Mac OS X currently runs on Intel-based x86 systems. However, it seems as if Apple has seriously considered the possibility of porting the popular operating system to ARM chipsets.



Indeed, according to a Delfte University of Technology paper spotted by iMore, Apple’s Platform Technologies Group kicked off a project in 2010 to port the OS X Darwin kernel to ARMv5 architecture – the same family of chipsets that currently powers iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad.

“The goal of this project is to get Darwin into a workable state on the MV88F6281 processor so that other teams can continue their work on this platform,” reads the paper.

“The project has three major milestones: Getting the buildsystem into shape so that it can build the kernel and kexts; building and booting the kernel into single user mode; booting the system into multi-user mode.”

As iMore’s Jack Perry points out, the project was only made public several months ago – and it remains unclear if the initiative is still ongoing. However, the author of the paper is now a full-time employee at Apple, where he works as a CoreOS engineer.

“[Remember], Mac OS X once ran on Power PC chips, yet Apple had it secretly running on Intel chips at the same time. It only makes sense for a company as forward thinking as Apple to have ARM-compatible builds of OS X in the development labs,” Perry explained.

“So while neither an OS X tablet nor an ARM MacBook Air seem likely, it’s interesting to see further evidence of Apple keeping the Mac platform nimble.”



Nevertheless, it should be noted that a number of recent reports indicate Apple has seriously considered moving from x86 chips to RISC-based ARM architecture for its laptop lineup. In May 2011, SemiAccurate’s Charlie Demerjian claimed Cupertino had already reached its decision, making the switch a “done deal.”

“Apple is moving the laptop line, and presumably desktops too, to ARM based chips as soon as possible. With A15/Eagle allowing more than 32-bit memory access, things look up, but it seems silly to do so before the full 64 bit cores come in the following generation,” said Demerjian.

“It is a done deal, Intel is out, and Apple chips are in. The only question left is if they will use their own core, a Samsung core, or the generic ARM black box. My bet is on generic for the first round, with a custom uncore, and moving to progressively more proprietary features with each successive generation.”



However, Silicon Valley chip expert David Kanter believes Apple won’t switch its laptops to ARM anytime soon. Yet, Kanter does acknowledge eventually unifying three major platforms (computers, tablets and phones) would make it far easier for developers to target Apple platforms.

“In some ways, this might be the most sensible, since expanding the iOS installed base would help Apple create a more attractive market for developers compared to Android and could facilitate tying the iPhone to other Mac products. [Remember], Apple has few attachments to x86 and would not hesitate to shift to a better alternative,” Kanter wrote in a RealWorldTech analysis.

“[Yet], there are no ARM designs [to] meet Apple’s needs for performance and efficiency in the next two or three years. Even if there was, it is hard to see how such a design would be substantially better than AMD’s offerings. Over 5-10 years though, many of the technical and business hurdles may change. The ARM ecosystem is moving forward at a rapid pace, and Apple is watching carefully.”

Kanter also opined that Cupertino may be planning to design a hybrid x86-ARM system at some point in the near future.

“There are a number of ways putting ARM near a computer could be quite interesting and valuable… For example, Apple could include an ARM core in future notebooks for ‘instant-on’ web browsing while the computer is booting – something done in certain Dell and HP models. A [further] extension of that idea would be an update to OS X with an iOS emulator and maybe a co-processor for future hardware.

Source:http://www.tgdaily.com/hardware-features/61300-apple-eyes-arm-for-mac-os-x

Apple has never been considered an enterprise technology company, but it owns a significant share of the mobile enterprise market, largely due to the success of the iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air.

And yet, Apple is still often seen as a consumer company that managed to get lucky — a view that misses the big story about Apple’s relationship with the enterprise as well as the current business tech trends it helped launch. More importantly, that view risks underestimating Apple’s contribution to, and effect on, the enterprise in 2012 and beyond.

All of the major trends in IT — cloud computing, mobile solutions and the ongoing consumerization of IT — look good for Apple. It’s more accommodating to the enterprise than it used to be, and its popularity in the mainstream consumer culture should offer advantages in the months ahead.

To understand Apple’s position in 2012 vis-a-vis the enterprise, it’s helpful to first look back at its earlier efforts to meet the needs of business and organizations.

Apple has been working to provide enterprise-grade solutions since before the release of Mac OS X more than a decade ago. It developed both a server operating system (Mac OS X Server) and hardware (Xserve) along with a SAN file system (Xsan) and fiber channel storage solution (Xserve RAID).

As Apple made the transition to Mac OS X, its enterprise approach centered around support for lineup of hardware products — mainly Macs. This helped to ensure that longtime Mac users — notably in education and design/media — had support for large deployments and client management. For businesses based around Apple products, this meant an end-to-end solution was easily available with one-stop shopping: Buy the Macs and Mac servers from Apple, then hire Apple engineers or consultants to help design, build and troubleshoot your infrastructure.

That approach didn’t work out so well in bringing in new converts, however.

Even when Apple offered ways of integrating Macs and its back-end solutions like the Xsan, Mac OS X Server and the Xserve into environments dominated by Windows PCs and related infrastructure, most enterprise IT departments remained uninterested.

Part of that was because Apple didn’t broadly market its enterprise solutions. Apple also seemed determined to flout the traditional IT vendor/customer relationship by not providing road maps of any sort about its plans — an approach that alienated potential business customers. Plus, even when there was enterprise interest in Apple’s server solutions, the fact that companies had to deal with yet another platform, with unique features and functions, made adoption more difficult.

As a whole, this approach may have done more to keep Macs out of some businesses than to encourage widespread adoption. It also had a side effect of creating a vibrant niche of alternative tools for integrating Macs without requiring a major investment in Apple’s server and storage products. And it created a cottage industry of Mac server and network consultants who had worked their way through Apple’s training and certification programs and who could be called on for help.

Apple throws out its enterprise playbook (and cancels some products)
Over the past few years, Apple subtly shifted its enterprise focus away from its own solutions. While still updating and supporting OS X Server and the Xserve, the company began building enterprise integration as a hallmark of OS X and iOS, offering features like Active Directory, Exchange and, more recently, Windows distributed file system support.

This support at the client and device level allowed enterprise customers to integrate Apple’s desktop and mobile products without the need for an investment in back-end Apple solutions. At the same time, a growing market of third-party enterprise integration and management tools began to mature, offering added features and options when it came to supporting hardware like MacBooks and iPhones.

The event that first heralded Apple’s move out of the server closet or data center, even though it wasn’t initially noticed, was the release of iOS 4 in 2010. Launched with the iPhone 4, iOS 4 included a range of mobile device management and security tools that allowed companies to enforce a broad range of device policies, automate the processes of device provisioning and enrollment, and monitor iOS devices in the field.

This was big news for those looking to use iPhones and iPads as business devices. But what made it unique was that the company didn’t offer its own management server or console. Instead, it let third-party vendors provide scalable products that made use of the built-in features, often providing important options such as support for managing other smartphone and device platforms.

A few months after the release of iOS 4, Apple stunned longtime enterprise customers by canceling its Xserve line of 1U rack mount servers (the company had previously discontinued its Xserve RAID and shifted its Xsan file system for use on third-party hardware).

Last summer, when Apple released Lion Server, it became clear that the company was transitioning away from providing enterprise solutions to support its products. Although Lion Server includes the enterprise functionality of its predecessor, the management interface clearly shows that Apple sees it as a solution for the small- and midsize business (SMB) market, in combination with the Mac mini server.

At the same time, Lion became the first version of OS X to ship with built-in support for Microsoft’s Distributed file system, a feature of Active Directory and Windows Server that allows administrators to make shared resources available to users based on a logical rather than physical network file structure. The company then added more enterprise-oriented features to iOS 5, which was released last fall.

These events illustrate a new enterprise strategy: Apple wants to make its products enterprise-ready and easy to integrate with existing systems out of the box. By and large, that integration is possible without the need for in-depth training, though Apple still provides a range of training classes and Mac-specific certifications.

Although jarring for customers that have had long-time investments in Apple’s server platform, the approach actually makes sense and offers significant benefits. It streamlines the company’s approach to business. It allows Apple to tailor OS X Server to the needs of the SMBs. It allows third parties to offer additional enterprise integration and management features that surpass what Apple could offer (often at a reduced cost and by tapping into existing enterprise technologies).

