Author Archives: Staff

Apple updates iMac, Mini today with nVIDIA chipsets instead of Intel

In a move that surprised even some of our sources and was in several key ways quite (but not entirely) contrary to our published projections as to the iMac’s specs, Apple announced new iMacs and Mac Minis today.

Although we are quite confident that Core i7 (“Nehalem” and “Gainestown” for desktop and Xeon products respectively) will indeed make its way into the Mac platform over the rest of the year, clearly the issues we’ve previously reported with Intel’s chipsets and the outstanding issues with some of the prototypes we’ve had the chance to examine (bugs, largely — though supply and timing were also reportedly issues; we had some internal debates over whether March 24th was really a remotely realistic announcement date, no less ship date) convinced the company’s decision makers to go with a Core 2 Duo based lineup using basically identical processors to previous models….merely adding more powerful memory, graphics, and nVIDIA chipsets. Read more

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Posted in Apple Events, Apple Hardware, Apple Software | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Responses

iMac and possibly Mini to be updated at March 24th Apple Event

The grapevine has been set on fire this weekend by a breaking rumor, strongly suggesting from multiple quarters/sources that the much awaited “Nehalem” Core i7 iMac, and perhaps also a revamped Mac Mini, will be announced at an Apple Event on the 24th of this month.

Although there is less certainty about whether or not the Mini, despite being quite long in the tooth, will be updated at the event….a consensus is rapidly forming across the entire Grapevine to the effect that this event is confirmed (though not yet officially announced; that will most likely take place later this week or early in the next) and that the new iMacs as we have envisioned them here on Rumors will indeed be introduced there. Read more

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Will Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” really support PowerPC?!

Ever since we posted our first ‘sneak peek’ at Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” two weeks ago, one of the most frequent questions and lingering doubts amongst readers surrounds the issue of support for PowerPC (G4/G5) based Macs. Will it really be present in the final version? Tonight we took a moment to answer that question as best we could for a reader who asked about it in the comments section of the aforementioned article.

“Mizhou” wrote: “A friend of mine just tried to install on a 1.8 GHz G5, and the installer just says that it is an unsupported architecture.”

Quoted from the response by our founder, Ryan C. Meader (@dalaixerces on Twitter):

Internal builds we’ve worked with have (and continue to) support PowerPC but there are increasing signs that the final version may not. Read more

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Posted in Apple Software | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 17 Responses

Mac OS X 10.5.7 enters beta; broadly seeded to devs

As Rumors has recently reported, the development of Mac OS X 10.5.7 has been proceeding at a slow but steady pace…and in the past few days, has crossed over into “beta” status with a new build that has been seeded to the full developer community.

Seeded to devs in a full distribution Apple Developer Connection (ADC) release earlier this week, Mac OS X 10.5.7 build 9J22 weighs in at a hefty 400MB (770MB for “Combo” version) and continues to grow in size at a blistering pace — particularly given the relatively small number of builds that have been made of 10.5.7 to date (a mere 22, apparently).

As usual, the OS X Server variant of the 10.5.7 package will be significantly larger and is expected to end up close to a full gigabyte in its Combo version. Read more

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Posted in Apple Software | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Response

Real or fake, the case of the 5 (USB) port Mini

Now that Macworld 2009 has come and gone with no Mini, rumor sites and Mini lovers have been waiting patiently (or not) for some news on the new Mini. What will it look like? Will it adopt a new style to match the iMac and Unibody Macbook lines? Previous rumors about the Mini included talk of dual monitor ports (one Mini DVI and one Mini DisplayPort), a removed optical drive, no firewire (ala Unibody Macbook), 2 internal hard drives, and a complete merging of the Mini with the AppleTV. We previously covered these details and speculation on Apples plans.

In the past few days some details, a picture and a short video have surfaced that appear to show a Mini with the old style, the aluminum sides with the plastic top, sporting 5 USB ports, 2 video ports, Firewire 800, and an optical drive slot, but otherwise no major changes. Read more

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Posted in Apple Hardware | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Responses

Will my GPU be fully supported by Snow Leopard’s OpenCL?

