Saturday, July 27, 2013

Apple : Apple MacBook Pro set for Haswell's all-day battery life boost this October?

Apple : Apple MacBook Pro set for Haswell's all-day battery life boost this October?

Apple MacBook Pro set for Haswell's all-day battery life boost this October?

Posted:

Apple MacBook Pro set for Haswell's all-day battery life boost this October?

The expected Haswell refresh of Apple's MacBook Pro notebook range will happen in October this year, according to our old friends Mr & Mrs Supply Chain Source.

The China Times reported on Friday that Apple is gearing up for a launch before the Christmas season, with the paper's insiders claiming there'll be no price bump as a result of the inclusion of Intel's new chips.

Apple has already fitted its MacBook Air devices with the new generation i5 and i7 core processors and the results have been widely lauded.

Thanks to much-improved power efficiency, Haswell chips have granted laptops and notebooks that elusive Holy Grail of near all-day battery life, with double the life-span of the previous generation models.

Surprises?

Earlier this week Apple promised 'exciting products' would be coming "this fall," with new iPhone and iPad models expected by the end of the year, along with the arrival of iOS 7 and Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks?

With the MacBook Pro refresh also on the horizon, what else could Apple have in store? Could it surprise us with the earlier-than-expected iWatch launch? Or perhaps some major developments with Apple TV?

In Depth: Apple iTV: how Apple's television will really work

Posted:

In Depth: Apple iTV: how Apple's television will really work

We all have our own idea about what an Apple-branded television would, or perhaps should, look like. And those of us who have spent more time thinking about it than is strictly necessary, given that it's still a rumour, also have an idea of the features it will have and what we'll be able to do with it besides watch TV.

We put our heads together in the office, and after a long, and only occasionally rancorous, discussion came up with our idea of what the Apple iTV will be like. We threw out some lovely ideas because, while they'd be fun, they're either not practical or the technology isn't quite right yet.

We included others which may be unlikely but are technically possible. (What's the purpose of an exercise like this if not to have some fun and dream a little?) We've even worked out how the remote control could work and how the successor to the existing Apple TV could solve that perennial flat-screen TV problem: poor audio quality.

It goes without saying that an Apple television would look stunning, but there's a great deal more to it than that. We think the TV we've come up with knocks the socks off anything else on the market and if Apple were to launch one today, we'd be first in the queue, credit cards at the ready.

Introducing Apple iTV

Remote control

Remote control

At least in terms of interaction, the remote control is perhaps the most important part of the TV, and we think there are a couple of possible options for it. One is a slim aluminium remote similar to the one Apple uses for Apple TV. If it went down this route, we think the remote would have a mic for Siri and connect with Bluetooth low energy.

The other option would be a new iPod touch. It would have a touchscreen interface, allowing you to swipe, tap, and type to control the Apple TV. It too would have a microphone for Siri. Putting the Siri mic in the remote rather than the TV would mean that only one person could control the television at a time, which is essential in our view.

Finally, in keeping with Apple's focus on simplicity, the remote would also have an infra-red transmitter so that it could also be used as a universal remote for other devices you may own.

Channels

Channels

In our view, Apple's television won't have channels in the traditional sense. Apple's purpose in producing a TV is selling content and services, so it will want to ensure you use it to watch and listen to content it provides.

For that reason, we envisage channels as apps. In the same way that Apple TV currently has apps for Major League Baseball, The Wall Street Journal, and Netflix, so the Apple television will have apps for BBC, ITV, and so on. Those apps will either be made by Apple in partnership with content providers, or by the providers themselves, in the same way as they develop apps for iOS.

We think the former is more likely; consistency is even more important on a television than it is on a tablet. Expect to see apps for major channels and for catch-up and on-demand services. You will also, of course, be able to buy and rent movies and TV programmes from the iTunes Store.

As with the second- and third-generation Apple TV, you won't be able to download those movies and programmes to the television, you'll have to stream them from Apple. You'll also be able to connect a Sky+, Virgin Media, Freeview, or YouView set-top box to the television, allowing you to watch those channels to which you subscribe or which are free-to-air.

Of course, Apple will want you to stay within its universe, but preventing you from accessing your Sky or Virgin Media content would be sheer madness. Finally, the television will have AirPlay support, so you'll be able to mirror iOS apps from your device.

Audio

Audio

If recent tweaks to Apple's Mac line-up are anything to go by, audio quality is increasingly important to Apple. And we think it will be a key feature in an Apple television.

One possibility is that it could incorporate the downward firing speakers in the current iMac line-uip - check out our iMac review. These are really rather good, and loud enough to fill a decent-sized living room. They rely on the screen being only a few inches above a flat surface, however, in order to reflect the sound.

Given the number of people who wall-mount televisions, that would be a problem. We pondered the idea of a wireless sound bar with a separate sub-woofer and it's an attractive proposition. In the end, however, we decided Apple was more likely to go for an all-singing, alldancing, cinematic surround-sound setup.

Being Apple, of course, it would have to be wireless. That would mean a new version of AirPlay with support for a wireless 5.1 channel audio codec, something which may prove too much of a challenge initially. But even if wireless surround-sound speakers aren't available at launch, we think they'll arrive in a future version.

Our proposed line-up

Apple Home TV package

Apple Home TV 42-inch: £999

The 'budget' end of the range will have the smallest (though still huge) screen and no separate speakers.