All in all, the approach is much more logical and gives IT a great deal of flexibility in how to approach Macs, iPhones and iPads in the workplace.

Apple is still hands-on in the enterprise
With its new approach, Apple isn’t the central enterprise solution for its products; Active Directory and Exchange at a basic level — or third-party client and mobile management suites at a higher level — now fill that role. But that doesn’t mean Apple has taken a hands-off approach to meeting enterprise needs. In some ways, it’s even more involved than it used to be.

Virtually all third-party management solutions for Macs and iOS devices plug into enterprise capabilities that Apple has built into its desktop and mobile OSes. On iPhones and iPads, that includes a set of MDM capabilities, and on Macs, it means Apple’s client management framework. That gives vendors a set of consistent capabilities and helps to ensure that their various solutions affect the Mac and iOS user experiences in the same way.

For the most part, vendors that offer Mac client management or iOS device management implement most of the capabilities that Apple gives them. The differentiation and value-adds that vendors make involve their ability to tap into other enterprise systems, their management interface and organizational tools, their monitoring and reporting capabilities, levels of automation, the ability to manage multiple platforms, and other add-on features. This allows companies working with the same set of options to offer a variety of tools that can be tailored to, or centered around, different needs.

Even with that differentiation, however, all Mac and iOS management solutions offer a consistent set of provisioning options, controls and restrictions. And since all Macs, iPhones, and iPads are made by Apple, there’s a consistent user experience, even in managed environments, across all of the devices.

This is particularly attractive with the iPhone and iPad. It doesn’t bring Apple’s mobile devices to quite the level RIM has traditionally offered with its BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), but it comes pretty close. When paired with with any of the major MDM vendors, Apple’s iPhones and iPads represent the most manageable and secure mobile platform other than RIM and BES.

Given RIM’s slide in the mobile market, the generally accepted failure of the PlayBook, and last year’s spate of outages, the iPhone and iPad are worthy contenders for enterprise mobility plans. That employees are often willing to use their own Apple devices in the workplace makes those devices an excellent candidate for BYOD (bring-your-own-device) programs.

Of course, this also sharply contrasts with Android, where there are hundreds of devices by dozens of manufacturers, running a handful of different OS versions — some of which don’t even offer enterprise functionality. The recent Android releases, particularly Ice Cream Sandwich, are moving to resolve the issue with consistent management capabilities. But it will be a while before Android as a whole offers iOS’ level of consistent security and manageability, despite being supported to a degree by mobile management tools.

Building bridges with the enterprise
Although Apple has backed off pushing its own enterprise solutions, it still offers resources and training. One difference, however, is that it is focusing more on enterprise integration.

A great example of this is Apple’s new Mac Integration Basics certification, which provides the core skills needed to connect a Mac to enterprise technologies like Active Directory and Exchange. (It also offers some background information on Mac troubleshooting.) The exam and the study guide are both available for free. On a similar note, Apple now allows certain Microsoft and Cisco certifications to be used as credentials for joining its mobility consultants network as alternatives to Apple’s own certifications.

Although these may seem like minor steps, they show that Apple understands that the success of its products in the enterprise means embracing platforms and standards beyond its own.

Competition in the enterprise
If this year’s Consumer Electronics Show illustrated one thing about Apple’s position in the enterprise, it’s that its two most successful enterprise products — the MacBook Air and the iPad — will soon face stiff competition.

MacBook Air vs. ultrabooks
It’s pretty obvious from a quick glance at Intel’s specs for ultrabooks that the category is designed with one thought in mind: compete directly with the MacBook Air, which has become popular in business because of its small size, light weight and good performance. Of course, the $999 price tag helps, too.

So long as manufacturers keep ultrabook prices at or below par with the MacBook Air — we can expect Intel to keep prodding them to do so — many companies will opt for ultrabooks. That’s especially true for companies that have yet to purchase or support the MacBook Air or other Mac models.

For companies that have already invested in Apple hardware and the back-end technology to manage and support it, there’s no significant reason to change direction just because a Windows alternative arrives. This means potential future Mac sales to those companies and some continued level of Mac support.

Long-term support for those Macs may be a strategic move beyond simply continued use of prior investments. In offering employees a choice between a Mac and PC or supporting employee-owned Macs as part of a BYOD program, IT can build bridges with workers and executives who want to use them. As employees become more tech-savvy and IT becomes more integrated into the business sphere, building strong relationships between the two will become more important. IT needs to be seen as flexible and adaptive to the needs and requests of users at every level of the corporate food chain.

Of course, ultrabooks are just beginning to hit the market and Apple may have some new features up its sleeves for the MacBook Air over the coming months.

iPad vs. Windows 8
If 2011 illustrated one thing about the tablet market, it was that wresting share from Apple is hard. A year ago, everyone (myself included) expected to see non-Apple tablets make serious dents in both the consumer and business markets. That didn’t happen.

There are plenty of reasons no platform gained anywhere near the iPad’s traction in the overall tech market. But things are pretty clear cut from a business perspective: most tablets, including the Xoom, PlayBook and TouchPad, shipped with software that was still at beta quality and lacking core features; they couldn’t offer a price point significantly better than the iPad; and by and large none offered the device management capabilities that Apple had put together in iOS 4 (the PlayBook probably came closest).

In 2012, the focus on enterprise tablets beyond the iPad is Windows 8. Some observers have already predicted Windows 8 tablets will marginalize the iPad in the workplace. The biggest argument is that Windows 8 devices will be more in line with the comfort zone of IT staffers than Apple’s iOS will.

There are two major snags in this argument. First, the iPad is a known solution. Its capabilities, costs, user reaction, and apps are freely available and have been tested in most enterprises to some extent. More importantly, its security and management capabilities have also been tested, along with mobile management vendors and solutions that already link to existing Active Directory and related infrastructures.

While Windows 8 tablets were on display at CES and Windows 8 previews are available for download, Windows 8 tablets aren’t available for real-world testing by enterprises — and won’t be for several months. Adherence to typical enterprise pilot project, procurement, and deployment methods pushes wide availability of Windows 8 tablets well into next year. More crucially, many businesses don’t adopt new Windows versions when they’re initially released; waiting for an initial service pack release is extremely common. That could delay Windows 8 in any form even further.

There’s still contention over what kinds of Windows apps will even run on tablets. It seems clear that most Windows 8 PCs will have access to both legacy desktop-first apps as well as apps designed for Windows 8’s Metro interface. But ARM-based tablets may not. With the projected pricing of Intel-based tablets pushing beyond competitiveness with the iPad, ARM-based models may be the only economical option. Perhaps, more importantly, there’s the question of how well legacy apps will function in touch-first or touch-only devices.

This is a non-issue with iPad deployments, since pilot projects and testing can be started at any time. It’s also worth noting that deployments can be managed with today’s infrastructure. There’s no need to adjust or upgrade Active Directory, Exchange or similar core technologies, which may be necessary for Windows 8 group policies and client management.

The second flaw in arguing that Windows 8 tablets will automatically beat the iPad ignores a core factor in the consumerization of IT and BYOD programs — the influence and choice of users.

As users have grown more comfortable with technology, they’ve begun to play a more active role in IT decision-making — and they may not want a Windows 8 tablet to replace their iPads. One of the reasons BYOD programs succeed is that they empower users to choose the technologies with which they are most comfortable and productive. Of course, in a BYOD program, IT’s preferences often take a back seat to user choices to some extent. Even in organizations without a BYOD paradigm, users are exerting more and more dominance in their use of technology, at the expense of even informing IT in some cases.

This is a trend that will be very difficult to reverse, particularly as many executives, managers and mobile staff members have already become used to the iPad as an everyday tool. Coupled with that, there has been an embracing of iOS apps and their use in workflows for all manner of tasks that users may not see a value in changing.

In fact, given the growing need in almost every IT department to embrace, support and manage multiple mobile technologies, even the “familiarity with Windows” argument begins to falter. IT professionals have become accustomed to supporting other technologies like iOS and Android.

It’s also important to note that, in addition to having a head start, Apple hasn’t rested on its laurels with the iPad. The iPad 2 offered notable improvements over its predecessor. And iOS 5 offers a better experience than iOS 4 for professional tasks and even some management capabilities. That’s a trend we can expect to continue in iOS 6.

