The winds of change…

Technology is a fast-paced industry. And tech blogs like ourselves need to keep pace with the industry in order to remain successful and informative on our chosen subjects. In our case, Apple. Following 2011′s “Antennagate” and the mediocre update to the iPad, it’s left gaps wide open for other devices to steal the limelight in 2011. So we feel it’s time we made some changes…

So, as of next month, we will be changing to a mixed Mac/Windows blog. There’s a ton of great Windows and Android tablets due and we want to be at the forefront of reporting news on these magical and revolutionary products to you, our devoted readers. 2011 may not yet be the year of the iPad 2. It’s could just as easily be the year of the stylus. Rising from the flames likes the legendary Phoenix.

I suppose only time will tell…

iPad 2 – What it’s not got…

We’re not about to waste our time typing up a late post about a product you already know about. So if you’re looking for an “Apple unveil the iPad 2″ post, Google it. At last check that search string found 10.4-million results, so you’ve plenty to choose from. So we won’t be bothering, you already know about the iPad 2, right? So this post is designed to highlight some of the stuff it hasn’t got, stuff that was rumoured or what you may have expected… let’s get stuck in!

1. No Retina Display

No high-res display! Gutted. Almost everyone had a higher-resolution display of some kind pegged as a ‘must-be’ feature of the iPad 2. Maybe not the 326ppi we’ve seen in the iPhone 4 and iPod touch, but something better than the 1024 x 768 (132ppi) panel we’re accustomed to. But no. Fear not tho, if they can make it, it will come. We’ll put some more chips on the table as this being a definite feature of the iPad 3.

2. No ThunderBolt

The iPad 2 was never going to have Thunderbolt. It may never have ThunderBolt. Devices like iPods / iPhones and iPads don’t really need Thunderbolt – they need USB. The reason they don’t need Thunderbolt is the same reason they’ve never needed or had FireWire800. Thunderbolt is a ‘pro’ interface, just like FireWire. Used for devices which have the ‘need for speed’ – like mass storage devices, AV interfaces, video cameras and the like. Just because a faster cable solution to USB is available doesn’t it’ll become the de-facto cable for all of Apple’s products going forward. Like FireWire800 it will compliment USB. Not replace it. Yet despite all this, some people out there are kicking up a stink because there’s no ThunderBolt  interface to transfer all of their Justin Bieber albums to their iPad 2. Yes all of those Bieber albums. USB3.0 will eventually arrive into every Mac product. And they’ll forget that that ever wanted ThunderBolt in their iPad 2.

3. No iOS 5

While Apple did showcase iOS 4.3, many were disappointed not to see a bigger update to Apple’s touchy-feely OS. In the form of iOS 5 or even 4.5. We have always believed since the iOS 4 launch that iOS 5 will appear alongside the iPhone 5 this summer, so until then everyone will have to make do with those AirPlay improvements and iTunes Home Sharing.

4. No 7-inch display

Despite Steve Jobs publicly slating 7-inch tablets, many clung to the hope that this was just Steve trying to throw people off the scent, and that a 7-inch iPad was in the works. Well that’s certainly not the case yet. We still have the 9.7-inch IPS display, and if Steve is to be believed then it looks like it’s here to stay.

5. No NFC (near-field communication)

NFC is being planned for the iPhone, we’ve seen patent applications proving it. And one day it will make it’s way to the iPad too, in some capacity. Where it’ll excel in the iPhone first is for mobile payments. You have your iPhone in your pocket and with a short ‘wave’ of your device over a terminal you’ll be able to make easy payments in stores, just like you can now with Barclays ‘Contactless’ payment system. I can’t however, see people pulling iPads out of their bags and waving one around at the checkouts on your next trip to the supermarket. NFC in both the iPad and iPhone will have a twist of some kind too, but expect this tech to arrive in the iPhone and iPod touch before coming to the iPad.

