Once again, the folks at DigiTimes have leaked information about a forthcoming Apple product. Citing "Industry sources in Taiwan,"
Apple selling 22 iPhones, 28 Macs per store each day
Observations made at more than two dozen Apple retail stores over the last few weeks show Apple to be maintaining healthy sales of Macs and iPhones that aren't far off from rates seen during the lead-in to last year's holiday shopping season.
Apple Researching Movement-Aware Interfaces for iPhones, Depicts Front-Facing Video Camera
Apple has been conducting ongoing research into how to further improve their mobile device interfaces as evidenced by a couple of patent applications published over the past couple of weeks. Two different patent applications reveal a couple of diffe...
News apps for the iPhone span the political spectrum
Filed under: iPhone, App Store
In the right corner, weighing in at four sections, it's the Wall Street Journal! Yes, the official newspaper of American business (whatever's left of it) has an iPhone app, and according to Silicon Alley Insider it's pretty good; the app lets you cache content for offline reading (similar to the NYT app), and offers audio and video content from the paper, along with stories and rich media from sister sites like Uncle Walt's hangout AllThingsD.
Most notably, using the iPhone version of the WSJ -- which is free -- you can read most or all the content from the daily paper... which, via the WSJ.com website, is not free (most full stories require a subscription). There's no way to know how long this workaround will be in place, but for now it's a great way to get access to the paper's stories.
And, in the opposite corner, weighing in at one home page and sporting a killer left hook, it's the Huffington Post! The HuffPo iPhone app has been in soft-launch mode for the past month and was just updated to version 1.1, quashing bugs and improving performance. It's not as polished as some of the other SSAs yet, but it gets the job done. The app is free.
If you have a preferred single-site app for news, let us know below.
TUAWNews apps for the iPhone span the political spectrum originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Apple's share of U.S. PC market slips to 7.4% as sales decline
Apple's share of the U.S. computer market fell to 7.4 percent during the first calendar quarter of 2009 from 8.0 percent during the fourth quarter of 2008, market research firm Gartner said Wendesday.
AT&T wants the iPhone until 2011
Why wouldn't they? I know about a dozen people who have switched to AT&T precisely because they are the only US iPhone game in town (mostly). The exclusivity ends 2010, but SAI asks, will Apple renew its contract with AT&T? The biggest problem plaguing iPhones appears to be the network -- AT&T is notorious for dropped calls and spotty 3G coverage, whereas now-number 1 service provider Verizon has a great reuptation for coverage (both voice and data).The issue for Apple is compounded by the fact that AT&T uses the globally-accepted network standard of GSM, where Verizon uses the other, less-used standard CDMA. So now you've got two radios to deal with (as provided in the Blackberry 8830 World Edition), something I think Cupertino isn't eager to implement.
TUAWAT&T wants the iPhone until 2011 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Towards Greener Graphic Cards!?
While CPU manufacturers have already started defining power consumption and performance per watt as the new reference standards for comparing/developing new CPU models; so far, graphic cards manufacturers did not really feel concern about such parameters and every new GPUs were racing towards the same goal: be the fastest irrespective to the power consumption.
Things might change in a near future, if one considers the screen capture related to the future presentation of the forthcoming AMD/ATI Radeon HD4770.
AMD/ATI have used performance per watt as one of the marketing parameters. They compare the forthcoming entry level model Radeon HD 4770 with the aging NVidia GeForce 9800 GT. According to their figures, the Radeon is almost 3 fold faster per watt. AMD takes advantage of an exclusive 40 nm engraving process, even thinner than the one currently used by Intel.
AMD most likely decided to apply this new engraving process to entry-level GPU as their architecture is usually not as complex as the high-end models. However, AMD will most likely transfer it to all other models, and the benefit of thin engraving could rather be used for high-end GPU to push core frequency higher, while controlling heat release. In other words, power consumption might not be the future marketing parameter of 40 nm engraved future flagship GPU from AMD. Especially, if one considers the growing importance of GPGPU, synonym of growing needs for raw power. This could be associated to greener behavior if the power management of the GPU is really improved to switch off unused cores as today in CPUs.
Microsoft Office rolls up to 12.1.7, trial edition downloadable
Filed under: Software
There's an update in town, and it's all about locking it down: the 12.1.7 update to Microsoft Office 2008 (available within the suite via the software update tool, or downloadable from Microsoft) closes two security holes present in multiple versions of Microsoft Excel and first acknowledged by the company in February. These vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to create a specially-configured Excel file that, when opened, would allow full control of the target machine.
