A new augmented reality app called Layar is making the rounds on the web as an example of what can be done with Augmented Reality. Layer (via 9to5Mac) is described as the world's first mobile augmented reailty browser.
Layar shows you what is around you by displaying realtime digital information on top of reality through the camera of the mobile phone. Just flip through the directory of layers and find ATM's, bars, houses for sale, hotels and other cool stuff around you.
The app accomplishes this through the use of the Compass, camera and GPS embedded within the phone. The developer's video shows it running:
The app is first available for the Android devices but they are working hard on porting it to other platforms "with a prime focus on the iPhone 3G S.". The iPhone 3G S is the first Apple iPhone to contain a digital compass which is required for such applications.
CNet reports that ARM will be delivering multi-core ARM chips in 2010, making multi-core iPhones and other smart phones possible.
"You'll definitely see handsets shipping with a dual-core A9 in 2010," James Bruce, wireless segment manager for ARM, said in a phone interview earlier this week, referring to the next-generation Cortex-A9 processor from ARM.
The iPhone currently is believed to use the ARM Cortex A8 processor. While still a notable improvement over the previous generation ARM chips, it remains a single core device. The move to dual-core ARM chips is expected to happen "relatively quickly" and should be seen in about a year.
An ARM representative reassured CNet that the dual-core ARM A9 is actually more power efficient than the A8.
"What we've done on the A9 is actually make it more power efficient than the A8. The dual-core A9 will be coming out on 45-nanometer rather than the (current) 65-nanometer process," Bruce said. Generally, the smaller the geometries, the faster and more power-efficient the processor is. Bruce continued. "With the dual-core running at maximum load there's probably going to be an increase of about 10 to 20 percent in power consumption but in general day to day use you're actually going to see better battery life."
Several readers have reported that their early iPhone 3G S orders will be arriving as early as June 17th (Wednesday), two days earlier than expected. The official launch day for the iPhone 3G S is Friday, June 19th.
Meanwhile, a Brazilian site (MyDock.com.br) has posted an unlocked iPhone 3G S. The video shows the new iPhone as well as the new Compass app in action:
Meanwhile, we have gotten a few hands on tdibits of the new iPhone 3G S. According to a first hand account of the iPhone 3G S:
- 2048 x 1536 is the resolution of the pictures from the camera - The olephobic screen of the new iPhone is noticeable and does seem to make a difference with fingerprints. - "Speed is impressive" - Video recording quality is just ok, dependent of ambient light.
Apple today released updated versions of its Java for OS X for both OS X 10.5 Leopard and OS X 10.4 Tiger. The updates address several vulnerabilities that could allow maliciously crafted Java applets to gain elevated privileges leading to arbitrary code execution.
The updates come less than a month after former Apple engineer Landon Fuller released a proof-of-concept exploit demonstrating the vulnerabilities in order to bring attention to the issue. While the vulnerabilities Fuller highlighted were discovered last August and patched by Sun last December, Apple had yet to address the issues in its own implementation of Java until today's releases.
Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 4 delivers improved reliability, security, and compatibility for Java SE 6, J2SE 5.0 and J2SE 1.4.2 on Mac OS X 10.5.7 and later.
This release updates Java SE 6 to version 1.6.0_13, J2SE 5.0 to version 1.5.0_19, and J2SE 1.4.2 to 1.4.2_21.
Please quit all web browsers before installing this update.
The iPhone version of Documents to Go, the popular document editing application suite for mobile platforms from DataViz, has finally appeared in the App Store. Documents to Go for the iPhone offers the ability to edit, create and view Microsoft Word documents, as well as the ability to view and sync Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, iWork, and other files. Unfortunately, as detailed in a February preview, the ability to create and edit Excel spreadsheets is not included in the initial release. DataViz promises, however, that users will receive a free upgrade for the functionality when it becomes available.
Two versions of the application suite are available at introductory prices: Documents to Go [App Store, $4.99] and Documents to Go with Exchange Attachments [App Store, $9.99]. The Exchange version adds the ability to access Exchange attachments directly within Documents to Go:
For Microsoft Exchange e-mail users, you can now access your attachments right within Documents To Go. E-mail any Word document that you've edited or created in Documents To Go as well any other files you keep handy on your iPhone.
- E-mail with supported attachments are downloaded into Documents To Go. - Attachments can then be viewed or edited. - Reply or forward to an existing e-mail with supported attachments. - Create new e-mail and attach files to send off right away.
Documents to Go is part of an increasing number on business productivity apps making their way to the iPhone platform. Quickoffice, a similar document editing suite priced at $19.99 but already offering some spreadsheet editing capabilities, appeared in the App Store last month.
