With Apple retail stores, carriers, and other retailers taking delivery of their launch-day iPhone 5 stocks overnight last night, hundreds of the units have been stolen in several incidents on opposite sides of the globe. While security is tight at Apple's own retail stores where staff were on hand all night to set up window displays and demo units, carriers whose retail stores were left unattended during the night have been the primary target for thieves.
The Wall Street Journal reports that a total of 191 units were stolen from three separate shops run by carrier partners KDDI and Softbank in the Osaka area in Japan. Police have not confirmed that the burglaries are connected and are still investigating security footage and other evidence. The majority of the stolen units came from a Softbank outlet that was cleaned out of its entire stock of iPhone 5 units.[A] Softbank Corp store in the western district of Osaka city was wiped clean of its iPhone 5 stock. All 116 devices were stolen, including one store display. The police said they were taken from the locked backroom within a four minute span from 4:24 a.m. as shown on security camera footage. The video recording also showed there were three culprits, all likely to be male. The police said it is uncertain whether the robbery is related to the incident in Ibaraki, located about 20 minutes away by car.In the United Kingdom, The Independent reports that over 250 iPhone 5 units were stolen from an O2 shop in London in what appears to have been an inside job.Officers want to speak to Usman Sethi, 23, of Audley Gardens, Ilford, east London, who works as an assistant at the store.
The phones were taken at 1.30am, with a quantity of cash which was also stolen from the shop's safe. [...]
Police also want to speak to Mr Sethi, a Pakistani national, in connection with the theft of jewellery belonging to a family member from his home address in Audley Gardens.At a median selling price of £599, the 252 stolen iPhones would be valued at approximately £150,000 or nearly $250,000. read more..
Wednesday, 3 October 2012
Security Camera Footage-Apple Retail Stores-Iphone 5
Sunday, 2 September 2012
Diagnostics Software-Prototype
As noted by 9to5Mac, an early iPhone 4 prototype has shown up on eBay running Apple's in-house diagnostics software.
A number of high-quality photos are included with the listing, showing a complete lack of Apple branding on the exterior of the device. Most notably, the Apple logo has been replaced with a distinct logo that was previously seen in a Twitpic posting in February 2010. The standard "iPhone" text on the rear of the device has also been replaced by "Prototype", along with text noting that the device has not been approved by the Federal Communications Commission and can not be sold until such authorization is granted.
Sonny Dickson has also provided an overview video of the device showing off several of the features of the device including the software and a lack of screws on the bottom of the device that is consistent with some of the earlier leaked prototypes.
As seen in the video, the serial number of the device indicates that it was manufactured during the 43rd week of 2009, which corresponds to late October, nearly eight months before the device was made available to the public.
The auction for the prototype currently carries a single bid of $4,500, with the seller advertising in the listing that a $10,000 offer would be acceptable to halt the auction process and simply purchase the device.
Update: The listing has been removed. read more..
Friday, 31 August 2012
Facebook-Ios
Facebook has released a completely rewritten iOS app that is significantly faster than the prior version. With more and more Facebook users accessing the social network via mobile, the company views having a fast mobile app as increasingly essential. News that the update was forthcoming was first reported back in June.
With the updated version, Facebook's engineers have dumped the HTML5-based app and rebuilt it using Objective-C programming to make it perform more like a native iOS app. From All Things D:
“People have different expectations when it comes to using Facebook for iOS,” Mick Johnson, Facebook iOS mobile product manager, told me in an interview this morning. “They expect a level of performance and speed that just wasn’t there.”
Johnson says that the largest pain points — scrolling through the feed, photos and loading the app — will all be much faster, by a factor of three. Also, Facebook mobile developers working on the three separate iOS apps — Facebook, Camera and Messenger — all all now sharing a code base with each other, so Messenger and Camera are actually running inside of the proper Facebook app, bringing many of those features to Facebook for iOS. (As a bonus, a shared code base means faster development cycles, so we’ll probably see improvements sooner.)Facebook for iPhone is available free via the App Store. [Direct Link] read more..
