MacRumors

AppleInsider has posted a gallery of photos from Apple's NAB booth.

The photo set includes pictures of a huge glass-encapsulated Apple server farm comprising of 3/4 Petabytes of storage space, 3 miles of fiber optic cable, 4 M2 Gb networks, 90 Xserves and 40 Xserve RAIDs.

Overall, Apple's booth at NAB stands out from most others due to its sheer simplicity. The layout features the firm's traditional large theater area in the center, set to seat about two hundred attendees at any one given time. All seats were filled for most presentations throughout the day.

Clicking our image previews will take you to AppleInsider's full-resolution gallery containing additional pictures.

Various sites are reporting on a patent application released today (number 20070085854) entitled "System and method for computing a desktop picture." The abstract reads:

Disclosed are a system and method for computing a desktop picture. Instead of loading a file that contains the desktop image from memory, the present invention provides for a system and method for opening and retaining a procedural recipe and a small set of instructions that can be executed to compute a desktop picture. The desktop picture can be computed very quickly using a GPU (graphics processing unit), and can be made to move on demand. When a part of the desktop image is needed to composite, that part is computed using a fragment program on the GPU using the procedural recipe and a specially written fragment program into a temporary VRAM buffer. After it is computed and composited, the buffer containing the result of the fragment program may be discarded.

In summary, Apple seems to be leveraging the programmability of today's modern GPUs to be able to create computed desktop pictures that can be constantly updated to changing situations on the user's desktop.

Apple suggests that situations such as logging in or out, waking from sleep, or coming out from a screen-saver are currently too jarring, and the invention hopes to make this experience more seamless. Also mentioned is a tool that would allow designers to edit and specify the user experience.

Apple also seems to be conscious about system resources, mentioning several times about opportunities to free resources for use by other applications.

Patent applications can provide interesting insight into what concepts or technologies Apple is working on in their labs, however readers are reminded that only a subset of these applications will make it into final shipping products.

MacDailyNews republishes numbers from a preliminary report by Gartner on 1st quarter 2007 PC marketshare results. The numbers reveal an 8.9% worldwide increase in PC shipments, and a 2.6% U.S. increase in PC shipments compared to the same period last year.

HP now commands the highest international marketshare (chart) with 17.6% of shipments worldwide while Dell remains #1 in the U.S. (chart) despite a 15.5% drop in shipments from the year-ago quarter.

Apple, however, has seen a 30% increase in shipments for the 1Q07 period compared to 1Q06 period and held a 5% U.S. marketshare for PC shipments in the 1st quarter of 2007. This marketshare number represents the percentage of Macs out of all PCs shipped in the U.S for Q107. Apple's marketshare numbers over the past few quarters have been fluctuating between 4.7-6.1% depending on the source of the data, but year-to-year marketshare growth provides a useful measure and indicates that Apple's sales growth outpaced the PC industry as a whole.

Last year's Q106, however, may have been artificially low for Apple as that was still in the midst of the Intel transition. Apple has also blamed a slow Intel-transition of professional applications such as Adobe's Creative Suite for slow Mac Pro sales. Now with Creative Suite 3 shipping, we would hope to see further growth in Apple's Mac sales, if this indeed has been a limiting factor.

Reuters reports that an AT&T executive confirmed that the iPhone will be arriving "at the end of June".

"Our expectations are good. Our testing has been good," said AT&T Chief Operating Officer Randall Stephenson. "The iPhone is on target to launch in June."

This is consistent with Apple's previous statements regarding the iPhone's progress. Apple announced that iPhone was on target on April 12th:

iPhone has already passed several of its required certification tests and is on schedule to ship in late June as planned

This is despite recent claims that the iPhone was running into issues.

Electronista notes that some eagle-eyed French iTunes users have spotted the brief appearance of a new iPod game dubbed "iQuiz" on the iTunes Store.

"Test your entertainment knowledge with iQuiz, a timed question-and-answer game for your iPod," it reads. "Test your knowledge of the songs, artists and albums present on your iPod and take on the challenges of questions about movies, music and television. Create your own personalized Trivia Packs and play those created by others."

Apple currently includes a more basic quiz game with its iPod and iPod Nanos.

Intel announced some performance details on the upcoming Penryn processors at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing.

Penryn is the next chip family based on the Core micro-architecture and will include a number of enhancements along with a die-shrink to 45nm. The upcoming Penryn chips will be marketed under both the "Core" and "Xeon" brand names and encompass the entire spectrum of products (mobile, desktop, server).

According to Intel executives, Penryn-based computers will see the following speed improvements over the current Core 2 Extreme processors

- 15% for imaging-related
- 25% for 3-D rendering
- 40% for gaming
- 40% for video encoding (SSE4 optimized)

The comparison was made between 3.33GHz pre-production Penryn processor vs 2.93GHz Core 2 Extreme processor-based desktop-class machines.

