News tagged ‘iMac’

DigiTimes claims that Apple has recently received samples of new touch panels that would be used in a new touch-capable iMac. These touch panels are typically produced by placing touch sensors over the panel, and then a cover glass over the sensors. Such method does not require any extraordinary costs and manpower efforts, but affects display brightness. The new iMac is rumored to have a good vertical and horizontal viewing angle, and its projected capacitive touch panel will decrease dimensions of future iMac and reduce thickness and weight.

First rumors of a touchscreen iMac appeared in January, with claims of a 22-inch model set to debut sometime during 2010. A second rumor surfaced in June claiming that Apple would be holding a special event to introduce a touch-enabled iMac running both Mac OS X and iOS within the following two months. But both of them failed to take place.

Recently we’ve talked about the rumors that Apple is planning to release a new iMac with multitouch display, which will run on iOS 4 over OS X to use sensory capabilities. It seems that we’ll finally see the touchscreen computer from Apple. A new interesting patent has just been spoken about, which shows the iMac with multitouch display called "Apple iMac Touch".

Now Apple says nothing about this device, yet it is only a patent, so we do not know exactly how much time it will need to start producing it.

Apple could be planning to introduce touchscreens to the iMac by way of a hybrid interface, a recently discovered patent application suggests. The company notes that despite the usefulness of a touch slide off-screen interface, a mouse- and keyboard-based one is still better in some circumstances. To switch between the two, Apple proposes a design in which a computer's display would be upright for the mouse interface, but slanted down and back for touch.

To make the transition possible an iMac would need a flexible display stand, and a sensor to determine when to change. For the latter Apple proposes several options, such as an accelerometer, a rotation sensor in the stand, and/or a special touch sensor at the place people would want to grip the display. Past a certain input limit, a computer would automatically switch between interfaces.

Notably, elements of Mac OS X such as the Menu Bar, the Dock and the mouse cursor could be made to slide off-screen during the handover. Apple has not specified what the touch interface would be, but it could be iOS.

Do you remember the robot called T-1000 Skynet made of liquid metal in the film Terminator 2? It seems that Steve Jobs decided to create devices of next generation using Liquidmetal Technologies, a California company from which Apple has recently acquired the exclusive rights for creation of liquid metal alloy products.

One of the best and most distinctive factors in all Apple products is how this company produces its own devices, the quality of production, as well as the materials used, which, undoubtedly, have first-class quality.

Now that Apple has the exclusive rights to create products of the liquid metal, we can assume that it has no plans to create a robot for the next Terminator movie, but probably will use it for such devices as iMac, iPad and iPhone of the next generation in order to be one step ahead of its competitors.

Now you can find a lot of accessories for iPhone 4, some of them offer high functionality, while others make it even more attractive! Most of you probably have already seen accessory Xtand for iPhone 3GS, 3G and iPod touch, which enjoys wide popularity. Its main advantage is that it allows you to turn your iPhone into "the smallest desktop in the world." Xtand accessory is fully compatible to work with iPhone 4, but most important is the fact that now everyone can make his or her favorite iPhone 4 in the “mini” iMac, to give it a presentable appearance. Do you still doubt? Then look at the image above.

Accessory Xtand is a perfect complement to the existing list of accessories for iPhone 4 and it is without a doubt, the best way to show off your iPhone 4 all around. It can be ordered from the Apple Store for $ 24.95.

Wow! Did you know that Wired magazine already knew about iPad back in 1999? Here is a scan of April 1999 issue, take a look:

“The next iMac attack promises new lollipop laptops, a more serious series of professional machines, and a wireless handheld dubbed the iPad”.

Well, it was known that Steve Jobs thought about iPad before the first iPhone was actually released, but who could think about 1999?

Well-known blogger Jonny Evans from ComputerWorld posted yesterday an interesting article where he analyzed some of recent trends in Apple's success and made few conclusions about the company's next steps. Here is a short list of it:

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Thermaltake Technology company has a devision called LUXA2, which has many interesting luxury products. The recent interesting one is LUXA2 H4 - the Apple iPad solid-aluminum holder.

The holder looks really nice and is well manufactured. The main material is aluminum. The design is great and reminds us different Apple products, especially the iMac stand. LUXA2 H4 holds the iPad with two short and two V-shaped arms, that have six rubber nubs. The nubs tightly grip the iPad without scratching it. The user is able to adjust the width of the stand by pulling these arms. That's why LUXA2 H4 fits not only for the iPad, but can hold Amazon Kindle and many other eBook readers and tablets. This gives the H4 additional advantage over other stands on the market.

The holder also allows 360-degree rotation and 300-degree vertical adjustment. So there is no problem putting iPad at the right angle. Setting the iPad in portrait or landscape orientation is really very easy. However be careful rotating the device, since there are no V-shaped arms on the top.

LUXA2 H4 is great for internet browsing, ebook reading, watching movies and even gaming. It looks especially good when used with iPad and external keyboard.

