Saturday, March 31, 2012

Apple : Tim Cook voted world's best CEO

Apple : Tim Cook voted world's best CEO


Tim Cook voted world's best CEO

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Tim Cook voted world's best CEO

Tim Cook will receive a 'best boss eva' mug in the post, with news he has been named as the CEO with the best approval rating on the planet.

The list, which is essentially a 'hot or not' system for bosses, has been created by Glassdoor and was topped by Eric Schmidt in 2011.

In 2012, the number one spot belongs to Tim Cook, with the Apple boss racking up an impressive 97 per cent approval rating.

In second place is Ernst & Young CEO Jim Turley, Paul E Jacobs of Qualcomm is in third and in at fourth and fifth Ken Chenault of American Express and Google's Larry Page - they both have a 94 per cent approval rating.

Top cats

What does arbitrary approval scheme mean? Well, not a whole lot in this big wide world but it does show that Apple is doing very well after the Steve Jobs legacy.

And what's interesting is that Tim Cook's rating is higher than Steve Jobs' in 2011 – 97 per cent to Jobs' 94 per cent.

Another newly instated CEO who is doing better than there predecessor is HP's Meg Whitman.

She may only be at 24 in the list, but the approval rating of 80 per cent is far higher than Leo Apotheker's 67 per cent.

This is impressive, but not as impressive as the amount of times we have written 'per cent' in this article – which stands at a cool seven.

Friday, March 30, 2012

Apple : Week in Tech: Is Amazon's Kindle Fire 2 on the way?

Apple : Week in Tech: Is Amazon's Kindle Fire 2 on the way?


Week in Tech: Is Amazon's Kindle Fire 2 on the way?

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Week in Tech: Is Amazon's Kindle Fire 2 on the way?

Is Amazon's Kindle Fire 2 on the way?

While the outside world panic-buys pasties, we've got greater things on our minds: new stuff! For tech fans the last week's been like Christmas: we've been inundated with exciting new things.

The most obviously exciting shiny new thing is the Techradar website itself, which has been completely redesigned - and we mean redesigned in a "Windows 8 Metro" way, not a "New Apple TV user interface" way.

As Editor Paul Douglas explains, "There was a lot of content on the old site, but finding it wasn't always that simple." Now, it is. The Techradar site is faster, cleaner and can get even the most stubborn stains out of your clothes at just thirty degrees.

We're not the only shiny thing that's got people excited this week. The new Sony Alpha e57 camera is looking pretty tasty, as is the new Nikon D800.

As Amy Davies says, the D800 is "probably one of the most highly anticipated DSLRs, and most widely rumoured cameras, of the past few months". Now it's finally official we've got one squirrelled away in our labs, and Davies has been uploading stacks of images as well as a video run-down for your excitement and delightment.

New Apple TV reviewed

There's also a new and shiny Apple thing: the new Apple TV, which our Apple expert Graham Barlow looked at until his eyes went boggly.

That, er, distinctive interface aside, it looks like the new Apple TV is a pretty solid bit of kit, but he was honest about its shortcomings: if you've got other Apple kit it's a handy thing to have - "at this price you should really consider getting one because it integrates wonderfully with your current setup", but "for everyone else, even with the addition of 1080p HD, there's no compelling reason to buy an Apple TV over other media streamers right now."

New Apple TV

Meanwhile Apple's arch-enemy Amazon is up to something: instead of a Kindle Fire 2, it seems the retail giant intends to launch a Kindle Fire 2, a Kindle Fire 2 and -- wait for it -- a Kindle Fire 2. That's what the latest reports suggest, anyway: the firm is apparently working on three Kindle tablets for three different price points.

The cheapie gets an 800 x 600 seven inch display, the mid-range one a 1,280 x 800 seven-incher and the top-end one an 8.9inch, full HD 1,920 x 1,200 screen. No other details have leaked just yet, but they will sooner or later.

Can a digital locker really work?

Remember UltraViolet, the digital locker service that would take the movie business by storm by giving everybody a digital licence for the content they buy on disc? While it hasn't exactly set the world on fire, 20th Century Fox says it's going to be a big deal - which is why it hasn't provided any content to the service.

Eh? "We have been working on UltraViolet since the beginning, and we view it as a very serious work in progress," the studio's Danny Kaye said. "We want to make sure that [it] is as good as it can be."

There's something of a chicken and egg scenario here, we reckon: Fox won't provide the content until the service is better and more widely supported, but the more content it has the better and more widely supported it will become.

As Marc Chacksfield reports, the Fox executive vice president just wants to see a few tweaks: "the improvements that need to be made are everything from how UltraViolet works [to] the support it has been given." In other words, it's absolutely brilliant and every aspect of it needs to be changed. That's promising, isn't it?

While Fox isn't currently providing content, Sony is: its first UK UltraViolet discs will ship in June. Meanwhile Dixons says UltraViolet is here to stay. Senior category manager Gary Hearns told us that the entire retail industry is behind the service. "This thing is not going to disappear in 12-18 months. This is permanent," he said.

Should we believe him? Dixons, you may recall, told us that HD-DVD's future hadn't been decided when everybody and their dog were dumping it back in 2008. To be honest, we didn't recall it either: we used Techradar.com's new, improved search system. We told you the new site was good.

Foxconn working conditions audit reveals 'serious concerns'

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Foxconn working conditions audit reveals 'serious concerns'

Employees at Apple's Foxconn plant are working overly long hours, unpaid overtime and are falling victim to poor health and safety practices, an independent report has found.

