MacRumors

Digitimes reports that Intel has targeted the launch of their next-generation Calpella notebook platform for Q3 2009.

Intel's next-generation Calpella notebook platform will launch as scheduled in the third quarter 2009 and targeting models in the 14.0-, 15.6-, 17.1- and 18.4-inch segments at retail prices of above US$1,200 initially for high-end market. Meanwhile, Intel will also reduce the price of the Montevina platform to clear out inventory.

Calpella will replace the Montevina platform that is used in current Intel notebooks. The new Calpella platform will support the long anticipated mobile Nehalem processors and architecture which are said to offer dramatic performance boosts over existing designs. Apple adopted the Nehalem processors for the Mac Pro in March.

Intel, however, is said to be only launching three mobile Nehalem processors this year -- all Quad core but with slower processor speeds from 1.6GHz, 1.73GHz and 2.0GHz.

The Core 2 Extreme XE, Core 2 Quad P2 and Core 2 Quad P1, will be priced at US$1,054, US$546 and US$364 in thousand-unit tray quantities, the sources revealed.

It won't be until the 1st quarter of 2010 that we'll see mobile Arrandale processors which have been widely expected to be used in the MacBook and MacBook Pro.

While it's possible Apple could use some of these Quad-core processors in a notebook, it would mean a drop in raw processor speed which, depending on your usage, may not be made up for with the additional cores. These sort of tradeoffs became apparent when Apple refreshed the Mac Pros with various multi-core options. While Apple has been positioning themselves to take better advantage of multi-core chips with their upcoming Snow Leopard, the real-word impact remains to be seen.

Note that while Apple has transitioned to an NVIDIA-based chipset for their current notebooks, they may be forced to switch back to Intel to be able to offer Nehalem processors. Intel and NVIDIA are in legal battle regarding the NVIDIA's right to produce Nehalem-based chipsets.

MacRumors has heard that Sling Media's long awaited SlingPlayer Mobile may finally appear on the App Store tonight.

In addition to full support of current Slingboxes (PRO-HD and SOLO), legacy Slingboxes, which include the Classic, AV, and TUNER, will work with the application but will not be officially supported. However, the application will be limited to streaming only over Wi-Fi connections.

Previous demonstrations of the application by Sling Media had promised EDGE and 3G support, however it appears as though this will not be the case. Pricing is said to be set at $29.99.

This information has been confirmed by multiple sources.

We've been keeping an eye on some reports coming out of Chinese forum Weiphone over the past couple of weeks, and it appears the reports are starting to spread. In early May, a forum poster from the Chinese site posted specs and a screenshot from what is claimed to be the next generation iPhone.

The image above was uploaded and seems to depict a new iPhone model number "MB717LL" with 32GB of Storage. If the original poster's claims are to be believed, the new iPhone will contain the following features:

- 600MHz CPU Speed (up from 400MHz)
- 256MB RAM (up from 128MB)
- Digital Compass and FM
- 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus
- 32GB size
- No major changes in battery, screen and external casing.

As far as we can tell, the original poster has no track record for accurate information, though the Chinese web/forums have been a common source of early photos of recent Apple releases including the unibody MacBook and MacBook Pro casings.

At this point, we're posting it for interest alone, though the information seems believable. It's certainly expected for the next iPhone to contain a digital compass and better camera. Increases in processor speed and RAM are also feasible.

One tidbit that we failed to mention during our coverage of the newest Snow Leopard Mac OS X 10.6 developer release last Friday is the fact that it appears that Apple has stated that no further application programming interface (API) changes are planned for Snow Leopard. There was some debate in our mind if this referred to the entirety of Snow Leopard or a subportion, but others have interpreted it as the entirety of Snow Leopard.

The API's are the hooks that developers use to take advantage of the various features of Mac OS X. If true, this means developers can feel comfortable moving forward with their own applications with less concern that a future version of Snow Leopard will break their applications.

Apple is expected to release more information about Snow Leopard at WWDC next month. The release of Snow Leopard is expected roughly mid-year.

Amazon today announced the launch of an iPhone-optimized Kindle Store accessible via the iPhone's Safari browser. The store is accessible through the "Get Books" button on the free Kindle for iPhone application made available in early March.

Amazon.com, Inc. today launched a Kindle Store optimized for the Safari Web browser on iPhone. Now when users of the Kindle for iPhone app click on "Get Books," the new Kindle Store tailored for the size and shape of the iPhone and iPod touch screens automatically opens in Safari. This optimized Kindle store offers iPhone and iPod touch app users quick and easy access to the Kindle Store's 280,000 books, including 106 of 112 New York Times Best Sellers and most New Releases that are available for $9.99 or less.

In the press release, Ian Freed, vice president of Amazon Kindle, noted that the ability to easily purchase Kindle content from the iPhone had been a frequent request from users.