A robust app ecosystem is another iPad advantage, particularly given that Windows 8 apps designed specifically for a tablet interface have yet to emerge. There are thousands of business tools out there already that are designed around the specific interface needs and advantages of the iPad’s form factor, many of which are profession- and industry-specific. That includes a whole range of business intelligence, CRM, ERP and collaboration tools — to say nothing of the potential for VDI solutions.

Whither Apple’s relationship with the enterprise in 2012?
Apple has managed to position itself very well as an enterprise vendor. The company has learned from its past mistakes to avoid proprietary solutions or add too much complexity for IT departments. Apple has also managed to leverage its supply chain and economies of scale so well that it’s difficult for other mobile device manufacturers to compete without notably sacrificing quality. Ultimately, these have in the past been the two biggest barriers to entry for Apple technology in the workplace.

Apple also managed to stake out mobile territory far earlier than many of its competitors by being the first company to successfully take mobile solutions like tablets beyond just a niche market. That head start is a massive advantage and it allows Apple to continue to innovate for business needs and environments while other companies are playing catch-up.

Source:http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9223673/Will_this_be_the_year_of_Apple_in_the_enterprise_?taxonomyId=163&pageNumber=1

Below are the three companies in the Computer Hardware industry with the highest free cash flow per share. FCF/share is a valuable metric signaling a company’s ability to facilitate growth in the business.

Apple is highest with FCF per share of $36.00. Apple Inc. designs, manufactures, and markets personal computers and related personal computing and mobile communication devices along with a variety of related software, services, peripherals, and networking solutions. The Company sells its products worldwide through its online stores, its retail stores, its direct sales force, third-party wholesalers, and resellers. Apple has traded 3.4 million shares thus far today, vs. average volume of 10.7 million shares per day. The stock has outperformed the Dow (0.3% to the Dow’s -0.5%) and outperformed the S&P 500 (0.3% to the S&P’s -0.3%) during today’s trading.

Source:http://www.fnno.com/story/fast-lane/331-apple-among-companies-computer-hardware-industry-highest-free-cash-flow-share-aapl-hpq-dbd-auto-generated

Research In Motion Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Thorsten Heins brings decades of hardware experience as he seeks to revive a company outpaced by Apple Inc. and Google Inc. in mobile computing.

Heins, who is replacing co-Chief Executive Officers Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, joined RIM four years ago after more than two decades at German engineering giant Siemens AG in roles ranging from research and development to product management. The 54-year-old German native was one of RIM’s two operating chiefs, overseeing engineering, hardware and software.

RIM, which helped pioneer the U.S. smartphone market more than a decade ago, is betting on the management overhaul to stem falling sales and market-share gains by Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone and iPad. Heins said that he promotes “creativity, innovation and free thinking” and that is ready to go head-to-head with the Silicon Valley rivals.

“We need to fight back and get stronger,” Heins said in an interview. “You will see and hear much more from us.”

Balsillie and Lazaridis, who guided RIM together for two decades only to see an 88 percent drop in the stock price since 2008, said the decision to step down and appoint Heins was theirs. Lazaridis, who founded the Waterloo, Ontario-based company in 1984, said the shift is a result of the company’s evolution and the introduction of new technologies that will give RIM more competitive products.

“He’s really excelled in every department he’s been responsible for,” Lazaridis said. “He became the natural choice.”

Product Delays

Heins’s top challenge will be to lead RIM’s transition to next-generation products running on a new operating system, which has suffered from delays. In December, RIM said the first BlackBerrys based on the new system, called BB10, won’t be available until the latter part of this year.

The company also had a nine-month delay in getting e-mail onto its PlayBook tablet computer, RIM’s response to Apple’s market-leading iPad. The technical difficulties and marketing missteps have left PlayBook shipments at a little more than 1 percent of those for the iPad.

Heins said he plans to emphasize discipline in RIM’s execution to make sure they company sticks to schedule.

“When you say we’re bringing a product to market, you make sure you execute,” he said.

At Siemens, Heins rose through the ranks of research and development, customer service, sales and product management. He ran several units of Siemens’s communication business and also worked as the division’s chief technology officer.

Originally from Munich, Heins joined Siemens in 1984 after graduating from the University of Hanover. He is married and has two children, and his hobbies include bicycling, motorcycling, skiing and hiking.

Heins’s Plan

Heins said his role will be in taking RIM “to the next phase.” Among his first moves, he said, will be hiring a new marketing chief to communicate with the consumer market.

With the transition to the new operating system, Heins says RIM will be able to compete more effectively for the customers it has lost. RIM, which dominated the U.S. smartphone market before Apple and Google entered it, had its share of sales drop to 16.6 percent in the three months ending in November, according to ComScore Inc. Google’s Android raised its share to 46.9 percent and Apple increased to 28.7 percent.

“We will be working the consumer market not at the expense of the enterprise,” Heins said. “I’m not here to retreat from the U.S. market. I’m here to take it up.”

Source:http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-22/heins-brings-hardware-skills-to-rim-s-battle-with-apple-google.html

After running the service successfully in the US, Apple has introduced a recycling service in the UK. Under this service, users can either earn cash for their old devices or if the hardware is valueless, recycle it without any cost.

The reuse and recycling programme is being managed by Dataserv GmbH. It accepts any and all Apple devices, such as iPads, iPhones, iPods, and Macs. Those who participate will be given the device’s value; deposits of the value amount are directly sent to their bank accounts.

The programme mentions that, “Whether it’s an iPhone, iPad, Mac or PC computer, working or not, we’ll take it and determine if it qualifies for reuse and has a monetary value,” reports Into Mobile.

This new initiative is definitely commendable and praise worthy, but this recycling scheme by Apple pays users less as compared to similar services and schemes. For example, if Apple pays 177 GBP for a fully functioning iPhone 4 16GB version, a similar website may offer more than that.

Even though the project has a few loopholes, it is good move towards making the planet greener. The programme has also been expanded to cover France and Germany.

Source:http://www.itproportal.com/2012/01/20/apple-starts-device-recycling-programme-uk-expanding-france-germany/

01 Synergy will unveil a range of iPhone & Android Applications — including ExhibitionApp — at India Soft, an international IT meet scheduled for March 2012. Over 350 business partners and global enterprises from 75 countries are expected to participate in the two-day event.

01 Synergy will launch ExhibitionApp, which is designed specifically for the tradeshow industry, it features real-time show alerts and interactive floor maps. Users can schedule tradeshow information while travelling to the show or download it to the phone for later reference. Exhibitor information can also be downloaded to prevent a user from having to carry marketing materials and brochures around the show. 01Synergy will also launch the Pro version of Golf eScorer at IndiaSoft 2012.

We look forward to meet & interact with the India Soft 2012 delegates and forge business alliances.

Apple Inc. on Thursday launched its attempt to make the iPad a replacement for a satchel full of textbooks by starting to sell electronic versions of a handful of standard high-school books.
The electronic textbooks, which include “Biology” and “Environmental Science” from Pearson and “Algebra 1″ and “Chemistry” from McGraw-Hill, contain videos and other interactive elements.

But it’s far from clear that even a company with Apple’s clout will be able to reform the primary and high-school textbook market. The printed books are bought by schools, not students, and are reused year after year, which isn’t possible with the electronic versions. New books are subject to lengthy state approval processes, making the speed and ease with which ebooks can be published less of an advantage.

Major textbook publishers have been making electronic versions of their products for years, but until recently, there hasn’t been any hardware suitable to display them. PCs are too expensive and cumbersome to be good e-book machines for students. Dedicated e-book readers like the Kindle have small screens and can’t display color. IPads and other tablet computers work well, but iPads cost at least $499. Apple didn’t reveal any new program to defray the cost of getting the tablet computers into the hands of students.

All this means textbooks have lagged the general adoption of e-books, even when counting college-level works that students buy themselves. Forrester Research said e-books accounted for only 2.8 percent of the $8 billion U.S. textbook market in 2010.

Pearson PLC of Britain and The McGraw-Hill Cos. of New York are two of the three big companies in the U.S. textbook market. The third, Boston-based Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, also plans to supply books to Apple’s store, but none were immediately available.

The new textbooks are legible with a new version of the free iBooks application, which became available Thursday.

The textbooks will cost $15 or less, said Phil Schiller, Apple’s head of marketing. He unveiled the books at an event at New York’s Guggenheim Museum. Schools will be able to buy the books for its students and issue redemption codes to them, he said.

