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Friday 29 August 2014

Apple’s iWatch is finally coming in September: Are you ready for the wearable revolution?

Over the last couple of months, Apple’s (AAPL) stock price has been buoyed by Wall Street’s belief that, at long last, a new segment-defining device was on its way. Last week Apple’s stock price finally rose back above its September 2012 peak. It would seem that, after a couple of years of uncertainty — the echo of Steve Jobs’ death, essentially — the stock market finally thinks that After years of rumors, leaks, and false starts, it seems the stars will finally swing into alignment this fall: Apple is will unveil an iWatch smartwatch alongside a new large-screen iPhone 6 at an event on September 9, according to the latest reports. Presumably the iWatch will also be released to the public alongside the iPhone 6 a week or two later. Previous rumors had pointed to an

×October unveil for the iWatch, but it seems×Apple has moved it forward — possibly in response to the Samsung Gear S, LG G Watch R, and the Moto 360, all of which will be released over the next month or two. Just as the iPhone and iPad popularized the smartphone and tablet, will the arrival of the iWatch signal the beginning of the wearable computing revolution?

×Apple is ready to do more than just squeeze its iPhone cash cow for billions of dollars in profits every quarter.

Apple’s rising stock value, since May [Source: Yahoo]

Enter the iWatch, which has been rumored (or perhaps wishfully speculated is a better term) since 2010. The funny thing is, despite Recode’s confirmation that the iWatch is coming in September (and Recode is pretty good with Apple leaks), we know virtually nothing about what Apple’s smartwatch will actually do or look like. We don’t even know if it’ll be an iWatch — something akin to an iPod Nano with a wrist strap — or if it’ll be more of a health-and-fitness iBand. It’s pretty safe to assume that the iWatch/iBand will tie into iOS 8 features such as Health and HealthKit.

Ultimately, the big question is whether the iWatch will be a full-fat device that runs iOS 8 — or a companion device that perhaps runs a cut-down OS for improved battery life, and requires a nearby iPhone/iPad for connectivity and other heavy lifting. In either case, even in the wake of the 3G Samsung Gear S, I don’t think we’ll see a truly standalone iWatch with 3G/4G connectivity. If Apple does release an iWatch in September, I’m pretty certain that extended battery life will be one of the key differentiators that ×Apple offers over the×Android competition — and it just isn’t possible to offer 3G/4G and long battery life in a smartwatch form factor (yet).

Will the iWatch be a smartwatch, or more of an iBand fitness band?

Will the iWatch kickstart the wearable computing revolution? After Google Glass and Samsung’s early smartwatches have established a beachhead, will ×Apple swoop in and ~~mop up the glory~~ show everyone else how it’s done? I think it’s unlikely — I just don’t think battery, processor, and radio technologies are there yet – but I’m happy to be proved wrong. I think it’s much more likely that ×Apple is reacting to the competition, rather than tapping the same well of innovation that resulted in the iPhone and iPad. (The large-screen iPhones are reactionary rather than revolutionary, too.)

One of the crazier pieces of fan-made iWatch concept art

In my eyes, it is surprising that we know so little about the iWatch this close to its (apparent) release date. Bear in mind that the iWatch will reportedly appear alongside the iPhone 6 on September 9 — and while we know almost everything about the iPhone 6, we know nothing about the iWatch. If Apple really is gearing up to release the iWatch, there will be production lines in ×Chinaproducing millions of units right now. It’spossible that ×Apple and its manufacturing partners have somehow kept the iWatch production line completely locked down, but it seems unlikely.

In any case, I guess we’ll find out on September 9. The iWatch is expected to be unveiled alongside the iPhone 6, which will come in 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch flavors. Pricing is anybody’s guess right now, depending on whether it’s a full-fat iWatch or cut-down iBand — but somewhere between $200 and $400 sounds about right. Official invites to Apple’s September 9 event should be sent out in the next few days.