According to reliable sources, if you own an Intel Mac other than the Mini or an original Macbook — either of which shipped with Intel’s GMA950 integrated GPU — then you are already good to go for support of the full range of OpenCL acceleration features.

If you have a Mac with the Intel GMA950, then you will get most of the benefits of OpenCL though the performance level of those functions will be significantly lessened due to the lack of dedicated graphics RAM and absence of support for many programmable GPU features that exist in other chips/cards going back to the ATi X1000 series.

To get that full support, GPUs as “old” as the ATi X1600, X1800 and X1900 (the latter of which was available for PowerMac G5s with PCI Express slots, based on the PowerPC 970MP dual-core processor while the former shipped in early Intel iMacs and its X1600M cousins in Macbook Pros) will do the job….but certain nVIDIA cards from the GeForce 7000 series, which shipped in iMacs and PowerMacs during the G5 era, most likely will not. Read more

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Posted in Apple Hardware, Apple Software | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Responses

Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” – First Sneak Peek

Even as Mac OS Rumors worked to prepare our first in-depth look at developmental “alpha” stage builds of Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” earlier this week…the first builds (10A250 and later) seeded to third-party developers in quite some time and the first to be nearly feature-complete hit the grapevine like a shock wave. We have modified this first Sneak Peek to incorporate some of these reports, notably on the most recent 10A261 seed, and will be posting smaller more frequent Snow Leopard updates in the days ahead.

To begin with, let’s review the straightforward nature of Snow Leopard’s mission: eschewing “innovation” at the user level for primarily under-the-hood upgrades, Snow Leopard is a one-year project that Apple has embarked on to catch up with its backlog of ambitious architectural and technological plans for the Mac OS X operating system. Read more

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Posted in Apple Software, Articles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 16 Responses

Will new iDevice features (Flash, multitasking) premiere first on Pro devices?

Recently, Rumors was among the first to report on references to an “iPhone 2,1” in last week’s v2.2.1 iDevice OS firmware release, and suggest that this was almost certainly the forthcoming iPhone Pro. Now, along with emerging suggestions of a corresponding high-end iPod Touch, the grapevine is abuzz with rumors about background tasking, Adobe Flash and other features which may be tied to the powerful new “Pro” iDevice hardware.

These are fast-emerging & -developing rumors which we are monitoring around the clock with the help of our sources and the grapevine at large….so keep a close eye on this site for ongoing posts which will add detail and analysis to these early reports.

That said, in the wake of the exciting early iPhone “2.1” Pro rumors we have been able to talk to our oldest, most reliable sources who have shared with us significant new information. Read more

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OS X 10.5.7 nearing beta phase; supports new macs, bug fixes

Despite somewhat less hands-on time that we usually like to have in our first sneak-peeks of developmental Apple software — particularly system updates — we are taking a look under the hood of Mac OS X 10.5.7 which is fast approaching the ‘beta’ phase when it will be seeded to third-party developers for testing & feedback. Interestingly, our examinations turned up not just software dirt, but hints of what’s to come for the iMac, Mac Pro & even Macbook Air.

As the introduction and subject-line suggest, the late-alpha builds of Mac OS X 10.5.7 that Rumors has been able to explore through source reports, “batphone” streams, and limited direct hands-on usage by our Silicon Valley team thus far have all brought us to one conclusion. Read more

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iPod Touch 2nd gen jailbreak released


For the past few weeks users have been waiting patiently (or impatiently as the case may be) after news that the dev-team had managed to jailbreak the 2nd generation iPod touch, but there’s a catch: the device cannot be restarted without being connected to a desktop machine, restarting while out and about will result in a device that will not boot.

The dev-team had been waiting until they could get around Apples restrictions at a lower level, but stated on twitter and elsewhere that if they could not find a way to get into the device at a lower level, they would release a limited, tethered jailbreak for those who were willing to take the risk. So what exactly is the risk? Read more

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Posted in 3rd Party Software, Apple Software | Tagged , , | 2 Responses

iDevice OS 2.2.1 points to “iPhone 2,1” product

According to numerous readers and grapevine-lurkers who’ve looked under the hood of the new 2.2.1 iPhone OS firmware, it contains multiple references to a new iPhone — version “2,1” in the terminology used by Apple in all its operating system/firmware variants — better known to some as the “iPhone Pro.”

