Ryan: Apple event 20/10/10

Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs unveiled a lighter MacBook Air laptop and a version of the Macintosh operating system called Lion, saying he was drawing inspiration from Apple’s touch-screen mobile devices.

Macs will soon have an application store, similar to the App Store for the iPhone and iPad, Jobs said today at an event at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California. New computers also will take better advantage of multitouch gestures on track pads, mimicking the interface on Apple’s iOS, which runs mobile products. The app store will open within 90 days, and Lion will be released in the summer of 2011.

“We’ve been inspired by some of the work we’ve done on iOS, and want to bring them back to the Mac,” Jobs said.

Apple is using the popularity of its iPhone and iPad tablet to bolster demand for its oldest product, the Macintosh. Sales of the computers rose 22 percent to $4.87 billion last quarter, making up 24 percent of revenue. More than half of Mac purchases in the company’s retail stores in the most recent period were from first-time buyers.

“I don’t hear enough people talking about the halo effect,” said Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners LP in New York. He recommends buying the stock. “As more customers are being exposed to Apple products, they are spending more of their computer dollars on Apple.”

‘Hooking Up’

The new MacBook Air, which is 0.68 of an inch (less than 2 centimeters) at its thickest point, combines features of the iPad with a notebook, Jobs said. The computer’s battery lets users surf the Web wirelessly for seven hours. In standby mode, the battery can last 30 days. Like the iPad, there’s no hard- disk drive or CD-ROM, just flash memory. It weighs 2.3 to 2.9 pounds, depending on the model.

“We asked ourselves, ‘What would happen if a MacBook and an iPad hooked up?’ Well, this is the result,” he said. “We think it’s the future of notebooks.”

The new Air comes in two versions: a 13.3-inch model costs $1,299 to $1,599, depending on the amount of memory, while the 11.6-inch product starts at $999.

Apple sold a record 3.89 million Macs in the fourth quarter, a 27 percent increase from last year. The gains helped Apple nudge aside Acer Inc. to become the No. 3 U.S. PC seller in the period that ended in September, behind Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc., according to Framingham, Massachusetts-based IDC. Apple’s best-selling product is the iPhone.

‘Incredible Momentum’

The Mac has gained market share for 18 straight quarters and now has an installed base of almost 50 million, Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook said at the event.

“It’s incredible momentum,” he said.

Apple’s retail stores had 75 million visitors in the past fiscal year, which ended in September, Cook said. Its Chinese stores, which opened in the past two years, are drawing the heaviest traffic, he said.

The company also introduced a new version of its media software, iLife 11. The update adds features for handling video, photos and music, and is more tightly integrated with Facebook. The collection of programs includes iPhoto, which now makes it easier to e-mail photos and turn pictures into books and cards.

Ryan: A hands on approach to the new iPod Nano

Apple recently released there new range of iPods for the holiday season and as ever demand is high and it's near impossible to get one from a store. So your only real chance is online, but what if you have not seen one in action? Well newmacgeek.com is here to help with this overview video of the latest Nano from Apple.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_yTYuOcj5A


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Ryan: EXCLUSIVE, Nokia N8 Hands On

Today newmacgeek.com brings you and exclusive video of the soon to be released Nokia N8 with the pre-production version of Symbian 3 with was only updated last weekend. Please remember this is only a prototype a may vary when released. We can also confirm the device will NOT be released in September but will be released at some point in October. Enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjFhhoMwjrw

Ryan : Orange and T-Mobile merge networks UK but only 2G so far

Customers of Orange and T-Mobile will soon be able to hop between the two mobile networks.

The deal is one of the first practical benefits from the recent merger of the two firms, which have 30 million customers combined.

The network sharing deal is limited to 2G signals, meaning that customers will see little benefit when using the mobile web.

Analysts said that T-Mobile had the most to gain from the merger.

"Outside of the South-East [of England] there has been a constant perception that T-Mobile is an under performing network," said Shaun Collins of research firm CCS Insight.

"This literally takes it away overnight."

Network evolution

He said that network coverage was becoming a "key battleground" between the major UK networks.

"The network coverage advantages of the merger [between Orange and T-Mobile] were always the most important part of it," he said.

Customers of the two firms will have to sign up for the free "roaming" service, which goes live on 5 October.

Once registered, their phone will automatically hop between the networks when it loses signal. The underlying system is similar to that used when a phone "roams" on a different network abroad.

Next year Everything Everywhere - the company that runs Orange and T-Mobile in the UK - said that phones would automatically switch to whichever of the two networks has the strongest signal mid-call.

It said it also plans to roll it out to 3G services.

