News tagged ‘rumors’

Early this month the rumors suggested that Intel’s next-generation Ivy Bridge processors would launch in May. Theses mobile processors are expected to be used in Mac mini, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air lines.

Now DigiTimes reports that new Ivy Bridge processors may debut in early April, with both desktop and mobile processors launching around the same time.

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Chinese language newspaper China Daily reported on Monday  that Apple’s Chinese manufacturing partner  - Foxconn – plans to double the size of its iPhone-producing plant at Foxconn Science Park in Zhengzhou that now produces over 200,000 iPhones a day. The company is expected to spend $1.1 billion to expand the plant that, after the massive expansion, would bring Foxconn $20 billion in sales revenue in 2012. Moreover, the plant is expected to become the largest smartphone-producing facility in the world after the $1.1 billion construction.

Apple's primary iPhone manufacturer will increase the number of production lines to 95 and add to its over 1 million mainland China employees, 130,000 of whom work at the Zhengzhou facility. Foxconn currently employs a total of 1.2 million people and supplies electronics to a number of worldwide companies.

Foxconn also owns a production facility in Brazil. The plant also produces some iPhone models. The company now tries to come to a decision with local authorities concerning a $12 billion investment to build an iPad manufacturing plant in the region. Rumors claim that Foxconn will begin producing the iPad 3 with Retina Displays in January.

9to5Mac has recently posted photo of the iPad 3 home buttons that was obtained from a Chinese source. Noteworthy, claimed iPad 3 parts have been circulating for some time already in China, but only now photos of the iPad 3’ home button have stated leaking out. No real surprises, though it should help kill already sketchy rumors that Apple might do away with a home button altogether.

The above image is a comparison of an iPad 2 home button and an iPad 3 home button. At the surface, not much as changed, but the prospects of some minor structural tweaks do hint at something greater. The iPad 3 home button, which has been handled in both black and white flavors, looks almost identical to the iPad 2 home button. However, the gray glyph representing the frame of a home screen application icon is slightly thicker.

Perhaps the most interesting part about the iPad 3 home button is that its internal structuring is smaller than the iPad 2′s connector. According to the rumors, Apple had to make home button size smaller to accommodate a more pixel-dense Retina Display.

Basing on this photo, we may suggest the following:

• The iPad 3 will likely to be launched in both black and white colors
• The buttons floating around right now-in large quantities-signal that the iPad 3 is either in production or close to the production stage
• The iPad 3 will have the home button in spite of the rumors claiming that the iOS devices could soon loose the home button

The recent rumors claim that Apple may launch a smaller 7.85" iPad sometime in 2012 to compete against the new 7" Kindle Fire tablet from Amazon. Though Apple has never tried to compete spec for spec against their competitors. For example, the iPhone has kept the same basic form factor across 5 different generations.

The supply chain has actually been very specific about the screen size of this rumored iPad. According to Chinese manufacturers, Apple is buying up 7.85" screens for this upcoming mini iPad. So, we asked our friends at CiccareseDesign to put together these mockups of what a 7.85" iPad would look like in comparison to the existing 9.7" iPad.

The 7.85" iPad is actually a lot smaller than the existing iPad. Icons are smaller than the 9.7" iPad, of course, but still bigger than the icons found on the iPhone. The on screen keyboard also seems quite usable at this size.

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Analyst Brian Blair with Wedge Partners said in a note to investors this week that though Apple is believed to have built prototypes for a 7-inch iPad, and rumors of such a device launching persist, he doesn't believe Apple will release a 7-inch tablet in 2012.

"Jobs was emphatic in his view that 7-inch tablets were dead on arrival," Blair wrote, "and we believe it would be unlikely to see the company test the waters in this category anytime soon."

Blair thinks it's more likely that after the launch of a third-generation iPad Apple will keep its current iPad 2 on the production to decrease its price and address demand at the mid-tier range.

"We believe iPad 2's price drop could drop to the $349 to $399 range with Apple offering a single 16GB model," he said.

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A new rumor from the Far East claims that Apple is pushing its manufacturing partners to meet deadlines that would allow the company to launch a third-generation iPad next year on Feb. 24, which is the birthday of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

A local Chinese-language newspaper reported Friday that iPad3 might be launched on Feb. 24 to mark the anniversary of the birth of Apple's late co-founder Steve Jobs.

Citing sources close to Taiwanese makers in the iPad3 supply chain, the Economic Daily News said the gadget could be launched in mid-first quarter of next year or by the end of next March.

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According to a new job application published by Apple this week and discovered by AppleInsider, the company is looking to hire someone for the position of iCloud Application Developer. That means that the company is already looking to improve iCloud service with new applications for the iPhone and iPad. The iCloud umbrella of services was launched in October to replace Apple's previous cloud-based option, MobileMe.

"The iCloud team is looking for a proactive, creative-minded (engineer) to build the next generation of cocoa-based client applications that integrate tightly with a set of cloud based services," the listing reads.

The position requires someone who will develop both new and existing iPhone and iPad applications for iCloud services. Though it offers no indication of what those applications might be, it notes that employees will "build products that people want to use every day."

Apple is expected to add in iCloud a proprietary mapping service from Apple. Moreover, there are a lot of rumors concerning that Apple is building its own mapping and location services for iOS.

