Apple : Week in Tech: From Trolls to Transformers

Week in Tech: From Trolls to Transformers
Apple Makes Retina MacBooks More Customizable
Apple patent puts a second screen on iPad Smart Cover
Samsung and ASUS tablet sales gaining on iPad

Week in Tech: From Trolls to Transformers

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Twitter's been making the news for ages - it sometimes seems as if newspapers fill half their pages with stories about celeb X calling celeb Y a great big Z on the service - but this week Twitter itself was the story, and not for good reasons.

First of all it shut down a journalist's account after he slagged off Twitter's Official Olympics Partner NBC, and then the service was used by an idiot to abuse an Olympian.

The NBC story was a classic case of overreacting: Twitter pulled Guy Adams' account for posting a personal email address, something its rules prohibit, but the email address he posted wasn't a personal one: Adams' real offence was upsetting Twitter's pal. Adams' account has since been reinstated, but the story is a reminder that Twitter is a private media company, not a public service.

While Twitter was quick to kill Guy Adams' account, it isn't so quick to shut down abusive ones - as we discovered this week when a teenager tried to upset an Olympian. The user, rileyy_69, sent abuse to diver Tom Daley; Daley retweeted the abuse and things escalated. As our columnist Gary Marshall put it, "that RT unleashed the mob and ended with an arrest".

Marshall wasn't defending the abusive Tweeter, but "when someone's Twitter account rockets from a few hundred followers to more than 50,000 in a couple of hours", as rileyy_69's did, "and their behaviour gets worse, it's clear that they're being goaded... Rileyy_69 should have been blocked, not bullied." We're not in favour of people abusing anybody, but we're a bit scared of angry mobs too. "There's something of 1984's Two Minutes Hate to it," Marshall says.

Apple vs Samsung: bored yet?

Never mind two minutes of hate: thanks to Apple and Samsung, we've got four weeks of it to look forward to.

Court cases can be dull things, but the Samsung versus Apple battle turns out to be a gift that just keeps on giving: with Apple apparently determined to do whatever it takes to triumph, we've been treated to an unprecedented look at iPhone and iPad prototypes.

We've also seen the first of what will no doubt be many dirty tricks, with Samsung sending evidence to the gentlemen and women of the press after Judge Lucy Koh wouldn't allow it in court. Samsung says that its evidence, a Sony-style iPhone prototype mocked up by Apple, "established beyond doubt that Samsung did not copy the iPhone design". Apple, you'll be amazed to discover, begs to differ and wants Samsung punished for the leak.

While Samsung's taking Apple on in the courts, others are doing it in the shops - and after unexpected demand left Google without any 16GB Nexus 7s to sell, the good news is that the best version of Google's wee tablet is back in stock. The bad news is that the Google Q media streamer is now on ice so it can "do even more than it does today". We're all in favour of that: as our in-depth review discovered, the smoothly curved Google Q has a lot of rough edges.

The Nexus is a great little tablet, but Apple may be working on one of its own - and this week, the iPad mini rumours began to seem much more solid. Initial suggestions of a September release alongside the iPhone 5 have been superseded by predictions of a November event, just in time for Christmas.

Are you more interested in Asus tablets than Apple ones? Then we've got a treat for you: a side-by-side comparison of the Transformer Prime and Transformer Infinity:

YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLDHOPqQwls

While the devices are largely identical, they do have different screens: the Prime makes do with 1280x800, while the Infinity has a pixel-packed 1920x1200. Can you really tell the difference?

Apple Makes Retina MacBooks More Customizable

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Good news for Apple fans looking to pick up a Retina MacBook Pro: Apple's unveiled a bunch of new customizability within its online ordering system.

In doing so, interested purchasers are no longer forced to switch from the baseline Retina MacBook model to Apple's pricier model just to gain the benefits of a particular upgrade.

In other words, buyers can now pick and choose what kind of upgrades they want to tack onto the baseline model of Apple's Retina MacBook Pro.

The move gives savvy selection-pickers the chance to save a little bit of money, depending on which preferences they pick.

The Pro's problem with personalization

Here's the issue: When Apple first launched its Retina MacBooks to the public, the company limited the ways in which a person could customize the load-out of the baseline Retina MacBook model (starting at $2,199).

In fact, the only real way that one could tweak one's baseline Retina MacBook order was to upgrade the laptop's memory from 8 gigabytes to 16. That's it.