The probe by the US Fair Labor Association, undertaken at Apple's request, had been investigating working conditions at the controversial factory in China, where the iPhone and iPad are assembled.

The FLA report has revealed "serious and pressing concerns" and says employees often go more than 11 days without time off and work up to 70 hour weeks, which is illegal in China.

The FLA has agreed with Foxconn that hours will be reduced to fall in line with China's legal limit of 49 hours, while employees will now be paid overtime in 15 minute increments instead of 30.

Apple fully accepts recommendations

Apple, who's CEO Tim Cook has been visiting the plant this week, says it "fully accepts" all recommendations made by the report.

"We share the FLA's goal of improving lives and raising the bar for manufacturing companies everywhere," Apple said in a statement.

Apple's relationship with Foxconn has come under increased scrutiny in 2012 following an outcry akin to the sweat-shop scandals of the 1990s.

Suicides have been prevalent at the company in the past and an explosion at the plant killed three workers last year.

Apple CEO Tim Cook added: "Our team has been working for years to educate workers, improve conditions, and make Apple's supply chain a model for the industry, which is why we asked the FLA to conduct these audits."

You can read the full FLA report here.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Software : Exclusive: Microsoft: Hotmail perception is a big problem

Software : Exclusive: Microsoft: Hotmail perception is a big problem


Exclusive: Microsoft: Hotmail perception is a big problem

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Exclusive: Microsoft: Hotmail perception is a big problem

Microsoft has admitted that it faces a major challenge in getting people to give Hotmail another go, despite the great strides taken in making the webmail service significantly better.

Speaking to TechRadar, Microsoft Group Product Manager for Windows in the UK, Ian Moulster believes that people's perception of hotmail is based on the service as it was five years ago, and believes that the real trick is persuading people to give the service another try.

"The perception issue in itself causes people to not want to switch or not to even look," said Moulster.

Moulster: "People think of Hotmail and think of the way it was five years ago with lots of spam, slow and clunky."

"They are using Gmail or Yahoo mail and it seems to work – and they think of Hotmail and think of the way it was five years ago with lots of spam, slow and clunky.

Would I switch?

"They think it's going to be hard to switch anyway so they ask 'why would I switch?'.

"It's an interesting problem to have. There are lots of cool things in Hotmail that people would look at and say 'that's pretty cool and it will make my life easier'."

Moulster believes that Microsoft as a whole needs to be more vocal about the strides its online services like Hotmail and IE9 have come, as well as talk about the impressive Skydrive cloud storage that is becoming increasingly important to the company and yet remains largely unknown to the general public.

"We just don't shout enough about the stuff that we have got," Moulster added. "We don't shout about many products at all – there's very few we make a noise about.

"We're primarily a software company and we have great products and the focus is on making those products as good as possible.

"We do need to tell people about the things we do and make sure people are aware of how good these products have become as well and I put IE9 in that bracket as well.

"I don't think people realise how much better they are now; just how good those products are."

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Apple : Apple patent hints at iTV plans

Apple : Apple patent hints at iTV plans


Apple patent hints at iTV plans

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Apple patent hints at iTV plans

A patent filed by Apple back in 2008 seems to confirm that the company is working on some kind of television, perhaps even the long-rumoured Apple iTV.

It's a very technical document detailing Apple's work on high refresh rate LCDs, a technique called "fringe field switching" which shares an abbreviation with an altogether more aggressive exclamation (FFS).

The patent outlines how Apple's work would allow FFS to be used on a larger screened HDTV, and employs techniques already found in the iMac.

Fringe field

So, wait – much ado about nothing: this patent must just relate to the iMac? Well, not necessarily, as the document specifically mentions televisions as well:

"Embodiments of the present invention can be implemented as flat screen television set 700 with display 701," it reads, before going on to list other uses – phones, music players, laptops, desktops and "other types of devices" (this is before the advent of the iPad, of course).

So does this mean Apple will definitely launch a television at some point in the future? Of course not – but it's definitely one to add to the ever-growing pile of increasingly concrete speculation that it will.

Maybe

And if that's not enough rumour and speculation for you, check out our video roundup of Apple's mythical TV set below:

FutTv : SNcCn61A339dr

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Apple : In Depth: 10 apps we want to see on Apple iTV

Apple : In Depth: 10 apps we want to see on Apple iTV


In Depth: 10 apps we want to see on Apple iTV

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In Depth: 10 apps we want to see on Apple iTV

10 apps we want to see on Apple iTV

If Apple does release a connected television called the iTV, it could let you access any show, speak commands using Siri, and browse the web.

That means Apple could stake a claim to your mobile life, your morning commute (since most cars these days work the best with an iPhone and many have 30-pin ports), your office, and your home entertainment.

What would be left? Obviously, Microsoft still owns the corporate desktop, and embedded Linux is not going away anytime soon.

But home entertainment is one of the last steps towards consumer domination.

As you might expect, the iTV will work just like the iPhone and iPad by offering apps you can run on the television. Here are the ones we want.

1. Spotify

Okay, let's start with Spotify. This app has fallen out of favor with some of late, especially since you have to listen to advertising in the free version and there's still no iPad version. Apple would need to work out a licensing agreement, which is a landmine of self-destruction since users might not buy as many songs. Yet, imagine the potential: a home entertainment system implies surround-sound speakers, so Spotify could become a whole-house persistent Internet radio service on mobile and on your television.