When it does, Orange customers will be able to use a 3G network owned and operated by Mobile Broadband Network Limited (MBNL), a joint venture company owned by Three and T-Mobile.

Orange joined MBNL on the 16 August.

"Everything Everywhere will be adding Orange sites to the network it shares with Three in the course of time, and Three customers will get access to a significant proportion of those as they are added," said a spokesperson for Everything Everywhere.

Three customers are already able to use the Orange network for 2G calls and texts.

Further down the line, Everything Everywhere aims to start building a next-generation LTE (long-term evolution) mobile network, to cope with the surge in demand for data and the mobile web.

LTE offers faster speeds than current 3G networks and is able to handle more traffic.

The UK government plans to hold an auction of spectrum for next generation services in 2011.

Andrew: New Safari 5.1 Update

New in this update:

• Safari Extensions
  • Customize Safari with features created by third-party developers
  • Find extensions in the Safari Extensions Gallery, accessible from the Safari menu and extensions.apple.com

This update also contains improvements to stability, accessibility and security, including the following:

• More accurate Top Hit results in the Address Field
• More accurate timing for CSS animations
• Better stability when using the Safari Reader keyboard shortcut
• Better stability when scrolling through MobileMe Mail
• Fixes display of multipage articles from www.rollingstone.com in Safari Reader
• Fixes an issue that prevented Google Wave and other websites using JavaScript encryption libraries from working correctly on 32-bit systems
• Fixes an issue that prevented Safari from launching on Leopard systems with network home directories
• Fixes an issue that could cause borders on YouTube thumbnails to disappear when hovering over the thumbnail image
• Fixes an issue that could cause Flash content to overlap with other content on www.facebook.com, www.crateandbarrel.com, and other sites when using Flash 10.1
• Fixes an issue that prevented boarding passes from www.aa.com from printing correctly
• Fixes an issue that could cause DNS prefetching requests to overburden certain routers
• Fixes an issue that could cause VoiceOver to misidentify elements of webpages

Andrew: New Apple Refresh

New iMac’s- Dual-core Intel Core i3 and Core i5, and quad-core Core i5 and Core i7 bring the best performance yet to the iMac line. New discrete ATI Radeon HD processors deliver incredibly smooth, crisp graphics for the most demanding 3D games, creative software and technical applications. iMac displays feature IPS technology to deliver images across a wide 178 degree viewing angle. The SD card slot on the iMac now supports the SDXC format. Customers of the 27-inch iMac have the option to order a 256GB solid state drive (SSD) as a primary or secondary drive. The iMac SSD supports up to 215 MB/s data transfer rates for faster startup and application launch times.

e new 21.5-inch 3.06 GHz Intel Core i3 iMac, for a suggested retail price of $1,199 (US), includes:

• 21.5-inch 1920 x 1080 LED-backlit display;
• 3.06 GHz Intel Core i3 processor with 4MB shared L3 cache;
• 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM expandable to 16GB;
• ATI Radeon HD 4670 discrete graphics with 256MB GDDR3 SDRAM;
• 500GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
• slot-load 8x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
• Mini DisplayPort for audio and video output (adapters sold separately);
• AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking & Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
• iSight video camera;
• Gigabit Ethernet;
• four USB 2.0 ports;
• one SDXC SD card slot;
• one FireWire 800 port;
• built-in stereo speakers and microphone; and
• Wireless Apple Keyboard, Magic Mouse.

Configure-to-order options include up to 8GB of RAM.

The new 21.5-inch 3.2 GHz Intel Core i3 iMac, for a suggested retail price of $1,499 (US), includes:

• 21.5-inch 1920 x 1080 LED-backlit display;
• 3.20 GHz Intel Core i3 processor with 4MB shared L3 cache;
• 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM expandable to 16GB;
• ATI Radeon HD 5670 discrete graphics with 512MB GDDR3;
• 1TB Serial ATA hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
• slot-load 8x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
• Mini DisplayPort for audio and video output (adapters sold separately);
• AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking & Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
• iSight video camera;
• Gigabit Ethernet;
• four USB 2.0 ports;
• one FireWire 800 port;
• one SDXC SD card slot;
• built-in stereo speakers and microphone; and
• Wireless Apple Keyboard, Magic Mouse.

Mac Pro- Feature the latest quad-core and 6-core Intel Xeon processors, all-new ATI graphics and the option for up to four 512GB solid state drives (SSD). The processors run at speeds up to 3.33GHz and use a single die design so they can share up to 12MB L3 cache, improving efficiency while increasing processing speeds.he systems include an integrated memory controller for faster memory bandwidth and reduced memory latency; Turbo Boost to dynamically boost processor speeds up to 3.6 GHz; and Hyper-Threading to create up to 24 virtual cores. The Mac Pro now comes with the ATI Radeon HD 5770 graphics processor with 1GB of memory and customers can configure-to-order the even faster ATI Radeon HD 5870 with 1GB of memory

Mac Pro also now features two Mini DisplayPorts and one dual-link DVI port. The additional Mini DisplayPort output allows customers to connect two LED Cinema Displays without an additional graphics card or adapter and the dual-link DVI port supports legacy DVI-based displays up to a resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels.