Friday 27 June 2014

Android L vs. iOS 8: Can Apple take on Android’s biggest update ever?

We all thought Android 4.4 KitKat was a major change when it came out late last year, but the still unnamed L release of Android puts that to shame. Despite not telling us the codename (Lollipop?) or the version number (5.0?), Google demoed an updated UI called Material Design and a plethora of new features. You won’t be able to get your hands on the final version of L until this fall, but Apple is going to have its work cut out for it competing with the new Android, even after its lauded iOS 8 announcement. Here’s how Android is evolving and what that means for the iOS vs. Android matchup coming later this year.

Material Design

Material Design is the name of Google’s new interface guidelines — much like Microsoft and Metro — and it’s a radical departure from Android of the past. It adopts the color palette from Google Now with blues, muted greens, and red, but white is still the dominant color. It provides a more lively tapestry on which to paint the updated Android interface.

Android is still adhering to flat design, which is the trend, but it’s layered flatness. Google describes this as a take on stacks of paper, but a digital paper that can shift and morph into different shapes. The new SDK will allow developers to describe the way UI elements are layered (an elevation value), which can be used to render parts of an app as if they are floating just above another. Android L renders subtle shadows on the edges that give a feeling of depth without cluttering the screen. Every little change in the new Android UI also comes with some sort of animation, even if it’s fast. Ideally, there won’t be any more hard transitions.

How does this compare to Apple? Cupertino has taken a lot of heat for its iOS 7 redesign, but it’s slowly winning people over. iOS 8 continues the trend of flat design with the transparent glass effect. Design is a pretty subjective thing, but you have to admit Google is doing some very interesting things with Material Design.

Performance

Apple made a big fuss about the new Metal graphics API included in iOS 8, which will allow developers to design games that run considerably faster. The Swift programming language was also rolled out for iOS devs to create more streamlined apps. It all adds up to faster apps. Android response? A new runtime and the Android Extension Pack (AEP).

Google developed the AEP in partnership with Nvidia. It was demoed on the Nvidia Tegra K1 at I/O, but it should run on all ARM chips. AEP is a collection of extensions for OpenGL ES that adds features like tessellation and compute shaders that close the gap betweenmobile graphics and DirectX 11 on PCs. Google didn’t list any performance numbers, but Mountain View has another trick up its sleeve in this department.

Android L is the end of the line for Dalvik, the virtual machine in Android that compiles Java from apps into native code. Dalvik is what’s called a “just in time” compiler — you run an app, and it compiles the code as you go. The replacement for Dalvik was included in KitKat as a beta feature — the Android Runtime or ART. A device using ART compiles Java into native code upon installation and caches it, which makes all apps and games faster, piping the bits right to the hardware. Apple’s famous responsiveness advantage might be going away.

Power saving

In all these years, Google has neglected to create a basic battery saving mode for Android. A number of OEMs have done it on their own, like Samsung with its Ultra Power Saver Mode on the Galaxy S5. However, Android L is going to have Project Volta. This is a major change to the way Android manages battery life.

Project Volta will include an easy-to-use setting that users can flip on to down-clock the CPU, disable background data, and tweak other settings to save power. Google claims this feature can add another 90 minutes of life to a Nexus 5, which lasts about a day as it currently stands. That’s not a huge difference, and Apple has always been able to tout its superior battery life thanks to a more restricted app model.

Android L will at least make it easier to avoid power draining apps and services with an enhanced Battery Historian feature. It’s no secret the battery management screen in current builds of Android is junk. The new one lists detailed information about device wakeup alarms and wakelocks. This is long overdue, but iOS will probably still win in overall battery life.

Thursday 15 May 2014

New Apple iPhone 6 dummy sighting in Vietnam

Apple's security has really degraded – iPhone 6 dummy has surfaced in Vietnam, after multiple sightings in China. The dummy was reportedly found at Apple8, a local phone store.

By the looks of, this is just an aluminum body as the black lines on the back that should be plastic elements that separate the antenna elements, are painted on.