Albert Greco, a professor of marketing at Fordham University in New York and a former high-school principal, said schools would need to buy iPads for its students if it were to replace printed books.

It wouldn’t work to let students who can afford to buy their own iPads use them in class with textbooks they buy themselves, alongside poorer students with printed books.

“The digital divide issue could be very embarrassing. Because if you don’t have the iPad, you can’t do the quiz, you don’t get instant feedback … that is an invitation for a lawsuit,” Greco said. “I would be shocked if any principal or superintendent would let that system go forward.”

Greco said hardback high-school textbooks cost an average of about $105, and a freshman might need five of them. However, they last for five years.

That means that even if an iPad were to last for five years in the hands of students, the e-books plus the iPad would cost more than the hardback textbooks.

At the private Xavier High School in New York, student Omar Soria welcomed the idea of getting rid of printed textbooks.

“They get pretty heavy, about maybe one pound per textbook. And depending on all the other books, which is binders and notebooks, it can get pretty heavy,” he said.

Apple also released an app for iTunes U, which has been a channel for colleges to release video and audio from lectures, through iTunes. The app will open that channel to K-through-12 schools, and will let teachers present outlines, post notes and communicate with students in other ways.

Greco called the new app “a shot across the bow” of Blackboard Inc., a privately held company that provides similar electronic tools to teachers. It, too, has applications for cellphones and tablets.

Apple also revealed iBook Author, an application for Macs that lets people create electronic textbooks.

According to biographer Walter Isaacson, reforming the textbook market was a pet project of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, even in the last year of his life. At a dinner in early 2011, Jobs told News Corp. (NWSA) chairman Rupert Murdoch that the paper textbooks could be made obsolete by the iPad. Jobs wanted to circumvent the state certification process for textbook sales by having Apple release textbooks for free on the tablet computer.

Source:http://www.maximumedge.com/cgi/news/article.cgi/20120119/D9SC8REO3

There was a time when Apple was fighting to get its name into everyone’s heads. How better to do that than to make sure that kids were using the Apple || in schools? It was with that in mind that Apple started subsidizing Apple hardware to get it into the hands of students and the company has been tied at the hip to education ever since.

Fast forward to today and Apple’s announcement (our recap is here) that it would bring digital textbooks to the classroom via the iPad. While many of us are excited about the possibilities that exist here, there’s a slight problem that only Apple is able to fix – $500 iPads.

Apple’s initiative, in conjunction with major educational book publishers, is a fantastic one. But make no mistake that there are hurdles to overcome. In my own school for instance I had many textbooks that were greater than 10 years old. They were dilapidated, but they did the job and that’s what my school could afford. To think that the school would be able to shell out $500 per child for an iPad seems like a ludicrous idea.

The answer seems clear then — Apple either has to be content with selling the program only to schools that can afford it, or it has to help make the transaction more approachable from the money side of things. While the fact that Apple offers bulk pricing to educators has long been known, I think it’s going to take more than just a few bucks off of each device in order to make this fly.

I don’t want to seem like I’m defecating all over Apple’s idea here. Far from it, in fact. I’m excited about the possibilities that the system could hold. But I’m also a realist who went to a poor public school that had to make scheduling changes in order to pay the bills. The school eliminated “Study Halls” and ended at 2:15 instead of the traditional 3:00 because it allowed the HVAC system and lights to be turned down earlier.

That’s the reality of public schools today, and it’s going to take some help from Apple to change that fact.

But if Apple chooses to do so, then there’s a great chance that it could pay off for the company in the long tail. Kids who get used to using iPads in school are more likely to want them for “play” purposes. That could translate into them becoming eventual iPhone buyers as well, and it might (though it’s less likely) convert them into Apple computer users.

It’s a gamble, to say the least. But let’s assume for a moment that Apple sells the devices at the manufacturing cost of $326 each. An average high school textbook costs about $200 to replace, so Apple could very well be saving the schools money over time and provide a better experience with more up-to-date information. That’s not to mention the fact that an entire year’s worth of books would cost no more than $105, which is less than what some school are charging to rent old books for a year.

It’s a prime opportunity for Apple to keep itself in the hearts and minds of students, teachers and schools around the world. Now it’s simply a question of whether it will happen. My fingers are crossed, but I’m not ready to hold my breath just yet.

Source:http://thenextweb.com/apple/2012/01/19/hey-apple-its-time-to-bring-subsidized-hardware-back-to-the-classroom/

There was an Apple II in my third-grade classroom. We used it to play Oregon Trail. Then it died.

Therein lies the problem with iPads in high school: devices break. When Apple announced digital textbooks for primary schools via iBooks 2 this morning, the first thing I thought was: Oh, God, what about the hardware? I’ve done hard, rewarding time in public schools. Both my parents were high-school teachers and I’ve chaired the PTA at my children’s public grade school and can say with certainty that the best software in the world won’t make it practical to deploy fleets of Apple products (or any single piece of hardware) in public schools in the near future. I wish that weren’t true.

The first barrier is cost, and it’s an obvious one. Public schools in California, where I live, face such gigantic budget cuts that even if books cost only $15 apiece, it’s more likely that any given school will choose to stick with a 10-year-old textbook than buy an entirely new library. Families in my district, which is lucky enough to benefit from local taxes keeping class size down, still find themselves footing the bill for copy paper and markers in classrooms. Our fundraisers aim to keep the art teacher employed. Fancy technology is laughably remote to us.

Our fundraisers aim to keep the art teacher employed. Fancy technology is laughably remote to us.
But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that a midsize high school of 700 students pursued a grant to outfit the school with iPads. For schools, grants are easier to come by for one-time investments than for day-to-day maintenance, so a savvy school theoretically could coax a foundation into writing a check to iPad-up the entire institution. (If Apple is smart, it will use some sort of Oprah moment at its rumored February iPad event to seed the market with free, lighter-weight iPad models for a number of schools.)

At current iPad prices, that grant would have to start at $350,000, and that’s just for the hardware. The acquisition of a new fleet of high-school biology textbooks alone, at Apple’s quoted $15 prices, would cost an additional $10,500. To outfit the entire school with every book would cost hundreds of thousands more. $500,000 grants exist, sure, but it takes a Herculean effort from a team of (usually volunteer) grant writers to secure them.

What is the life span of any piece of hardware used heavily by children? I’m going to throw out a number–let’s say three years (which I actually think is optimistic given how easy it is to break an iPad screen). What happens when new technology supplants the current crop of iPads? Does the district employ a computer maintenance technician to fix broken-down iPads? We just lost the school nurse at our school, so I’m guessing no.

I predict that technology will simply grow old, and the school will struggle with crashing tablets or dying battery life until it abandons the fleet of iPads altogether and goes back to its more out-of-date textbooks. I’ve seen it happen before. The public school that my kids go to changed its name a decade ago after receiving a giant, technology-based grant to become a “communications magnet” focused on the technology of media. The principal later told me that the effort it took to maintain the granted PCs and their network was unsustainable and that, ultimately, the project distracted the school from its core mission: teaching children.
My father-in-law volunteers his time in a California school maintaining its computers. The school relies on donations to keep the fleet filled out, and while most of the computers run Windows XP Pro (not that ancient), the machines are mostly 3-or-4-year-old Pentium 4-based rigs, and there’s no prospect of replacing them with dual-core chips anytime soon.

I wish I weren’t so skeptical. I would love to see my kids go to a high school outfitted with technology that helps them learn from the most current versions of any book. Perhaps a private school would have the funding to make iPad textbooks a reality. But I believe in public schools, and public schools need more teachers, more basics. It will be an uphill battle to outfit them all with tablets.

Source:http://news.cnet.com/8301-30677_3-57361919-244/apple-ibooks-in-schools-devil-is-in-the-hardware/

Apple has launched a recycling scheme that could help you make money from your old iPhone, iPad, Mac or even Windows PC.

The Reuse and Recycling Programme will be operated by Dataserv GmbH and will give you the chance to get rid of old or unwanted technology.

“Apple’s commitment to the environment includes finding the most efficient ways to reuse or recycle electronic equipment at the end of its useful life, including iPhone, iPad, Mac or PC computers, and displays from any manufacturer. You may even get some money for your old equipment,” a message on the website reads.

