Sep

22

adapter2-sm.jpgApple has ordered a recall of its ultracompact USB power adapters.
The adapters, originally packaged with the Iphone 3G, apparently contain flimsy metal prongs that are susceptible to snapping.
According to Apple, the broken prongs could “remain in a power outlet, creating a risk of electric shock”.
The flawed adapters were reportedly sold in the U.S., Japan, Canada, Mexico and South America. Club Cupertino recommended that customers in the affected countries stop using their adapters “immediately” and exchange them for new ones. The company also confirmed reports of “detached” prongs but emphasised that they had caused no known injuries.

Read Full Story

Apple Support article

Sep

17

Apple’s iPhone 3G has won a public vote to find the year’s best gadget, beating strong competition from three games consoles, a budget laptop and a balloon-shaped iPod speaker system.

The latest version of the mobile that combines a phone with a music and video player was chosen by readers of Stuff magazine in its annual Gadget of the Year awards.

The magazine described the iPhone 3G as “a faster, cleverer version of an already remarkable phone”. The phone’s first incarnation, launched in Britain last year, won the coolest gadget prize at last year’s ceremony.

Other nominees included Sony’s PlayStation 3, Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Nintendo’s Wii Fit and the B&W Zeppelin iPod speakers.

Stuff’s Editor Fraser Macdonald said the nominated products were judged on their performance, design and value, as well as “that elusive cool factor”.

“Having our readers vote for a number of the awards has been fascinating,” he said. “They are the ones out there on the street buying gadgets and so they are a great barometer.”

The magazine’s own gadget of the year prize, chosen by its editorial staff, went to the Asus Eee Pc, a no-frills laptop that costs less than 300 pounds.

The judges said it had made more of an impact than any other device and marked the start of a “laptop for everyone” era.

Read Full Story

Sep

15

Given Apple’s super-secretive ways, it’s quite a shock to find a company engineer disclosing something about the iPhone’s future innards on a public social networking site.

Wei-han Lien, the senior manager of Apple’s chip team, dished out the morsel on LinkedIn, saying he’s busy at work crafting an ARM processor for the next-generation iPhone.

While it’s a minor revelation, Lien’s statement would confirm what many have expected ever since Apple acquired chip start-up PA Semiconductor in April for close to $300 million.

PA Semi had assembled an all-star cast of chip engineers, including Lien, and Apple confirmed that it bought the company for that talent. In a June interview with The Times’ John Markoff, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs went one step further, saying the PA Semi team would work on designing brand-new processors for future iPhones and iPods. The only question was which kind of processors.

The current iPhone includes ARM processors, which are very common in the mobile device industry. ARM Holdings is a British firm that licenses out its processor designs to other companies, who tweak the chips to suit their needs. While Apple refuses to confirm it, the company uses ARM processors made by Samsung in the iPhone, according to numerous analysts.

By developing its own ARM variant, Apple could create a processor that meets the specific needs of the iPhone and iPod, building support for functions such as the touch screen or scroll wheel into silicon and possibly savings on costs by reducing the number of processors needed in each device. In addition, Apple’ will be able to maintain tighter controls on who knows what about its future products by disposing of an outside chip supplier.

“They could put software accelerators on there or maybe do something like a graphics engine,” said Fred Weber, the former chief technology officer of Advanced Micro Devices and current chief executive of memory specialist Metaram.

Such a move, however, comes with challenges.

“You are taking on that internal risk of making sure this design goes well,” said chip analyst Linley Gwennap of the Linley Group. “Even with a good team, there’s always a risk that things will be late and delay the release of something like a new iPhone. By outsourcing that part, you have the opportunity of going to another company if the first cannot deliver what you need.”

The construction of a bespoke mobile chip sees Apple returning to its historical roots. For years, Apple relied on more specialized processors from I.B.M. and Motorola rather than using the more common Intel processors adopted by the major computer makers. It eventually abandoned that strategy in 2005 and moved over to Intel chips, leaving Apple’s software as the only major difference between its machines and rivals’.

The engineers at PA Semi specialized in crafting processors with strong performance and very low power consumption. Before shifting to Intel chips, Apple flirted with the idea of placing the PA Semi processors, which were similar in architecture to the I.B.M. and Motorola chips, into its laptops and desktops. PA Semi officials were, in fact, shocked when they learned in the press of Apple’s decision to go with Intel. Apple’s choice crippled PA Semi’s business overnight and forced it to go after new markets such as networking and storage gear.

While hunting for new customers, PA Semi also managed to attract the attention of military equipment suppliers who were intrigued by the low-power qualities of PA Semi’s chips. (They consume less than 20 watts apiece.)

People familiar with the Defense Department’s intentions say that PA Semi chips are set to go into missiles, computers in fighter jets and surveillance equipment.

“By all accounts, the PA Semi chip is meritorious,” said Will Strauss, an analyst with Forward Concepts. “There really was nothing else quite like it.”

When Apple bought PA Semi, it had no intention of morphing into a military supplier. The Defense Department, however, received push-back from suppliers who had already committed to long-term designs based on the microprocessor. These equipment makers urged the Pentagon to pressure Apple into continuing to supply PA Semi’s chips for several years, according to people familiar with the negotiations, who declined to comment on the record because of Pentagon restrictions. Apple eventually caved.