Pricing & Availability

The new Mac Pro will be available in August through the Apple Store, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers.

The new quad-core Mac Pro, with a suggested retail price of $2,499 (US), includes:

• one 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon W3530 processor with 8MB of fully-shared L3 cache;
• 3GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory, expandable up to 16GB;
• ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
• two Mini DisplayPorts and one DVI (dual-link) port (adapters sold separately);
• 1TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
• 18x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW);
• four PCI Express 2.0 slots;
• five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire 800 ports;
• AirPort Extreme® 802.11n;
• Bluetooth 2.1+EDR; and
• Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad and Magic Mouse.

The new 8-core Mac Pro, with a suggested retail price of $3,499 (US), includes:

• two 2.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5620 processors with 12MB of fully-shared L3 cache per processor;
• 6GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory, expandable up to 32GB;
• ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
• two Mini DisplayPorts and one DVI (dual-link) port (adapters sold separately);
• 1TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
• 18x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW);
• four PCI Express 2.0 slots;
• five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire 800 ports;
• AirPort Extreme 802.11n;
• Bluetooth 2.1+EDR; and
• Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad and Magic Mouse.

Configure-to-order options include:

• one 3.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon W3565 processor for the quad-core Mac Pro;
• one 3.33 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon W3680 processor for the quad-core Mac Pro;
• two 2.66 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon X5650 processors (12-cores) for the 8-core Mac Pro;
• two 2.93 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon X5670 processors (12-cores) for the 8-core Mac Pro;
• two ATI Radeon HD 5770 cards with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
• one ATI Radeon HD 5870 card with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
• up to 16GB of DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory for the quad-core Mac Pro;
• up to 32GB of DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory for the 8-core Mac Pro;
• up to four 512GB solid state drives (SSD); or
• up to four 1TB or 2TB Serial ATA hard drives running at 7200 rpm;
• Mac Pro RAID card;
• dual-channel or quad-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel card; and
• up to two 18x SuperDrives with double-layer support.

“one more thing”

27″ LED just like 24″ will ship later this year

Magic TrackPad-Apple’s patented multi-touch technology through a smooth glass and aluminum design. It enables users to scroll smoothly up and down a page with inertial scrolling, pinch to zoom in and out, rotate an image with fingertips and swipe three fingers to flip through a collection of Web pages or photos. pple first brought multi-touch functionality to its desktops last year with the Magic Mouse, a Bluetooth wireless mouse that allows users to use their fingers to scroll and zoom via the surface of the hardware. Every iMac and Mac Pro comes with the Magic Mouse, though users can now order the new Magic Trackpad for $69 as an option.

for $30 you can purchase a apple battery charger each Apple Battery Charger comes with six AA NiMH batteries, intended to allow users to run their keyboard keyboard and mouse or trackpad, while allowing two more for spare charging.

Andrew: New Kindles

The front page of Amazon.co.uk currently sports a letter from founder Jeff Bezos advertising two new Kindle e-Readers, both of which are finally now available directly from the UK store and US Store. Previously, the Kindle could only be ordered from the US store, and users would have buy content for the Kindle from it in dollars. The two new Kindles however are available directly from Amazon.co.uk.

dedicated UK Kindle store will be appearing on 27 August,mazon said and will offer more than 400,000 books, as well as UK newspapers, magazines and blogs.

Both new Kindles are available to pre-order now and will ship on 27 August. The new Kindles cost £149($189) for a 3G and Wi-Fi version, or its £109($139) for a Wi-Fi only variant. Visually both new Kindles look the same and both are only 247g, a 15 per cent weight reduction from the 290g of the Kindle 2. This is down to it having a 21 per cent smaller body. Despite this it keeps the same 6in display as the Kindle 2.

Amazon said that the new screen offers a 50 per cent superior contrast to any other e-reader and thanks to what it described as “Amazon’s proprietary waveform and font technology”, it now has faster page turns and clearer fonts. A browser has been added, based on the WebKit rendering engine and it also has double the storage. The battery is said to last for one month.

The 3G Whispernet service on the 3G enabled model will be available worldwide in over 100 countries and is free at all times, enabling you to download and start reading a book in 60 seconds.

Links-

Amazon US

Amazon UK