Alleged iPhone 6 dummy from Vietnam

The dummy was reportedly light, but there's no guarantee that the weight of the internal components is represented accurately. Still, the rounded edges made the iPhone 6 comfortable to hold even after the size increase (due to the new 4.7" screen). Thickness was measured at 6.5mm, but unfortunately the other dimensions were not given.

On the back the flash looks round and with a single-LED, not continuing the dual-LED, dual-tone trend the iPhone 5s started.

Saturday 19 April 2014

iOS 8: What must-have features does Apple need to add?

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is only a month and a half away, and interest in the impending iOS 8 announcement is starting to surge across the internet. iOS has come a long way since its original version in 2007, and it’s quite mature now. It’s no longer missing any major features on the scale of copy and paste and third-party apps, so what can Apple offer in iOS 8 to deliver an exciting new revision?

As rumor has it, Apple is incorporating the functionality of the popular Shazam app directly into iOS 8. Bloomberg reports that Apple is working with the folks at Shazam to integrate the music-recognition engine into iOS devices, and it has two inside sources confirming that information. Considering that the iTunes music store still plays a major role at Cupertino, a partnership with Shazam makes complete sense. Spotify, Rdio, and Pandora are breathing down Apple’s neck, so a return to innovation in the music space would be a smart move right about now. If Shazam’s song detection feeds directly into iTunes Radio, even better.

Beyond that rumor, a number of potential improvements for iOS 8 immediately come to mind. First and foremost, we need real competitors in the browser space. If Apple would lift the ban on third-party rendering engines, we would most certainly see some stiff competition from Mozilla, Google, and Opera on the App Store. Apple’s WebKit is perfectly fine, but iOS users would undoubtedly benefit from the competition. Android already has access to a number of high-quality rendering engines, and iOS is missing out on all of the action.

While we’re on the subject, Apple needs to allow users to choose their default web browser as well. When I tap on a link in an email, it always loads in Safari. If I want to open the link in Chrome or Atomic instead, I have to long-press, copy, switch to a browser, and paste in the URL. It works, but it’s much more complicated than it should be. Apple already allows users to configure default applications in OS X, so there’s seemingly no legitimate reason why iOS shouldn’t have the same functionality.

iOS has had the ability to select text, copy, and paste since version 3.0 was released, but it’s still not exactly up to snuff. Selecting the exact string of text you want from a website or PDF can be incredibly frustrating, and we all know Apple can do better. If nothing else, the addition of on-screen arrow keys would be a huge step forward in usability.

Come to think of it, many different aspects of the OS could use some polish. An offline mode for Siri would be appreciated, app switching could be much easier, and the home screen hasn’t really seen a major update in years. Whatever whiz-bang additions Apple has up its sleeves, let’s just hope that it deems fit to improve the existing features as well in iOS 8.

Sunday 13 April 2014

How and Where iPhone Is Made: A Surprising Report on How Much of Apple’s Top Product is US-manufactured

Are the last chapters of the iPhone saga unfolding? Not by any stretch of imagination, if you ask the Apple faithful. Definitely starting, if you ask the Android challengers.

The world and word war between Android and Apple just keeps escalating to ever greater heights, and has been the most engrossing story in business for quite a number of quarters now. Let’s not even talk courtroom battles and intellectual property clashes here. Very few technologies are completely new. Most owe a debt of gratitude to forebears who laid the foundation for all the awesomeness we carry around in our bags and pockets. Let’s just talk about sales.

Clearly, Apple has never been as popular as it was in the 2nd quarter of 2013. In the Q3 earnings call, Apple reported that 31.2 million iPhones were sold in that quarter. In fact, 34 million units of iPhone 5 were sold in the first 100 days. This was a quarterly record for Apple. Contrast this with 26 million iPhones sold last year. The company’s flagship product still has firm believers worldwide. That’s not the whole story, however, because incredible as it may seem iPhone 5 sales figures in the last three quarters were lower than what Wall Street expected causing massive fluctuations in the value of Apple’s shares in the stock market.