A number of MacRumors readers have reported that Apple and AT&T have begun updating order statuses and providing UPS tracking numbers for their iPhone 3G S orders. In the case of orders placed with Apple, shipments are being dispatched from Shenzhen, China and are due for delivery on Friday, the official launch date for the iPhone 3G S. Orders made through AT&T are appearing as "in progress" on customers' order status pages and have been assigned tracking numbers, although the shipments do not appear to have yet been picked up by UPS.
Visible signs of AT&T's and Apple's preparations for the launch of the new iPhone, as well as the corresponding release of iPhone OS 3.0 for older devices this Wednesday, have begun appearing in the days leading up to the new releases. Over the weekend, AT&T also sold out of its initial iPhone 3G S pre-order allotment, meaning that those who wish to obtain an iPhone 3G S from AT&T on launch day will have to do so in-person at an AT&T retail store.
Apple and AT&T have been making preparations for the launch of iPhone firmware 3.0. Here is a compilation of the changes and preparations that have been noted:
- The new MobileMe Find My iPhone feature has been live this past week. - Push Notification support is beginning to appear in the App Store. Tap Tap Revenge [App Store] specifically has been updated to provide push notifications. - The iPhone 3G S Firmware 3.0 has already appeared on Apple's servers. This firmware is specifically for the new iPhone 3G S (iPhone2,1) so is not recommended to be installed on older iPhones. - AT&T has posted a FAQ (PDF) about the iPhone 3G S and comments on MMS and tethering:
Later this summer, as part of the 3.0 software, AT&T will make multimedia messaging (MMS) available at no extra cost to customers with a text messaging bundle. And, in the future, AT&T will offer tethering capability for iPhone 3G S and iPhone 3G.
- The iPhone 3.0 re-download charging message has been removed and was a bug according to AppAdvice. Re-downloading apps in 3.0 should be the same as the current firmware ( which means free). - A couple of YouTube videos have appeared walking through the features of the new iPhone 3.0 operating system. Video 1, Video 2.
The iPhone 3.0 firmware is officially launching on June 17th.
As first described in our forums, Apple seems to have quietly downgraded the SATA Interface from 3.0Gbit to 1.5Gbit speeds in some of the new MacBook Pros introduced last week. Readers are reporting that both the new 13" and 15" MacBook Pro models are affected while the 13" MacBook (white), 17" MacBook Pro and 13" MacBook Air retain the 3.0Gbit SATA interface. SATA is the interface between a computer and its hard drives.
The slower SATA interface is unlikely to affect the bulk of users as even the fastest traditional hard drives are unable to saturate even the 1.5 Gbit interfaces. However, if you are planning on buying a fast Solid State Drive (SSD), it could affect the drive's performance. The downgrade of the interface in the new MacBook Pro has also been confirmed in early benchmarks using a fast enough SSD. Forum user fpnc provides an excellent summary of the findings so far:
1.) It appears nearly certain that the new 13" and 15" MacBook Pros are all reporting a SATA interface running at 1.5Gb and not the faster 3.0Gb rate that has been in pretty common use for the last few years. These new models have the Secure Digital (SD) slot and also appear to have redesigned motherboards.
2.) Those who are using standard hard disk drives will probably see no difference in performance. If that is you, you can stop reading now.
3.) Benchmarks on FAST solid-state drives (SSDs) are showing a decrease in RAW disk i/o transfer rates on these same systems (in comparison to the previous generation MacBook Pros and MacBooks).
4.) The largest differences in the benchmark results seem to be in large, sequential disk READS (one of the traditional strengths with SSDs).
5.) To the best of my knowledge, no one has done any test with REAL-WORLD operations to show that the user experience (i.e. "performance") will be decreased with the 1.5Gb SATA interface. That is to say that thus far we've only seen benchmarks done with RAW disk i/o benchmarking tools.
6.) No one really knows why this has been done and no one knows whether it can be fixed with a software/firmware update (it may or may not be able to be fixed).
While there is a lot of speculation about if this could be "corrected" by software in the future, there are no definitive answers. At a minimum, it should serve as a caution for those customers who were planning on upgrading to fast SSD drives in their new 13" or 15" MacBook Pros. While you may still see performance benefits over traditional hard drives, the total benefit may be blunted.
AnandTech takes a look at the new MacBook Pros released at WWDC last week and focuses on the new non-removable battery design. Apple first introduced the non-removable battery into the 17" Unibody MacBook Pro last fall with mixed reactions from the community. Apple's reasoning behind making the battery custom and non-removable has been the ability to incorporate a larger battery that will provide even longer battery life. They've also argued that most laptop owners do not carry spare batteries.
Anandtech does a good job exploring the technology behind the design:
Apple did some clever work on its own here. Standard lithium ion batteries are made up of cylindrical cells, similar to AA batteries. The problem with these batteries is that they waste a lot of space within a notebook (try cramming a lot of cylinders into a box, you end up with wasted space). This wasted space translates into larger batteries than are necessary, which makes for larger notebooks.