“Whether it’s an iPhone, iPad, Mac or PC computer, working or not, we’ll take it and determine if it qualifies for reuse and has a monetary value. If it does, the amount will be credited directly into your bank account. If it doesn’t, you can recycle it responsibly through one of our free recycling programmes.”

To get started, you can visit the website and answer a few questions about the device you wish to recycle. You’ll then get an estimate of its value from Dataserv, who will send you a pre-paid shipping label.

You can then send the item and upon receipt it will be verified. After that, the value of the device will be paid directly into your bank account.

You can also now recycle old iPods and mobile phones through Apple.

Source:http://www.itworld.com/hardware/241659/apple-launches-recycling-scheme-iphones-ipads-macs-and-pcs-uk

The iPhone 4S is the biggest-selling smartphone and seems set to remain so for months to come, with Apple [AAPL] kicking Android off its temporary top slot to reclaim its mobile ascendancy, the latest information tells.

You can get ‘iSatisfaction’

Apple’s device is still seeing “incredibly strong” demand, according to the latest Changewave data. “Among respondents planning to buy a new smart phone in the next 90 days, better than one-in-two (54%; down 11-pts) say they’ll get an iPhone,” the survey says.

You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that it isn’t just about initial sales, but about how happy people are with the phone they end up with.

Think about it: in a market as upgrade-savvy as the mobile industry has become, where users customarily upgrade their device every couple of year, customer satisfaction is the most important metric of the lot. And in this Apple’s Android competitors aren’t performing well at all.

Better than the rest

Looking at the Changewave survey data above (based on interviews from 4,000 users) and you’ll see that Apple’s closest competitor, Samsung, produces smartphones which over half of its customers aren’t “very satisfied” with. It’s not enough.

Why?

Because the iPhone 4S leaves a colossal 75 percent of its customers “Very Satisfied”. That’s a record Apple competitors would love to have, but don’t. And that achievement will in future drive ever higher sales for each subsequent Apple smartphone.

Just like the iPod before it, the iPhone will eventually become so ubiquitous that it defines the market it plays in. When people say “motorbike”, they also think Harley-Davidson. When people say “MP3 player”, they also think iPod. In future when people say “smartphone”, they’ll also think iPhone.

Please don’t shoot the messenger on this, the only fault (it is no fault) is that Apple makes good products. Though there is always room for improvement.

Complex simplicity

So what’s the magic that makes an Apple product so much better in use than the competition?

Some say it’s the seamless twinning of the software with the hardware, others say it’s the excellence in user interfaces, you might even believe it to be the design and high build quality. I think it’s a combination of all the above, all tied together by Sir Jony Ive’s utter commitment to keeping things simple by design.

During a rare public interview at the Design Museum in 2004, Ive said of the way Apple works at designing its products: “Simplicity speaks of the care of how our products are developed. It’s not obvious how hard it was.

“It’s not the design team, or the mechanical team, it’s the company, and it’s because the company does care…” that it makes good products.

Naturally, critics will point to Apple’s inevitably well-publicized failings as arguments that this approach doesn’t always work. “Antenna-gate” some may mutter. Others will point to the litigation between Apple and others in the mobile space, slamming the firm (inaccurately) for attempting to limit competition by preventing them from delivering similar product features in their devices.

Rest assured, in an industry as volatile and competitive as this has become, there would certainly be other firms prepared to engage in litigation if Apple hadn’t moved to protect its patented, in-house designed user experiences.

Tomorrow’s world, today

Competitors are jealous. They have so far failed to match that user experience in their devices, and this is why Apple’s satisfaction levels are so high. That unrivaled satisfaction response means the iPhone 4S will continue to sell units by the boatload, and means future iterations of the device will be quickly picked-up by a growing population of existing satisfied customers.

This is a watershed moment and testament to the firm’s focus. Changewave admits: “Apple has never dominated smart phone planned buying to this extent more than two months after a major new release.” And the pattern of high satisfaction has been consistent on Apple’s part.

As I observed last summer, Apple’s move to introduce its new device just in advance of the Christmas period is extremely savvy. It means millions invested in the device last season (some estimates claim near 40 million sales of the iPhone within just 13 weeks). If 75 percent of these 40 million smartphone users are “very satisfied” with their device, then you’re looking at 30 million people who will be picking up a brand new Apple smartphone in the years ahead.

User satisfaction is the key metric. In a Post-PC age, that’s the metric which will lead to dominance in all the new tech industries, from tablets to phones, PCs to connected domestic devices.

You can bring all the products you like to market, but they remain one-shot wonders if the people choosing your devices aren’t getting their kicks through using them. I don’t care how you choose to dazzle with rhetoric about better screens, faster processors, or graphics memory chips, it doesn’t matter. A device that isn’t as technologically sophisticated as others available on the market will still win if it is a delight to use. That’s what the iPhone has. And that’s not rhetorical fantasy, it’s a reality based on Changewave’s own survey results.

Where next for Apple? More of the same. For its competitors the challenge remains the need to focus on the customers and deliver experiences which please them, rather than focusing on market share in an inevitable race to the bottom as competition intensifies and product build quality is reduced in the name of profitability and so-called shareholder value.

Must try harder

Apple meanwhile delivers stakeholder value, experiences which please the only shareholders who do make sense, the customers who will form the congregation of the Apple church and will drive ever-increasing interest in all its other products.

Rather than rejecting this picture of reality, champions of systems from other manufacturers should turn their criticism at the firms they support, demanding from them Apple-style levels of customer satisfaction.

Why? Why settle for less? If competition really is good for consumers, then it’s right to demand those firms parlaying for the dollar in your pocket deliver the best experiences possible, and if Apple can achieve this, then others should. Unless they truly cannot, in which case, why are they in the business at all?

Source:http://blogs.computerworld.com/19540/apples_iphone_4s_sets_ground_for_future_growth

Nearly fifteen years ago, with Steve Jobs having just returned to Apple and the niche PC maker now in seriously trouble, the company released one of its first new products: the iMac. An all-in-one computer encased in a colorful transparent eggshell, it looked vaguely hideous, but managed to become pretty popular. Over the years, the design got better and better as Apple rose to consumer electronic dominance, but marketshare is one thing they’ve never been able to capture.

According to Bloomberg, despite Apple having better designed products, as per Jobs’ m.o., PCs like the luggish the Lenovo PC you see above actually outsold the iMac by a margin of over two to one as iMac sales comprised 32.6% of all shipped all-in-ones. It’s not hard to see why:

* Apple’s OS X is still a fringe operating system without the big support that comes with Microsoft’s Windows.
* Apple’s hardware goes for a hefty premium to support their hefty margins. Apple made huge in-roads in the past decade not by attacking the Top 1%, but by supplying people with Christmas and birthday gifts in the form of (relatively) cheap iPods and $500 iPads. On that note…
* Apple is trying to render their own PCs obsolete by moving into a ‘post-PC’ era where all of our computational needs are provided by portable devices, hopefully provided by iOS.

I’m not an Apple fan in the slightest, but it would be nice to see the iMac trounce the monstrosities that other companies put together as all-in-ones.

Source:http://www.flesheatingzipper.com/tech/2012/01/apples-imac-cant-lead-in-a-pc-market-it-created/

A federal judge this week denied Apple’s request to keep secret the technical information that describes how the company locks Mac OS X to its hardware.

The Monday ruling by U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup was the latest in the still-not-quite-dead case between Apple and now-defunct Mac clone maker Psystar.

Alsup denied Apple’s motion to keep numerous court documents under seal, saying in his ruling that Apple’s argument of “compelling trade secrets” was too weak to trump the public’s right to judicial proceedings.

Among the secrets Apple asked the court to keep was Mac OS X’s built-in copy protection. Previously, Apple had argued that Psystar circumvented that copy protection to install OS X on Mac clones.

Specifically, Alsup noted that much of what Apple wanted to keep under wraps was, in fact, public knowledge — available on the Internet — or could be uncovered by reverse engineering the Mac OS X code.

Apple claimed that because it was not the source of the secrets or had confirmed the information, the court should keep the technical details under wraps.

Alsup disagreed.

“In fact, Apple’s Vice-President of Core OS Software admits that ‘third parties may have accurately deduced and published some of the material Apple seeks to maintain as sealed,’” said Alsup.