The update package also bundles up all the previous patches to Office 2008, which lends it heft (it weighs in at over 150 MB) but simplifies matters if you're a few revs behind. Note that there is no 12.1.6 update in the sequence; the previous patch level was 12.1.5.
If you haven't made the leap to Office 2008 yet (perhaps you're on a PPC Mac; perhaps you feel that you get better interoperability with Office 2003 users on Windows; perhaps you have to have Visual Basic support for macros), Microsoft is giving you the chance to consider moving up with a full-featured 30-day demo of Office 2008, now available for download in the USA. The package includes all the Office apps and can be upgraded to a paid license in the field without purchasing a boxed copy and reinstalling. Upgrades from previous editions of Office start at $240... of course, there are some less expensive alternatives out there.
[h/t Ars Technica]
TUAWMicrosoft Office rolls up to 12.1.7, trial edition downloadable originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 15 Apr 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
New Firmware Update for OCZ SSD Vertex
OCZ released a firmware update for its SSD belonging to the Vertex series. Once more you will have to run Windows to apply this patch, and you will need to have your data backup on another volume as the procedure entirely erase the SSD.
This update should:
- improve future firmware updates (so be prepared for new ones)
- improve management of defective blocks
- improve compatibility with sleeping mode on Mac Pro, a proof that the company is seriously considering the Mac market
- bring support for TRIM.
The latest point is the most important one. Currently, OS are using SSD as HD, and they have been optimized for such disc-based storage unit. So, when you delete data, the OS will erase the allocation table on the drive, defining this space as now free. Those blocks are not really deleted and you will rewrite on the previous data. This is the reason why some software and companies can retrieve data from erased HDs.
But if one can rewrite data on a block declared as "free" on a HD, it is really different with a SSD. One will need to assign "0" status to all concerned chips, this can take some times and explain why performance gain can dramatically drop over time. The TRIM command is designed to bypass this issue. It will allow the OS to better deal with chips where stored data will be deleted. It will slow down erasing, but this is not a critical point as the writing speed will be preserve over the lifetime of the SSD.
OCZ has added this command in the SSD BIOS, however it is still not integrated in OS. It will be done with Windows 7 and we can hope that Apple will do it too with Snow Leopard. OCZ is already offering an utility to turn all deleted chips to "0" when booting your drive. If it is currently only available for Windows, OCZ promised to release Mac OS X and Linux versions soon.
Rumor: Upcoming iPhone parts list published
Once again, the folks at DigiTimes have leaked information about a forthcoming Apple product. Citing "Industry sources in Taiwan,"
Apple selling 22 iPhones, 28 Macs per store each day
Observations made at more than two dozen Apple retail stores over the last few weeks show Apple to be maintaining healthy sales of Macs and iPhones that aren't far off from rates seen during the lead-in to last year's holiday shopping season.
Apple Researching Movement-Aware Interfaces for iPhones, Depicts Front-Facing Video Camera
Apple has been conducting ongoing research into how to further improve their mobile device interfaces as evidenced by a couple of patent applications published over the past couple of weeks. Two different patent applications reveal a couple of diffe...
News apps for the iPhone span the political spectrum
Filed under: iPhone, App Store
In the right corner, weighing in at four sections, it's the Wall Street Journal! Yes, the official newspaper of American business (whatever's left of it) has an iPhone app, and according to Silicon Alley Insider it's pretty good; the app lets you cache content for offline reading (similar to the NYT app), and offers audio and video content from the paper, along with stories and rich media from sister sites like Uncle Walt's hangout AllThingsD.
Most notably, using the iPhone version of the WSJ -- which is free -- you can read most or all the content from the daily paper... which, via the WSJ.com website, is not free (most full stories require a subscription). There's no way to know how long this workaround will be in place, but for now it's a great way to get access to the paper's stories.
And, in the opposite corner, weighing in at one home page and sporting a killer left hook, it's the Huffington Post! The HuffPo iPhone app has been in soft-launch mode for the past month and was just updated to version 1.1, quashing bugs and improving performance. It's not as polished as some of the other SSAs yet, but it gets the job done. The app is free.
If you have a preferred single-site app for news, let us know below.
TUAWNews apps for the iPhone span the political spectrum originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Apple's share of U.S. PC market slips to 7.4% as sales decline
Apple's share of the U.S. computer market fell to 7.4 percent during the first calendar quarter of 2009 from 8.0 percent during the fourth quarter of 2008, market research firm Gartner said Wendesday.