They found the 15" MacBook Pro got an additional 46% of battery capacity with no additional weight. Improvements were dramatic in their benchmark testing:
The new 15" MacBook Pro clocked in at over 8 hours in their light load benchmark. The findings did carry over proportionately in their more intensive tests compared to the older models. Andandtech concludes with a very positive impression of Apple's latest revision:
Ever since I first looked at the power consumption specs of Nehalem I thought it didnt make any sense to buy a new, expensive notebook before Arrandales launch in Q4 2009/Q1 2010. While performance will definitely increase considerably with Arrandale, Apple just threw a huge wrench in my recommendation. The new MacBook Pro is near perfect today. If you need a new laptop now, thanks to its incredible battery life, I have no qualms recommending the new MBP.
BoyGeniusReport claims that the initial batch of iPhone 3G S shipments have already been allocated to pre orders, so if you haven't ordered yet, you will have to wait.
To make a long story short, if you did not pre-order an iPhone 3G S from AT&T yet, (were not talking about Apple because we dont have information on their pre-ordering/stock levels, etc) your iPhone 3G S wont be shipping to you/your store until 7-14 days after the order date. It seems that all AT&Ts pre-order stock is depleted leaving only iPhone 3G Ss for dying-in-line purchasing on this coming Friday, and all pre-orders going forward wont be fulfilled until after the June 19th launch date.
There is a chance that Apple stores will have a larger supply of the iPhone 3G S on launch, as they did with the iPhone 3G during its launch.
It seems there will be at least one more Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) update before we see Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) arrive this fall. Apple has begun seeding Mac OS X 10.5.8 (9L14) to Mac developers.
The new version of Mac OS X 10.5.8 offers the usual laundry list of fixes and changes to Leopard. Apple specifically cites 27 fixes across iDisk, iCal, Spotlight and more. It seems likely that this release will be the final update to 10.5 before we see the introduction of 10.6.
Mac OS X 10.6 has been announced to be due in September and is offering all current Leopard users an upgrade for only $29. Snow Leopard has always been described as primarily incorporating "under the hood" enhancements though we've seen reports of many more obvious changes.
Earlier this week, the EVGA GeForce GTX 285 graphics card appeared in Apple's online stores in the U.S. and Canada. Compatible with the "Early 2008" and "Early 2009" Mac Pro models and currently listed as shipping in 1-2 weeks, the GTX 285 is priced at $449.95 in the U.S. Plans for a June launch of the card were revealed in late April, and the appearance of the card in Apple's store suggests that it should begin shipping within the scheduled timeframe.
Benchmarks on the PC version of the GTX 285 revealed that it consistently outperforms the ATI Radeon HD 4870, which is currently available as a $200 build-to-order upgrade on the 2009 Mac Pro. It remains to be seen if Apple will be adding the GTX 285 as a build-to-order upgrade for new orders once the card begins shipping.
In the days since Apple previewed the forthcoming Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard at its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote and distributed a new build to conference attendees, users have been scouring the new operating system and its associated documentation and promotional materials looking for new features. Mac|Life reports on ten features that have received relatively little publicity. While a few them have been mentioned here previously and many are listed on Apple's Enhancements and Refinements page, Mac|Life's report provides a nice summary and we offer a few of the highlights for discussion.
- Expanded Multi-Touch Capabilities for Older Notebooks: Snow Leopard will bring 3- and 4-finger multi-touch gestures to multi-touch notebooks that currently do not support all available finger gestures. Examples of the gestures that will make their way to the older notebooks include swipe for Expos and swipe for switching applications.
- iChat Video Chat Improvements: iChat Theater content can be displayed at up to a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels in Snow Leopard, four times that of OS X Leopard. iChat in Snow Leopard also requires only 300 Kbps upstream bandwidth for video chats, one-third that of the bandwidth required in Leopard.
- "Auto Web Spots": Part of Apple's improvements to Accessibility, auto web spots aid in locating specific information sections on complicated Web pages. Users can navigate from spot to spot with a simple keystroke or flick of the finger.
Apple today announced that the final version of its Safari 4 browser, officially launched Monday after the company's Worldwide Developers Conference keynote address, has been downloaded over 11 million times in the first three days of release. Notably, Safari for Windows has accounted for over half of the total downloads.
Apple today announced that more than 11 million copies of Safari 4 have been downloaded in the first three days of its release, including more than six million downloads of Safari for Windows. Safari 4 is the world's fastest, most innovative browser and is built on the world's most advanced browser technologies including the new Nitro JavaScript engine that executes JavaScript nearly eight times faster than IE 8 and more than four times faster than Firefox 3. Safari quickly loads HTML web pages more than three times faster than IE 8 and three times faster than Firefox 3.