“Apple cannot have this Court seal information merely to avoid confirming that the publicly available sources got it right,” Alsup added.

The Cupertino, Calif. company is notoriously secretive about its products, and has fought in the past to keep information from being disclosed during legal proceedings.

Psystar and Apple have been battling in court since July 2008, when Apple sued the Florida company over copyright and software licensing violations.

The case wound down in late 2009, when Alsup ruled that Psystar had violated Apple’s copyright as well as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) when it installed Mac OS X on Intel-based computers.

Subsequently, the two reached a partial settlement that required Psystar to pay Apple $2.7 million, which according to earlier bankruptcy filings Psystar did not have. Psystar has been barred from selling clones equipped with Mac OS X for more than two years, and the company’s website has long since disappeared.

Psystar lost an appeal last September, but the company’s lawyer said he would take the case to the Supreme Court if necessary.

“The principal issue in the case is Apple’s limiting Mac OS X to its own hardware,” said K.A.D. Camera of the Houston firm Camera & Sibley, in an interview last year. “But this is more than only Psystar. It could determine whether the likes of Dell can sell machines that run OS X.”

Checks of the U.S. federal court’s electronic database by Computerworld today found that the un-redacted documents have not yet been posted by the court’s clerk.

Source:http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9223174/Apple_loses_bid_to_block_Mac_OS_X_copy_protection_secrets_in_clone_case

Regardless of the condition of your OS installation, if your system’s hardware is not working properly then you will undoubtedly see undesired behavior that can stem from slowdowns and hangs to full system crashes and data corruption.

Because of the importance of having working hardware, Apple includes a hardware test routine on all of its new Mac systems, some of which are on the boot drive of your Mac, an others that are on the included OS X installation DVDs that came with older systems.

If you experience problems with your system crashing, hanging, or overheating with no change in the fan speed, random changes in fan speeds, or peripheral components not working, then one step that can help determine the problem is to run a hardware test.

The hardware tests are built for a specific system, so if you have a restore disc that contains tests for a Mac Pro, you will not be able to use this on a Mac Mini or iMac system. Additionally, tests for a newer model iMac may not work properly on an older iMac system, with the same restriction also applying for other Mac models.

Running the hardware tests

To run the hardware tests on your system, if your system came with a gray restore disc then insert it into the DVD slot and then start up or reboot your system, otherwise just skip this step. Then hold the D key down on the keyboard immediately after hearing the boot chimes, ensuring it is done before the gray startup screen appears. If your system did not ship with a restore DVD then the test software may need to be downloaded from the Internet, in which case the system will prompt you to join a network.

Apple includes the hardware tests on the hard drives of all modern Macs, but if you have formatted your drive then you will not have the tests on it anymore. In these situations you will need an active Internet connection to run the tests, but in some instances, router security routines may prevent a Wi-Fi connection from working when the system is in the diagnostics mode, so having an Ethernet cable to establish a hardware connection is a good option to have.

Apple’s hardware test window will look like this. Click the big “Test” button to run all the hardware test routines.

When the tests load you will see a little symbol of a computer and a memory chip on the screen, with a progress bar under it. After the tests load you will be asked to choose the language to use for the hardware tests, followed by the main testing window appearing on the display. In this window you will see three tabs: one with information about the tests, another to run the tests, and a third to display a system report or hardware profile.

To run the tests, select the “Hardware Tests” section and click the big “Test” button in the box to the right of the window. The tests will check your CPU, GPU, memory, firmware, and other components, but if you wish to run an extensive memory test then you can do this as well by checking the check box under the Test button. Doing this will have the system meticulously test each section of RAM, but in doing so will increase the testing time from about 5 to 10 minutes to 30 to 60 minutes or longer, depending on the amount of RAM you have installed on your system and the speed of the RAM.

When the tests are run, you may hear the system’s fans spin up at high speeds, but this is a normal occurrence for the system to when the hardware is being used without an operating system loaded.

The error codes

If the tests determine there is an error with your system, they will display an error code similar to the following:

4SNS/1/1/4000000 TL0P-130

The codes may be a bit cryptic, but you can contact Apple Support to see what they mean. As a general reference, here are some of the breakdowns for what the error codes mean, so if you see an error that begins with one of these codes, then it means the specified component listed at the end of the code is not working properly:

4ETH: Ethernet controller

4IRP: Main Logic board
4MLB: Logic board controller
4PRC: Processor
4HDD: Hard disk
4MHD: External disk
4YDC: Video card
4SNS: System sensor
4MOT: Fan motor
4MEM: Memory module
4AIR: AirPort wireless card

In the case of a sensor error (4SNS), to determine what type of sensor is being referenced, check its first letter, which should either be “I” for current, “T” for temperature, or “V” for voltage. Then check the second letter against the following list to see what component it refers to:

A: Ambient air sensor
B: Battery
C: Central processors (CPU)
D: DC (direct current)
e: PCI-express slot
F: FireWire port
G: Graphics processor (GPU)
H: Hard disk
h: Heat pipe (heat sink)
L: LCD display
M: Memory or memory riser boards
m: Misc. (i.e., battery chargers)
N: North bridge (motherboard controller)
O: Optical drives
P: Power bus
p: Power supply
s: Palm rests for laptops
W: Airport Wi-Fi card

In the example mentioned above, a sensor called “TL0P-130″ is not working properly, which is an LCD temperature sensor in a portable system.

What to do
If you get an error that deals with an Ethernet controller, the main logic board, a logic board controller, processors, or sensors, then try rebooting the system and resetting the system PRAM to see if the problem clears. If you are getting a problem with the fan speeds or any sensors then you can also try resetting the system management controller, but in addition to these resets do check the fans for physical obstructions (dust and dirt) or for mechanical issues.

If you see a memory or AirPort card error code, then your best bet would be to first try resetting them in their connections on the motherboard, but ultimately replace them if you cannot get the errors to go away on subsequent tests. If you are unable to perform these tasks yourself, then you should be able to have it done at an Apple Store.

Source:http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57352461-263/how-to-invoke-and-interpret-the-apple-hardware-tests/

A federal judge has denied Apple’s effort to seal information related to its copyright infringement case against Psystar, ruling that information already publicly available on the Internet and in print is no longer protectable.
Apple had attempted to seal documents containing information about its Mac OS X operating system and computer products as a trade secret, presumably to keep others from modifying Apple’s OS to run on unauthorized hardware. Apple argued that because it was not the source of the information that the trade secret protection still existed.
However, U.S. Federal District Judge William Alsup disagreed in a ruling today, noting that the software information was available on the Web site of a book on the OS and a decryption code was available on MacBook Air laptops.
“Apple cannot have this court seal information merely to avoid confirmation that the publicly available sources got it right,” Alsup said, according to a Bloomberg report.
Representatives of Apple did not respond to a request for comment.
Apple filed a copyright-infringement lawsuit against Psystar in 2008 after Psystar bought copies of the Mac OS on the market and began selling its Mac clones. Psystar countered that Apple was misusing its Mac OS X copyright by requiring customers to run the software only on its own brand of computers.
A U.S. District Court sided with Apple in 2009, ruling that Psystar “violated Apple’s exclusive reproduction right, distribution right, and right to create derivative works.” Apple was awarded a permanent injunction against Psystar in December 2009.

Source:http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57351770-37/apple-loses-bid-to-seal-already-public-os-information/

The Apple TV is a device with an interesting history. For years now, the tech industry has tried time and time again to re-envision the future of the living room experience. As we’ve talked about in the past, no one has truly tackled the set-top box. Different vendors have simply brought pieces to a puzzle that no one’s been able to solve.

After news broke that the late Steve Jobs felt he had finally solved the puzzle, the rumor mill went into overtime. If you checked out my piece on iOS 5 Notifications, you know I often try to envision what’s next, and the Apple TV is no exception to my enthusiasm for conceptual design. So I spent some time seriously considering what the next Apple TV could and should be. We’ll start with the hardware.