6. No lower (or higher) price

The iPad 2 doesn’t need to be cheaper. It’s already very aggressively priced against other tablets of its kind offering a similar feature set. Though we’d like it to be cheaper, from Apples standpoint the iPad is already selling record numbers at it’s current price. So why change it? Nor does the iPad 2 need to be more expensive than its predecessor, despite its advances. A price increase could harm sales. And close the tight price gap between the iPad 2 and the approaching wave of Android 3.0 devices. So it’s best Apple keep pricing exactly where it is.

7. No flash

By this we mean in the camera, of course. That other Flash will never exist in iOS. Ever. But yes indeed, some people are in uproar at the lack of camera flash. Apple probably should have put one in there to be honest, just like the one on the iPhone 4. But no. No flash. No midnight iPad photography for you my friend…

8. No increased storage

For the media-crazy amongst us this was enough to put them off buying an iPad 2. Many had hoped for a 128GB option, or greater. As users consume more and more of Apple’s iTunes offering, be it music, apps, movies, TV shows, podcasts etc – the need for greater storage grows. We believe Apple decided against 128GB storage as current flash memory pricing could mean they’d have to break their nice pattern of £100 increments between storage options, just to fit a 128GB option into the lineup.

Conclusion…

Some, including us, have referred to the iPad 2 as an “iPad 1.5″. As it’s not the major overhaul many were expecting. Being realistic, we got everything we expected. Enhancements like a Retina Display, larger storage, NFC and iOS 5 just aren’t ready yet. But we’ll let you put them back on your wish list for iPad 3. Which, we’d like to clear-up, is highly unlikely to launch this September like some would like to believe.

We love the iPad 2. Despite only minor improvements it’s still enough to keep the worlds greatest tablet at the top of the mountain it re-created itself for the foreseeable future.

New, cheaper iPhone’s in 2011?

During a meeting with Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi, Apple COO Tim Cook referred to the iPhone as “the mother of all halos” because of its ability to expand sales of other core products like the iPad and the Mac. Cook went on to strongly suggest that Apple would be releasing a cheaper iPhone in the not-so-distant future:

The analyst says Cook “appeared to reaffirm the notion that Apple is likely to develop lower priced offerings” to expand the market for the iPhone. Cook said the company is planning “clever things” to address the prepaid market, and that Apple did not want its products to be “just for the rich,” and that the company is “not ceding any market.”

Could Cook be referring to the rumored release of a cheaper, smaller iPhone Nano? Maybe, maybe not. Last time Cook said Apple had ideas about netbooks we got iPad and the 11-inch MacBook Air.

In addition, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer suggested that rumors of a soft-SIM or “Universal SIM” iPhone may be in the works to help Apple prevent carriers from dictating terms, which would ultimately be beneficial for the consumer.

One last significant tidbit was that Tim Cook indicated the tablet market will eventually out-grow the entire consumer PC market, with all major PC manufactures jumping into the game. However Apple believes that, despite growing competition, they will remain a leader in the space because of their innovations and year-long head start.

What do you think, is Apple interested in expanding their iOS product line, or could they have other ideas to own the smartphone and tablet markets? Let us know by adding your comments below

[via TiPb]

CONFIRMED: New MacBook Pro’s Secretly 12GB & 16GB RAM capable

Hot off the heels of the new MacBook Pro introduction, an interesting tidbit has emerged. Via our sources we have obtained a fully revised Apple trade price list, listing amongst other things a new memory part, simply titled “MC850G/A APPLE 8GB 1333MHz DDR3 ECC RDIMM SDRAM 1x8GB”.

Anyone know who would need a single 8GB module in their MacBook Pro instead of the cheaper two 4GB modules option? Considering this is on a notebook Apple claim supports 8GB maximum.

Do some of the new notebooks secretly (unofficially) support 16GB of RAM?

As we have seen on the 21.5″ iMac, Apple’s ‘maximum memory’ isn’t always true. The 21.5″ iMac works with 16GB memory, despite Apple only officially supporting 8GB maximum.