Given how soon a new iPhone would have to be introduced for it to make any sense at all to include references & support code inside as minor and early-in-year of a release as 2.2.1….we don’t think that this is a replacement for the 3G model. Rather, it is a complementary model intended to broaden the range of options that iPhone adopters have when they decide to purchase one.

Since the 8GB 3G is already as low as $199, we think that this “iPhone 2.1” (not to be confused with the “2.5G” 1.0 or “3G” 2.0) will instead be a high-end model similar to the iPhone Pro we’ve reported on previously, with some or all of these enhanced features:

*Major overhaul/upgrade of the ARM based system mainboard which handles almost everything but the functions dedicated to the “iPod” and “Phone-Modem” chips which are unto themselves nearly complete system boards….those chips will most likely remain unchanged, but the ARM based mainboard will most likely be upgraded to something similar to, or faster than, the ARM Cortex A8 used in the Palm Pre. Read more

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Posted in Apple Hardware, Apple Software | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Responses

Apple suddenly, mysteriously pulls “nVIDIA Update 2009” package

Almost as quickly and quietly as it appeared, the “nVIDIA Update 2009” package posted earlier this week has disappeared from Apple’s web site and Software Update servers. Despite initial reports from readers that were very positive, since then many have reported experiencing as many if not more problems after the update than they did prior to installing it.

From the release notes originally included with the update, the changes were stated to include:

About NVIDIA Graphics Update 2009

This update improves cursor movement when using the Apple Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI adapter with the Mini DisplayPort enabled MacBook Air, MacBook and MacBook Pro.

It also improves playback of HD video running on systems with NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT or GeForce 9600M graphics. Read more

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Upcoming new iMacs to go quad-core; what else will be new?

In recent weeks, the grapevine has moved from speculating about new iMacs based on quad-core “Nehalem” Intel Core i7 processors to having near-total confidence in the broad strokes of the rumor, merely seeking confirmation of the details. Well, some of the finer details are still embargoed….but we have been able to confirm once & for all that the new iMacs will indeed have four-core Nehalem processors with the associated improved motherboards.

At this point our sources have asked us to withhold precise benchmark numbers (we don’t like reporting third party numbers anyway unless they’re ballpark; it stakes our reputation on too many variables that are out of our hands — even with well-established sources)…but we should be able to report those in the near future once team members are able to put their hands directly on a prototype — and there can be little doubt that these new iMacs will be amazing, incredibly fast performers. Read more

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Posted in Apple Hardware | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 12 Responses

iDevice firmware 2.2.1 released

Apple released version 2.2.1 of its iPhone/iPod Touch operating system firmware today with many under the hood changes & bug fixes but relatively few “front end” changes — most of them in Mobile Safari.

From Apple’s release notes for the iPhone version of the 2.2.1 package, which weighs in at 247MB:

iPhone Software Update 2.2.1

This update contains bug fixes and improvements, including the following:
– Improved general stability of Safari
– Fixed issue where some images saved from Mail do not display correctly in the Camera Roll

Products compatible with this software update:
– iPhone
– iPhone 3G

The iPod Touch version does not appear to include release notes, but is believed to have the same Safari changes and kernel revision. Read more

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Mark Papermaster, subject of IBM/Apple lawsuit, starts work in April

A former big-wig within IBM’s PowerPC processor division, Apple employee Mark Papermaster will at long last begin actively working at his job as head of the iDevice group at Infinite Loop now that a settlement betwen the two companies has been achieved. Some debate has taken place over whether a relevant contract expires before mid-June, but a press release from Apple today specified April 24th as Papermaster’s start date.

Originally hired in October of last year, Papermaster has been a key player in several divisions at IBM’s technical centers — notably its PowerPC development team — over the years and was vital to the project that brought the POWER4 architecture to the Mac in the form of the PPC 970 “G5.”

Papermaster will replace Tony Fadell, who ran the iDevice Division through November and who remains a technical consultant with the company. Read more

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