From the left flank, it looks like the Android charge led by Samsung is gaining ground. In 2012, Apple lost its firm grip on the smartphone marketand Android manufacturers were emboldened to match Apple’s products spec for spec and price point for price point. Apple still leads, but not by miles. By the end of July 2013, Android phones have 65% of all smartphone sales in the nine influential smartphone markets in the world (UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, USA, Australia, China, Mexico), although as a single model, iPhone still has the biggest slice of the pie – 26.3%.

In the aftermath of Apple’s double whammy release of the premium iPhone 5s and the more price-friendly iPhone 5c, the excitement over has skyrocketed to even greater heights. What fortune awaits the radical plastic-enclosed iPhone 5c? Is Apple running scared or is it just plain smart? Two can play the game, after all. If Android manufacturers are leveling up to Apple’s premium space, why can’t Apple level down to Android’s budget territory? It turns out that the iPhone 5c is not so cheaply priced, after all. It’s still a premium device targeted solidly at the mini versions of the flagship devices of Android rivals Samsung, HTC and Sony.

Fact is, Apple gets even more aggressive than usual. Weeks before the new iPhones were officially released, it implemented a trade-in program that will take hundreds of dollars off the price of the new handset if the customer turns in an older model in perfect working condition.

With sales of 9 million smartphones (combined for the 5s and 5c) reported on just the opening weekend, it looks like Apple has another winner in its hands and safely through with flying colors for the next four quarters, at the very least.

In this infographic we trace the iPhone supply and manufacturing chain. We’re providing snippets of information on just who is making the parts that go into the two new iPhones, and where, exactly, these parts are made. Did you know, that the much-touted fingerprint sensor was imagined in Florida, but manufactured in Asia by Taiwanese giant TMSC? How about the M7 motion co-processor? Did you know that it’s the brainchild of NXP, a company in the Netherlands, which has fabrication facilities in Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines?

Still, reports are coming in that US companies involved in the Apple supply chain are beefing up their US production facilities and many of the components that go into the iPhone are actually made Stateside and shipped to China for assembly.

What does the rest of the world contribute to the making of the iPhone? Let’s find out!

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Saturday 12 April 2014

Pay with Your Fingerprint

Samsung’s Galaxy S5 is the first smartphone that can use a fingerprint to authorize payments in stores and online.

Anyone with an iPhone 5 can use its fingerprint reader to unlock the device and pay for apps or music in Apple’s iTunes store. Owners of Samsung’s latest flagship device, the Galaxy S5 smartphone, which launches on April 11, will be able to make much broader use of their fingerprints to pay for things. If they visit a website or app that accepts PayPal using the device, they can authorize payments by swiping a finger across the phone’s home button. And PayPal’s own mobile app can be used to pay for goods in some physical stores in the U.S.

Fingerprint payments are likely to be offered on many more smartphones in the near future. The Galaxy S5’s payments system is the first commercial deployment of a new protocol developed by the FIDO Alliance, a group founded by tech companies to end our reliance on insecure passwords (see “PayPal, Lenovo Launch Campaign to Kill the Password”). Indeed, fingerprint readers are expected to become commonplace on mobile devices over the next year or so (see “A Technological Assault on the Password”).

“Today people are having to type in nine-digit passwords everywhere, including one-handed on the subway,” says Joel Yarbrough, senior director of global product solutions at PayPal. This leads many people to use simple passwords and to reuse them across multiple services. This, in turn, makes it easier for criminals to take control of accounts. “Building a smart biometric experience solves both usability and dramatically increases the security level,” says Yarbrough.

