News from category ‘Hardware’

Nick Bilton at the New York Times is pretty sure that Apple is building a television set. It is believed that the TV set will include Siri voice recognition service. Apple could announce the new set by the end of 2012 with public reliance in 2013. Anonymous sources say that an Apple television is a "guaranteed product for Apple" because "Steve thinks the industry is totally broken."

The rumors about Apple’s television set have been circulating for years, perhaps as far back as 2007, since the launch of the first iPhone. Some days ago we reported that Apple now is making prototypes of the Apple TV.

It’s the stuff of science fiction. You sit on your couch and rather than fumble with several remotes or use hand gestures, you simply talk: “Put on the last episode of Gossip Girl.” “Play the local news headlines.” “Play some Coldplay music videos.” Siri does the rest.

As the line between television programming and Web content continues to erode, a Siri-powered television would become more necessary. You aren’t going to want to flip through file folders or baskets of content, checking off what you want. Telling Siri to “play videos of cute cats falling asleep” would return an endless YouTube stream of adorable napping fur balls.

Bilton also reports that Apple still has “quite a bit of work to do on the project.” But the launch of the new Apple’s television set is just a matter of time.

CNET reports that LG Display and Samsung are still struggling for the opportunity to become supplier of displays for the iPad 3 that is rumored to be launched next year. Sources have claimed that Apple is planning a 2048 x 1536 display for the device, double that of the current iPad in each dimension.

But whether manufacturers can make them in volumes that Apple demands is the question. "They have production plans for 2,048x1,536 displays. Starting in November. But those are only plans at this point," said the source, referring to LG and Samsung.

"It's not a question of making just one. That, of course, can be done. The challenge is making lots of them," the source said. "This is a quantum leap in pixel density. This hasn't been done before."

Apple was said to plan the launch of the iPad 3 later this year, but it had to push the release back to 2012. The main problem for the company was display production.

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Rumors of an Apple-branded television have been circulating for years, and now have revived after release of Steve Jobs’ authorized biography, where he claims that he finally “cracked” problem. Some analysts expect that Apple may release a new television set as soon as next year. Among the newly presented evidence is a claim that prototypes of the Apple television set are now "in the works".

- Based on Jan-11 meetings in Asia (not with component suppliers), we believe Apple is investing in manufacturing facilities and securing supply for LCD displays. These displays could range from 3.5" mobile displays to 50" television displays.

- More recently, in Sept-11 we met with a contact close to an Asian component supplier who indicated that prototypes of an Apple television are in the works.

Other evidence is several patents and patent applications filed by Apple that addressing the company's work into television-related technologies.  Our expectations from Apple TV include integration with iCloud that would provide access to iTunes Store video content.  Apple is believed could sell 1.4 million television sets at an average selling price of $1800 in 2012, ramping up to 4.3 million units by 2014 as costs drop to an average selling price of $1400.

Yesterday Apple quietly released a minor update to its MacBook Pro line. Now upgraded laptops offer better processor, and in some cases graphics and/or storage options at the same price points as the previous models.

13-inch MacBook Pro:

• Processor options move to 2.4 GHz and 2.8 GHz options.
• Hard drive options offer increased capacity up tо  500 GB in the low-end configuration and 750 GB in the high-end configuration.

15-inch MacBook Pro:

• Standard processor options move to 2.2 GHz and 2.4 GHz options. The high-end custom processor option has now a 2.5 GHz speed.
• For discrete graphics, Apple now offers the AMD Radeon HD 6750M to the low-end configuration with 512 MB of memory and given the high-end configuration a Radeon HD 6770M with 1 GB of memory.
• Hard drive has been bumped to a 750 GB.

17-inch MacBook Pro:

• Processor speeds have been bumped to a 2.4 GHz base processor with a 2.5 GHz option.
• Graphics have been improved to the Radeon HD 6770M, also with 1 GB of memory.
• Hard drive has been bumped to a 750 GB.

