarter, Apple has been piling up its inventory of iPad 2 components such as panels in the second quarter to minimize the risk of facing component shortages.

Now it is quite difficult to forecast the iPad’s shipments due to production constraints and the transition from the original iPad to the iPad 2. Moreover, Apple didn’t come up with forecasts of some analysts suggesting that Apple's total 2011 iPad could reach 40 million units and sold in the first quarter only 4.69 million units, though, these numbers include a few initial weeks of official iPad 2 sales.

According to Bloomberg’s report, HP is interested in licensing its mobile operating system webOS to other companies, which may open the door for yet another competitor in the tablet and smartphone market.

"We are talking to a number of companies," Apotheker, president of the company, stated in Beijing, refusing to give more details."I can share with you that a number of companies have expressed interest. We are continuing our conversations."

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On May 27 the iPhone 4 was officially put on the market of India with the price starting at 34,500 Indian rupees (around $760) for version of 16 GB with a two-year service agreement. But the price for iPhone as high as $760 (which the government is not satisfied with) makes the iconic item out of reach for the 41.6 percent of the India’s population that lives below the poverty line of $1.25 a day.

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Michal Bonikowski recently created one of the best iPhone 5 conceps we have ever seen. Photos talk for themselves. Take a look:

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Hacker Comex has updated JailbreakMe.com site, which might mean that much anticipated iPad 2 jailbreak is on its way.

The website features a list of git commits dating all the way back to August 2010. It looks like Comex has been working on the jailbreak for one year. He didn't specify any dates. We will keep you updated.

After Microsoft less than a year ago managed to catch up with Apple’s three year leading position and released up-to-date, multi-touch operating system in Windows Phone 7, it needs to do it again.

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According to Business Insider analyst Chris Whitmore reports that Apple plans to release not only the iPhone 5 this fall, but they will also release a cheaper version of the iPhone, the iPhone 4S.

This means that Apple will release a minor update to the iPhone 4, the iPhone 4S, as well as a major update called the iPhone 5.

"With Nokia and RIMM struggling," he writes, "the time is right for Apple to aggressively penetrate the mid range smart-phone market (i.e. $300-500 category) to dramatically expand its [total addressable market] and market share."

As Whitmore sees it, an iPhone 4S that is unlocked, priced around $349, and comes with a pre-paid voice plan would "drive significantly greater penetration" into an addressable market that has grown to include 1.5 billion potential customers in 98 countries, two thirds of whom prefer pre-paid plans.

The rumors about cheaper iPhone have been reports floating around for a long time. It's a pity that Whitmore only offers us his prediction without any evidence or inside knowledge.

Here is a summary of what we have in mind right now:

iPhone 5:

• 4" screen
• new design
• dual core
• 8MP camera
• possible dual LED and/or dual camera
• 64GB
• 1080p video

iPhone 4S:

• 3.5"
• old design
• single core
• 5MP camera
• 4GB Storage
• 720p video