Thursday, 30 August 2012
Windows Applications-Parallels Desktop-Internet Explorer-Google Chrome Os-Mountain Lion
Parallels announced the availability of Parallels 8 upgrades for the Mac for existing Parallels Desktop customers. Parallels 8 is the latest version of their virtualization software that allows Mac users to run other operating systems, such as Windows, alongside OS X. “People don’t need to make an either/or choice between Mac and Windows because Macs running Parallels Desktop 8 empower people to simultaneously use applications that best suit their needs – regardless of whether it’s an app for OS X, Windows, Google Chrome OS, Ubuntu, or even Android,” said Parallels CEO Birger Steen.
New features in Parallels 8 includes OS X Mountain Lion integration as well as Retina support and performance boosts:- Speak, don’t type – Use the new Mountain Lion Dictation tool across both Windows and Mac environments
- Open in Internet Explorer – When a website doesn’t render well within Safari, launch it in Internet Explorer with a click of a button
- Parallels Wizard – Download and automatically install Windows or other operating systems (OSes) including Google Chrome OS, Ubuntu and Android on your Mac.
- Windows apps on OS X Launchpad – Add Windows applications to the Mountain Lion or Lion Launchpad to quickly launch Mac and Windows applications used most
- Consolidated notifications – Integration of Windows notifications into the Mac OS X Notification Center makes it easy to stay updated on Windows virtual machine operations
- Mountain Lion gestures for Windows apps – Enjoy seamless integration of Mountain Lion gestures with Windows apps such as pinch to zoom, Mission Control, three-finger drag, swipe between full-screen apps, two-finger scroll, Launchpad and rotate
- Retina display support – Enjoy stunning Retina display resolution in Windows OS and Windows applications to see crisper fonts, vivid photos, images and animations
- Improved Parallels Desktop 8 performance - up to 30 percent faster for input/output (I/O) operations, 30 percent faster for games and up to 25 percent faster for virtual machine operations such as boot, suspend, shutdown and resume, when compared to Parallels Desktop 7 for MacParallels 8 will be available starting today as an upgrade for existing Parallels Desktop users. (Parallels' website not showing version 8 at time of publication) Upgrades are priced at $49.99.
The full version will become available for $79.99 both online and in retail stores starting on September 4th. C ustomers who purchased Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac on or after July 25, 2012, are eligible for a free upgrade. read more..
Wednesday, 29 August 2012
Mountain Lion Os X
Earlier this month, Arstechnica had reported that many users had found a significant decrease in battery life after upgrading to OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion). Ars writer Chris Foresman, after extended testing, discovered that the battery life of his Retina MacBook Pro review unit dropped 38% from its previous 8-hours.The same findings were reported by many others in Apple's own support forums, and there were some reports that the development versions of OS X 10.8.1 may have addressed this issue.
MacObserver has conducted battery life tests on the final release build of OS X 10.8.1 to see if there had indeed been any improvement. Their testing process included using an Automator script that launched several apps and navigated to websites. The script would cycle this process continuously. The tests were run on a 2011 Macbook Pro. Here are their findings:
First, they were able to confirm the drop in battery life when going from OS X 10.7.4 to OS X 10.8. The drop they measured was 33% (2 hours and 10 minutes) just from upgrading OS X to 10.8. The "No WiFi Icon" was a "fix" of suggested by one of their readers, but showed no appreciable effect. They did find that OS X 10.8.1 (beta and release) builds did improve the battery life stats, adding as much as 52 minutes in their testing. The overall numbers, however, are still well under their battery life measurements in OS X 10.7.4 (Lion).
Apple is currently testing OS X 10.8.2, but there's been no word if that build helps further improve battery times back towards OS X Lion levels. read more..