UPDATED 10/03/11: Apple have now began listing this part on some of their international online stores, albeit with little more information than we’ve already discovered. However the listings are accompanied with a photograph of a desktop RAM module, not the typical SO-DIMM RAM modules you find in a MacBook Pro. Despite early suspicions, it looks as though this part may well be headed for the Mac Pro workstation.

HOWEVER, after consulting with US Mac outlet OWC, they have now debuted their own 8GB RAM module and confirms 12GB & 16GB capability in the 2011 MacBook Pro! (Credit to commenters font9a and Shesh for the find!). Just make sure you’re sat down when you see the prices, this amount of memory was never expected to come cheap!

Entire MacBook Pro line updated. Now packing more muscle than ever.

As rumoured, Apple has released new MacBook Pro’s today morning in 13 inch, 15 inch and 17 inch form factors featuring quad-core Intel Core i7 processors at the high end and a couple of features that might just be of interest – FaceTime HD and Thunderbolt I/O (based on Intel ‘Light Peak’ technology). The stand-out spec of the bunch to us is the high-end 13″ model, featuring a fast 2.7GHz Dual-Core i7 processor.

“The new MacBook Pro brings next generation dual and quad Core processors, high performance graphics, Thunderbolt technology and FaceTime HD to the great design loved by our pro customers,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Thunderbolt is a revolutionary new I/O technology that delivers an amazing 10 gigabits per second and can support every important I/O standard which is ideal for the new MacBook Pro.”

More on the new tech:

Get more of your friends in the picture with crisp, widescreen HD video. The new FaceTime HD camera gives you three times the resolution of the previous camera — perfect for the brilliant LED-backlit display — along with improved low-light performance. You and your friends can make 720p HD calls from one new MacBook Pro to another. You can also make video calls to other Intel-based Mac computers, iPhone 4, or the new iPod touch.

Like TiPb said on their podcast last night, they’re not sure they need to see people — or be seen by people — in HD unless Apple provides some flattering Hollywood filters but at least having the option for FaceTime HD on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch would be nice, wouldn’t it?

The Thunderbolt port will give you plug-and-play performance with a whole new world of Thunderbolt peripherals, as well as with the Apple LED Cinema Display and other Mini DisplayPort peripherals. You can daisy-chain as many as six devices, including your display. And with support for video and eight-channel audio, it’s easy to connect HDMI-compatible devices — like your TV and home stereo — using the HDMI adapter you already have. Current VGA, DVI, and DisplayPort adapters are also supported.

Thunderbolt is 12 times faster than FireWire 800, 20 times faster than USB 2.0, and twice as fast as USB3.0! – could our iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad get the same love starting next week?

Anyone getting a new MacBook Pro? Anyone really want these new features on their iOS devices too?

[via TiPb]

New 13-inch MacBook Pro to have Core i5 & Light Peak

New information surrounding the anticipated MacBook Pro update surfaced today, shedding light on the specifications and new features for at least one model in the series.

As reported by Fscklog and Macs4Ever and then confirmed by MacRumors, photographs of marketing materials and the box of the base-level 13-inch MacBook Pro are now hitting the web. From what we can glean from the spec sheets, this is a significant update, complete with a few genuine surprises.

As rumored, the new machines will feature Intel’s new Sandy Bridge architecture. The box photo that MacRumors obtained confirms this with the listing of the “Intel HD Graphics 3000 processor” on the spec panel. This is one of the new integrated graphics solutions that Intel is using in its Sandy Bridge series of chips. Note how Apple have gone from the Core 2 Duo, leapfrogged the Core i3, and opted for the Core i5. Win.