Spotify

2. Google Maps

Mobile mapping tech has exploded – companies like Garmin are worried. The apps have robust POI lists and turn-by-turn directions. There are mounts of major Android models and the iPhone for your car window. But on a television, mapping is also a fertile ground. A Google Maps app is a no-brainer, but the real innovation will come in how it connects to you mobile device: sending navigation directions after your family agrees on vacation plans, seeing a street view on a 42-inch display, and browsing through photos you captured on your phone and pinned to the exact GPS coordinates.

Google Maps

3. Banking

We want a banking app that also connects to your mobile. This should be more fluid than it is now: you could run the app and see a list of recent purchases, call up a customer service portal with a video chat to ask about a new mortgage, or control how a future iPhone model uses Google Wallet or the Square app for that day. (Helpful if one of your kids starts using near-field communication for payments.)

Google Wallet

4. Shopping

The iTV could revolutionize home shopping. Today, the lean-forward ecommerce on a computer works well, but impulse shopping would work even better on a home television - rather like Amazon Windowshop on iPad. You might be watching an episode of Doctor Who, and an iTV shopping app could pop up and tell you which leather jacket a main character is wearing. Lean-back shopping could prove highly lucrative for Apple.

Amazon Windowshop

5. Zynga games

We already know there is a great opportunity for gaming on the iTV well beyond playing Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja. If the iTV has a powerful next-gen processor, the television could even take on the PS3 and Xbox 360, at least offering casual games like From Dust that do not require high-end graphics. The best games might be from Zynga, though, since there's a stronger social aspect. The iTV could show a pop-up video of other players in their living rooms and even use a Kinect-like gesturing system.

Angry Birds

6. Twitter

We expect a Twitter app, but in the home entertainment market, there's added potential for tweeting about which shows you are watching, asking questions about an actor in a movie, and better location-awareness: tweeting that you are now home and watching Top Gear. This app also needs something brand new: a better live feed at the bottom of the screen showing tweets of closer friends and family.

Twitter

7. Amazon Kindle

Honestly, we're not sure if this one will even work, but the idea is interesting. The Kindle app on an iTV should work like the original Kindle and read the text to you. This means home entertainment might work in the reverse of the current norm: we'd watching something on the iPad or listen to music on an iPhone while the iTV reads a book or maybe shows complex diagrams in HD.

Amazon Kindle

8. Skype

Once again, Skype is common the desktop. But the main problem with the service is you have to have your laptop up and running to connect. On an iTV, Skype could always be running, so you can take video calls, hold a videoconference with co-workers, and even stream your family activities securely.

Skype iPad

9. Instagram

The iTV will likely have a camera for taking pictures and recording video, which will work well for family snapshots. But the iTV is not portable, so Instagram would likely work more as an editor of photos you've taken with your phone. In a group setting, multiple users could interact via voice and gesture to do a group edit of family photos. That's an interesting paradigm shift, because it's hard to get a group of people around a laptop, but easier if the entire clan is in front of a 42-inch television.

Instagram app

10. SkySports or ESPN

A sports app like Sportacular, ESPN ScoreCenter or the new Sky Sports for iPad opens up a whole new feature set on the iTV. Sports scores for mobile is one thing, but tying sports data to your current program is even more interesting: scores from other games, comments from people watching the same match, and even a multi-window feed of several games at the same time could become the best way to watch sports ever.

Sky Sports

Software : In Depth: Windows 8 browsers: the only Metro apps to get desktop power

Software : In Depth: Windows 8 browsers: the only Metro apps to get desktop power


In Depth: Windows 8 browsers: the only Metro apps to get desktop power

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In Depth: Windows 8 browsers: the only Metro apps to get desktop power

Windows 8 Metro browsers

Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 comes in both a desktop version, in which you can run all the plugins and accelerators you want, and a touch-optimised, full-screen, plugin-free Metro version.

Mozilla and Google recently announced they're working on Metro versions of Firefox and Chrome for Windows 8, which are not just Metro-style apps.

They're what Microsoft calls "Metro style enabled desktop browsers".

Metro-style applications on Windows 8 use the WinRT framework, not the familiar Win32 APIs (apart from a small number of system calls); that means they can run on both x86/64 PCs and on Windows on ARM (WOA) tablets that don't have x86 instructions, without any changes in the code.

They run in a security 'sandbox' called the App Container that isolates them from other Metro apps and from the operating system (so one Metro app can't call code distributed separately, like a plug-in), and they're distributed as .appx files that have to come through the Windows store.

You could write a Metro-style browsers, although you'd have to write all the code from scratch and it's not clear whether WinRT would include all the functionality you'd need. But what Microsoft, Google, Mozilla and maybe Opera are doing is to create a hybrid Metro/desktop app; something only browsers seem to be able to do. And as far as we can tell, they can only do it for x86/64 PCs – not for WOA.

Windows 8 Metro/desktop browsers: who's making them?

Mozilla and Google have announced they're working on version of Firefox and Chrome. And Opera's communications manager Zara Lauder told TechRadar "We are currently looking into Windows 8. The new OS and the Metro UI offers an interesting new platform for end users, and we know users will want to run the Opera browser on it."

Windows 8 Metro browsers: what's different?