Java Runtime Environment-Latest Version Of Java-Security Vulnerability-Oracle
Just two weeks after Oracle officially took over responsibility for Java on OS X with the launch of Java SE 7 Update 6, a new Java vulnerability has been discovered to pose a significant threat to systems running the software. Krebs on Security highlighted the issue yesterday, noting that it affects all versions of Java 7 on most browsers.News of the vulnerability (CVE-2012-4681) surfaced late last week in a somewhat sparse blog post by FireEye, which said the exploit seemed to work against the latest version of Java 7, which is version 1.7, Update 6. This morning, researchers Andre’ M. DiMino & Mila Parkour published additional details on the targeted attacks seen so far, confirming that the zero-day affects Java 7 Update 0 through 6, but does not appear to impact Java 6 and below.
Initial reports indicated that the exploit code worked against all versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera, but did not work against Google Chrome. But according to Rapid 7, there is a Metasploit module in development that successfully deploys this exploit against Chrome (on at least Windows XP).The report notes that Oracle is moving to a quarterly update cycle for Java, meaning that the next regularly-scheduled update to Java SE 7 is not planned until October, but it is unclear how quickly the company will move to address the issue. In the interim, some security experts are developing an unofficial patch while users are advised to simply disable Java if they do not need it active on their systems.
Computerworld reports that the issue does indeed affect fully-updated Macs running Java 7 on top of OS X Mountain Lion.David Maynor, CTO of Errata Security, confirmed that the Metasploit exploit -- which was published less than 24 hours after the bug was found -- is effective against Java 7 installed on OS X Mountain Lion.
"This exploit works on OS X if you are running the 1.7 JRE [Java Runtime Environment]," said Maynor in an update to an earlier blog post.
JRE 1.7 includes the most-current version of Java 7, dubbed "Update 6," that was released earlier this month.Both Safari 6 and Firefox 14 have been found to be vulnerable to the issue on OS X systems.
Apple has of course had its own issues with Java vulnerabilities, most recently with the Flashback malware that was able to infect over 600,000 Macs by taking advantage of an exploit in Java 6 that had already been patched by Oracle for most platforms but not by Apple for OS X. It is due to smaller, previous incidents similar to Flashback that Apple had already been moving to shift responsibility for Java updates to Oracle, a move that is taking place with Java 7. But while Mac users will now receive Java updates simultaneously with users on other platforms, Java remains one of the highest-profile targets for attackers seeking to compromise systems on a broad basis.
Update: CNET noted earlier today that most Mac users are not currently susceptible to the issue, as Java 7 is not installed by default on Macs. The current version of Java installed on Mac remains Java 6 for the time being, so users would have to have manually updated to Java 7 in order for their systems to be vulnerable. read more..
Saturday, 18 August 2012
Stock Dividend-Stock Buyback-Stock Price-Apple
After setting a record high close yesterday, Apple's stock today has extended its strong run that has been in place since last month's disappointing earnings numbers, pushing through to set a new all-time intraday high. The stock hit a new high of $644.13 per share just minutes ago, besting the previous all-time high of $644.00 set on April 10.
The move has also pushed Apple's market capitalization above $600 billion for the first time since April 10, also marking a 23% increase in stock price since the bottom of this dip came at $522.18 during trading on May 18.
Apple's new all-time high comes a day after the company issued its first quarterly stock dividend since 1995, giving shareholders $2.65 per share as one piece of the company's strategy for handling its massive stockpile of cash. Investors had been calling for a dividend for quite some time as Apple's cash hoard approached and then exceeded $100 billion, with the company relenting in a March announcement in which the company outlined its belief that it will have enough cash on hand to meet its needs for the foreseeable future. The company also instituted a $10 billion stock buyback program intended to offset dilution coming from stock grants and employee stock purchases. read more..
Friday, 17 August 2012
Apple Stock Price Marks All-Time Closing High Ahead of New iPhone Rollout
Apple's stock price closed at an all-time high of $636.34 today, passing the prior all-time closing high of $636.23 set four months ago on April 9th. The next day, April 10th, the stock hit an intraday high of $644 and the company's market capitalization breached $600 billion before falling back. Apple's stock price is up nearly 60% on the year, outperforming the NASDAQ by more than 3:1 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average by more than 6:1.