For workstations and "high-performance computing", Penryn is said to provide improvements of:

- 45% for "bandwidth intensive applications
- 25% for servers using Java

These comparisons were made between pre-production Xeon (Penryn) processor vs Xeon 5355 processor-based workstations.

Penryn chips are expected to be released later in 2007.

Businessweek cites an analyst with iSuppli that the iPhone may be seeing some minor delays due to ongoing issues. According to Jagdish Rebello, "various iPhone suppliers have been told that the iPhone may not be available until the end of June."

We're hearing it's mostly an issue with the complexity of the device, and that all the component suppliers are making their deliveries on time

While many have speculated that the iPhone would arrive near the Worldwide Developer's Conference which starts on June 11th, Apple's most recent statement indicates that the iPhone would be ready in "late June as planned". (Updated)

Rebello speculates that the delay in Leopard was prompted by an unexpected shift in personnel from Leopard to the iPhone: "It's clear they have found some issues that they need to fix." Another analyst who has tested the phone states that they didn't uncover any problems with it but points out that "Apple wants to get it right the first time."

Meanwhile, Shaw Wu believes that the Leopard delay was due to the "secret" features that have not yet been revealed: "Our analysis indicates that if not for the 'secret' features, the core Leopard operating system would likely have shipped on time."

Update 2: A speculative Mac Observer post by John Martellaro (ex-Apple employee) attributes some of the timeline issues to poor staffing by Apple.

Apple, despite being a large and wealthy company these days with likely more than 18,000 employees, is actually a very lean organization. And that lean configuration has been maintained, even though the demands of the iPhone, the Apple TV and Leopard would have suggested a moderate increase in staffing. Despite all better judgment, Apple hates to ramp up to meet these kinds of expansions in the product profile.

Update 3: A Smarthouse article goes into more depth than the Businessweek article but touches on the same topics. Specifically, battery life of the iPhone has been up for debate with the complexity of the iPhone's software, according to this report.

Appleinsider reports that American Technology analyst Shaw Wu believes that Apple and AT&T are considering offering a $50-$150 rebate or subsidy on the upcoming Apple iPhone.

"We are hearing rebates of $50-150 that will be offered by AT&T to lower the price points for iPhone (currently $499 for 4 GB and $599 for 8 GB) and to entice customers to sign longer term voice and data contracts," the analyst wrote. "From AT&T's perspective, a rebate is a great marketing tool and small sacrifice to make to entice a customer to sign up for 2-year voice and data cell phone plans that cost about $75-100 per month (before taxes and fees), meaning $1800-2400 in 'guaranteed' bi-annual revenue."

There had been some hints that Apple was previously not allowing the iPhone to be subsidized by the carrier. The argument goes that the subsidies devalue the hardware in the consumer's eyes.

Apple's WWDC Pages have been updated with a block set aside for the WWDC Keynote address.

The 2007 Worldwide Developers Conference Keynote will take place on Monday morning, June 11th 2007 and start at 9am Pacific. According to the published schedule, the keynote is blocked off for a lengthy 3 hours (9am - 12pm) (see update).

No official announcement has yet been made, so this may simply be a rough timeframe. In the past, Apple's keynotes have been given by Steve Jobs starting at 10 am Pacific (2005, 2006) but have only run approximately one and a half hours.

Apple has promised a "near final" beta copy of Leopard to developers at WWDC 2007.

MacRumors intends to provide full coverage of the WWDC keynote, but without media access, coverage can be challenging. If you are planning to attend the WWDC keynote, and interested in helping provide live updates to the mac community, please contact us.

Update: The WWDC pages have been updated and the keynote time has been revised to the typical 10am-11:30am block.

Adobe has announced that Creative Suite 3 (CS3) Design and Web editions have begun shipping.

Also shipping are the following individual products: Photoshop CS3, Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended, Adobe InDesign CS3, Adobe Illustrator CS3, Adobe Flash CS3 Professional, Adobe Dreamweaver CS3, Adobe Fireworks CS3 and Adobe Contribute CS3.

Adobe's Creative Suite Production and Master Collection are not yet shipping as they await final releases of Adobe After Effects CS3 and Adobe Premiere Pro CS3. Both After Effects and Premiere Pro were released as public betas today from Adobe Labs website and can be downloaded now.

We've previously compiled an upgrade chart for owners of earlier versions of Adobe's applications.

Arstechnica explores a recent Apple patent entitled "Multi-media center for computing systems". In the patent, Apple describes a system involving a central multimedia hub which can use various external "modules". These modules would be controlled by a centralized user interface on the hub itself.

The modules could be any sort of media device - such as an iPod, DVD player, or HD DVD player. The central multimedia hub would coordinate and consolidate all the devices under one user interface.