According to Microsoft, a Metro style enabled desktop browser gets "full access to Win32 APIs for rendering HTML5, including the ability to use multiple background processes, JIT compiling, and other distinctly browser-related functionality (like background downloading of files)."

Basically, the Metro browser gets to use the same code as the desktop browser; other Metro apps don't get that. No other Metro apps can run in the background (except for a few specific things like playing music); they get a few seconds to tidy up and then stop running as soon as they're not in the foreground. A Metro browser can keep downloading and uploading files even when you switch away from it.

These hybrid Metro/desktop browsers don't have to come from the Microsoft Store like other Metro apps; you can download them from the Web and install them like any desktop app.

They can use the Play To contract to play media files on DLNA-connected devices and they can use your SkyDrive account to store favourites, the last 50 URLs you type in, the last 1,000 sites in your history and other settings that would be useful to have in your browser on your other PCs (like the passwords and open tabs Firefox already syncs to other devices).

You can only use one Metro-enabled browser at once; whichever one you set as the default browser. The Microsoft documentation talks about "preserving the Metro style user experience" which we interpret as keeping things simple and not confusing users by throwing up a 'which browser do you want' dialog when you open Web pages or giving you multiple browser icons to tap in Search.

Clicking the Start screen tile for a Metro-enabled browser that's not the default will open the desktop version of the browser.

You can't set which Metro browser a specific site will open in when you click a link. But at least on x86 PCs you can always choose to go to the desktop and open multiple browsers in the usual way.

And if you pin a site to the Start screen as a secondary tile from a Metro-enabled browser and then make something else the default browser, when you click the tile that Web site will open in the desktop version of the browser you pinned it from. So if you're happy with IE for most sites but you want a second browser for specific sites, you can now make that happen fairly easily.

Windows 8 Metro browsers: can they use plugins?

Maybe. IE10 doesn't let you use plugins like Flash in the Metro version, or accelerators and bookmarklets, although they all work in desktop IE10. That's to make tabs open faster and improve battery life security, reliability, and privacy.

A pure Metro browser couldn't support plugins because you couldn't install them in the browser and it couldn't reach out of the sandbox to call them. But Metro-enabled browsers aren't quite as constrained by the AppContainer sandbox.

The way IE works (in Metro and desktop) is to run a medium integrity process for the browser frame; the tabs that Web pages load in are each in their own sandbox (even in the desktop browser, tabs that used to be running at low integrity with fewer permissions are now at the AppContainer level). Metro browsers can call apps to handle file links (like desktop PDF viewers).

It's not clear whether other browser makers could use these possibilities to support plugins like Flash. Mozilla's Brian Bondy says "It's too early in development to know for sure. There may be some technical restrictions and we haven't decided one way or the other if we really want it."

Google has the code for Flash, which it already builds into Chrome but today this runs as a separate process that just gets installed with Chrome, which could also fall foul of the sandbox issue.

Desktop Internet Explorer

Will WOA have other browsers?

You can't run any third-party code on the WOA desktop, Windows chief Steven Sinofsky told TechRadar; just the Office apps that comes with WOA and the apps and tools that are "intrinsic to Windows" – which includes Internet Explorer.

That means no third-party desktop browsers on ARM PCs, and without a desktop browser to build on, you can't have a hybrid Metro/desktop browser. Anyone wanting to create another browser for WOA will have to write it completely in WinRT (and that definitely means no plugins).

Why is it only browsers that get this option?

Browsers (along with Adobe Reader) are the only apps that have adopted the low integrity level introduced in Vista. Low integrity apps can only save files to few folders in the user profile (like cookies, favourites and temporary files).

They can't create startup files, modify your documents, change configuration settings or registry keys or control other running apps – which makes it much harder to use them to get malware onto a PC. That makes using their code in Metro much less of a risk than other apps.

And of course, Microsoft doesn't necessarily have a choice. At least in Europe, Microsoft has to allow other browsers to run on Windows or get fined for excluding them, so it has to give browser makers the same option to have a hybrid browser that the IE team has.

Only allowing desktop browsers and not Metro browsers on Windows 8 would look pretty anti-competitive. Assuming it isn't possible to use plug-ins in any Metro browser, all browsers will need to let you switch straight to a desktop browser for pages that won't work without plugins.

There aren't any other applications built into Windows that work in both Metro and desktop, so there's no pressure for Microsoft to allow this for other apps.

So why is it so unlikely that we'll see third-party browsers on WOA? Even if Microsoft did get complaints from regulators, it would be pretty easy to say that Windows doesn't have a monopoly in the ARM tablet market – and to point out that the market leading iPad doesn't allow third-party browsers either.

The desktop IE process is the same; a medium integrity process with the tabs for Web pages running at the AppContainer sandbox level.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Apple : Updated: Apple iTV rumours: what you need to know

Apple : Updated: Apple iTV rumours: what you need to know


Updated: Apple iTV rumours: what you need to know

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Updated: Apple iTV rumours: what you need to know

Apple iTV rumours: what you need to know

We love our Apple TV (and the new Full HD Apple TV looks fantastic), but we're not sure Apple does: the firm's more interested in getting iPads into your living room than Apple TVs under your flat screen.

Apple says the Apple TV is a hobby, but it turns out Apple is thinking bigger. Much, much bigger: it wants to sell you the entire TV set, not a little box beneath it.

In a 15 February 2012 earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted again at the release of something bigger and better than the current Apple TV (credit CNN Money).

brightcove : 1468725309001

"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."