Growth in Apple's stock has been slightly weaker for the past month in the run-up to weaker-than-expected earnings for the third quarter, but new reports of a September launch for the next iPhone as well as a smaller, cheaper iPad Mini have been pushing the price higher.
All shareholders of record as of Monday's close also received a cash dividend of $2.65 per-share today, the first dividend payment to Apple shareholders since December 1995. read more..
Tuesday, 14 August 2012
Advanced Encryption Standard Algorithm-National Security Agency-Security Architecture
Technology Review takes a look at the evolution of security on the iPhone, noting how Apple has been able to gain acceptance in government and enterprise by overcoming its initially lax stance on device security to roll out industry-leading encryption options that can defeat essentially all attempts at accessing properly protected devices.At the heart of Apple's security architecture is the Advanced Encryption Standard algorithm (AES), a data-scrambling system published in 1998 and adopted as a U.S. government standard in 2001. After more than a decade of exhaustive analysis, AES is widely regarded as unbreakable. The algorithm is so strong that no computer imaginable for the foreseeable future—even a quantum computer—would be able to crack a truly random 256-bit AES key. The National Security Agency has approved AES-256 for storing top-secret data.As Apple highlights in a recent white paper (PDF) on iOS security, this hardware security involves the incorporation of a unique AES-256 key fused into each iOS device and which can not be directly read.
Access to the device's software can be restricted with a PIN passcode, and while the default passcode option for iOS is a four-digit number, users can opt to use significantly longer and more complex passcodes. And with brute-force attacks required to break iOS passcodes needing to be run on the device itself at a speed of 80 milliseconds per attempt, a device with an eight-digit passcode could take up to 15 years to compromise."There are a lot of issues when it comes to extracting data from iOS devices," says Amber Schroader, CEO of Paraben, a supplier of forensic software, hardware, and services for cell phones. "We have had many civil cases we have not been able to process ... for discovery because of encryption blocking us."Most of the information included in this report is not particularly new, and Apple's white paper goes into more detail on the company's efforts to address security on iOS devices, but the report offers an overview of the layers of security Apple has built into its products. read more..
Saturday, 11 August 2012
Retina Macbook Pro-Results Database-Geekbench
Exactly one month ago, we noted the presence of a "MacBookPro10,2" entry in the Geekbench results database, suggesting that a 13-inch version of the Retina MacBook Pro is indeed in the works, as has been rumored for October. In comparison, the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro carries a "MacBookPro10,1" identifier, while current non-Retina versions of the MacBook Pro carry "MacBookPro9,x" identifiers.
While much of the data presented to Geekbench by machines can be faked and many Hackintosh enthusiasts go to great lengths to match their machines' details to those of actual Macs, the details of the MacBookPro10,2 were consistent enough with expectations that both we and Geekbench developer Primate Labs believed the entry to be genuine.
Following the original entry, a second MacBookPro10,2 has now appeared in the results database, with the data bearing very strong similarity to the original entry but with some differences that suggest this entry may also be legitimate.
Like the machine that appeared first, the new machine runs a 2.9 GHz Core i7-3520M, the same processor found in the current high-end model of the non-Retina 13-inch MacBook Pro. The machine's motherboard identifier also matches the previous machine, which itself matched a previously unaccounted for identifier seen in early developer builds of OS X Mountain Lion. And as would be expected for machines running the same specs, the two machines have very similar Geekbench scores of roughly 7800.
There are a few differences, however, with one of the key ones being a custom 12A2066 build of the unreleased OS X 10.8.1. Just two days ago, Apple gave the first indication that it will begin seeding OS X 10.8.1 to developers, but it has yet to do so. In addition, the four-digit build number suffix is sometimes used internally by Apple on its test machines, although such four-digit build numbers are sometimes also used publicly for special builds such as the version of OS X 10.7.4 that shipped on new 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro models.