Hardware: Set-Top Box vs. HDTV
A lot of analysts have Apple changing course from their previous Apple TVs in that they’d be selling an actual HDTV as opposed to a set-top box. Apple would undoubtedly make a strong competitor because of the high quality displays they tend to use. Apple’s Cinema Display, for example, is often written off by most people as being an overpriced monitor, when the truth of the matter is that it’s one of the highest quality displays that you can get. That’s why Apple’s displays are even found on the desks of some avid PC users, because they’re users who want or need a display with that type of color accuracy, etc. Point is, a good number of people already have HDTVs, making an Apple HDTV a product that serves to a smaller group. To customers who don’t already have an HDTV, the Apple HDTV might be appealing if they’re willing to spend more on it than they would on a competing set. An Apple would have it’s benefits (which I’ll come back to), but the majority of people will opt for the revamped set-top box instead.

On the outside, the Apple TV looks almost identical to the model that Apple’s shipping today. Inside, the Apple TV features an A5 processor for 1080p playback, and some other spec bumps. As with most Apple products, the focus here is software.

Software
When Apple introduced the iPhone, it wasn’t the introduction of a smartphone that made it so popular, it was the fact that smartphones up until then were comprised of complicated, ugly menus and limited input methods (styluses and fixed buttons). TVs today are the smartphones before the iPhone; they’re functional, but they’re not beautiful, not engaging.

So, how do you make TV software engaging? You take it off the TV. Even people I know that have 20/20 vision and 40+” TVs still seem to find themselves squinting to read ugly, unintuitive menus. It’s an annoying experience, and with more “smart” TVs coming onto the market, buyers now have even more to squint at. These smart TVs seem to have forgotten what the TV is truly about: consuming media. So, if you take the software off the TV, where do you put it? The answer is, you put it right in the user’s hand, you put the software right on the remote.

Apple revolutionized the phone market with their multitouch experience, and so there’s no reason why they shouldn’t bring that same experience to their TV remote as well. Given the remote’s limited hardware requirements, it wouldn’t cost Apple much to build a multitouch remote. Essentially, it’s much like building an iPod Touch without a lot of the hardware that an iPod Touch requires.

Like the TV it controls, the remote runs a modified version of iOS, which makes the user experience extremely familiar to anyone who’s ever used an iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad. Even the setup experience is similar. Upon first boot, users are asked to pair their remote with the TV, creating a private wireless connection between the TV and the remote. After the remote’s connected, the rest of the iOS-like setup process happens on the remote, asking users if they’d like to enter their iTunes/iCloud/iTunes Home Sharing credentials so that all of their content automatically starts becoming available to the TV or set-top box.

The setup process does this so that all of your content sources are integrated together. For example, the movies app on the remote lets you tab between the movies from your computer, the movies stored in iCloud, the iTunes Store, and even Netflix. By integrating the different content sources, it makes it easy to search for a movie, and check different services all at once. Apple TV also builds a “content quilt” that displays a mosaic of your album art, movie posters, etc, to display up on your TV while the user is picking content. When a user pauses content, it scales down like a window, and hovers over the content quilt. This makes it easy to remember what you were last watching, and even easier to pick right back up where you left off. When you hit play the content simply scales back up to normal size.

However, there is one final service to setup before users are ready to use their Apple TV. That step is choosing a TV provider. Providers spend exorbitant amounts of money on set-top boxes, and broadcasting infrastructure. If Apple played their cards right, they could cut a lot of costs for both TV providers and consumers, all while taking over the living room. Choosing a TV provider works a lot like choosing a cell carrier, you tap it, and select a plan. However, your plan is delivered over your network connection, this saves the carrier from having to provide a set-top box, saves the carrier money when it comes to actually providing the content, provides a lower cost to the end-user, and finally, allows users to easily subscribe to more than one TV provider if they want. TV content has both on demand and on air options just like cable and satellite users have now, but now the TV content comes to users in a way that’s easy to browse, and easier to enjoy. At the core of it, Apple TV gets users back to watching content in a simple and elegant way.

Once set up, users are greeted with a home screen that’s almost identical to the one iOS users have now, except for the fact that the remote features playback controls on the home screen and that the remote features different applications. By default, the user gets apps for Movies, TV Shows, Photos, Music, Netflix, Internet (a folder which houses the apps for YouTube, Vimeo, NHL, MLB, NBA, and WSJ Live), FaceTime (an Apple HDTV only feature), and Settings. A lot of people who have anticipated the revamped Apple TV have made bold claims that the TV will feature a touchscreen or run apps out of the App Store. Ultimately, this only clutters the TV experience and contributes to the problem Apple TV needs to solve. A touchscreen TV would be horrible for end users, asking them to get up and switch apps, not to mention it would result in a fingerprint covered TV. This is why a touch-based remote is a much more natural experience for the users.

As for third-party applications, most applications would only clutter the TV viewing experience. Simple applications like FaceTime make sense for when users aren’t watching TV, but other applications that we’ve seen demoed don’t make sense. If users want those kinds of tools they’ll use their phones, tablets, or computers, not their TVs because people turn on their TVs to unwind and consume content, not do the things they’ve been doing all day on their other devices. In the future, Apple might open up a type of SDK for the Apple TV for content consumption applications like Pandora or iHeartRadio, but as of right now, they need to focus on perfecting the core experience before moving onto that. Just like they perfected the iPhone experience before launching an official App Store for that.

To recap, this remote redefines how people get to their content, it makes for a much more intimate and personal content-choosing experience in a way that users are already familiar with. It also allows users to browse content without interrupting what they’re already viewing.

Siri
Then there’s Siri. Holding the home button on the Apple TV remote triggers Siri in the same way that it does on the iPhone. Overall, Siri acts the same way, but with the Apple TV, Siri gains a partnership with IMDB, meaning users can ask Siri questions like, “who’s that actor?” Siri will check what film’s playing on the TV at the time, and pull up the corresponding cast information.

Benefits of an Apple HDTV
The new Apple TV software makes content viewing easy in a way that really plays to Apple’s strengths, and the Apple TV’s cheap entry cost makes it more accessible than ever. However, for those who haven’t yet upgraded to an HDTV, Apple’s set might be worth considering.

The set features a few advantages, two of which I’ve already mentioned: a higher quality display and FaceTime capabilities. The base of the TV also has a dock for charging the remote when its battery finally dwindles down. (The set-top version of the Apple TV just comes with a basic cord and wall adapter.) When you dock the remote, the TV turns off by default, just like undocking the remote turns it on by default. However, this feature can easily be turned off.

Finally, the Apple HDTV has a feature called SmartConnect. Like any HDTV, Apple’s HDTV would have various inputs for different external devices. However, unlike regular HDTVs, when a device is plugged into the Apple HDTV, it comes up as an icon on the remote’s home screen. The user is then asked if they’d like to name the device. For example, someone might have an Xbox hooked up to their Apple TV, instead of switching inputs, a user simply taps the Xbox “app” from the remote, and just like that the user can see their Xbox. SmartConnect only expands on the idea that users shouldn’t have to jump between different devices connected to their TVs for different kinds of content. The Apple TV is the ultimate hub for entertainment content.

Accessories
Like with any Apple device, there are a few accessories that can be bought for Apple TV devices (both the set-top box and the HDTV). The first is a remote dock. The remote dock is much like Apple’s iPhone dock in that it provides a more elegant charging solution, but with a device like the Apple TV, a dock makes much more sense since users might have their Apple HDTV in the bedroom, and want to turn off their TV by keeping a dock on their nightstand.

The second accessory is the MacBook Air SuperDrive that Apple already offers for their MacBook Air and Mac Mini customers. However, the SuperDrive would come with a microUSB adapter so that it can plug into the port on the back of the set-top box or the standard USB port on the back of the Apple HDTV. This allows users to easily watch DVD content as well as their digital content. (Now if we really started dreaming, Apple would throw in Blu-ray support, but we’ve not heard anything from Apple that revokes their previous “bag of hurt” label that they’ve put on Blu-ray.)

Pricing and Availibility
The Apple HDTV would probably have a starting price around $1099 thanks to its high quality display, which would make it a little more expensive than competing models, but not so expensive that no one would ever buy one.

The Apple TV set-top box, however, comes in two models, the regular $99-129 version that you’d buy in an Apple Store or other retailer like Best Buy or Target. This version can subscribe to any TV provider like I mentioned earlier. However, a secondary provider specific model would be available as well. This means consumers could get an Apple TV set-top box through their TV provider like they do now. This creates a cheaper way for Apple to get the Apple TV into the hands of customers, while carriers still benefit from loaning out more reliable, easier to understand set-top boxes, and the fact that Apple TV streams TV content over a user’s internet connection (which would also be a sales incentive for TV providers that offer broadband services). The only difference for the end-user is that if they get a set-top box through a specific TV provider, that model is provider locked, meaning the Apple TV won’t let users unsubscribe from the carrier they’re renting the set-top box from or subscribe to competing providers.