Here's all the rumours and speculation surrounding the next-generation new Apple TV.

Apple iTV design

Forget the current hockey-puck form factor: the rumour mill is unanimous that the next Apple TV will be a proper TV.

The Telegraph says that "sources within the company" say that Jeff Robbin, the man who helped create the iPod, is leading the team.

The latest reports point at a late 2012 Apple iTV release date.

Apple iTV specifications

Engadget 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 supply chain for the iTV is set to get going during the first quarter of 2012. That's according to Digitimes on 27 December 2011.

March 2012 rumours pointed at Sharp being the manufacturing partner and that production would start in May. SlashGear says work on components is already under way.

Apple iTV operating system

As 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.

Apple iTV and iCloud

Steve 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."

Apple iTV remote control

Munster 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.

Apple iTV AirPlay mirroring

After 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.

Apple iTV programmes

While 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.

His reasoning? Moonves says he was worried about damaging the network's existing revenue streams through broadcast and cable television.

Apple iTV price

Gene 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 quality

If 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 release date

Most rumours predict a 2013 Apple iTV release date, but the more optimistic observers think Apple won't want to miss 2012's Christmas shopping season. 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.

Software : Updated: Office 2012: What we're expecting to see

Software : Updated: Office 2012: What we're expecting to see


Updated: Office 2012: What we're expecting to see

Posted:

Updated: Office 2012: What we're expecting to see

Office 2012 release date, interface and features

Office 15 will be here next year. And, what's more, it'll be getting the Windows 8 look.

There will also possibly be a Windows 8 authoring tool as well as HTML add-ins too.

So what are we expecting to see in Office 15?

What will Office 15 be called?

Microsoft's PR team refers to "Wave 15" without giving any details (like "Wave 15 is currently under development, but we have nothing further to share at this time"). Several Microsoft job adverts and LinkedIn profiles for Microsoft employees use the name Office 15, and the Access team has referred to Access 15 - but Office 15 is unlikely to be the final name (Office 2010 had the Office 14 codename).

Although a discussion about SharePoint by what appears to be a Microsoft employee refers to Office 2013, the name is almost certainly going to be Office 2012. As usual, we're expecting multiple Office 2012 versions from starter to home and small business versions as well as a full Office 2012 enterprise edition, with different combinations of apps.

When is the Office 2012 release date?

A job advert for Office Mobile testing in October 2010 referred to "Office 15 and Windows Phone 8 planning phase just getting under way", rumours in March suggested the code had already reached Milestone 2 and what looks like a legitimate build leaked in May. The Office division takes two to three years to put out a new version and we saw the beta of Office 2010 in February 2010 followed by RTM in May.

Microsoft names products by the year after the financial year they come out in (so they don't look out of date immediately), but Microsoft's financial year ends in July – so anything that releases to manufacturing after July 2012 would have 2013 in the name. Office 2012 beta will probably show up early in the year again, with final code by the middle of 2012 and the actual Office 2012 release date would be before late summer.

Office 2012 features

"Office 15 is shaping up to be one of the most feature packed and exciting releases," says a Microsoft job advert. There's obviously noting official on the Office 2012 features at this stage but there are some hints, like Office president Kurt delBene saying at the Worldwide Partner Conference "We want to remain the leaders in productivity on the desktop. We need to push forward in new scenarios that we had not delivered before."

OneNote

CLEAN LOOK: The OneNote 15 interface is sparser and easier to navigate on a tablet

There's going to be more video (both editing and using for meetings), more social network integration and maybe a whole new experience for meetings tying together the invitation you send in Outlook, the presentation you give in PowerPoint, the notes you take in OneNote and the Lync client you use for the online meeting.

Office 2012 interface

The Office 2012 interface is going to change from what we've seen in the leaked builds so far, but we'd bet anything you like that it's not going to lose the Office ribbon. OneNote 15 already has a new look in the leaked build with a much cleaner interface that will work well on tablet PCs, and a quick thumbnail navigation to get to recent pages that also looks tablet friendly.

PowerPoint 15 doesn't have any new themes, which reports from WPC mentioned, but it does preview themes straight from Office.com; it also has a new random transition option. A new M1 tab on the ribbon (probably a reference to new features in the Milestone 1 build) has a Data Grid tool that opens a redesigned version of the Chart picker with a new combo chart type. The same tab is in Word 15, along with an Extensions dropdown; there's nothing on it but it's where the new programming model we've been hearing about fits in.

PowerPoint 2012

CLOUD LINKS: No new transitions in the PowerPoint 15 leak but note how you can see themes directly from Office.com

Outlook shows the most interface differences, with a cleaner look that has more white space and resembles the Outlook Web App you get with Exchange and Office 365 - but again it keeps the ribbon. Instead of the vertical stack of buttons in the current interface there are Mail, Calendar and Contacts buttons at the bottom to switch to those views - and a menu with the familiar icons for Tasks, Folders and Shortcuts which lets you add them at the bottom as well.

Outlook

METRO LOOK: More white space like Outlook Web App in Office 365, but the notifications and bottom buttons are very Windows 8

This has hints of the Metro style underlying the Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8 interfaces, especially with the notification icon for new messages and tasks. The M1 command here is for sorting subfolders alphabetically rather than keeping them in the hierarchy you created.

