Category Archives: Apple Hardware

By Staff | Published: April 27, 2012

Apple in negotiations with streaming partners for upcoming TV device?

Apple TV

Though rumors of a potential full-fledged Apple home theater device have been showing up frequently over the past year, sources are telling Reuters that Apple is currently negotiating with streaming service EPIX to bring content to both the current Apple TV product and to “upcoming devices that stream content”. Read more

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By Staff | Published: April 20, 2012

Regional carriers in the U.S. unveil iPhone support

Alaska Communications

Today marks the launch of the iPhone on 5 regional wireless carriers in the U.S.:

A quick look at the front page of any of those companies would suggest the iPhone is a big deal to them, and it is.

The iPhone has been a significant factor in the growth or decline of wireless subscriber numbers for other carriers such as AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, the last of which has yet to gain access to the iPhone and has acknowledged losing subscribers as a result.

T-Mobile remains willing to carry the iPhone, and has even gone so far as to publicly announce support for unlocked AT&T iPhones. Of course, the practice of using an unlocked AT&T iPhone on T-Mobiles network is not new, and speeds remain limited to the slower 2G network due to wireless band differences. Read more

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By Staff | Published: March 7, 2012

Apple releases new Apple TV hardware with 1080p support

Rumors of an Apple designed TV may have been set back today, after Apple unveiled an upgrade to their already wildly successful Apple TV set top box, this time with 1080p HD support. Read more

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By Staff | Published: March 7, 2012

Apple drops iPad 2 price to $399

Alongside the introduction of the ‘new iPad’, this morning Apple dropped the price of the previous generation iPad 2, which now starts at $399 for the 16GB Wi-Fi version and $529 for the 16GB 3G-capable version.

Apple’s strategy of keeping the previous iPhone hardware model around and selling it at a discount has made it possible for the company to compete in the lower end of the prepaid cellphone market, with AT&T going so far as to offer the iPhone 3GS for free on contract.

While we don’t expect the iPad 2 to be free any time soon, it will be immediately more attractive to tablet buyers who may have been eyeing an Android device like the Kindle Fire. Read more

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By Staff | Published: March 7, 2012

Apple unveils ‘the new iPad’

The Apple event this morning took the wraps off what is now known to be the “iPad”, which is literally the name of the 3rd generation iPad hardware. Not iPad 3, not iPad HD, or iPad 2S, just “iPad”.

We’re sure the story behind that name will unfold in the coming days, but the hardware itself is close to what we expected: a near identically sized evolution of the existing hardware, with a retina screen, a more powerful processor and GPU, and more RAM. Read more

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By Staff | Published: February 28, 2012

Apple announces March 7th iPad event

iPad 3 media announcement

As we reported a few weeks ago, Apple is planning to hold an event to unveil the next iPad early in March, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

Today, Apple sent out the usual press invitations for that event, which give us a date: March 7th.

The keen observer may notice that the image above shows someone using an iPad device with an extremely high quality display, which should put to rest any notion that the Retina display would be shelved this time around.

Stay tuned! Read more

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By Staff | Published: February 9, 2012

Apple to launch iPad 3 in early march

According to a report by AllThingsD this morning, Apple will hold an event in San Francisco early in March to reveal the next iPad model.

Last year the iPad 2 was revealed in March at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the original iPad announcement in January 2010 took place in the same venue, leading AllThingsD’s John Paczkowski to speculate that the 3rd generation iPad hardware may also be announced there.

The hardware specs and capabilities of the next generation iPad are not yet known, however a series of interesting leaks have shed some light on Apple’s plans. Read more

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By Staff | Published: January 11, 2012

Next iPhone to support T-Mobile 3G band

T-Mobile Logo

It’s no secret that wireless carriers want the iPhone on their networks, and until last year if you wanted an iPhone in the U.S., AT&T was your only official choice.

However 2011 brought us the CDMA iPhone 4 for Verizon, and later on the iPhone 4S was released with full support for GSM along with CDMA, allowing carriers like Sprint to begin offering the device as well.

But T-Mobile USA has yet to bring the iPhone to their network in any official capacity, in part because their 3G network uses a different radio frequency band than AT&T and the rest of the world, one that current iPhone hardware does not support.

Unlocked iPhone owners will be quite familiar with this limitation, as unlocked devices built for AT&T’s network will fall back to 2G EDGE service when used with a T-Mobile USA sim card. Read more

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By Staff | Published: January 6, 2012

Quad core references found in iOS 5.1 beta

Quad core iOS reference

9to5Mac has discovered some interesting bits of information buried inside the latest iOS 5.1 beta.