Ten years ago, on October 23rd, Steve Jobs introduced the first iPod. This music player seems to be partly responsible for Apple’s comeback and success. It also paved Apple the way to the consumer electronics market. Macworld provides a nice story detailing how the iPod came to be:

Behind every successful product lies a problem in search of a solution. The inspirational problem, in the iPod’s case, involved the pitiful state of the young MP3 player market in the late 1990s.

Portable MP3 players had been around since the mid 1990s, but Apple found that every one on the market offered a lackluster user experience. Steve Jobs had a strong term for gadgets like that: “crap”. Everyone at Apple agreed.

Initial reaction to the iPod wasn’t favorable. Customers complained against lack of wireless and space. They called it “lame” and thought that the iPod would never start taking off. But time tells that all those critics were wrong. Now iPod line of  portable music players is one of the most popular worldwide. Ten years after the launch, the iPod has sold over 304 million units.

Mac Pro users have been long awaiting updated models from Apple, but their hopes seem not to come true this year. In early September Intel reported that it was planning to launch new Sandy Bridge E processors and their Xeon E5 equivalents suitable for the Mac Pro on November 15th. But now the company has postponed release of its chips to early 2012, having dashed hopes for an updated Mac Pro.

In September, during Intel Developer Forum event in San Francisco, new information came to light implying that Xeon E5 launch is postponed until the first quarter 2012. Indeed, according to the latest Intel roadmaps, all Xeon E5 processors are going to be delayed by one quarter.

Apple will likely to adapt the Xeon E5-2600 series processors (likely, the E5-2620, E5-2650 and E5-2670) in the next Mac Pros, offering options of 12 or 16 cores.

We have already seen some teardowns and estimates of the cost of the new iPhone 4S by iFixit and Chipworks. Now iSuppli offers its teardown and some new facts.

In the case of the iPhone 4S, [IHS iSuppli analyst Andrew] Rassweiler estimates that the BOM cost ranges from $188 for the 16 gigabyte version of the iPhone 4S to $207 for the 32GB version and $245 for the 64GB version. Apple and its carrier partners sell the phones for $199, $299 and $399 respectively, typically with a two-year contract for wireless service that carriers use to subsidize the cost they pay Apple.

iSuppli didn’t find in the iPhone 4S a noise cancellation chip from Audience that was found in the iPhone 4. Such function may be implemented directly into A5 cheap that costs about $15. While iFixit found Toshiba flash memory in its iPhone 4S unit, IHS iSuppli expressed some surprise at finding Hynix memory in its unit. But as far as we know, Apple sources flash memory chips from different manufactures. They didn’t managed to find the manufacturer of the camera sensor, but estimated the cost of the camera module at $17.60.

Apple has long promoted its high resolution Retina" display that was first released in the iPhone 4 with 326 ppi (pixels per inch) resolution. Later this display made its way to iPhone 4S and iPod touch, and now is set to be included in the iPad 3 with Apple planning to offer 2048 x 1536 resolution on the 9.7-inch screen. Toshiba has gone even further and yesterday introduced a new 6.1-inch display with resolution of 2560 x 1600 and 498 ppi.

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In October 2008, long before the iPad made its debut, then Apple CEO Steve Jobs said this:

There are some customers which we chose not to serve. We don’t know how to make a $500 computer that’s not a piece of junk, and our DNA will not let us ship that. But we can continue to deliver greater and greater value to those customers that we choose to serve. And there’s a lot of them. We’ve seen great success by focusing on certain segments of the market and not trying to be everything to everybody. So I think you can expect us to stick with that winning strategy and continue to try to add more and more value to those products in those customer bases we choose to serve.

But Apple finally launched a $500 computer - the iPad.  The least expensive model costs $499. But the iPad average selling price for the three calendar quarters of 2011 was $628 that is more than the average price of Windows PC. For the same period the iPhone ASP was $653.

These numbers prove that the average selling price for all three Apple’s most profitable categories – the Mac, the iPhone and the iPad – is higher than average selling price of Windows PC that sold at U.S. retail (for the first three quarters of 2011) for $491.