Those looking to dip into more storage for the Retina MacBook or a speedier CPU were forced to jump up to the more expensive $2,799 version of the laptop – a less-than-ideal solution for those just looking to boost either their processor speed or storage, but not necessarily both.

Apple has now given purchasers the option to customize everything on the baseline version of the Retina MacBook Pro.

That includes bumping up the laptop's 2.3-GHz CPU to a 2.6-GHz or 2.7-GHz CPU (for an additional $100 or $350, respectively).

Cranking up the Retina MacBook's 256 gigabytes of flash storage will cost a purchaser $500 for a bump to 512 gigabytes or $1,000 for a jump to 768 gigabytes.

But that's not all.

Apple's also allowing users to customize the individual software elements within its iWork suite of apps that users would like preinstalled onto their devices.

Not only can you customize your new MacBook purchase to a greater degree, but you'll also be able to receive it even faster.

As reported by Cnet's Lance Whitney, Apple has shortened the ship time for new Retina MacBook purchases from approximately 1-2 weeks to 5-7 business days,

Apple patent puts a second screen on iPad Smart Cover

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Apple filed designs with the US Patent Office for a tablet Smart Cover with an AMOLED screen embedded in its flexible surface.

The "cover attachment with flexible display" filing describes a device nearly identical to the iPad's existing Smart Covers, which provide protection and wake the tablet up when opened.

But the newly patented design places a flexible touch screen capable of displaying notifications, media controls, or even a virtual keyboard on the Smart Cover's surface.

The secondary display could draw power and data from the iPad through a connector held in place by the magnets already present in existing Smart Covers, or possibly even from solar panels or other means.

Microsoft's not going to be happy

These next-gen Smart Cover designs appear to draw heavily from the Microsoft Surface tablet's Type Cover and Touch cover, though in reality Apple filed for the patent almost a year ago, and it's only just been made public.

Plus, the added flexibility (excuse the pun) that comes from putting a versatile display on the Smart Cover rather than just a keyboard will doubtless help the Apple device stand out if it ever comes to fruition.

Apple's patent filing leaves a lot of wiggle room in terms of features and form, but any version of this technology will make the next iPad all the more attractive to tablet buyers.

Another option discussed in the patent would put energy-efficient electronic paper displays on the Smart Cover's outer surface, allowing users to display notifications, calendar events and other information without even opening the device.

As the patent claims, "adding the integrated display to the flexible cover greatly enhances the overall functionality of the tablet device."

Is the iPad 4 incoming?

The new Smart Cover designs present plenty of possibilities and raise even more questions, such as just when the next iPad is going to be revealed.

Naturally, iPad 4 rumors have been circulating for months, but this latest patent could indicate that Apple's finally gearing up to reveal their newest tablet.

Then again, it could just be another of the endless ideas no doubt swirling around in Apple's collective noggin, most of which never see the light of day.

Samsung and ASUS tablet sales gaining on iPad

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The latest fiscal analysis from IDC reveals Apple had remarkable improvement in the number of iPads shipped from the same point last year, but Samsung and ASUS showed even stronger growth in the same time period.

Apple's iPad shipments grew to 17 million during the second quarter, an impressive jump from the 9.2 million shipped during the same period in 2011.

Those 17 million iPads surpass Apple's previous record of 15 million sold in one quarter, with those sales coming at the end of 2011.

However, not to be outdone, Samsung and ASUS both had much more growth year-to-year than their larger competitor.

Samsung may have only shipped some 2.4 million tablets, but that number was more than a 117 percent increase from the same fiscal period in 2011.

The same could be said for ASUS, which moved a little more than 855,000 units, yet managed to increase the amount of tablets they shipped during the new fiscal period by more than 115 percent.

Growth across the board

Overall, the total number of tablets shipped during the second quarter is estimated at 25 million, amounting to nearly 34 percent more than all companies moved combined during the first quarter of this year.

Year-to-year, those same 25 million total units show growth of more than 66 percent over 2011, when 15 million tablets were sold in the second quarter.

Four of the top five tablet makers saw incredible growth over 2011's numbers, with Acer being the only company to see a decrease in units shipped.

Though the iPad still holds a seemingly impregnable 68.2 percent market share for tablets, the massive improvements of both Samsung and ASUS are hard to ignore.

Add in the upcoming addition of Windows 8 tablets to the market and it'll be interesting to see if Apple can continue to outpace its competition so dramatically.

Yahuui Blog

Friday, August 3, 2012