"The most common feedback we heard from customers was that they wanted a better experience for purchasing new Kindle books from their iPhones. We've been working hard to respond to that feedback with a new web site optimized for Safari on iPhone and we're excited to do that today."

iLounge points out that while Apple's iPhone OS 3.0 due this summer will be introducing "in-app purchasing" that would allow Amazon to offer eBook sales from within the Kindle for iPhone application, such sales would be subject to Apple taking its traditional 30% cut of the proceeds.

Amazon has been aggressively expanding its Kindle offerings in recent months, introducing the upgraded Kindle 2 in February, followed by Kindle for iPhone in March and the large-screen Kindle DX announced just last week.

Citrix made a number of announcements last week related to Mac and iPhone. While most of these announcements were targeted specifically towards IT/enterprise customers, one announcement has more potential mainstream significance.

To start, Citrix released a free iPhone app called Citrix Receiver [App Store] which is a secure client application that allows you to run Windows applications over a Citrix network. It offers a more efficient method of transmission than VNC and should offer better performance. The app is available for free in the App Store and is intended for existing Citrix customers. Citrix also unveiled an "App Store" for IT applications called Dazzle allowing managers to offer specific applications to their clients on both Mac and Windows. Dazzle and the Receiver application for Macintosh won't be available until the second half of this year.

Perhaps most interesting, however, was Citrix's demo of their new virtualization solution XenClient for the Mac. Virtualization is the process by which you can run multiple operating systems simultaneously on a single computer. It has been frequently used on the Mac to run Microsoft's Windows in conjunction with Mac OS X. Citrix first started publicizing their plans for a new kind of Virtualization called "Type 1 hypervisor" back in January.

The technology promises to offer a faster and more secure virtualization environment than existing solutions. Parallel's and VMWare's solutions are considered "Type 2 hypervisors" which must run under a host operating system such as Mac OS X. While this simplifies the implementation, it also results in potential security vulnerabilities as well as a performance penalty due to the added level of abstraction. In contrast, "Type 1 hypervisors" run directly on the "bare metal" hardware.

This video (above) shows this software running on a PC and naturally focuses on security and IT usage, but does touch on the fact that each virtual environment has full access to the 3D hardware. Traditionally, these features have been handicapped on virtual machines, requiring Mac users to reboot to take full advantage. A video from the Citrix keynote event showing a brief Mac demo is available and starts at 42 minutes in. Citrix did not give an exact release date for the Mac version of XenClient.

What this means to the average consumer, however, isn't entirely clear. The creation of such a low-level virtualization solution apparently required a close partnership with Intel and we're not certain if other solutions will be able to easily mimic the functionality.

Apple has seeded developers with a new version of Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) tonight. The build (10A354) adds one particularly interesting new feature to Apple's Mac operating system: Chinese handwriting recognition specifically for multi-touch capable machines.

Apple recently acquired Chinese handwriting technology for use in the iPhone, and appears to be incorporating this same technology into Mac OS X. Most interesting, however, is the fact that it is specifically enabled on multi-touch capable machines. We presume this to include Apple's notebooks which include multi-touch trackpads. While Apple does offer an English handwriting recognizer based on old Newton technologies, it is only available when you have a drawing tablet connected to your Mac. This could open the door to more novel uses for Apple's multi-touch trackpads or even suggest a more robust full-screen multi-touch screen as has been rumored.

Meanwhile, those who were waiting for the release of Mac OS X 10.5.7 today were likely disappointed. Apple has, however, seeded a new version (9J61) to developers tonight as well.

BoyGeniusReport posts a screenshot from debugging menus in the 3.0 beta firmware which seems to confirm that Apple has built-in magnetometer (digital compass) support into the operating system.

Evidence of a magnetometer was first reported in April and MacRumors has heard that the magnetometer will indeed be present in the next generation iPhone expected this summer. We previously explored what additional functionality would come with a digital compass. The possibilities were particularly intriguing:

Examples of how this could be used include pointing your iPhone's camera at a building and the phone telling you what building it is by combining GPS, accelerometer and compass information. The iPhone could even overlay graphics and text on top of the image to provide additional information. Another application described is the ability to show information about stars and constellations simply by pointing your iPhone towards the sky.

In an e-mail sent out to registered iPhone developers a short time ago, Apple announced that starting today, all applications submitted for App Store approval will be reviewed using iPhone OS 3.0 to ensure compatibility with the forthcoming operating system. Apple also announced that while all existing applications should be compatible with iPhone OS 3.0, any applications that are found to not be compatible after its public release are subject to removal from the App Store.

All apps must be compatible with iPhone OS 3.0
Millions of iPhone and iPod touch customers will move to iPhone OS 3.0 this summer. Beginning today, all submissions to the App Store will be reviewed on the latest beta of iPhone OS 3.0. If your app submission is not compatible with iPhone OS 3.0, it will not be approved.

Existing apps in the App Store should already run on iPhone OS 3.0 without modification, but you should test your existing apps with iPhone OS 3.0 to ensure there are no compatibility issues. After iPhone OS 3.0 becomes available to customers, any app that is incompatible with iPhone OS 3.0 may be removed from the App Store.