Office 2012 collaboration

The co-authoring features in Word and the Word Web App show up in small changes to the change tracking, making it easier to filter by who made changes or when changes were made. That's part of what Word program manager Jonathan Bailor was promising when Office 2010 came out. "

In Office 15, we'd love to take collaboration and communication to the next level. We've unlocked all of these new ways to work and a new set of expectations from users, and we're like, "Put us back in the ring; we're ready for round two." Until coauthoring a document is as easy and ubiquitous as e-mail attachments, our job isn't done."

One hope is that Office 15 might deal with some long-standing issues in Office, thanks to an intern who worked on improving search features on Office.com and built a tool so the Office developers could look at what people are searching for and "leverage the data in Office '15' planning".

Is there a new app in Office 2012?

Maybe but it isn't Limestone; that's the same internal testing tool we saw in Office 2010 builds. The leaked build includes a new program called Moorea (there isn't a shortcut for it on the Start menu but you can run it anyway).

Moorea

WINDOWS 8 LOOK: The new Moorea app lets you place images, text and links to Word documents on a tiled layout that's very Metro

This lets you create layouts with images, text and links to Word documents, on a widescreen grid of tiles; it looks ideal for packaging up content into a Windows 8 tablet layout and we think it might be a tablet authoring tool – the files it saves are HTML…

Is Office 2012 based on HTML?

No. There's Moorea, which looks like a nice way to build HTML interfaces for content, and there's a new application model for developers creating tools on top of Office using JavaScript and HTML (although Visual Basic and C# are still there). A Microsoft job advert explains "Integration of JavaScript/HTML5 will enable developers to create rich applications that span clients and server, integrate with Office 365, enhance the SharePoint experience, and unlock new scenarios that unleash the great potential that lies in the combination of Office and the cloud." One theory; developers might be able to create add-ins for Office that would also work with the Office Web Apps.

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Instagram for Android pre-release sign-up page goes live

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Instagram for Android pre-release sign-up page goes live

Android smartphone owners are a step closer to owning the phenomenally successful Instagram photo-sharing app.

The company, which pledged to launch an Android version of the filter-happy app sometime this year, has now launched a pre-release sign-up page.

Android fans can now register their interest to be the "first in line" for the app when it launches "very soon."

Mobile dominance

Instagram has been a huge success for iOS devices, building a user-base of over 27 million.

The app became famous for its retro filters, which give photos a vintage, Polaroid-esque feel.

A launch on Android would be the next step for Kevin Systrom's booming business, which is aiming to become the de facto destination to upload your mobile photographs.

Just last week the company announced a partnership with rival app Hipstamatic to allow its users to upload photos directly to Instagram, where they can be more visible.

Instagram first confirmed it was working on an ad-supported Android app back in December, but did not commit to a release date.

Via: SlashGear

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Apple : In Depth: Inside Apple: Cupertino's secrets revealed

Apple : In Depth: Inside Apple: Cupertino's secrets revealed


In Depth: Inside Apple: Cupertino's secrets revealed

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In Depth: Inside Apple: Cupertino's secrets revealed

Inside Apple: Secrets and lies

Remember the famous cable drop scene in Mission: Impossible where Tom Cruise abseils into a locked room full of lasers? That's how Apple design chief Jonathan Ive gets to work.

We're exaggerating, but only just. In Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs, he describes Ive's design studio as "shielded by tinted windows and a heavy clad, locked door. Just inside is a glass-booth reception desk where two assistants guard access. Even the most high-level Apple employees are not allowed in without special permission."

In a wonderful bit of pot-kettle-black criticism, other Apple employees describe Ive's design team as "secretive". When you're accused of secrecy by people who work for the most secretive company in the world, you must be pretty good at keeping secrets.

Secrecy is in Apple's DNA. Everyone from the Board of Directors to employees of far-flung subcontractors knows the importance of keeping schtum and the penalties of loose lips: as one anonymous Apple Store employee puts it: "You have to be late, like, 15 times before they'll fire you. But if you talk to the press or speculate to a customer about the next iPad? That's the end of you."

The culture of secrecy has made Apple the most talked-about company on the planet, kept rivals in the dark and made keynotes a magical occasion. However, in recent months there have been worrying signs that Apple's secrecy can actually harm it as well as help. Should CEO Tim Cook make Apple more transparent?

Want to know a secret?

iPhone 4s

There are several reasons why Apple likes to keep the rest of the world out of the Infinite Loop. The first and most obvious one is that it keeps rivals in the dark.

For example, according to an anonymous RIM employee (for obvious reasons, most of the people you'll read about in this feature prefer to stay anonymous), the launch of the original iPhone sent BlackBerry executives into a state of sheer panic.

There was no way the iPhone could work "without an insanely power-hungry processor", they believed. "It must have terrible battery life." As far as RIM's in-house experts were concerned, the iPhone was impossible. It wasn't, of course, but Apple's secrecy meant that RIM didn't know the world had changed until Steve Jobs said so.

The second reason is that secrecy is a superb marketing tool. Apple is almost unique in its attitude to public relations: where other firms beg media outlets and bloggers for the slightest bit of coverage, Apple generally maintains a stony silence. The media effectively becomes Apple's PR machine, breathlessly reporting rumours and speculating about what Apple could have hidden up its sleeve.

God help anyone at Apple who helps fuel that speculation, though. Apple's internal policies on social networking, blogging and trade secrets, a copy of which was acquired by 9to5mac.com, effectively ban all employees from pretty much anything.

