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News tagged ‘MacBook’


Apple production line shows iPhone is basically handmade





nightline

ABC's Nightline special episode offered an inside look at Apple’s supply chain revealing that the iPhone, with 141 separate steps that go into its production, is practically a handmade device, while an iPad takes five days and passes through 325 hands during production. Foxconn manages to produce 300,000 camera modules for the iPad daily.

Apple granted reporter Bill Weir permission to go inside Foxconn's factories to see the working conditions as its products were being made for the 30-minute broadcast. However, initial response to the story was that it revealed hardly anything new about the situation.


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Written by Svetlana Osipova

Thursday, February 23rd, 2012. 0:18

Suppliers gearing up for Apple's launch of new MacBook Air models



macbookair

MacBook Air lineup was last updated in July of 2011, when Apple added high-speed Thunderbolt ports and backlit keyboards to both the 11.6- and 13.3-inch models, and  now sources from Apple's supply chain are waiting for the refreshed notebooks.

The anticipated MacBook Air update was mentioned on Tuesday by DigiTimes, which said that assembler Quanta Computer is expected to see its revenues grow thanks to the new product launch. It was said that Apple is "set to launch a new MacBook Air model," but a specific timeline for its release was not given.


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Written by Svetlana Osipova

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012. 23:23

Apple Forces Pegatron Into Ceasing Production of ASUS Zenbooks



apple-macbook-air-and-asustek-zenbook

According to Digitimes, one of the major Apple’s manufacturing partners Pegatron has ceased production of ASUS’ Zenbooks over pressure from Apple. Digitimes notes that Apple is displeased with similarities in design between MacBook Air and Zenbooks and asked Pegatron to stop production of these notebooks or it will lose orders for manufacturing of iOS devices.


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Written by maxim

Tuesday, February 14th, 2012. 2:10

MacBook Pros Will Adopt MacBook Air Form Factor This Year?



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Mockup of MacBook Air design covering full range of notebook sizes

Last year it was reported that Apple is working on a redesigned ultra-thin 15-inch Mac notebook which was expected to launch by the end of 2011. But the company apparently elected to delay its release and wait for the launch of Intel’s Ivy Bridge platform in 2012 to include it in its new models.

AppleInsider now reports citing people familiar with Apple’s plans that the company is preparing to release revamped MacBook Pro lineup sometimes this year. The full range of MacBook Pros will adopt the design aesthetic of increasingly popular MacBook Airs. According to the report, the existing MacBook Pro designs will be phased out over the course of 2012. However it is unclear yet whether the new notebooks will market as a next-generation MacBook Air or MacBook Pro.


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Written by maxim

Saturday, February 11th, 2012. 18:05

Apple Offers Stripped-Down 13" MacBook Air Package To Educational Institutions



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Apple has begun to offer a cheaper 13-inch MacBook Air to educational institutions buying in bulk, replacing the two-year offering of white plastic MacBooks, which was recently discontinued. The sales of white MacBook were discontinued by the company back in July of 2011.


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Written by maxim

Saturday, February 11th, 2012. 3:17

Apple Adds Lion Internet Recovery To More Macs Released In 2010



lion_internet_recovery

Today Apple released three EFI firmware updates adding Lion Internet Recovery service to the Mid-2010 iMac, Late 2010 MacBook Air and Early 2010 MacBook Pro. The available updates include MacBook Air EFI Firmware Update 2.3, iMac EFI Update 1.8 and MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 2.6.


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Written by maxim

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012. 14:02

Apple intern's thesis leaks secret project to port Mac OS X to ARM processors



a4-apple-chip-top

In 2010, Tristan Schaap, who now serves as a Core OS engineer at Apple, published a Bachelor thesis on his 12-week stint as an intern with Apple's Platform Technologies Group, a subdivision of the Core OS department. The thesis revealed that the former Apple intern had been working on the secret project to port Mac OS X Snow Leopard to the ARM architecture.

According to the paper, Schaap worked with the group to get Darwin, the "lower half" of Apple's Mac OS X operating system, to boot onto an ARM processor from Marvell. During the course of the project, he achieved his goal of "booting into a multi-user prompt," though some issues still remained due to a "poor implementation on the debug hardware."


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Written by Svetlana Osipova

Tuesday, February 7th, 2012. 16:46

ARM-Based MacBook Air Unlikely Based on Analyst Talk with Tim Cook



macbook air

Last year we reported some interesting rumors concerning Apple’s plans on the ARM (A5) based MacBook Air. The ARM processor is the same one that is used in the iPhone and iPad. An ARM-based MacBook Air, however, would raise a number of questions about what kind of device it might actually be. The use of ARM processor would allow reducing power requirements, but with a corresponding drop in computing power.