To start using your finger for payments on the new Samsung phone, you have to go through a short setup process that registers the identity of the device, based on its cryptographic chip, and links your fingerprint to a PayPal account. Afterward, PayPal’s software asks for a fingerprint swipe anytime an app or site would usually show a log-in screen.

mobile phone showing UI
Fingertip swipe: The fingerprint sensor in Samsung’s upcoming flagship smartphone can be used to make PayPal payments online, in mobile apps, and in physical stores.

The FIDO protocol is designed so that a record of your fingerprint never leaves your device. Instead, the fingerprint reader’s output is used to generate cryptographic keys that are combined with those from the device’s cryptographic chip to create a new key that can’t be used to copy the fingerprint used to make it.

The Galaxy S5 is so far the only device to support PayPal’s new FIDO-based fingerprint system, and PayPal is cagey about how soon others might appear. But Yarbrough acknowledges that Samsung isn’t the only gadget maker looking at fingerprint readers. “It’s our impression that a lot of manufacturers are investing time in this technology,” he says. Brett McDowell, senior security advisor at PayPal and vice president of the FIDO alliance, says widespread adoption is “core to the mission of the alliance.”

The FIDO Alliance was launched in early 2013, and now has over 100 members, including Microsoft, Google, device manufacturers such as Lenovo and LG, and representatives of the payments industry such as PayPal and Mastercard. Apple, which has its own fingerprint authentication technology, is not a member of the FIDO Alliance.

Sebastien Taveau, formerly chief technology officer of Validity, a fingerprint sensor company acquired in October by Synaptics, says fingerprint sensors will soon be widespread. Apple and Samsung—the two largest mobile device makers—have now made fingerprint authentication major features of their flagship devices, he points out, and competitors will likely follow their lead. “It is expected that other devices, like tablets, will be incorporating a sensor.”

Most of the core technology needed for biometric authentication has been around for years. Taveau says that cultural change means we are now ready to embrace the idea. “With the transformation of user interactions with content from local to cloud-based and the collapse of trust in existing authentication mechanisms, a real change is happening,” he says, pointing to the public awareness of security flaws heightened by the NSA leaks and the Target debit card breach. “Trust in security and credentials need to be reëstablished.”

Via: MIT Technology Revi

Tuesday 8 April 2014

Apple's new products: Specifications at a glance

Apple Inc. unveiled a pair of new iPads and new MacBook Pro computers, among other products, at an event in San Francisco on Tuesday. Here are some product specifications:

iPad Air
Size
9.4 inches tall, 6.6 inches wide and 0.29 inch thick

Weight
1 pound

Display
9.7 inches diagonally

Resolution
2,048 pixels by 1,536 pixels, at 264 pixels per inch

Chip
A7 chip with 64-bit architecture and M7 motion coprocessor

Colours
Black with space gray, white with silver

Price
$499 for a Wi-Fi-only 16 gigabyte model, $599 for 32 GB, $699 for 64 GB and $799 for 128 GB. Add $130 for models with 4G LTE cellular access. Apple will still sell the 2011 model, iPad 2, for $399.

Availability
Nov. 1

Ipad mini
Size
7.87 inches tall, 5.3 inches wide, 0.29 inch thick

Weight
0.73 pound

Display
7.9 inches diagonally

Resolution
2,048 pixels by 1,536 pixels, at 326 pixels per inch

Chip
A7 chip with 64-bit architecture and M7 motion coprocessor

Colours
Black with space gray, white with silver

Price
$399 for a Wi-Fi-only 16 gigabyte model, $499 for 32 GB, $599 for 64 GB and $699 for 128 GB. Add $130 for models with 4G LTE cellular access. Apple will sell last year's model, without the sharper display, for $299, down from $329.