In addition, this new entry reflects a MacBook Pro with 8 GB of RAM, in line with what ships paired with the Core i7-3520M on the corresponding non-Retina model. The previous MacBookPro10,2 entry showed a machine with only 4 GB of RAM. Finally, the BIOS string for the new entry appears to show an updated date code of July 18, 2012, compared to the previous one registering as June 11, 2012.
Geekbench results have on several occasions revealed upcoming Mac models, most recently in mid-May with the MacBookPro9,1 that turned out to be the non-Retina 15-inch MacBook Pro upon its release the following month. Notably, an iMac13,2 entry that also appeared to be legitimate surfaced around the same time, but Apple has yet to release updated iMacs.
(Thanks, Matthew!) read more..
Friday, 10 August 2012
Television Spot-New Television-Retina Display-Ipad
Apple today posted a new television ad for the new iPad called "All on iPad". The ad is identical in style to Do It All which was released in June. The Retina Display remains a focus, with a number of different apps sharing the spotlight.
Read it. Tweet it.
Be surprised. Be productive.
Make a sale. Make some lunch.
Make it movie night.
Play a game. Or an old favorite
Do it all more beautifully, with the Retina display, on iPad.This is the third television spot that Apple has released for the 3rd generation iPad.
The ad comes shortly after a new and controversial series of ads focused on an "Apple Genius". That ad debuted during the opening ceremonies for the summer Olympics and were sharply criticized. Those are ads no longer running which Apple's ad agency claims was the plan all along. read more..
Thursday, 9 August 2012
Retina Macbook Pro-Notebook Battery-Mountain Lion
Ars Technica has been doing some testing after reports emerged that some Mountain Lion early adopters were experiencing degraded battery life after upgrading to OS X 10.8. A 46-page thread with nearly 700 replies has been growing over the past several weeks on the Apple Support Forums.
Ars writer Chris Foresman, after extended testing, discovered that the battery life of his Retina MacBook Pro review unit dropped 38% from its previous 8-hours. He was unable to narrow down blame for the battery loss to any particular bit of software or system process.
Our own testing revealed similar (and significant) drops in battery runtime after installing Mountain Lion. In previous tests, we were able to regularly achieve just over 8 hours of use by relying solely on our Retina MacBook Pro's integrated Intel HD4000 GPU. Performing the same "real-world" test using the same software applications and usage pattern, we never got the Retina MacBook Pro to run for more than a few minutes past 5 hours after a full charge.
Typically, the quad-core processor wasn't taxed beyond 5 percent capacity, except for occasional 10-20 percent spikes when loading webpages, reading or writing files, or other activities. Unexpected file system or network access, or less efficient use of the GPU, could cause additional power drain without showing significant CPU use.One poster on Apple's support forums claims a company support representative told him that "an update will be issued via the [Mac App Store] as soon as they can work a fix". read more..
Wednesday, 8 August 2012
Simulator-Ios
9to5Mac reports that it has discovered through some testing with Apple's official iOS simulator that iOS 6 is capable of automatically scaling its home screen display to fit a taller 1136x640 display, compared to the current 960x640 display. Numerous rumors and part leaks have indicated that Apple will be including a taller display on the next-generation iPhone to be introduced next month.Thanks to some tweaks to the iOS Simulator application that is included in the iOS development tools, we were able to run the simulator at the rumored next-generation iPhone display resolution of 640 x 1136. We did this running both the current public release of iOS 5.1 and the upcoming iOS 6.0 The iOS 5.1 simulator displayed the home screen with a stretched set of four rows of icons. On the other hand, iOS 6 displayed five complete rows – as our sources said Apple was testing for taller iPhone displays.
iOS simulator at 1136x640 with five rows of icons under iOS 6 and four rows under iOS 5.1
Notably, setting the iOS simulator to resolutions other than 1136x640 does not result in automatic scaling, with the software instead simply defaulting to an "iPad-like home screen layout" different from what is seen for the iPhone. The observation suggests that there is something special about that 1136x640 resolution that suggests Apple has at least been working on an iOS 6 device supporting that screen size. read more..
