Apple : Updated: Apple iTV release date, news and rumours |
| Updated: Apple iTV release date, news and rumours Posted:  Apple iTV rumours: what you need to knowWe love the Full HD Apple TV box, but Apple really isn't so sure: the company has seemed more interested in getting iPads into your living room than its Apple TV box. Apple says the Apple TV is a hobby, but the company is thinking bigger. Much, much bigger: it wants to sell you the entire TV set, not a little box beneath it. In an early 2012 earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted again at the release of something bigger and better than the current Apple TV. Is Apple iTV confirmed?"With Apple TV, however, despite the barriers in [the TV set top box] market, for those of us who use it, we've always thought there was something there. And that if we kept following our intuition and kept pulling the string, then we might find something that was larger. "For those people that have it right now, the customer satisfaction is off the charts. But we need something that could go more main market for it to be a serious category." However, it is possible that he meant a set top box, and rumours have continued to rumble on that Apple is in talks with US cable providers over a new version of its existing Apple TV box. Stronger hints came in a December 2012 Tim Cook NBC interview. "When I go into my living room and turn on the TV, I feel like I have gone backwards in time by 20 to 30 years," Cook told Williams. "It's an area of intense interest. I can't say more than that." Apple isn't the only one dropping big hints either - manufacturer Foxconn had to refute reports in late May 2012 that it had begun to produce the Apple iTV after a story emerged quoting chief executive, Terry Gua, as saying Foxconn was "making preparations for iTV." More speculation citing Foxconn involvement emerged in December 2012 and then again in late March 2013, especially as the company has decided to move into TVs. Here are all the rumours and speculation surrounding the Apple iTV, which some have also claimed may end up with the surely unlikely name of the Apple iPanel. Apple iTV release dateMost rumours predict a 2013 Apple iTV release date. The New York Times says that price, not technology, is the problem: Apple is waiting for the cost of large LCD panels to fall further before building iTVs. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster suggested in November 2012 that the iTV would come out a year later, in November of 2013. According to Market Intelligence Center, David Einhorn from Greenlight Capital, recently told his investors that he believed Apple would come out with its next "blockbuster product" - the iTV - soon. This is big change in Munster's thinking. Earlier this year Munster was calling for Apple to announce the Apple television in December, then release it in the first half of 2013. As AppleInsider says. "Most notably, he expects Apple will launch a television set in time for the holiday 2013 shopping season. He expects the product to be priced between $1,500 and $2,000, with screen sizes between 42 and 55 inches." As Business Insider says, Munster doesn't provide any reason for his thinking. However, some rumours in May 2012 suggested that we won't see the Apple iTV until 2014 and these rumours continued into early 2013. In December 2012 Wall Street Journal sources said that various TV prototypes have been on the company's slate for a number of years. Apple iTV designIn mid-May a new report from Cult of Mac claimed one of their contacts saw a working prototype of the Apple TV. The report claimed that Siri and iSight will feature (so face and voice recognition then), while the design is similar to that of an Apple Cinema Display. The Telegraph says that "sources within the company" say that Jeff Robbin, the man who helped create the iPod, is leading the team. Apple has seemingly denied rumours that it is working with French designer Philippe Starck. Remember when he worked with Microsoft on a mouse? However, it appears that Starck was actually working on another project, a yacht, with Steve Jobs before his death. On 13 May 2011, we reported that Apple is rumoured to be in talks to buy TV manufacturer Loewe. AppleInsider wrote that talks have entered the advanced stages and Loewe is expected to make a decision on Apple's offer within the next week. Apple iTV specifications and displayEngadget predicts an A5 processor and 1080p video - neither of which are a huge surprise, granted. Australian tech site Smarthouse says that the Apple iTV will come in three sizes, including 32-inch and 55-inch models. Sources at "a major Japanese company who are involved in manufacturing the TV" reckon the sets will have the same processor as the forthcoming iPad 3, which presumably means an Apple A6. Smarthouse isn't usually the go-to site for Apple rumours, but its report echoes similar claims by respected Apple analyst Gene Munster, who told the recent Future of Media conference that Apple will make its TV in a range of sizes. "The smallest one will be 42 inches in size, followed by a 52 inches one and a 60 inches iTV (coincidence or not, these exact sizes are available on Sharp TVs, too)," said Gozmorati. This information was repeated in several similar stories. March, June and December 2012 rumours pointed at Sharp being the manufacturing partner. SlashGear says work on components is already under way. In mid April, Sharp announced it had begun production of 32-inch HI-DPI LCD panels at its Kameyama Plant No. 2 - could these be the panels destined for the Apple iTV? Apple contractor Foxconn's parent company has made a rather large investment in Sharp - does this indicate something we wonder? Both companies were apparently working together to 'test' TV designs in the December 2012 rumours. Rumours also continue to circulate that Samsung could be heavily involved in the iTV project, not least because of features such as TV Discovery, enabling you