As 9to5Mac’s Mark Gurman explains, the numbering in this particular section of code in iOS 5.1 suggests that Apple will be shipping a quad core processor at some point in the near future:

Extremely reliable and knowledgeable people familiar with iOS’s inner workings explained to me that core references begin at “0.” For example: A single core device would be limited to ”/cores/core.0,” and a dual-core device would come in at ”/cores/core.1.” A “core.2″ (which is not referenced in iOS code) would be a triple-core processor according to this labeling method. iOS 5.1 beta 2 now includes core.3, a seemingly quad-core chip from Apple.

Apple’s A6 is rumored to be a quad core design slated for release in 2012, might we be seeing the initial support in iOS necessary for an A6-bearing iPad 3? Read more

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By Staff | Published: December 8, 2011

Apple TV update turns on TV show purchase & streaming for Canada, Australia and the U.K.

Apple TV

Australian, Canadian and U.K. Apple TV owners should now be able to stream and purchase TV shows from the device with a new update Apple just pushed out.

If you haven’t been prompted to update yet, just head over to the Settings area and trigger the update manually. Read more

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By Staff | Published: November 18, 2011

Apple is working with AMD on several prototype Macs, but will they see the light of day?

Reliable sources have reported on prototype Mac motherboards based on Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) chipsets being tested in Cupertino for years, but so far none have seen the light of day. One recent rumor even suggests the current Macbook Air was planned around AMD’s “Llano” platform but switched to an Intel alternative at the last minute. Will the latest generation of prototypes be any different? Read more

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By Staff | Published: November 17, 2011

Reader Q&A: When will FaceTime, iMessage and iChat merge across Mac and iOS?

Several of our followers on Twitter and Facebook have recently expressed interest in the state of Apple’s efforts to merge its various forms of messaging/chat/videoconferencing/IM functionality across its two key platforms, iOS and Mac OS X. New code spotted in iOS by third party developers may shed some light on this. Read more

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By Staff | Published: November 3, 2011

Apple’s A5 will continue to power iDevices into 2012-2013, exist alongside A6

Apple’s next generation of mobile iDevices will be powered principally by A5-class System-on-a-Chip (SoC) hardware, according to Rumors’ sources. The A6 will indeed be introduced next year, as has been long rumored, but may be exclusive to the family of next-generation AppleTV devices at first.

According to sources, the iPhone 5, iPod Touch 5 and iPad 3 will all be powered by a series of chips that, regardless of how they will be marketed by Apple, will be essentially unchanged from the A5 except for clock speed differences and a possible switch of suppliers (thusly, also possibly a switch in manufacturing processes but with little functional effect). Unless the iPad is split into two or more tiers as has been considered for the entire iOS device family more than once in the past and is expected to happen with the AppleTV’s next generation, the A6 is expected to be exclusive in its initial production run to the new AppleTV family. Read more

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By Staff | Published: November 3, 2011

Next-gen iDevices to feature shatter-resistant OLED displays

The next-generation iPhone and iPod Touch will be based on a unique type of OLED display, according to sources, which is far more shatter-resistant than the current “gorilla glass” and LCD design used in the iPhone 4/4S and previous generations.

One of the chief problems with the iPhone and iPod Touch to date has been its easily damaged glass touch screen, and in the case of the iPhone 4/4S, the glass back panel. The iPhone 5 and its corresponding iPod Touch cousin will, according to a report just in from sources familiar with Apple’s 2012 Hardware Roadmap, replace the “square” design of the iPhone 4 and 4S with a solid frame — in some prototypes, this is metal (usually aluminum, though Titanium has been explored due to its superior strength in extremely thin configurations) and in others, a thermoplastic carbon fiber material — and a new type of capacitative touchscreen which incorporates a much tougher, nearly shatterproof outer surface material with an organic LED (OLED) display that is significantly larger than today’s “retina” TFT LCD. Read more

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By Staff | Published: October 24, 2011

Apple bumps Macbook Pro specs

Macbook Pros

Apple has quietly updated their Macbook Pro line with slightly faster processors, more hard drive space and improved discrete GPUs for the 15-inch and 17-inch models.

The entry level 13-inch MBP now ships with a dual-core 2.4ghz Core i5 processor, paired with integrated Intel HD graphics 3000, and a 500GB rotating hard drive. A dual-core 2.8ghz Core i5 processor is optional. Read more

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