Safari 4 is a free download available from Apple's site.
One of the new iPhone apps that was demoed at the iPhoneLaunchParty last night was bChamp by Monodomo. bChamp is a beat-boxing application that allows you to use your iPhone as a beat-boxing device. It's hard to describe so we'll start with this developer video that shows you the basics:
The pitch of the sounds can also be changed by moving your finger on the screen. Steve Wozniak was at the iPhone Launch Party and tried his hand at bChamp:
bChamp is available in the App Store. Another video shows the actual demo at the party.
It seems that the first iPhone 3G S unboxing photos have been posted to the Chinese version of Engadget.com. The images show the new 32GB iPhone 3G S unboxed and demoed with compass and voice control applications. Apple will be officially releasing the iPhone 3G S on June 19th.
Physically, the iPhone 3G S is identical to the iPhone 3G but offers a number of internal improvements including the digital compass (shown above), video recording, faster processor and graphics chips.
Update: The original images have been pulled and we've been nicely asked to remove them for now.
Attendees of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference this week received copies of a "near final" version of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard following Monday's keynote. As we had heard just prior to the start of the conference, Apple is distributing Build 10A380 to the conference attendees. While a number of sets of screenshots and even videos have surfaced from Snow Leopard developer builds over the past few months, each release has brought some new tweaks, and Build 10A380 is no exception.
Michael Flux has posted an extensive gallery of screenshots from the new Snow Leopard build, highlighting several changes to the operating system.
- Stacks Navigation: Navigation within Stacks from the Dock using Grid view has been changed from previous developer builds. Whereas previous builds allowed users to navigate folder hierarchies using small icon versions of parent folders, Build 10A380 now utilizes text buttons in the upper left corner for navigation to parent folders. Gizmodo also offers further explanation of changes to the Dock and Expos in Snow Leopard, highlighting the new ability to scroll within a Stacks window in Grid view.
- Safari Contextual Menu Options: Apple has added two new contextual menu options within Safari. When selecting and right clicking on any text within Web pages, Safari now offers the ability to easily create new Mail Notes from the selected text or convert the selected text to speech and have the file added to iTunes.
- AirPort Menu Signal Strength Indicators: The AirPort Menu Item now shows signal strengths for all networks within range without having to join the networks, aiding in network selection in locations with many possible choices.
A patent application entitled Method and system for prolonging emergency calls, filed in December 2007 and disclosed today, reveals that Apple has been researching methods for facilitating emergency phone calls from the iPhone. The scope of Apple's work extends to recognition of when a given call is an emergency call, activation of power-saving measures, use of confirmation buttons and tasks to decrease chances of premature disconnection, and the use of pre-determined "phrase buttons" to enable sending of automated messages and information.
In determining which telephone calls are emergency calls, Apple specifies that certain numbers such as 911 could automatically be categorized as "emergency", while others could be user-defined, such as within a dedicated field in the iPhone's "Contacts" application. Once an emergency call is detected, the iPhone could then implement a series of measures to facilitate the call. In one such measure, an extra step could be required before termination of the call could be permitted.
For example, if the user presses a button to disconnect an emergency call, emergency-mode processor 106 may query the user for confirmation before disconnecting the call. The confirmation may be in the form of a button, a code or password, a verbal acknowledgement, and/or other input by the user. Emergency-mode processor 106 may even disable the user's ability to disconnect the call. As a result, the call may only be disconnected by someone (e.g., an emergency operator) on the other end of the emergency call. Further, the user may select settings to specify the level of difficulty and the methods of disconnecting emergency calls. The user may also select settings for each individual emergency number. For example, the user may disable the ability to disconnect a 911 call while activating a disconnect confirmation in other emergency calls.
Confirmation buttons for emergency call disconnection
The iPhone's emergency mode could also enact a number of power-saving steps in order to preserve the device's battery life. For example, Apple proposes such actions as dimming the display screen and turning off non-essential hardware components such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or camera sensors.
Finally, Apple describes the use of "emergency phrase buttons" that could allow for preset actions in the event that the caller is unable to speak. Apple cites examples of pre-recorded audio files that could be activated to notify 911 dispatchers that the caller is choking, automatic transmission of GPS coordinates, or automated requests to contact a friend or family member.
Biggest design overhaul since iOS 7 with Liquid Glass, plus new Apple Intelligence features and improvements to Messages, Phone, Safari, Shortcuts, and more. Developer beta available now ahead of public beta in July.
Biggest design overhaul since iOS 7 with Liquid Glass, plus new Apple Intelligence features and improvements to Messages, Phone, Safari, Shortcuts, and more. Developer beta available now ahead of public beta in July.