Citigroup analyst Richard Gardner who was able to meet with Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer on Thursday reports:


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Written by Svetlana Osipova

Monday, February 6th, 2012. 14:50

Apple Became The World's Top Semiconductor Consumer In 2011



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Given the increasing popularity of Apple’s mobile devices and growing demand for smartphones, it is no surprise that Apple is raising its expenses on chips. The research firm Gartner reports that Apple is now the largest buyer of semiconductors in the world as measured on the basis of Design TAM, or total silicon content in all devices designed by Apple and its rivals. In 2011, Apple spent $17 billion on silicon parts, which accounts for 5.7% of total silicon buying.


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Written by maxim

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012. 0:50

Mac sales growing faster for Apple in China than US



macbookair

Analyst Ben A. Reitzes with Barclays Capital said in a note to investors on Wednesday that Apple's growth in China now extends beyond the iPhone and iPad, with Mac sales there also continuing to outpace the U.S. Reitzes believes that Apple's total global sales will be up 22 percent year over year, thanks largely to rapid expansion in China.

"We believe Mac sales remain relatively strong even as the economy weakens, benefitting from new stores in China and strong sales of the MacBook Air," he said. "Even though the economy and HDD shortages are concerns that could limit upside, we remain comfortable with our estimate for 22% (year over year) Mac unit growth for (the fourth quarter of calendar 2011) given overseas momentum -- especially in China where growth is much higher."


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Written by Svetlana Osipova

Saturday, January 21st, 2012. 0:07

Apple confirms purchase of flash memory company Anobit



anobit

Apple’s spokesman Steve Dowling confirmed on Tuesday that the company recently purchased Anobit Technologies, an Israel-based flash memory component maker, though it declined to reveal the cost of the deal. “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans,” Steve Dowling added. As far as we remember Apple planned to spend for acquisition of the company as much as $500 million. According to a Hebrew-language newspaper, the deal was finalized in December.

Apple already uses Anobit parts in its iOS devices and the MacBook Air, and the firm's proprietary "Memory Signal Processing" (MSP) technology reportedly attracted the Cupertino, Calif., company's interest. Anobit claims MSP can improve the reliability, performance, efficiency and endurance of flash memory.


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Written by Svetlana Osipova

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012. 16:39

Apple sold 1.2M MacBook Airs over holidays, new models with Ivy Bridge loom



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According to DigiTimes sources, Apple sold 1.2 million of its thin-and-light MacBook Air over the holiday buying season. These numbers are 200,000 more than Apple achieved in the September quarter. Thanks to MacBook Air sales, Apple became the only vendor that managed to maintain its total notebook shipments from the third quarter to the fourth of calendar 2011.

DigiTimes also claims that another strong performance for the MacBook Air comes as Apple is expected to refresh the ultraportable notebook line in the coming months with Intel's next-generation Ivy Bridge processors. Apple PC competitors are doing their best to replicate MacBook Air success, and going to launch their own notebooks based on the "Ultrabook" specification from Intel. Lenovo, Acer and Toshiba reportedly plan to price comparable models $50 to $100 below Apple's MacBook Air pricing.


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Written by Svetlana Osipova

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012. 15:17

Survey suggests 50% growth in enterprise spending on Apple products in 2012



forrester

Forrester Research issued its Global Tech Market Outlook for 2012 and 2013 on Friday where the research company argued that Apple will “reshape the computing equipment market.” The study cited the adoption of iPad and Macs among professionals as proof that Apple is “dramatically disrupting” the corporate market traditionally dominated by Microsoft, Dell, Lenovo, and HP.

Analysts have been predicting that cloud computing — specifically, infrastructure-as a service (IaaS) — will reshape the server and storage market… Actual adoption of IaaS remains limited…The biggest disruptive force in the computer equipment market thus is not IaaS, but Apple. This is a surprise, because Apple has not and does not directly address the corporate market, while turning a wide variety of consumer technology markets upside-down. But its rapid growth in the corporate market has been the big surprise of 2011, and it will be even more of a factor in 2012.

According to the survey, the business sector will buy $10 billion worth of iPads this year, up from $6 billion in 2011. IT departments are also projected to spend $9 billion on Macs in 2012, up from $6 billion in 2011. Mac and iPad spending will rise to $12 billion and $16 billion, respectively in 2013, according to the survey.


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Written by Svetlana Osipova

Monday, January 9th, 2012. 12:38

Apple's New Patents Describe Various Aspects Of Thunderbolt Technology



ios-iphone-thunderbolt1

United States Patent and Trademark Office published a series of patents (via PatentlyApple) suggesting that Apple is attemting to possess as many Thunderbolt related patents and trademarks as possible despite the widespread impression that technology is a result of collaboration between Apple and Intel.


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Written by maxim

Friday, January 6th, 2012. 1:18

Apple Patent Describes Multi-User Face Detection System



apple-face-detection

Like the controversial face unlock functionality in Google’s Galaxy Nexus, a new Apple’s patent application points out that the company is developing similar but more sofisticated face detection solution. As PatentlyApple reports, Apple said that these user detection system could be included in a future MacBook, iPad, iPod touch and iPhone.
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