Apple also announced in the e-mail the availability of iPhone OS 3.0 and SDK Beta 5, which were released to developers yesterday.

Nine Inch Nails' frontman Trent Reznor recently spoke out about Apple's approval process for iPhone applications after an update to the band's own application was rejected due to "objectionable" downloadable content that wasn't housed within the app itself.

In an update to the situation, Reznor reports via his Twitter account that the update has now been accepted by Apple and that the app remains unchanged from the previously-submitted version, suggesting that Apple has revisited its previous rejection.

Recent reports have suggested that parental controls coming in iPhone OS 3.0 this summer would open the door for the approval of more apps containing such "objectionable content", and the latest beta version of the new operating system released last night does in fact include such controls.

AppleInsider reports that the latest Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard developer builds have broken out "WWAN" (Wireless Wide Area Network) into its own category within the System Profiler. Previously, 3G USB add-on's would appear under the USB category, according to the rumor site.

This suggests that WWAN services (which include 3G wireless networking) may become an Apple-standard technology in future machines. Rumors have previously suggested that Apple is planning on incorporating 3G wireless networking into future Mac notebooks. Further evidence this week includes a 3G-related job listing that was subsequently pulled by Apple.

What might be interesting is that if Apple does incorporate 3G wireless networking into future Apple notebooks, it's likely that we'll see substantial upfront subsidies against the cost of the machines. This could result in significantly discounted hardware when subscribing for 1-2 years of 3G service. While purely speculative, it's possible that this may be related to recent rumors that Apple may introduce cheaper Macs as early as this spring.

TheStreet.com reports on comments from analyst Michael Cote suggesting that AT&T is considering reducing the basic monthly iPhone plan from $69 to $59 alongside an announcement of the next-generation iPhone at next month's Worldwide Developers Conference.

AT&T is considering a $10 price cut for the iPhone's monthly service plan when Apple introduces the newest version of the phone next month.

There is a "strong possibility" that AT&T will drop the entry-level price to $59 from $69, says Cote Collaborative analyst Michael Cote, an industry pricing strategist. The announcement, he said, will probably accompany the launch of the new iPhone on June 8, during Apple's World Wide Developers Conference.

Cote reports that iPhone sales through Wal-Mart have failed to meet expectations, giving Apple concerns about pricing barriers. While Cote does not see Apple introducing a lower-cost "iPhone nano" as has been rumored for some time, his comments indicate that AT&T is also recognizing the pricing difficulties and is willing to work to make iPhone contracts more affordable, thereby stimulating demand.

Recent sales success for Research in Motion's BlackBerry models, as well as increased competition from the upcoming Palm Pre and forthcoming touchscreen handsets from Nokia, are placing pressure on Apple to continue to find ways to generate new customers.

Finally, Cote points to an approaching "fashion milepost" for the iPhone, as popular phones and other gadgets tend to lose their appeal in their third year on the market, although Apple would certainly argue that continued innovations on both the software and hardware fronts should allow the iPhone to remain at the head of the pack.

Unauthorized Mac clone manufacturer Psystar remains embroiled in legal battle with Apple after initiating sales of their first Mac clone back in April 2008. ZDNet Asia summarizes the case today which remains in the discovery process:

Psystar emerged a year ago as a small independent system builder, the likes of which can be found in any medium-sized town in the United States. What provoked the interest and ire of the Mac community was Psystar's decision to ship so-called "white box" systems with Mac OS preinstalled alongside systems with Windows Vista and Linux, in defiance of Apple's licensing policies for that operating system.

The legal battle hasn't kept Psystar from continuing to sell their Mac OS X compatible machines and even introduce new models including rackmount servers.

With all the recent attention on the netbook market, one curious reader asked Psystar if they had plans to introduce a Mac OS X "netbook" in the future. Pystar's response confirmed that did have a mobile Mac computer in development. This unannounced product may simply be an extension of their laptop initiative that has previously been revealed. Any sort of miniaturized laptop, however, could be very appealing to a certain segment of the Apple's installed base.

Since Apple has neglected this market, running Mac OS X on existing netbooks has become a popular hobby. BoingBoing charts which netbooks can run OS X (though not without some difficulties). Apple has been rumored to be working on their own version of a netbook possibly with the inclusion of a touch screen.

Apple tonight seeded the fifth beta version of iPhone OS 3.0 (Build 7A312g) and a new version of the iTunes 8.2 pre-release to developers. As with the previous beta, iTunes 8.2 is required to install the latest iPhone 3.0 beta software. No new features in the fifth beta version have been revealed at this early time.

Today's release is a bit of a surprise, coming just eight days after the release of the fourth beta when Apple had consistently been releasing beta versions to developers at two-week intervals. With only a month to go until Apple's sold out Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco where the iPhone OS 3.0 is certain to be a featured topic of discussion, Apple may be increasing the pace of developer releases to begin polishing things for the public showing.