Friday, 27 July 2012
Redemption Code-Mountain Lion-Replacement-Osx Server-Apple
Yesterday, we noted that Apple's Up-to-Date program allowing recent Mac purchasers to receive free upgrades to OS X Mountain Lion was experiencing some early hiccups, with users receiving Mac App Store redemption codes that were registering as invalid. Customer support representatives were advising users that Apple was aware of the issue and would be automatically issuing replacement codes but that the process could take up to three days.
While many of these replacement codes are already coming through, users today have begun reporting that Apple is mistakenly sending out codes for the OS X Server components of Mountain Lion rather than Mountain Lion itself.I just got my second code and was able to redeem it. The only problem is when it redeemed it came up with an error saying OSX Server cannot be downloaded because it requires OSX 10.8.0 to run. It seems they sent me a redemption code for server instead of mountain lion. The pdf with the code clearly says that the code is for mountain lion...
My purchased tab only shows OSX Server - no mountain lion...At least half a dozen users have reported the same problem, with the issue presumably affecting a much greater number of users receiving codes today. One user who called Apple about the issue was advised to file another request through Apple's uptodatesupport@apple.com support mechanism.
OS X Server is also available through the Up-to-Date program, but is limited to users who purchased server models of the company's Mac Pro and Mac mini lines. read more..
Monday, 23 July 2012
Unique Identifier-Purchase Receipts-Purchase Requests-Purchase Content-Russian Hacker
Following last week's launch of a hack that allowed users to obtain In App Purchase content free of charge by routing their purchase requests through a server run by a Russian hacker, Apple began taking steps to thwart the method. The hacker has, however, continued to develop his method to skirt around Apple's roadblocks.
One of the suggestions for a method by which Apple could improve the security of In App Purchasing was to include a unique identifier in validation receipts, and we've received word that developers are now seeing something along those lines coming from receipts issued by Apple since late yesterday. The receipts carry a new field called "unique_identifer" that appears to include the Unique Device Identifier (UDID) for the device making the In App Purchase.
As one developer noted to us, apps are no longer supposed to be collecting the UDID and thus it is unclear whether Apple's use of the identifier for this purpose is simply a first step toward a broader implementation of unique receipt identifiers for increased security or if Apple is attempting to identify those users and devices who are sharing their receipts with the Russian hacker to allow the method to function. read more..
Friday, 20 July 2012
Prototype Device-Ipad
Earlier today, we pointed to some grainy photos of an early iPad prototype dating back to the 2002-2004 timeframe, revealing a much bulkier but otherwise fairly similar design to that seen in the device that was ultimately launched in 2010.
Buzzfeed has now posted new photos showing the prototype in full color next to an iPad 2, a comparison which shows the prototype to carry a much larger screen than seen on the iPad to date. Measuring pixel counts against the ruler shown in several of the photos reveals that the prototype device had a display measuring almost exactly 12 inches diagonally.
Compared to the eventually-released iPad's 9.7-inch screen, the prototype device would have had roughly 40% more screen real estate, although it is unknown at what resolution the early device was projected to run.
The prototype otherwise bears a distinct similarity to Apple's iBook of the time, carrying a white plastic shell with rounded corners and a 4:3 aspect ratio for the display. The prototype iPad measures in at just under 1-inch thick, compared to 1.35 inches for the white iBook models and the 0.34-0.50 inch range of the iPad models released to the public so far. read more..
Purchase Content-Apple
Late last week, we reported on the launch of a new method to allow App Store users to bypass Apple's In App Purchase mechanism and receive additional content free of charge. At the time, we noted that use of the method involved theft of content from developers and exposed iOS device users to dangers as their account and device information was being routed to servers under the control of the Russian hacker running the service, but we felt that reporting on the issue to bring it to light was the responsible thing to do in order to alert developers to the issue and perhaps spur Apple into action.
