News tagged ‘iPod’

Concord Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has recently released another report, where he states that the next-gen iPad won't get new resolution this year.

"The most important reason why iPad 2 won’t have retinal display is yield rate of panel making. At this point, making high resolution and bright IPS/FFS panel is not easy and the production volume and cost couldn’t meet Apple’s requirements."

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week Toshiba introduced a new 1.8-inch hard drive. The highest capacity of those drives reaches 220 GB, while keeping the same thickness of 5 mm, the same hard drives found in the iPod classic. That means that the iPod classic capacity might be enlarged from 60 GB to 220 GB. That’s enough for 55,000 songs, 275 hours of video or over 34,000 photos. Moreover, the new drive uses less power, so we can expect more impressive battery life. Today’s iPod classic offers 36-hours. All this changes are likely to come in September’s iPod refresh. Tell the truth, the iPod classic isn’t Apple’s main product now, but it still sells. Everything tends to show that Apple kept it in its line only not to lose the small market of very high capacity music players.

A hacker named Chpwn has recently posted a video where he uses his new jailbreak-only app called VoiceActivator. It allows you to fully configure what voice commands you may give to your iPhone/iPod touch and what the device should do after it'll hear it. For example, it can open webpages, make screenshots, and, as it seen from the video above, many other actions from the long list.

Chpwn didn't mention what will be the price for the app, but we may assume it will be cheap enough (and thus not free). We can expect it to be released next week.

The built-in iOS voice control application (which can be activated if you press and hold Home button for some time) allows to dial phone numbers, ask for the time, initiate FaceTime calls and control music playback. It is also known that Apple is going to incorporate the idea of VoiceActivator in future versions of iOS. Maybe, it will be the one of the ways to refuse from using Home button.

Yesterday Apple released iTunes 10.1.2 which provide support for the upcoming Verizon CDMA iPhone 4. The update offers stability and performance improvements.” iTunes 10.1.2 syncs music, movies, and more with iPhone 4 (CDMA model)”, - Apples claimed.

Remind you that the previous iTunes 10.1 came with several new features and improvements, including:

• Use AirPlay to instantly and wirelessly stream videos from iTunes to the all-new Apple TV.
• Sync with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iOS 4.2.

Download iTunes 10.1.2

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.

Recently Apple launched the “10 Billion App Countdown”.  10 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The competition Apple launched to celebrate the new milestone has ended. Someone downloaded the 10 billionth application is going to win a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card from Apple. As of this moment, we don’t know who won the contest. Apple plans to announce the winner at a later time. Apple is now projected towards the next milestones, 15 billion apps and 20 billion apps.

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.

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!

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday Apple released a second beta version of iOS 4.3 to registered developers. This build is labeled as 8F5153d and available in versions for the iPad, iPhone 4 and 3GS, and third- and fourth-generation iPod touch. It doesn’t seem like Apple added any new features in this release.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday Apple reported its best quarter in the company's history. That what numbers tell and Apple's CEO Steve Jobs said at the beginning of a conference call:

“We had a phenomenal holiday quarter with record Mac, iPhone and iPad sales. We are firing on all cylinders and we’ve got some exciting things in the pipeline for this year including iPhone 4 on Verizon which customers can’t wait to get their hands on.”

Read the rest of this entry »

At Apple’s financial report revealed yesterday there is might be found evidence that Apple has entered into secret long-term contract with suppliers of key components. The contract concerning the key strategic resources used in Apple’s products going into the future is worth $3.9 billion. Apple’s officials mentioned that the deals are similar in nature to the flash memory deals made in late 2005 concerning flash memory supply for many of Apple’s portable devices including the iPhone and then the iPad. According to some websites, the most likely component, which might be the subject of the recent deal, is high density display that Apple uses in its iPhone 4 and the fourth generation iPod Touch.

This Tuesday analyst Shaw Wu from Kaufman. Bros. has increased Apple's price target for AAPL stock from $395 to $415 despite the fact that Steve Jobs will take a leave of absence soon. He is assured that Apple's share growth will be intact in the nearest future.

Read the rest of this entry »

Some rumors claim that Apple is working to merge its iTunes application into its Safari browser later this year. As a result the company will create a single application for browsing web and media content. The move to merge Safari and iTunes into one software solution appears long in the works, which may arrive this fall at Apple's usual iPod special event. Оne reason for the push is to boost Safari's market share among Internet browsers, where Apple has yet to crack the 5% mark. Perhaps, Safari will be the only browser able to access iTunes, as iTunes is built into the browser itself. "Moving iTunes organizational side-bar into Safari isn't a monumental task" claimed a source, adding "Safari would skyrocket in use as a result of integrating the software titles together."

Research firm Asymco has published a new report that details the average number of apps that have been downloaded on every iOS device, including iPhone, iPod touch and iPad — but not the Apple TV. Asymco noticed that app downloads have been growing at a faster rate than song downloads from the iTunes Store in the past three years. By dividing the cumulative apps downloaded by the cumulative devices sold, Asymco noted each iOS device has downloaded 60 apps on average. In 2008, the apps were 10. At the end of his report, Asymco also concludes app consumption is increasing at a rate that will soon overtake PC software.