to easily find programming. An early 2013 patent, reported on by Macworld, describes "a sound system that could be launched as part of its iTV. The intelligent system could determine where a user is in a room, and if he or she was not within the optimum range, the processor could modify the audio output, says the application. It could also adjust based on which way the user is facing, and the environment that the user is in," Clever stuff. Apple iTV 4K?New rumours from the ever-questionable Digitimes suggest we could be seeing a 3,840 x 2,160 display from Apple. Apparently LG would manufacture the display. We'd be amazed if this one was true. Apple iTV operating systemAs with the Apple TV, any iTV is likely to run iOS, albeit in slightly disguised form. Compatibility with other iOS devices is a given: current Apple TVs already accept video streamed via AirPlay and access shared iTunes libraries. We'll be amazed if the iTV doesn't get apps. Expect Apple iTV and Apple TV to work more like iOS does on the iPad; the newest iOS 6 Beta for the Apple TV enables app icons to be moved around the homescreen just like on the iPhone and iPad. That has led some observers to conclude that the rumoured App Store for Apple's favourite 'hobby project' might be on the way sooner rather than later. Apple iTV and iCloudSteve Jobs told his biographer: "I'd like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use. It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it." According to one source which claims to have seen the device, the new TV has Siri and FaceTime. Apple iTV remote controlMunster says the iTV will come with an ordinary remote control, and will be controllable with iPhones, iPod touches and iPads, but the real remote control will be Siri. Apple's voice recognition system will be the heart of the new Apple TV, enabling you to choose channels and control the TV's functions with voice alone. That means " the simplest user interface you could imagine" is voice. However, according to a new patent filed in March 2012, Apple has come up with the design for an advanced universal remote that would also be compatible with your iPhone and iPad. But could Apple also be thinking more about games? Some sources say so, with an official joypad-type device possibly on the cards to work alongside Apple TV. Apple iTV AirPlay mirroringAfter AirPlay mirroring from Mac to Apple TV was present in the developer preview of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, it's not a great leap to suggest that the Apple iTV could mirror the display of your Mac or iPad wirelessly too. AirPlay mirroring is now 1080p with the new iPad and new Apple TV. When a prototype was reportedly 'seen' it did feature AirPlay. Apple iTV programmesWhile the iTV will get content from iTunes and iCloud, it's not going to be completely separate from current TV broadcasters: Munster says that you'll still need a cable TV subscription and decoder because Apple doesn't have enough content. We're not sure whether it would play nicely with Freeview and Freeview HD here in the UK, but perhaps a DVB-T compatible unit will arrive as part of a second generation. As of 6 March 2012, rumours were continually doing the rounds that, as the New York Post reports, Apple is planning to launch a music streaming service this side of Christmas. On 13 March, Les Moonves, who is CEO at CBS, says he was the recipient of a pitch from Steve Jobs regarding his network's participation in a subscription-based service, but turned him down. Apple is also rumoured to be talking about getting partners involved for movie streaming. His reasoning? Moonves says he was worried about damaging the network's existing revenue streams through broadcast and cable television. In February 2013 it became clear that Apple had hired James (Jueng-jil) Lee, a former senior researcher at LG. According to the OLED Association, he had been working on a printed AMOLED TV display. According to his LinkedIn profile, Lee lists his role at LG as "OLED Technology Development for TV Application" and he said he was "developing the Soluble Technology (RGB Type) for OLED TV application at LG Display". The main question is whether Apple will open the door for third-party content, like the BBC iPlayer, Sky Go and 4oD and other apps we've seen on connected TV platforms. These may well arrive with apps - the Apple TV SDK will pull on the iTV ecosystem and we're expecting apps to be available for Apple TV too. Mind you, it's also been claimed that Apple will seek to cut traditional TV providers out of the content loop. Apple iTV priceGene Munster reckons that the iTV will be twice the price of a similarly sized TV. Ouch. However, new March 2012 rumours point at a subsidised launch - courtesy of various partners. Apple iTV picture qualityIf the iTV does appear, it won't leave manufacturers quaking in their boots. That's according to Samsung's Chris Moseley who told Pocket-Lint in early February 2012 that the firm isn't overly concerned with what Apple launches if it decides to enter the TV market "We've not seen what they've done but what we can say is that they don't have 10,000 people in R&D in the vision category," he says. "They don't have the best scaling engine in the world and they don't have world renowned picture quality that has been awarded more than anyone else." Apple iTV gaming and appsAlthough most of the rumours so far have been about the hardware involved in the iTV, gaming may be a major focus of the new device. Apple CEO Tim Cook was spotted in mid-April at the HQ of Valve Software, the company behind gaming platform Steam. Some rumours are drawing more from this meeting, saying Apple could be producing a Kinect-style gesture-based console. But this is likely to be part and parcel of the iTV. Will Apple iTV do well?With smart TVs taking over the TV market, analysts reckon that the time is ripe for an Apple iTV to be launched. Smart TV adoption grew from 12% in 2011 to 25% in 2012, according to a new report from TDG. |