Specifications:

• Height: 206mm (8.12 inches)
• Width: 151mm (5.98 inches)
• Depth: 138mm (5.44 inches)
• Weight: 446g / 0.98 lbs.
• Adjustable Angle: 360° (Rotated) and 300°(Vertical)

LUXA2 H4 costs around $59.99. The list of distributors is available here.

Here are more photos and video with LUXA2 H4:

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Yesterday Apple officially presented its new back-to-school promotion. This is an annual sale, when school faculty and students can purchase a Mac and get a 8GB iPod touch for free. Apple claims on its website:

"Take a free 8GB iPod touch to school. Along with tons of other great features, iPod touch has built-in Wi-Fi for downloading thousands of games, movies, songs, apps, and amazing, free educational content from iTunes U."

If you have an education discount, along with acquiring new iPod touch you can save $50 on a low-end MacBook, $100 on a MacBook Air and iMac desktop and $200 on a MacBook Pro. Such educational discounts are available to staff and faculty of K-12 schools, and to students, professors and staff of any college.

The deal applies between May 25 and Sept. 7, 2010. Those who doesn't want to get free iPod touch can receive a $199 discount for purchasing 160GB iPod classic or a higher-capacity iPod touch, a $179 discount for a 16GB iPod nano, $149 discount for a 8GB iPod nano, $99 discount for a stainless steel 4Gb iPod shuffle, and $79 discount for a regular 4GB iPod shuffle.

Customers can use their educational discounts in an Apple online store, retail stores, authorized campus stores or call 1-800-MY-APPLE.

Another report made by Nikkei reveals that most of the Japanese online electronic stores stopped selling iMacs, iPods and other products because of an Apple's request. At the moment Yodobashi Camera Co., Kojima Co., Bic Camera Inc. and Yamada Deni Co. Web sites point that Apple products were totally sold out or they are not for sale and may be available only in retail stores. Though Joshin Denki Co. and Amazon.com's Japanese store are continuing to sell iDevices.

There is also information from China Business News that China Unicom carrier will reduce the iPhone price from 6,999 yuan (~1050$) to 1,000 yuan (~150$). The company hopes that the smartphone will help it to boost its 3G network. Now China Unicom also considers making reduced rates for those of the subscribers who already have 3G devices to advance the growth of its data network.

Dan Primack from Pehub.com reported yesterday that Google acquired Agnilux. The latter is a startup company in San-Jose comprised of former Apple, P.A. Semi, Cisco and TiVo employees. It is intriguing that there almost no public information about the reasons why Google bought it and what Agnilux has recently been working on. One of the Google representatives confirmed the information but didn't comment it on.

Agnilux's website is currently unavailable, so we have no information about the company. But because of former P.A. Semi employees it seems like Agnilux may be working on a new chip that can be a rival to Qualcomm's SnapDragon or Apple's A4 SoCs. But, according to an investigation made by New York Times in February, one of the employees named Mark Hayter said:

"We want to make a splash. We don't want our manufacturer to take our intellectual property before we're ready".

So it looks like the company's main purpose in kept in a big secret. But it is known that later NYT heard from another Agnilux employee that the company is working on server and has a partnership with Cisco. Well that might be interesting to Google whose thousands of servers till this moment have been made by the company's engineers but not purchased.

This week Steve Jobs answered an email question from Sweden. The question was from Jezper Söderlund:

I'll keep it short.

I'm Jezper from Sweden, a long time Apple fan, currently about to replace the very last computer at home with a brand spanking new iMac i7. I'm also awaiting the release of the iPad. However, I have one question:

Will the wifi-only version somehow support tethering thru my iPhone?

Two devices, based on the same OS, with already built-in technology to share one data plan suggests a secondary contract could possibly be redundant.

From the look of your keynote, where the iPad sits well between my MacBook Pro and my iPhone, I was hoping the three of them could interact as seamless as possible.

All the best,
Jezper Söderlund

This is a very interesting question, since iPad's network settings with tethering were found recently. Here is Jobs' answer:

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The new concept by Patrycjusz Brzezinski was released recently in the Internet. It is a docking station, which looks pretty similar to the bottom of an iMac. It would work good for the iPad, as with an Apple Bluetooth keyboard it could be used as a some kind of a touch enabled mini iMac.   And if you suddenly need to go somewhere, just undock the iPad and put it in your bag. That's convenient.

Patrycjusz Brzezinski is also known for his previous concepts. The concept of "MacView", a tablet with a pair of touch screens in a slider design, was one of the most resonant. It is presented on the pictures below.

Mysterious designer with nickname Hdi has created a nice concept image of what the iPhone 4G would look like if Apple modeled it after the iMac. This concept mixes aluminum and glass just like an iMac.

Looks really great!

Apple VP of Industrial Design, Jonathan Ive discusses the philosophy behind everything from the iPhone to the iMac for the documentary "Objectified":

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