Availability
November

MacBook Pro
13-inch

Size
0.71 inch thick, (when closed), 12.35 inches wide and 8.62 inches deep

Weight3.46 pounds

Display13.3-inches diagonally

Resolution
2,560 pixels by 1,600 pixels, at 227 pixels per inch

Camera
720p FaceTime HD Camera

Battery
Up to 9 hours wireless web, or 30 days standby

Price
Starts at $1,299 for model with 128 gigabytes of solid-state memory, 2.4 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5

Availability
Tuesday

MacBook Pro
15-inch

Size
0.71 inch thick, (when closed), 14.13 inches wide and 9.73 inches deep

Weight
4.46 pounds

Display
15.4 inches diagonally

Resolution

2,880 pixels by 1,800 pixels, at 220 pixels per inch

Camera
720p FaceTime HD Camera

Battery
Up to 8 hours wireless web, or 30 days standby

Price
Starts at $1,999 for model with 256 gigabytes of solid-state memory, 2.0 GHz dual-core Intel Core i7

Availability
Tuesday

Other products:

Mac Pro
A high-end desktop computer in a cylinder casing and assembled in Austin, Texas. Available in December for a starting price of $2,999.

Mavericks
The latest version of the Mac operating system. Unlike previous updates, Apple is releasing it for free. It promises better battery life, improved file management and new apps such as a Mac version of Maps.

iWork
Apple is refreshing its suite of word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software. Apple is offering it for free with new Mac and iOS devices. Once you buy the new device, you can install the app in older devices you own. Each of the three apps normally costs $20 for the Mac and $10 for iPhones and iPads.

iLife
Apple also is refreshing its iPhoto and iMovie editing software and the GarageBand app for creating music. New features are available for both Mac and iOS devices. It's also free with new Mac and iOS devices.

Apple unveils iPad Air, iPad mini with Retina and new MacBooks

Monday 7 April 2014

Apple, April 2013: 'Consumers want what we don't have'

The ongoing Apple-Samsung trial is unearthing some interesting behind-closed-door secrets on both sides. Something we hadn't seen in the preceding legal tussles however, and presented by Recode, was a handful of slides from an Apple internal meeting in April 2013 regarding its plans for 2014. Alongside the slowing growth of iPhone sales, the research noted that overall smartphone growth was from cheap and large (well, larger than the current iPhone) devices -- both of which Apple had nothing to compete with. As the slide put it: "Consumers want what we don't have."

The slide also includes some other reasons for concern, including the carriers' "strong interest in capping iPhone" sales because of its already-high market share, a tough subsidy premium and some (not mentioned) "unfriendly" policies -- consider that lack of carrier-sanctioned bloatware on your iPhone. Apple also admitted that the mobile competition had also "drastically improved their hardware and in some cases their ecosystems," while at the same time, some Android phone-makers were spending "obscene" sums on advertising or carriers to gain traction. Now, which company could Apple possibly mean?

Saturday 5 April 2014

Apple confirms WWDC 2014 will begin on June 2nd

Apple's just announced that its annual developer conference, WWDC, will commence on June 2nd and run through June 6th. In a departure from its traditional application process, the company has already opened ticket sales on its website, but will now select attendees randomly instead of a first-come-first-served basis. That means we're no longer likely to see the super-quick ticket sellouts we've witnessed in previous years, but a lottery will ensure there's a fairer chance for all. We can expect to see all of the latest iOS and OS X developments, and anything else the company might have up its sleeve in a few short months.

Wednesday 2 April 2014

iPhone 6 leak shows off slim chassis

The images, reportedly leaked from Apple's Chinese manufacturer, show what looks to be a new iPhone on a computer screen.

The phone in question sports a metallic grey finish, and has a much more svelte chassic than the current iPhone 5s.

The camera also appears to be protruding slightly, bringing the device more in line with the current iPod touch.

Last week, Nikkei reported that the iPhone 6 would ship with a larger screen, offering two different versions sizing up at 4.7” and 5.5” respectively.

The leaked snaps support these rumours, with the phone on display looking more sizeable than previous iPhone iterations.

Nowhereelse have teamed up with a concept designer to create some renders of what the iPhone 6 will probably look like, based on leaked schematics.

As always, head over to Techoblog’s iPhone 6 rumour page to get the latest on specs, design, release dates, and pricing.