Apple Home TV 55-inch: £1599

If 42-inches isn't enough for you, check out this baby. A full 55-inches of 1080p TV, but without separate speakers.

Apple Cinema package

Apple Cinema TV 42-inch: £1299

This will have the same-sized screen as the 'budget' model but include 5.1 channel AirPlay speakers in the package.

Apple Cinema TV 55-inch: £1899

The daddy of the range, this packages has the monster 55-inches screen and those lovely 5.1 channel AirPlay speakers.

Ashton Kutcher and director break down 'Jobs,' talk man behind the curtain

Posted:

Ashton Kutcher and director break down 'Jobs,' talk man behind the curtain

"It only takes one person to start a revolution," and after a special screening of the Jobs biopic, it's evident that Ashton Kutcher, the actor portraying the iconic Apple founder, believes in the credo.

On Thursday, film studio Open Road invited the press to a pre-release screening of Jobs in San Francisco. The film will open in U.S. theaters Aug. 16.

While we can't divulge on the film, a post-credits Q&A with direct Joshua Michael Stern and Kutcher gave us plenty of writing fodder.

The theater was packed with press and rather annoyingly, many had Google Glass in tow.

However, sporting the gaudy gear seemed appropriate for a film about the limitless boundaries of innovation, where during the question and answer session Kutcher eloquently addressed the importance of failing, and the need to encourage entrepreneurs in the breakneck world of tech.

Dissecting Jobs

Jobs' life was filled with troublesome relationships caused by his "prickly personality," which is putting it rather mildly.

Stern addressed how Jobs never lived in the past, rather relying on the present and focusing on future endeavors. For Stern, Jobs was loyal to his achievements first, and that required boxed up emotions and a lack of sentimentality.

Kutcher and Stern

When asked what his thoughts were on Jobs' mercurial cruelty, Kutcher explained that after much research, he believed the continued rejection in Jobs' life from his parents, people around him and the betrayal from his own company played a huge role in creating the famous, dysfunctional personality.

Kutcher said the result of Jobs' erratic, anti-social tendencies only pushed him harder to create products that people would love - because in loving the product, they essentially love its creator, an emotional process that Kutcher described as "very human."

The baseball hat-donned actor also added that despite Jobs' genius, there's clearly a kinder way to treat employees, and people in general - reassuring since Kutcher himself co-founded a media company and created a venture capital fund.

Kutcher walks the walk and talks the talk

When asked about the type of preparations he took on for the role, the infamous Steve Jobs gait was brought up.

With three months to prep, Kutcher said he tried to digest all of the books Jobs read (Edison, Ansel Adams, etc.), while researching Bauhaus and numerous other design concepts.

He even had hours of Jobs audio on a Soundcloud full of speeches he'd listen to while driving or walking, and even fall asleep to, in order to get the perplexing role right.

Kutcher

Because Jobs often liked to be outside walking and hiking, and even having meetings in the fresh air, Kutcher did the same - which is when he would practice the peculiar hunched hop Jobs was known for.

Kutcher had his own speculations about this particular walking style. He felt Jobs' barefoot days in the 70s during college made him lift his feet higher to avoid stubbing his toes, a step he then simply carried on for the rest of his life.

The dedication of Kutcher's research to show us the man behind the curtain seems quite obsessive in nature (heck, it even put him in the hospital as reported earlier this year), and interestingly, provides another parallel to Jobs' own obsessive personality.

Kutcher catches fire

Personality and mop-top makeup aside, the tall bean-pole actor shares other similarities with Jobs: the ability to convey idealistic soliloquies with extreme passion as if his life depended on it.

Though his topics of discussion almost sounded like a valedictorian speech, Kutcher still won over the audience by expressing what appeared like genuine, articulate thoughts on the need for more never-give-up type of entrepreneurs in the tech sphere:

"We need entrepreneurs more than ever … the great innovation that happens in the world is happening around technology … we're doing an incredible job leading the world - the United States is building technology and we need to inspire people."

Kutcher

It seems like he's taking a page right of Jobs' book with his desire to tell others to rise up and be more, and to be better. Kutcher's zeal for tech is so transparent, he went on to mention Elon Musk or even one of the entrepreneurs he works with every day as being the next "god" to revolutionize tech.

Regardless of who it is, Kutcher adamantly stated that the formula for the next Jobs will require someone who is "driven, focused and works hard and fearlessly approaches failure, and falls down and gets back up."

For Kutcher, failing repeatedly will birth the next great pioneer in technology: "I guarantee you the next person who innovates that way will be someone who's failed many times in their lifetime."

Inaccuracies, schminaccuracies

Thought a lot more was said (as if there wasn't enough here already) about the portrayal of the iconic Apple founder, one issue raised were the discrepancies with reality present in the film.

Steve Wozniak has been vocal about this by telling Gizmodo how it was actually him trying to convince Jobs about the democratization of technology - Jobs apparently only wanted to make a quick buck and his lofty speeches seen in the trailers, "came much further down the line."

However, Stern claims Jobs always had an aura of mystery that no one could or would be able to unravel and that the film wasn't an exact science in terms of real events, but was as close as the filmmakers could get.

For Kutcher, near-perfect authenticity was also important, evident in his countless hours of research. But what mattered most to him occurred after a private screening held for the original Apple gang - a member strode up to Kutcher and said, "Thank you for giving me back two hours with Steve."

And really, that's all we can hope from the film.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)