Spec highlights include:

2.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 2410M processor (Sandy Bridge)
4GB of 1333Mhz DDR3 SDRAM (faster than the old MacBook Pro, which was 1066MHz)
320GB hard drive (no SSD on this model at least)
Intel HD Graphics 3000 with 384MB of shared memory
1280×800 resolution (unchanged)
FaceTime HD camera (the term ‘iSight’ seems to have been ditched. And is now HD-capable)
8x SuperDrive (unchanged)
SDXC slot (the slot now supports the SDXC format)
FireWire 800 port
2 USB 2.0 ports
Thunderbolt/Mini DisplayPort (this is Light Peak)
Larger Multi-Touch Trackpad

The big surprise for us all is the inclusion of what Apple is calling Thunderbolt. This appears to be the Light Peak implementation that was rumored earlier this week. Light Peak is Intel’s next generation connector technology that offers super-fast data transfer speeds, while also working with a multitude of different devices.

It looks like Apple is integrating Thunderbolt into its standard Mini DisplayPort, meaning the same port can power displays and act as a high-speed I/O connection.

These specs are just for the base-model 13-inch MacBook Pro, so the specs for the larger models could be different, and naturally, better.

If everything goes according to plan, these machines should be available on Thursday, February 24 — which incidentally, is Steve Jobs’s birthday.

What do you think of the new MacBook Pro? Will you be opening up your wallet? Let us know in the comments!

iPad 2 will be unveiled on March 2nd

Apple has began sending out press invites for March 2nd media event to be held in Cupertino. The event, will be the official introduction of the highly-anticipated iPad 2. The invitation simply taunts its recipients to “come see what 2011 will be the year of.” Analysts are calling for a new, buttonless iPad with front and rear facing cameras along with a larger screen. Whilst MacMag are calling for a faster, lighter iPad with the same size screen but higher-resolution. Plus the cameras of course, but they’re such an obvious feature it’s become pointless even mentioning it. Who wins? I guess we’ll soon find out.

Intel’s Light Peak tech heading for MacBook’s?

Apple is on the verge of introducing a new high-speed connection to some of its Mac computing lines, according to report that speculates the announcement could accompany revised MacBook Pros expected as early as next week.

Citing a source with knowledge of the matter, CNet guesses that the technology may actually be Intel’s much-anticipated Light Peak connector rebranded under a different marketing name chosen by Apple.

The publication, however, hedges its bets on a timeframe for the rollout, saying it could come as early as this week alongside updates to Apple’s MacBook Pro line or sometime further down the road.

If the technology is scheduled to make its debut alongside Apple’s new notebooks, the rumor would coincide with claims made by AppleInsider’s sources that new MacBook Pros expected in the coming days will sport significant feature enhancements outside of the expected move to Intel’s Sandy Bridge architecture. It could also explain an earlier report that claimed the new notebooks would sport minor modifications to their chassis design.

Light Peak is a high-speed optical cable technology developed by Intel that has been widely expected to make its debut on personal computers and peripherals sometime during the first half of 2011. It supports bandwidth of 10Gbps, with the possibility of scaling up to 100Gbps in the future. A full-length Blu-Ray movie could transfer over Light Peak in less than 30 seconds, Intel states on its website.

At least one report dating back over a year claimed that Apple was actually the driving force behind Light Peak, using its influence to push Intel to develop the concept because it wanted the new standard to play “a hugely important role” in future products, replacing a variety of existing ports, including USB, FireWire, and DisplayPort.

Unlike bulky copper cables (like HDMI), Light Peak achieves its speeds over fibre optic strands the size of a human hair. And unlike existing ports focused on solving a specific problem, such as USB for simple peripherals, DisplayPort for video, SATA for disk drives, and Ethernet for networking, Light Peak can handle multiple protocols over a single cable.

Using optical rather than electrical signaling to achieve an initial throughput of 10Gbps, the technology is similar to high-end optical Fibre Channel or HDMI, and ten times faster than Gigibit Ethernet, more than twenty times faster than USB 2.0, and three times faster than eSATA/SATA 300. Within a decade, Intel expects to achieve speeds of 100 Gbps through a successive revision to the technology.