Overall, that’s my idea of what Apple TV should be. I know there are a lot of people who think it should be more app-focused, but I can’t help but feel that the living room experience should be more dedicated to watching content instead of trying to make it a smartphone-like experience. This experience that I outlined above just seems to be a more natural way of watching content that just feels right, and everyone who’s heard the concept until now seems to agree. If any of you have questions or comments about the concept, feel free to leave them below, and I’ll get back to you.

Source:http://bytenow.net/2012/01/03/designing-the-future-of-apple-tv/

Apple, having conquered the Smartphone and computer tablet market, has yet to overtake the world of cable television. One way the computer giant could make significant inroads on the TV market would lie in offering customers “channels a la carte.” Allowing the subscriber to choose which channels to have would set Apple apart from other subscription services, which typically sell their channels in packages.

Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu, in a note to investors says that Apple’s strength lies less in the hardware innovation it might bring in lieu of letting customers subscribe to particular channels or shows of their choosing.

Apple already offers a number of TV programs as subscriptions through its online store. They also allow customer to purchase both single episodes and entire seasons. Customers must wait for the show to be broadcast before it’s available to download. Wu suggests that Apple would rather move to live streaming of the programming, just like what customers get through their cable provider.

“This is obviously much more complicated from a licensing standpoint and in our view, would change the game for television and give AAPL a big leg-up against the competition,” Wu wrote in Apple Insider.

The idea is not new, as a Wall Street Journal story from 2009 suggested Apple was in talks with CBS and Walt Disney to provide TV programming for a monthly fee.

Interest in Apple’s prospective television boomed in October with the release of Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography of late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

In that best-selling biography, Jobs said “I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use . It would be seamlessly synched with all of your devices and with iCloud. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.”

In addition, a report from the Taiwanese publication DigiTimes cited sources saying that Apple was already in the process of ordering components for 32-inch and 37-inch TV sets that would be ready for sale in the second half of 2012, suggesting that Apple is relatively far along in the process of bringing the set to market.

Apple has since made two significant adjustments to its sales of TV shows in the past few months. Apple ended its TV show rental service, a decision the company attributed to consumer purchasing behavior “overwhelmingly” falling in favor of buying programming outright. It also introduced a new season-completion program that lets buyers pick up the rest of a show’s season at a discounted rate if they’ve already purchased an episode.

Source:http://www.catholic.org/technology/story.php?id=44233&utm_source=catholic.org%2Fhomepage&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=latest%2Bnews&utm_campaign=home

Below are the three companies in the Computer Hardware industry with the highest operating margin. A healthy operating margin is required for a company to pay for its fixed costs and generate cash.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is highest with an operating margin of 30.8%. Apple Inc. designs, manufactures, and markets personal computers and related personal computing and mobile communication devices along with a variety of related software, services, peripherals, and networking solutions. The Company sells its products worldwide through its online stores, its retail stores, its direct sales force, third-party wholesalers, and resellers.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has potential upside of 26.8% based on a current price of $401.42 and analysts’ consensus price target of $509.09. Apple shares have support at the 50-day moving average (MA) of $391.01 and additional support at the 200-day MA of $367.96.

Stratasys (NASDAQ:SSYS) is next with an operating margin of 19.8%.

Finishing up the top three is Super Micro Computer (NASDAQ:SMCI), with an operating margin of 5.5%.

Source:http://www.fnno.com/story/fast-lane/331-apple-ranks-highest-terms-operating-margin-computer-hardware-industry-aapl-ssys-smci-fast-lane

Where does the world’s largest collection of Apple-related history live? In a fascinating archive owned and operated by Stanford University.

But good luck actually finding the trove of hardware, software, recorded interviews, revealing documents, candid photos and internal videos. Everything is stored in a secret Bay Area location away from the Stanford campus.

Unceremoniously housed in boxes that occupy some 600 feet of shelving in a climate-controlled warehouse, the archive contains gems such as handwritten early sales records of the Apple II, a $5,000 loan agreement that helped the fledgling company get off the ground, and a 1976 letter in which a printer warns a friend about a young “joker” named Steve Jobs.

Mashable has reached out to Stanford for more information on why this bonanza of Apple-geek gold hasn’t been made more available for public viewing, but so far has not heard back from university representatives.

The storage warehouse’s undisclosed location is understandable, as it’s easy to imagine obsessed fans trying to break in for peaks — or pieces — of their own. But the lack of any public viewing seems unusual. As a private university with an endowment of more than $16 billion, dearth of funding isn’t a plausible reason.

The Associated Press was recently granted a rare visit to the secret space — but only after agreeing not to divulge its location. Given the swell of public interest in Apple’s story since Jobs’ death in October, could a public museum now be in the works?

The bulk of the collection was originally intended for an Apple corporate museum that never got built. Apple donated the materials to Stanford in 1997, soon after Jobs rejoined the company. The university has since acquired more than 20 additional collections from former Apple employees, executives and business partners to complement the company’s original donation.

The Stanford archive also includes documentation of Apple’s 1985 removal of Jobs as CEO, as well as his subsequent return to the position, which would spark the company’s transformation from a struggling corporation into an international business behemoth.

But the Stanford collection doesn’t just tell the story of one company. The rise of Apple with Jobs at the helm parallels the modern maturation of the technology industry all the way through its ubiquity today.

“Apple Computer is an iconic company in Silicon Valley,” Stanford curator Henry Lowood recently told a university publication. “And by iconic I mean that it’s more than just historically important. It symbolizes a lot of things that we’ve come to associate with Silicon Valley.”

Located in Palo Alto, in the heart of Silicon Valley, Stanford has had a long relationship with Apple and its famous co-founder. In a 1985 interview with Playboy magazine, Jobs praised the availability of “fresh made” LSD on the campus during his youth, and in 2005 he gave a now-famous inspirational commencement speech to Stanford’s graduating class.

What is Apple’s historical legacy to you? Would you like to see the Stanford archive made available for public viewing? Let us know in the comments.

Source:http://mashable.com/2011/12/29/apple-stanford-archive/

The MacBook Air is the latest development by Apple and going by its features, this is arguably one of the simple to use yet very effective Macs for you to grace the scenes. Whilst the computer has a lot that comes with this, one of the first endearing features is an improved hardware collection plus the lion operating system which has actually been section of many MacBook Air reviews. The Mac is exceedingly lighter and considerably thinner yet even so; the computer remains one of many strongest and most powerful computers available by Apple.

To be able to allow customers to use the computer under darkish conditions, the backlight added on the keyboard should do the trick and furthermore, the light can be adjusted atomically by a light sensing unit all be it the lamps can be adjusted manually simply by use of short cut keys on the Mac air keyboard. The experience of inputting on the Mac is additional made easier by its slender nature and easy to operate operate keys for Launchpad or just adjusting the keyboard backlight.

Another feature with the MacBook Air that has been subject of many reviews could be the Thunderbolt. The feature which 1st hit the market under the Imac is actually a data port that allows an individual to move bundles of data in one port to another. The most important thing in regards to the Thunderbolt as a data transfer option is that it’s very fast and extremely effective with some MacBook Air reviews aiming to the fact that the Thunderbolt can send data at a staggering velocity of 50MB per second.

Some other auxiliary features of the computer incorporate fast loading relative to other MacBooks. Furthermore, this recent addition by apple has been graced by a disk drive that is not moving making it even easier to use the actual computer not to mention the fact that its sleek and slim size makes its mobility very easy indeed. In terms of durability, the MacBook Air has been covered by a strong and sturdy aluminum uni-body meaning that it’s protected from all threats that could damage it.

The MacBook Air is also one of the few laptops to come pre-loaded which has a diverse option of super applications. Regarding speed and performance, the Mac air comes with an Intel I5 and I7core processor which is in fact two time faster as opposed to previous strongest Intel cpu made for this machine. With all of these features, the MacBook Air definitely seems to be to be the best laptop all around yet when you just think of the fact that it is compatible with any functioning system, you just cant but agree which indeed it is a very special addition.

Source:http://cmvlive.com/technology/gadgets/review-of-the-macbook-air