Employees: can't discuss Apple on their own websites; can't comment on Apple-related sites or blogs; can't discuss rumours, potential new products or improvements to existing ones with customers or anybody else; aren't allowed to speculate on rumours; and must ensure that "content associated with you is consistent with Apple's policies." Even "speculating on rumours with internal Apple colleagues is strictly prohibited."

"As an Apple employee you have an obligation to protect the confidential, proprietary and trade secret information of the company," the document says. "For example, do not discuss any Apple confidential information including your store's financial or business performance, and the timing, pricing or design of Apple's products. Also, do not post pictures of the inside of the Apple Store - including the back of house - as those are not generally made public. Finally…" - and this one's obviously been ignored by whoever passed the document to 9to5mac - "…do not post or disclose the contents of any Apple policy."

Secrets and lies

Antenna testing

When it comes to secrecy Apple takes every possible precaution. Speaking to The New York Times, former iPhone engineer Mark Hamblin described how "they make everyone super, super paranoid about security." Secrecy "is baked into the corporate culture," the NYT reports.

"Employees working on top-secret projects must pass through a maze of security doors, swiping their badges again and again and finally entering a numeric code to reach their offices, according to one former employee who worked in such areas."

"Work spaces are typically monitored by security cameras, this employee said. Some Apple workers in the most critical product-testing rooms must cover up devices with black cloaks when they are working on them, and turn on a red warning light when devices are unmasked so that everyone knows to be extra-careful, he said."

Apple also spends a great deal of effort trying to trap would-be leakers. Apple's Senior Vice President for Marketing, Phil Schiller, "has held internal meetings about new products and provided incorrect information about prices or features", the NYT says. If that information leaks, Apple has a pretty good idea where the leak came from.

Contracting a ruse

Gizmodo iPhone

Similar tricks are used to prevent contractors from leaking anything juicy. "On occasion, Apple will give contract manufacturers different products, just to try them out," Reuters says. "That way, the source of any leaks becomes immediately obvious."

Apple also splits manufacturing between multiple partners to prevent any single organisation knowing the bigger picture, and according to BusinessWeek, "Apple places electronic monitors in some boxes of parts that allow observers in Cupertino to track them through Chinese factories… at least once, the company shipped products in tomato boxes to avoid detection." Apple employees "monitored every hand-off point - loading dock, airport, truck depot and distribution centre - to make sure each unit was accounted for."

The penalties for leaking product information can be severe. All subcontractors sign a confidentiality agreement, and if they break it they can lose the entire contract; obviously if Apple can't prove a particular firm did it but has a strong suspicion, the contract might not be renewed.

When you consider the enormous quantities of components Apple orders, that's a big threat. And it may explain some of the pressure that lead to one tragic case in 2009 when Sun Danyong, a 25-year-old male, committed suicide after reporting the loss of an iPhone 4 prototype in his possession.

Just because you work for Apple doesn't mean anybody will tell you anything either (and believe it or not that even applies to us here at MacFormat magazine too, although we wish it was different).

Speaking to Popular Mechanics, one Apple Store insider explained that "we are completely in the dark until a keynote speech. We have no idea what is coming and are not allowed to openly speculate… I actually avoid the technology section of the newspaper so I have no points of view to accidentally comment with or drop into conversation."

Inside Apple: Firewall of silence

It seems big-name app developers don't get much love either. In the run-up to the launch of the first iPad, firms including Flixster, Evernote and mobile app developer Digital Chocolate asked for dev kits and were turned down flat and offered simulator software instead; the developers Apple did say yes to had to sign a 10-page confidentiality agreement and jump through all kinds of hoops.

The "sixth person to get an iPad", a developer of a very successful iPad app, told Business Insider that in order to get a genuine, pre-release iPad to test code on, "we had to have a room with no windows. They changed the locks on the door. Three developers and I were the only people allowed to go in the room. Apple needed the names and social security numbers of the people who had access."

Apple drilled holes in the desk and chained the iPads up with bicycle cables, and each iPad was in a custom frame "so we couldn't even tell what the iPads looked like."

Apple's representatives even took photos of the wood grain of the desk: if any pictures leaked out, they could trace it back to which desk they came from. "I wasn't allowed to tell our CEO," the developer says. "I wasn't allowed to tell anybody anything about what we were doing. I couldn't even tell my wife."

Apple's wall of secrecy meant that blogs and media outlets became Apple's PR machine - but it's a machine that Apple doesn't control, and if you don't control something there's always the risk that it might turn around and bite you.

That's exactly what happened in October when Apple announced the iPhone 4S - or rather, when Apple didn't announce the iPhone 5. Don't just take our word for it: here's Apple's Chief Financial Officer, Peter Oppenheimer.

"Apple's secrecy creates a certain amount of vacuum, which, as we all know, the internet abhors, and then fills with rumours," he said during Apple's October financial earnings call, noting that "pervasive" rumours had had a negative impact on iPhone sales.

The rumours didn't just affect sales: they affected Apple's share price too, with the value of Apple shares immediately falling by 5%. That's been happening quite a lot lately: with the exception of the iPad 2, the announcement of every major iOS device from the iPhone 3GS onwards has lead to a significant drop in Apple's share price.

Digital Trends' Geoff Duncan argues that Apple could be responsible for such drops in two ways: by whipping up the hype to the point where speculators buy Apple shares early and dump them at the very peak of the hype cycle as the keynote starts, and by attracting amateur investors with "unreasonable expectations" who "may start acquiring Apple stock in an effort to make a quick buck.