| Updated: OS X 10.9 Mavericks release date, news and features Posted:  Apple has revealed the latest refresh of its desktop operating system - OS X 10.9. The new OS looks to add further integration with the company's mobile operating system iOS. The release - dubbed OS X Mavericks - brings over 200 new features over and above the features in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. Explaining the thinking behind the name change, Apple's Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi joked that the company had ran out of cat names, and decided to turn to "our backyard", Apple's home of California, for its next round of names. OS X 10.9 release dateSpeaking at WWDC 2013, Federighi confirmed that Maverick will be available in Autumn. That confirms our prior prediction. OS X Mavericks pricePrevious releases of OS X have been quite cheap and Mountain Lion was even cheaper at GBP £14, USD $20, AUD $21. We're expecting the OS X 10.9 price to be similar. OS X 10.9 multi-monitor supportThe previous major release of OS X, Mountain Lion, was largely a hit, boosting the system's feature set and security. More than three million people downloaded the OS during its first four days on sale. However, it also mangled some iOS features into the mix that didn't work terribly well, such as iCloud documents, and a sub-standard full-screen mode, which Apple looks to have fixed by baking multi-monitor support into Mavericks. The update now makes the dock and menu bar follow the user on whatever screen they're working on, and each display can be shown independently. The new OS has also added the ability for desktop activity to be wirelessly beamed to a HDTV via an Apple TV box and Airplay. OS X 10.9 performanceApple claims the latest version of OS X has made several tweaks under the hood to improve performance the energy efficiency and responsiveness of Macs. This includes grouping together "low-level operations", which the company says allows the CPU to spend more time in a low-power state. This has been twinned with two new features, the first being "App Nap", which reduces the power consumed by apps that aren't in use. The second, "Compressed Memory", makes Mavericks automatically compress inactive data until it's needed again, at which point it's instantly uncompressed. OS X Mavericks FinderOther features making an appearance in the latest version of OS X include Finder Tabs, which positions a plus symbol to the top right of Finder that allows new tabs to be opened or dragged into other positions, with similar behaviour to a web browser. Users can customise views for individual tabs, move files between tabs, and run the Finder with multiple tabs open in full-screen. Tags have also made an appearance in Maverick, which appear in the Finder Sidebar to enable users to view files by project or category. They can be added to files or folders within Finder or iCloud to simplify locating documents. OS X SafariApple has also made several tweaks to Safari, claiming that the browser has smoother scrolling, is nippier than before, and outperforms its rivals in energy efficiency, memory efficiency and JavaScript performance. It now uses what Apple describes as a "new process-per tab architecture", which it claims makes Safari more responsive, stable and secure. Another new feature dubbed iCloud keychain stores login information, Wifi password, and credit card details within Safari for users' convenience when making purchases online Additionally, the browser now houses a new quick launch screen with a column for bookmarks, which can be reordered using drag and drop. It has also received a hefty dollop of social love in the form of "shared links", which collects URLs posted by Twitter and LinkedIn contacts to display them in a single stream in Safari's sidebar. iOS X Mavericks Maps and iBooksTwo apps from iOS, Maps and iBooks, have made their way to Mavericks. Maps includes features such as interactive flyover data, vector graphics, and 3D views. It also provides the ability to send map coordinates to iPhones with a button push for voice navigation on the move. Maps now integrates with OS X's Calendar app too, giving users the ability to look up travel times between two locations to prevent them from scheduling anything in that period. Users don't have to go directly to the Maps app for such navigational wizardry either, as Apple has integrated maps into Mail, Contacts and Calendar. Developers can do the same with their own apps using the Map Kit API. Meanwhile, Apple has brought iBooks and its 1.8 million titles to the desktop, including any books users have previously purchased. The company gave an interactive demonstration of iBooks' new features at WWDC, which include zooming in, changing font sizes, and adding annotations. Seamless integration across iPhones and iPads means users can pick up books where they left off too. OS X Mavericks notificationsNotifications were a welcome addition when they were introduced in Mountain Lion last year. This year, they have been beefed up with advanced capabilities that let users do anything from replying to messages or answering FaceTime calls from directly within the notification. Handily, Apple has also made it so that iOS notifications sync with OS X, meaning users can check alerts sent to a Mac or mobile device, and vice versa. Curious to know what we wanted to see in OS X 10.9 before today's event? Read on for our wishlist that we first posted earlier this year. 1. iBooks and Newsstand for OS XOS X Mountain Lion was largely about bringing relevant features from iOS to the Mac, but Apple should go further. It's bizarre that both of Apple's major iOS apps for reading are not available on the Mac. With OS X 10.9, Apple should release both iBooks and Newsstand for OS X, enabling you to read your favourite books and magazines on any Apple device, rather than restricting them to the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.