The Next Web now follows up with a report outlining some of the steps Apple has been taking to combat the issue, including issuing a copyright claim to have the original video showing the hack in action pulled from YouTube.Over the weekend, Apple began blocking the IP address of the server used by Russian hacker Alexey V. Borodin to authenticate purchases.
It followed this up with a takedown request on the original server, taking down third-party authentication with it, also issuing a copyright claim on the overview video Borodin used to document the circumvention method. PayPal also got involved, placing a block on the original donation account for violating its terms of service.The hacker, Alexey Borodin, remains committed to the service and has been working to skirt around the roadblocks being thrown up by Apple, in part by moving the service to a server in another country, but it is clear that Apple is working on the issue and addressing it through multiple routes in order to improve the security of In App Purchase content. For now, however, the service remains operational. read more..
Saturday, 14 July 2012
Renewable Energy-North Carolina-Energy Usage-Data Centers-Apple Credit
Earlier this year, environmental activist group Greenpeace made waves with a report taking Apple and other companies to task for not doing enough to eliminate the use of dirty coal-sourced power at their data centers. Apple quickly responded at the time to note that Greenpeace had greatly overestimated the power needs of the company's flagship data center in Maiden, North Carolina, thereby understating the impact of Apple's solar and fuel cell power generation occurring at the site.
In that statement, Apple refuted Greenpeace's estimate of peak power demand of 100 megawatts for the data center, revealing that power demand would actually peak at 20 megawatts. And a month later, Apple published additional details on its efforts to run all of its data centers on 100% green energy.
Greenpeace announced yesterday that it has prepared an updated report on Apple's energy usage based on the new information, but as noted by Data Center Knowledge's Rich Miller, the group still seems to be being overly critical in its grading of Apple, even continuing to make up its own estimates of the North Carolina data center's energy usage rather than believing Apple's public statements.In its initial report in April, Greenpeace estimated Apple’s power use in North Carolina at a whopping 100 megawatts. The group has reduced that slightly to 81 megawatts, dismissing the company’s disclosure that it expects draw about 20 megawatts at full capacity.Miller goes on to note that Apple has clearly disclosed in regulatory documents that it intends to install backup generators capable of producing 41 megawatts of electricity in an "N+2" configuration that keeps at least two generators as spares, meaning that Apple is only planning for peak demand of 35-36 megawatts at an absolute maximum.
Miller points to two possible reasons for Greenpeace's continued refusal to acknowledge Apple's statements and other official documents addressing the data center's power needs:Greenpeace’s continuing use of this methodology, in light of Apple’s disclosure and permit data, raises several possibilities:
- Greenpeace is having difficulty developing estimates that accurately incorporate data center operations and power usage.
- Greenpeace is predisposed to cling to estimates that make Apple look less “green” because it generates more headlines for its awareness campaigns.For its part, Apple has continued to stand by its earlier comments, issuing a statement to Forbes:We’re committed to building the world’s most environmentally responsible data centers and are leading the industry in the use of renewable energy, including the nation’s largest private solar arrays and non-utility fuel cell installation,” Kristin Huguet, an Apple spokewoman, said today. “As we’ve said before, our North Carolina and California data centers will be coal-free as of February 2013 and our newest data centers in Oregon and Nevada will be designed to meet that standard from Day One.”Greenpeace's revised report gives Apple no additional credit for transparency, despite the company having explicitly revealed the power requirements of the data center, and the group's insistence on sticking with an 81-megawatt estimate of peak power capacity brings Apple's usage of renewable energy at the site down to just 22% as opposed to the 60% figure explicitly stated by Apple.
Greenpeace is also reluctant to give Apple credit for its fuel cell installation, waiting to hear whether Apple will actually be using biogas to directly power the cells or if it will be using natural gas and instead purchasing biogas to be inserted elsewhere in the distribution system to offset the company's natural gas usage. But given that Apple's biogas commitment would have the same net effect on overall natural gas consumption regardless of where exactly in the distribution system it is used, it seems that Apple should be pursuing the most cost-effective strategy for deploying that b read more..