AT&T wants the iPhone until 2011
Why wouldn't they? I know about a dozen people who have switched to AT&T precisely because they are the only US iPhone game in town (mostly). The exclusivity ends 2010, but SAI asks, will Apple renew its contract with AT&T? The biggest problem plaguing iPhones appears to be the network -- AT&T is notorious for dropped calls and spotty 3G coverage, whereas now-number 1 service provider Verizon has a great reuptation for coverage (both voice and data).The issue for Apple is compounded by the fact that AT&T uses the globally-accepted network standard of GSM, where Verizon uses the other, less-used standard CDMA. So now you've got two radios to deal with (as provided in the Blackberry 8830 World Edition), something I think Cupertino isn't eager to implement.
TUAWAT&T wants the iPhone until 2011 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Towards Greener Graphic Cards!?
While CPU manufacturers have already started defining power consumption and performance per watt as the new reference standards for comparing/developing new CPU models; so far, graphic cards manufacturers did not really feel concern about such parameters and every new GPUs were racing towards the same goal: be the fastest irrespective to the power consumption.
Things might change in a near future, if one considers the screen capture related to the future presentation of the forthcoming AMD/ATI Radeon HD4770.
AMD/ATI have used performance per watt as one of the marketing parameters. They compare the forthcoming entry level model Radeon HD 4770 with the aging NVidia GeForce 9800 GT. According to their figures, the Radeon is almost 3 fold faster per watt. AMD takes advantage of an exclusive 40 nm engraving process, even thinner than the one currently used by Intel.
AMD most likely decided to apply this new engraving process to entry-level GPU as their architecture is usually not as complex as the high-end models. However, AMD will most likely transfer it to all other models, and the benefit of thin engraving could rather be used for high-end GPU to push core frequency higher, while controlling heat release. In other words, power consumption might not be the future marketing parameter of 40 nm engraved future flagship GPU from AMD. Especially, if one considers the growing importance of GPGPU, synonym of growing needs for raw power. This could be associated to greener behavior if the power management of the GPU is really improved to switch off unused cores as today in CPUs.
Microsoft Office rolls up to 12.1.7, trial edition downloadable
Filed under: Software
There's an update in town, and it's all about locking it down: the 12.1.7 update to Microsoft Office 2008 (available within the suite via the software update tool, or downloadable from Microsoft) closes two security holes present in multiple versions of Microsoft Excel and first acknowledged by the company in February. These vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to create a specially-configured Excel file that, when opened, would allow full control of the target machine.
The update package also bundles up all the previous patches to Office 2008, which lends it heft (it weighs in at over 150 MB) but simplifies matters if you're a few revs behind. Note that there is no 12.1.6 update in the sequence; the previous patch level was 12.1.5.
If you haven't made the leap to Office 2008 yet (perhaps you're on a PPC Mac; perhaps you feel that you get better interoperability with Office 2003 users on Windows; perhaps you have to have Visual Basic support for macros), Microsoft is giving you the chance to consider moving up with a full-featured 30-day demo of Office 2008, now available for download in the USA. The package includes all the Office apps and can be upgraded to a paid license in the field without purchasing a boxed copy and reinstalling. Upgrades from previous editions of Office start at $240... of course, there are some less expensive alternatives out there.
[h/t Ars Technica]
TUAWMicrosoft Office rolls up to 12.1.7, trial edition downloadable originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 15 Apr 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
New Firmware Update for OCZ SSD Vertex
OCZ released a firmware update for its SSD belonging to the Vertex series. Once more you will have to run Windows to apply this patch, and you will need to have your data backup on another volume as the procedure entirely erase the SSD.
This update should:
- improve future firmware updates (so be prepared for new ones)
- improve management of defective blocks
- improve compatibility with sleeping mode on Mac Pro, a proof that the company is seriously considering the Mac market
- bring support for TRIM.
The latest point is the most important one. Currently, OS are using SSD as HD, and they have been optimized for such disc-based storage unit. So, when you delete data, the OS will erase the allocation table on the drive, defining this space as now free. Those blocks are not really deleted and you will rewrite on the previous data. This is the reason why some software and companies can retrieve data from erased HDs.
But if one can rewrite data on a block declared as "free" on a HD, it is really different with a SSD. One will need to assign "0" status to all concerned chips, this can take some times and explain why performance gain can dramatically drop over time. The TRIM command is designed to bypass this issue. It will allow the OS to better deal with chips where stored data will be deleted. It will slow down erasing, but this is not a critical point as the writing speed will be preserve over the lifetime of the SSD.
OCZ has added this command in the SSD BIOS, however it is still not integrated in OS. It will be done with Windows 7 and we can hope that Apple will do it too with Snow Leopard. OCZ is already offering an utility to turn all deleted chips to "0" when booting your drive. If it is currently only available for Windows, OCZ promised to release Mac OS X and Linux versions soon.
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