2. Siri for OS XAlthough Siri's not quite the revolutionary feature that was once promised, it nonetheless continues to improve. It's now finally useful outside of the USA, and once you've trained it to your voice, Siri can be used to rapidly speed up many tasks. OS X already has plenty of built-in accessibility clout, and a number of different playback voices, and so it seems like a no-brainer to integrate Siri into the system. 3. Maps for OS XWhen it first arrived on iOS, Apple Maps was rightly slammed, not least for its boneheaded assumptions when it came to directions. But the service continues to improve and is great for turn-by-turn. On the Mac, it would be less useful, but we'd nonetheless like to see it, not least for researching and planning routes and journeys that could subsequently (along with favourite places) seamlessly sync to your iOS devices via iCloud.
4. A more usable Contacts appPeople bang on about skeuomorphism in OS X, and also confuse it with texture-oriented graphic design, which isn't really the same thing. In many cases, these approaches also happen to be a matter of taste (Calendar's leather, for example), but in Contacts, Apple's created a usability disaster. Half-way house between digital book and app, Contacts is just a mess. We hope whatever Jonathan Ive brings to the OS X 10.9 party in terms of human interface leadership, it includes a firm emphasis on usability and not merely a hankering for minimalism. (More attention to detail regarding bugs would also be nice — Game Center remains an ugly, unusable, broken mess on OS X and needs some serious help.)
5. An enhanced FinderFinder remains a straightforward way to get at your files, and recent updates have improved inline previews. However, we'd still like to see changes. For power users, the addition of tabs would be great to cut down on clutter; and for everyone, an emphasis on speed and performance would be welcome. Spotlight could also do with a kick up the bottom speed-wise, which would improve Finder window searches, the standalone Spotlight menu and any app it's integrated into (such as Mail). 6. A broken-up iTunesOn iOS, iTunes is just a shop. Individual apps take care of other things: Music and Videos for media playback, App Store for buying apps, Podcasts for playing podcasts, and so on. The mess that is iTunes for OS X could benefit from a similar approach, although with the app also having to exist for Windows, we doubt this is a wish on our list that Apple will ever fulfil. 7. Better window managementWindow management on Mac OS and OS X has always been weak and Windows zoomed past with Aero Snap and related features. Third-party utilities exist on OS X for managing windows, but Apple appears hostile towards them. Really, it should enable you to more easily and rapidly place windows side-by-side and in other common layouts, rather than making you move/drag/move/drag like it's 1984.
8. Improved iCloud document managementApple's iCloud still seems very much like a work-in-progress, with the company feeling its way regarding what the system can do. In terms of document management, it's great for people working on their own and who produce relatively few files. For anyone else, it's problematic at best - OS X 10.9 really needs to improve filing, sharing and collaboration regarding this aspect of iCloud.
9. Interface improvementsIt's possible to argue all day about the direction in which Apple's interface should head, but two major widespread problems are apparent that really need fixing. First, Apple's infatuation with desaturation needs to end - people use colour to navigate and spot things, and that's now a problem in some apps (notably Finder and iPhoto sidebars). Secondly, the company must address scalability. What works on an iPad and just about works on a MacBook Air frequently looks ridiculous on an iMac, such as full-screen apps with acres of space, sickness-inducing animated transitions, and the Fisher-Price-style Launchpad. 10. More cross-device intelligenceOur final wish is that Apple's operating systems would be a little more intelligent when it comes to cross-device purchases. In some cases, Apple gets it right: buy a song and you can (optionally) have it sent to all your Apple kit; buy an app on your iPhone and it'll download in iTunes and be sent to your iPad. Great. But why can't we browse the Mac App Store (which, after all, is simply a web browser wrapper) on an iPad, buy an app and have it waiting on a Mac the next time we use it? It's almost like Apple doesn't really want us using a Mac any more, once we're comfy with an iPad… |
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