Friday, 13 July 2012
Ipod Shuffle-Form Factor-Ipod Nano-Apple
Japanese blog Macotakara reports that Apple will be redesigning the iPod nano later this year with a new form factor that more closely resembles an iPod touch. According to the report, the iPod nano will apparently sport a rectangular screen and a home button similar to that found on iOS devices.
Given that the screen size on this redesigned iPod nano would appear to be substantially smaller than the iPhone/iPod touch, it seems unlikely that the iPod nano would run iOS apps. Instead, Apple is likely to use a custom operating system and apps skinned to resemble iOS as found on the current incarnation of the iPod nano.
The report also indicates that Apple will be bringing a "dedicated new iTunes service" to the device, but there is no word on what that service would entail.
Apple's iPod lines have generally trended to smaller form factors with each redesign, but this rumored redesign would appear to mark a substantial increase in size from the current form factor, which was introduced in September 2010. Several leaked photos have suggested that Apple planned to add a camera to the smaller form factor, but it appears that the company may have ultimately scrapped those plans.
It would not be unprecedented, however, for Apple to decide that smaller is not necessarily better, particularly if the iPod nano can see increased functionality with the new design. Apple famously removed virtually all buttons from the iPod shuffle in March 2009 as it moved controls to the headphone cord, but a September 2010 redesign saw the return of the click wheel and other on-device buttons. read more..
Wednesday, 11 July 2012
Apple-Ipad
With rumors of an "iPad mini" launch in the coming months ramping up, there has been much discussion about just how usable such a device would be running at the 1024x768 resolution of pre-Retina iPad models. In particular, some commenters have pointed to Steve Jobs' October 2010 discussion of the 7-inch tablets from competitors that were just then hitting the market, where he outlined Apple's belief that such tablets were too small to be useful.
While we argued as long ago as last December that scaling the iPad display down to a rumored 7.85-inch screen would still maintain usability and we provided iPad- and print- friendly examples to allow users to test for themselves, many have remain unconvinced of the benefits of a smaller iPad.
Daring Fireball's John Gruber now takes another detailed look at what an iPad mini would entail, arguing that a 7.85-inch display on an iPad mini would be a very different experience from the 7-inch screen being used by competitors such as Amazon's Kindle Fire and Google's Nexus 7.So, how can we square the idea of Apple making an iPad Mini with Jobs’s remarks from just a year and a half ago? We could point out (again) that 7.85 inches is closer to 8 inches than 7, and that the exact size of the purported iPad Mini display offers 66 percent of the surface area of a 9.7-inch iPad, not 45 percent [as is the case with a 7-inch display]. We could point out (again) that, assuming Apple-recommended 44-point user interface tap targets on a display with 163 points per inch, it should offer tap targets of the exact same physical size as every iPhone made to date, thus avoiding the need for Apple to include sandpaper with the device.
Comparison of "iPad mini" to 7-inch tablets and full-size iPad (Source: @trojankitten, via Daring Fireball)
Gruber goes on to note that Jobs was panning small, expensive tablets running a version of Android never intended to be used on devices larger than phones and that the tablets hitting the market today are very different products. He also points to Jobs' repeated efforts at misdirection in which he publicly spoke out against certain ideas even as Apple was pursuing them, as well as Jobs' ability to quickly and decisively change his mind at times.
Beyond the size of the iPad mini, Gruber also addresses the topic of a non-Retina display in the device, suggesting that with Apple seeking to keep pricing down the display will be one of the main ways it can achieve its desired pricing while retaining significant margins. The iPad mini would naturally gain a Retina display a year or two down the road as pricing continues to drop.
Finally, in addressing pricing on the rumored iPad mini Gruber suggests that Apple could approach the $199 pricing seen on the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 by leveraging its massive supply chain and economies of scale to bring its own costs down to the neighborhood of $150 and still maintain profitability. But even pricing of $249 could be competitive depending on hardware features and factoring in the benefits of Apple's extensive iOS/iTunes/App Store ecosystem for customers. read more..