The Paradox iPod nano watch kit

Nick Bilton from The New York Times, who in October wrote that large parts of rumoured Apple’s television sets appeared in the company's supple chain, now reports that Apple may be researching and even prototyping new wearable devices.

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The resent rumors suggesting that Apple may purchase Israeli firm Anobit, nudge that Apple plans to set up its first research and development center outside of its Cupertino headquarters.

Sources inform "Globes" that Apple Inc. has decided to open a development center in Israel focusing on semiconductors. The decision was taken even before the company entered into talks to acquire Herzliya-based flash storage solutions provider Anobit Ltd..

Apple has hired Aharon Aharon, a veteran player in Israel's high tech industry, to lead the new development center.

[...]

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Today market research company Strategy Analytics reported on its research which covers «connected TV players», such as Ruku and Apple TV. The report shows that Apple is expected to reach sales of 4 million Apple TV boxes for 2011, leading the growing market with a 32 percent share.

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According to Japanese blog Macotakara, Apple held a MFI Conference for iPod / iPhone / iPad for accessory manufacturers in Shenzen, China this past week.  During the conference Apple reported that the company was going to introduce a new chip for MFI program ("MFI" means Apple's Made iPod / iPhone / iPad certification program) in order to encourage manufactures to produce more iOS-compatible accessories. The rumored chip will provide access to devices running iOS via AirPlay, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The current program for iOS devices is limited to physical dock accessories.

TouchArcade has confirmed these rumors by its recent article telling us about iOS gaming accessories. TouchArcade explains that the reason why all the current gaming accessories rely on Bluetooth keyboard emulation is due to the restrictions Apple has placed over bluetooth connections and with the new chip such restrictions seems to be loosed opening the way to analog control sticks for iOS devices.

Moreover, Apple has recently revealed that the company would be adding support for AirPlay over Bluetooth. It is unclear what advantages this will offer.

BGR reports that Samsung is preparing to launch its own high resolution tablet that will carry a 2560 x 1600 resolution screen that would beat the 2048x1536 display that the iPad 3 has been rumored to have.

Even though the tablet features a larger display than Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1, we’re told that the tablet is “barely larger” due to the fact the slate will have a thinner bezel with a whopping 2560 x 1600 resolution, 11.6-inch screen with a 16:10 aspect ratio.

Samsung introduced a similar 2560x1600 screen that uses the less conventional PenTile technology to achieve its high resolution back in May at SID Display Week 2011 International Symposium.

The PenTile display uses a series of local filter operations to convert the underlying image into display intensities, including convolution, thresholding, color curve adjustment, and postprocessing with locally-adaptive filters. In practice, this means the display blurs the red and blue channels by dispersing these color intensities to the nearest subpixel element of the right color, and then also implements subpixel positioning to increase the apparent resolution again. However, subpixel spacing is not constant across the display, making the real apparent resolution complicated to estimate.

Rumors that Apple has been working on the high resolution display have been circulating about a year. Apple's iPad 3 is expected to carry a resolution of 2048x1536 both vertical and horizontal ones. Rumors have suggested that there have been production constrains on creating these high resolution screens in quantities that are enough to satisfy Apple’s needs.

Businessweek suggests that in the coming year TV industry will move towards voice-activated TV remotes, because of Apple's plans to enter the TV market in the near future. Many analysts believe that Apple’s TV will have Siri voice recognition system to simplify user interaction with the TV and provide users to control their TVs with voice.

Whether the rumors are true that Apple is planning to release a TV set by 2013, Siri-like voice recognition is headed for the living room. Microsoft (MSFT) is already there, via its Xbox 360 game console, and Comcast (CMCSA), Samsung Electronics (SHCAY), LG, and Sharp are working on voice-enabled features for TV sets, set-top boxes, and related products.

Businessweek believes that simple voice command as "Record the next episode of Modern Family" are much needed to improve user experience. Jakob Nielsen of Nielsen Norman Group goes on to say "Anything would be better than what we have now."

The remotes for such voice-controlled TV are said to look more like iPhones than traditional remotes, with possibly a single physical button to activate the microphone. Nuance suggests that 5% of TVs could be voice controlled by Christmas 2012.

The ongoing competition between Apple and Samsung may become more intense in February. According to BGR report, Samsung is going to launch 11.6 inch tablet that will have 2560 x 1600 resolution display.

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According to a research note issued by Citi analyst Richard Gardner, the next-generation iPad will be introduced in February.

According to "several sources" the next iPad will launch in February, and it will sport a screen with double the resolution of the current model.

Gardner says, "there do not appear to be any significant technical hurdles remaining" to prevent a launch of a high-resolution iPad, despite rumors to the contrary.

Some of the prior reports of a mid-winter launch for the iPad 3 suggested that Apple's display suppliers were struggling with mass production of the higher-resolution 2048x1536 displays.  It still unclear is whether the next-generation Apple’s tablet will be thinner or slightly thicker than the iPad 2. Some sources claim that it will be slightly thicker due to use a dual light bar system that is necessary for the Retina Display. But others suggest that Apple will use a new technology that will allow the iPad 3 to be slightly thinner than the current model.