9to5Mac suggests that Apple may launch the new MacBook Pros next week.

With supplies only becoming more constrained, and with shipments already touching down in select countries, we think a launch next week is likely (between Tuesday and Thursday). That is, of course, if there are no unforeseen circumstances.

The new laptops are likely to have the same prices as current MacBook Pros. The new machines are said to be only a minor update and would probably take advantage of new Sandy Bridge processors released by Intel late this year. The new processors include Quad Core i7 processors with speeds of 2.4GHz, 2.5GHz and 2.7GHz, as well as a Dual Core i7 at 2.8GHz models. The most expectable candidates among processors that might be used for upgrade are Core i7-2840M, Core i7-2760QM, Core i7-2860QM (the top three in the list below). Apple is unable to use Core i7-2960XM due to problems with heating and is unlikely to use the mobile Celeron processor.

Apple CEO Tim Cook and Samsung Chief Operating Officer Lee Jae-yong are said to have discussed their long-term component supply relationships during a two-hour meeting that took place earlier this week.

Lee Jae-yong, chief operating officer (COO) of Samsung Electronics said Wednesday he had discussed long-term parts cooperation arrangements with Apple Inc.'s chief Tim Cook.

The meeting took place Monday after Lee attended a memorial service for Steve Jobs, Apple's late co-founder, and as Samsung and Apple remain locked in fierce legal disputes to control the global smartphone and tablet computer markets.

Lee noted that the companies made agreement for 2012 and would like to prolong their cooperation for 2013-2014. Apple has been keen to make long-term supply agreements with component suppliers, sometimes prepaying billions of dollars in advance to secure massive supplies looking over several years and overcoming or better to say excelling its competitors.

Computerworld reports that the Taiwanese company Catcher Technology has had to shut down a factory in due to complaints of a "strange odor" coming from the building. The company manufactures 60% of uni-body aluminum casings for Apple's notebook line. Apple obtains the other 40% of its case supply from Foxconn. Catcher Technology admitted that the shutdown would affect Apple notebook supplies.

"Shipments to our customers will inevitably be affected. We already asked them to make adjustments to their (casings) procurement," Catcher President Allen Horng told a news conference.

There is no information when the plant will resume full operations.

Last month, we heard rumors that Apple had signed an agreement with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) for production of the next-generation A6 and A7 chips destined for future iOS devices. Samsung manufacture the A4 and A5 chips for Apple, but Apple seems to try to shift to TSMC because of difficult relations and legal battle between Apple and Samsung.

The Korea Times now reports that Apple will indeed primarily be sticking with Samsung for A6 production.

"Apple has been in talks with Samsung over shipment of its A6 quad-core mobile processor (AP) chips to be used in the next iPhone. It appears that Apple clearly has concluded that Samsung remains a critical business partner," an executive from an Apple parts supplier based in Korea said on condition of anonymity.

He said that Samsung has been increasing the output of the Apple-designed A6 chips in its manufacturing plant in Austin, Texas.

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iLounge has tested the iPhone 4S battery life, comparing it with the iPhone 4, and found out several interesting facts. As Apple claims in the iPhone 4S official specifications, the new smartphone has improved talk time but worse standby time as compared to the iPhone 4.

For tests with 3G Data, Audio Playback, Video Playback, and Video Recording, the iPhone 4S came in under the iPhone 4's battery life. For Wi-Fi and FaceTime testing it to be similar to the iPhone 4, and on Cellular Calls, the iPhone 4S is slightly better. Both media playback and recording were advantage of the iPhone 4S, comparing with the iPhone 4. The iPhone 4S is recording much higher resolution video than the iPhone 4.

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The iPhone 4S has a significantly louder speaker than the iPhone 4. The video comparison below shows that the iPhone 4S speaker offered an increase of 6dB compared to the previous generation device. This might be done for a better experience with Siri application.

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