Once the announcement hits, and Apple's stock price begins to decline, these same investors may panic and sell their stock in an effort to minimise their losses. That puts more Apple stock for sale, driving down the price even further."

The danger for Apple is that it could become the victim of its own success. Apple rumour-mongering has become an industry, especially online, where click-hungry sites publish the most ridiculous rumours in the hope of getting a bit more traffic. When the rumours become the story, as happened with the iPhone 4S, the actual product can't be anything other than a disappointment.

That could be disastrous not just for Apple's shareholders, but for Apple itself: imagine if Apple product announcements were greeted not with cheers, but with jeers.

Secrecy for the sake of it

Critics of Apple argue that sometimes Apple takes its obsession with secrecy too far. For much of 2009 the App Store approvals process seemed to have been designed by Kafka, with apps being rejected for opaque reasons and developers given no option to appeal. That was eventually addressed and clear guidelines published, but only after widespread bad publicity.

Many Apple watchers also believe that the firm should have been more open about Steve Jobs' failing health, and that by refusing to comment Apple turned the matter into a media circus. And according to CNN, retail industry executives "say Apple's demands for absolute secrecy in its store development process are peculiar and unjustified."

You can understand Apple wanting to keep the lid on details of the next iPhone, but its shops? Apparently so: CNN says that when it approached architect Peter Bohlin, who'd spoken to The New York Times about his work designing some of the most iconic Apple Stores, he said that "Apple has requested that we refrain from granting any additional interviews."

Furthermore, CNN claims that "nearly two dozen people involved in the development of upcoming and recently opened US Apple Stores [say] Apple sometimes employs uncommon legal tactics, refuses to name itself in public documents and hearings, and has sworn city government officials to secrecy."

Stealthy stores

Grand Central

In Santa Monica today, where Apple is widely believed to be opening a second Apple Store, Apple's secretive behaviour "has perplexed and infuriated city officials who are unclear why Apple would feel the need to hide a new store when it already has one a couple of blocks away." CNN asked Apple to comment. Apple, of course - and yes, you're ahead of us here - declined.

Secrecy has been part of Apple's retail efforts since before the first store was opened: Apple hired an enormous warehouse to test its Store ideas in absolute secrecy, and they even hid the identity of the man in charge: when Steve Jobs hired Target executive Ron Johnson to head the Apple Store project, Johnson was given a false name and a phoney job title to throw rivals off the scent. John Bruce didn't get his name back until the first Apple Store was unveiled.

Apple is secretive because of Steve Jobs. Jobs was a naturally secretive man, but he also understood the power of "big-bang" product announcements to generate enormous free publicity and to prevent pre-release bad publicity.

In Steve Kemper's book Code Name Ginger, which recounts the story of the Segway scooter, Kemper describes a meeting between Segway inventor Dean Kamen, CEO Tim Adams, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs. Jobs made it abundantly clear that he was no fan of the Segway's design or of Jeff Bezos' idea to launch the Segway softly in one country, pointing out that "slow was no longer possible… if the machine was unavailable in the United States, the company would blow its chance for $100 million of free publicity in its biggest market."

Jobs also pointed out that with a slow launch, all it would take to create a PR disaster would be one unhappy customer. "I understand the appeal of a slow burn," he said, "but personally I'm a big-bang guy."

Will Tim Cook follow in Steve Jobs' secretive footsteps? We're betting on yes. Secrecy has served Apple well for the best part of 15 years, helping lift it from a bit player to the most important and influential technology company on Earth.

While Apple has become more open in recent years - publishing App Store approval guidelines, being up-front about environmental issues and so on - and Cook is more communicative than Jobs, the wall of secrecy surrounding Apple's products will remain as strong as ever.

If anything, it needs to become stronger: the stakes are too high for any more iPhone prototypes to be left behind in bars. For Apple, secrecy isn't an affectation: it's the company's killer app.

Post-Jobs Apple 'has nobody to say no'

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Post-Jobs Apple 'has nobody to say no'

A former Apple software engineer has claimed that the new Apple TV UI is based on designs 'Steve Jobs tossed out five years ago' because he didn't like them.

Michael Margolis, who helped to design the previous software for the hockey puck-like set-top box, says that the new era at Apple is devoid of Jobs' obsessive perfectionism.

In a shocking series of tweets, Margolis said there's no-one left at Apple to say no to bad design.

The former Senior Software Engineer tweeted: "I implemented the Apple TV 2.0 UI years ago. The new home page UI makes me want to cry."

He followed it up with: "Fun fact - those new designs were tossed out about 5 years ago because SJ didn't like them. Now there is nobody to say "no" to bad design."

Settling for second best?

Since Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder and former CEO, passed away in October, it has been largely business as usual for the company under new boss Tim Cook.

Record iPhone and iPad sales have been recorded en route to Apple becoming the world's most valuable publicly-traded company with share prices approaching $600.

However, the explosive comments reflect the fears of many observers, who felt that Apple may miss Jobs' most distinctive personally trait; his refusal to settle for anything short of what he deemed to be perfection.

Does the new Apple TV interface suggest the company is missing Steve's Midas touch or is it, like most of us thought, simply a means of making it look and feel more like iOS?

Is this the beginning of Apple rejoining the rest of the pack or is it simply sour grapes from someone no-longer in the (Infinite) loop.