The clear benefit to the segmented system with external modulesas opposed to an all-in-one deviceis that it would allow customers to add on whatever extra functionality they prefer to the main device. This would allow power users to have all variety of extra modules for storing, playing, and streaming mediaall through a centralized control hubwhile more "average" users could settle for the simplicity of the main Apple TV-like device and just one or two extra modules as they see fit for their lifestyles.

The end product might function as an expandable version of the Apple TV.

Other reports on this same patent speculate that Apple may be thinking of using the iPhone as a remote control for this sort of media hub.

Barefeats has published performance benchmarks for Apple's latest 8-Core Mac Pro.

The initial report compares the 8-Core to the Quad-Core Mac Pro in Cinebench, GeekBench, Photoshop CS3, Aperture 1.5 and Quicktime 7.1.5 Exports.

A second report compares gaming frame rates between the two machines. They tested Doom 3, Quake 4, Halo, UT2004, World of Warcraft and Prey.

The 8-Core Mac Pro came out up to 40-55% faster on some tasks, such as Cinebench 9.5, GeekBench, and Quicktime Export speeds, but provided little advantage in the limited Photoshop CS3 and Aperture testing. The 8-Core also proved to be no faster across the board in the Gaming tests.

Barefeats speculates that the 8-Core Mac Pro maybe bottlenecked by the memory bus and also considers the possibility that Mac OS X Tiger may not be well optimized for the 8-Core Mac Pros.

Obviously some applications will be better suited to take advantage of multi-core Macs, so your mileage may vary, and decisions on 8-Core performance should be made based on the applications you use.

Apple introduced a number of updates at the National Association of Broadcasters conference today:

Final Cut Server (at Apple.com)
- $999 for 10 concurrent users
- $1999 for unlimited users

Final Cut Studio 2 (at Apple.com)
- Final Cut Pro 6 for video and film editing
- Motion 3 for graphics and animation in 3D
- Soundtrack Pro 2 for professional audio post-production
- Color (screenshots), a new application for professional color grading and finishing
- Compressor 3 and DVD Studio Pro 4 for digital delivery virtually anywhere a disc, the web, Apple TV, iPod, or cell phone
- Available May
- $1299 New
- $499 Upgrade from Final Cut Studio
- $699 from any version of Final Cut Pro

Apple ProRes 422 Format
- Next-gen Post Production format
- Uncompressed HD quality at SD file sizes
- 10-bit, 4:2:2, full raster, VBR

IO-HD
- Hardware box that provides realtime conversion into ProRes 422
- Available in July
- $3495

Live coverage was provided at Engadget. Due to technical difficulties, we decided to discontinue our feed.

Update: Apple Store (UK Store) back up.

ThinkSecret posted a Gallery of Screenshots from the latest developer seed of Mac OS X Leopard.

The rumor site notes that the latest build has "more bugs than ever" but focuses on visual changes and new features from the latest build. Highlights are itemized here:

- Webclip button on Safari
- Software Update interface
- Directory application
- Automator 2.0
- iCal 3.0
- Mail 3.0 Stationary, Sample 1, Sample 2, Sample 3, Sample 4
- Mail 3.0 To Do
- Finder QuickView

Full gallery is available at ThinkSecret. An earlier MacRumors article points out the unified theme in the latest Leopard build, with a shift away from the "Brushed Metal" look in the current version of Mac OS X.

Apple has released a new "Get A Mac" ad named Stuffed. In the ad, PC appears bloated and explains how he is stuffed with a bunch of trial software that he doesn't need and how it is slowing him down.

DigiTimes claims that Apple plans on launching with Wi-Fi capabilities in the "second half of 2007"

Universal Scientific Industrial (USI) will produce the Wi-Fi modules and Foxconn will perform as the OEM system assembler, according to Taiwan portable music player component makers.

USI will begin shipments later in April, while Foxconn may do so in the third quarter, the sources pointed out.

The possibility of wireless iPods have been discussed for years, but have not yielded any shipping products. Previous reports expected Apple to introduce some form of Wireless iPod to compete with Microsoft's Zune player which does bundle Wifi connectivity.

Apple's special event at the National Associations of Broadcasters (NAB) will be held this Sunday at 11:00am PDT, 2:00pm EDT. MacRumors will be providing live coverage of the event via MacRumorsLive.com.

Apple is widely expected to introduce an update to its Final Cut Suite, along with a possible introduction of a new high-end product named Final Cut Extreme. ThinkSecret has also mentioned a possible display update at or around NAB, and believes the 17" MacBook Pro may be updated to include a high definition display.

Apple's displays have not seen specification updates for quite some time, although they did see a price drop last week.

An earlier article reported that Leopard Build 9A410 had been seeded to developers.

Edit: Images removed per Apple Legal.

Images originally posted on Hackint0sh.org. Images are mirrored here. Alternative screenshots are posted on Flickr.

Apple also announced today that Leopard would be delayed until October, so these changes may not represent the final user interface.