“We are extremely confident and pleased with the direction of PA Semi’s silicon availability,” said Bret Farnum, a vice president at Extreme Engineering Solutions, which makes specialized computing systems, some of which go to military suppliers. “We have many customers that are going to continue to deploy it for the next four to five years.”

via: Read Full Story

Feb

5


Jan

16

Hello!?

January 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment

MacworldiPhoneWorld Expo in San Francisco is well underway.

This year’s exo is definitely the place to see and experience the latest in iPhone software, hardware, cases, solutions and more. And of course with the Aplle iPhone SDK on the way, many companies are demoing the upcoming slew of goodness.

We will be posting more and some specifics later on, so stay tuned!

iBug Out!!

:-{>

Dec

18

garage.jpgApple quietly updated the iLife ‘08 program GarageBand to support creating ringtones for the iPhone on the Mac. The update 4.1.1 is available through Software Update, and works quite well. Look for ringtones to start popping up all over the place soon. TUAW has already posted a link to the CTU 24 ringtone here. Sorry no protected files, GarageBand will reject them. So get creative.

iLounge has created a Ten Step Guide here.

Technorati Tags:
, ,

Oct

17

Open letter from Steve Jobs posted on Apple’s site under Hot News.

Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers.

It will take until February to release an SDK because we’re trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once—provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task. Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones—this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target.

Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer. While this makes such a phone less than “totally open,” we believe it is a step in the right direction. We are working on an advanced system which will offer developers broad access to natively program the iPhone’s amazing software platform while at the same time protecting users from malicious programs.

We think a few months of patience now will be rewarded by many years of great third party applications running on safe and reliable iPhones.

Steve

P.S.: The SDK will also allow developers to create applications for iPod touch. [Oct 17, 2007]

Technorati Tags:
, , ,

Sep

27

New Features include:

- iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store
- Louder speakerphone and receiver volume
- Home Button double-click shortcut to phone favorites or music controls
- Space bar double-tap shortcut to intelligently insert period and space
- Mail attachments are viewable in portrait and landscape
- Stocks and cities in Stocks and Weather can be re-ordered
- Apple Bluetooth Headset battery status in the Status Bar
- Support for TV Out
- Preference to turn off EDGE/GPRS when roaming internationally
- New Passcode lock time intervals
- Adjustable alert volume

Sep

21

from 4.29.07

ballmer_tongue.jpgQ: People get passionate when Apple comes out with something new — the iPhone; of course, the iPod. Is that something that you’d want them to feel about Microsoft?

A: It’s sort of a funny question. Would I trade 96% of the market for 4% of the market? (Laughter.) I want to have products that appeal to everybody.

Now we’ll get a chance to go through this again in phones and music players. There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It’s a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I’d prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.

In the case of music, Apple got out early. They were the first to really recognize that you couldn’t just think about the device and all the pieces separately. Bravo. Credit that to Steve (Jobs) and Apple. They did a nice job.

But it’s not like we’re at the end of the line of innovation that’s going to come in the way people listen to music, watch videos, etc. I’ll bet our ads will be less edgy. But my 85-year-old uncle probably will never own an iPod, and I hope we’ll get him to own a Zune.

Read Full Story

Technorati Tags:

Sep

7

promo_openletter_20070906.jpgTo all iPhone customers:

I have received hundreds of emails from iPhone customers who are upset about Apple dropping the price of iPhone by $200 two months after it went on sale. After reading every one of these emails, I have some observations and conclusions.

First, I am sure that we are making the correct decision to lower the price of the 8GB iPhone from $599 to $399, and that now is the right time to do it. iPhone is a breakthrough product, and we have the chance to ‘go for it’ this holiday season. iPhone is so far ahead of the competition, and now it will be affordable by even more customers. It benefits both Apple and every iPhone user to get as many new customers as possible in the iPhone ‘tent’. We strongly believe the $399 price will help us do just that this holiday season.

Second, being in technology for 30+ years I can attest to the fact that the technology road is bumpy. There is always change and improvement, and there is always someone who bought a product before a particular cutoff date and misses the new price or the new operating system or the new whatever. This is life in the technology lane. If you always wait for the next price cut or to buy the new improved model, you’ll never buy any technology product because there is always something better and less expensive on the horizon. The good news is that if you buy products from companies that support them well, like Apple tries to do, you will receive years of useful and satisfying service from them even as newer models are introduced.

Third, even though we are making the right decision to lower the price of iPhone, and even though the technology road is bumpy, we need to do a better job taking care of our early iPhone customers as we aggressively go after new ones with a lower price. Our early customers trusted us, and we must live up to that trust with our actions in moments like these.

Therefore, we have decided to offer every iPhone customer who purchased an iPhone from either Apple or AT&T, and who is not receiving a rebate or any other consideration, a $100 store credit towards the purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store. Details are still being worked out and will be posted on Apple’s website next week. Stay tuned.

We want to do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers. We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple.

Steve Jobs
Apple CEO

Read Full Story

keep looking »

Blogroll

WP Themes