Replacing nearly all of the external ports on existing notebooks or mobile devices with Light Peak would enable a new generation of industrial designs without sacrificing features, as the MacBook Air had to do to achieve its thin outline. It would also enable users to run a single cable to an external display to provide video, audio, touch input, and peripheral expansion that included blazing network performance and high speed disk access.

Rumors have also suggested that within a year of launching Light Peak for Macs, Apple anticipates rolling out a low power version suitable for use in mobile devices such as the iPhone, iPod touch, and the iPad.

As recently as last week, AppleInsider discovered a new patent request from Apple that provided evidence the Mac maker was exploring the addition of an optical signal path for future MagSafe connectors on Macs, allowing the magnetic port to send and receive data, as well as power the device. It joined a similar patent awarded to the company last fall.

Apple planning “small event” for March to introduce new iPad

Apple may be planning a smaller than usual event to introduce its second-generation iPad as early as next month, according to a scant report, as rumors that the new device will include NFC technology persist.

In a two-line report published early Saturday by macotakara.jp — a blog that sometimes generates accurate leads regarding Apple’s future product plans — it’s claimed that the Cupertino-based company “seems to open a small event to introduce next generation of iPad.”

Such an event appears to be on track for March, the report added. Still, it cautioned that the device may only see an announcement during that time frame in the United States, with shipments and international availability possibly following at a later date.

Meanwhile, a related report filed Friday by iLounge appears to reinforce earlier rumors that the new iPad — and likely the fifth-generation iPhone — will include near-field communication technology, giving users the ability to have their device serve as an electronic wallet for quick wireless transactions.

More specifically, the report claims that Apple is actively developing new accessories that will communicate with the NFC radio chips inside the future iOS devices. For example, “an accessory could announce its presence and potential functions to an iPad or iPhone without the need for a Bluetooth or similar connection,” the report adds. The source of the tip further suggests “that an otherwise simple case could include a radio chip so that an inserted iPhone or iPad could go into power-saving hibernation mode automatically.”

Accompanying that same report were a scattering of other rumors surrounding the iPad that the author was far less confident of, including the possibility that Apple will switch to carbon fiber enclosures to cut back on the weight of the device, and possibly introduce a smaller 7-inch model sometime in the future.

Of all the rumors, the inclusion of NFC capabilities in the second-gen iPad appears most likely, especially given AppleInsider’s discovery last month that Apple was seeking hardware engineers familiar with radio-frequency identification (RFID) and an external report that claimed the electronics maker is actively testing NFC-enabled iPhone prototypes using hardware from NXP Semiconductor.

(via AppleInsider)

iPhone 5 to feature new Apple A8 CPU

Apple’s forthcoming fifth-generation iPhone will sport a new, faster custom processor dubbed the A8, as well as a baseband processor from Qualcomm, according to a new report.

Hong Kong-based newspaper Apple Daily reported Friday (via Google Translate) that parts for the new “iPhone 5,” expected to arrive this year, will come from Taiwanese supplier Kinsus. The company is said to be working on a new custom processor, dubbed A8.

Apple’s first custom portable processor based on the ARM architecture debuted in the iPad last year. Known as the A4, it includes the CPU, GPU and RAM.

Perhaps the new CPU could even appear as early as the impending iPad 2 launch?

The A4 also appeared in the iPhone 4, iPod touch, and new Apple TV. The creation of custom chips became possible through Apple’s acquisitions of chipmakers Intrinsity and PA Semi.

Friday’s report also notes that the iPhone 5 will include a baseband from Qualcomm, the company that built the first CDMA-based cellular base station in the early 1990s. Qualcomm’s radios may also already be present in the new CDMA iPhone 4, set to debut on Verizon’s network on Feb. 10.

The launch of the Verizon iPhone has led to some speculation that Apple may not make the so-called “iPhone 5″ available in a CDMA variant until as late as January 2012. But Friday’s report could suggest that Apple intends to introduce a new CDMA fifth-generation iPhone, along with a new version of the longstanding GSM model, right on schedule this summer.