MacRumors

With the recent revelation of Gesture user-interface patents applications from Apple, speculation about touch-interface iPods and Tablet Macs has been peaking. Apple, however, has previously filed a number of patent applications in the past related to Tablet and touch-screen technology in the past few years, but with no evidence they will ever see the light of day.

A new job description posted on February 10th, 2006, however, suggests that Apple is actively pursuing development of Gesture and Handwriting technology for Mac OS X.

Apple asks the potential applicant "Are you passionate about providing handwriting solutions to end customers? Do you strongly believe that using a stylus and a tablet is the way to interact with computers?"

Apple Handwriting Recognition team is seeking an engineer who will be responsible for advancing gesture and handwriting recognition on Mac OS X. The ideal candidate will be an expert in the area of pattern recognition, with an excellent understanding of handwriting recognition issues

Apple already provides support for handwriting recognition under Mac OS X with a technology called Inkwell, but rumors and hope of a true Mac-based Tablet have been circulating since the demise of the Apple Newton -- the first consumer PDA.

Monster.com is advertising a job for Apple Computer with the Mac OS X User Interface Group.

They are seeking a senior visual interface designer "to conceive, design and develop future enhancements to Aqua, the dynamic user interface for Mac OS X". The interested should candidate should have the following experience:

- B.S./M.S. in Interactive Media Design, Animation or related field.
- Demonstrable understanding of user interface design principles.
- Must have demonstrated experience with prototyping tools and environments such as Director and Lingo.
- Experience with other tools such as 3D Modeling applications is an asset.

While this job opportunity may simply represent the filling of a vacated spot, however, with Window's upcoming Vista release borrowing heavily from the Mac OS X user interface, Apple will need to continue to extend and improve future versions of Mac OS X.

The first look at Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is expected to be previewed at WWDC 2006 this summer.

SeattlePI.com reports on Bill Gates' question and answer session with high school students in the Seattle area on Friday.

One student asked Bill Gates if Microsoft was going develop an MP3 player to compete against the iPod.

Gates admitted that Apple had done a "fantastic job" with the iPod, and that Microsoft had been working with their partners on how they can can make less expensive devices with better connectivity and photo/video support. Gates also said:

"I don't think what's out in the market today is the final answer. But again, it just shows the magic of software. Apple did a very good job on iTunes, did the user-interface design right. That means we'll have to match all that good work and do something even better."

Gates promised that we can expect "some pretty hot products coming out over the next couple of years." The article points out that Apple's end-to-end user experience control is an advantage over Microsoft which relies on 3rd party PC manufacturers and MP3 manufacturers.

Steve Jobs had previously commented on the lack of a iPod killer products and felt that "Microsoft is going to have to get into the hardware business of making MP3 players."

Henrico County (Richmond, Virginia) has decided to renew their contract with Apple in supplying iBooks to their middle school students.

Henrico had previously dropped Apple from their High School program in favor of Dell. The high school Apple iBooks were sold off for $50 a piece and drew a lot of interest as well as a stampede.

The new contract is worth $16 million and supplies Henrico with 12,675 iBook laptops for $1,246 each. Interestingly, Dell's bid for the middle school contract was $1,111 per laptop.

With rumors of the possibility of a full Video iPod circulating over the past week, users have been putting together pieces of the puzzle.

Apple Gesture User Interface patent applications revealed last week showed a number of images demonstrating the use of virtual iPod-like click-wheel on a tablet interface. The patent images show examples of use with iTunes, iPhoto, Word Processing and iPod interfaces. This has led to a number of mockup images of what a full-screen Video iPod would look like.

The same patent demonstres the use of gestures to perform basic operations, including panning over images as well as zooming in (zoom). A video demonstrating "Multi-Touch Interaction Experiments has been circulating that gives live demonstrations of such technology in the use of photo and map manipuation. The video has no association with Apple, but provides an impressive demonstration of the concepts behind the patent application.

Initial user reactions to the possibility of such a touch-intensive interface has drawn concerns about scratch problems which has been a point of contention with the iPod nano. Wired, however, discusses a new coating technology designed to protect such surfaces:

The wonder coatings also might make small video screens on electronic devices such as iPods and mobile phones more durable.

No real timeframe or even potential use by Apple is mentioned in the article, but does provide some interesting progress in a relevant technology.

Macworld.co.uk reports on Needham & Co analyst comments about what they expect from Apple in the coming months. One item expected is the Intel iBook, around April 2006, near Apple's 30th year anniversary.

While some of the information appears speculative, the analyst claims that a video iPod will indeed arrive soon:

According to our sources, the screen on the video iPod will occupy the entire front of the current iPod with a touch-activated scroll wheel. Assuming the same form factor as the current iPod, this move will increase the size of the screen three-fold.

This corresponds to recent rumors that a touch-screen iPod is in the works. This technology would also tie in recently revealed Gesture user-interface patents from Apple. The same analyst also predicted an "actual" video iPod in the first half of this year. While some fan-created video iPod images have recently surfaced, we have received some confirmation that actual prototypes of similar devices have been seen at Apple.

Meanwhile, he revives rumors of the Mac mini home media server:

"Our sources indicate that this product was not finished in time for Macworld"

The Mac mini as a digital hub was first rumored back in November 2005. The specs at that time included Front Row 2.0, "TiVo-Killer" DVR, iPod Dock and a 3.5" hard drive. The target date for this media appliance remains in question.

The Boston Globe notes that Apple is planing on building a "flagship" Apple store in Boston.

The Four-story store is expected to be built on Boylston STreet across from the Prudential Center.

Apple is purchasing the building, which currently houses Copy Cop, and is planning to take it down and erect a glass-covered retail ''jewel" within the next two years

Meanwhile, ThinkSecret reports that a new Manhattan, New York store is in the works on Fifth Avenue between 58th and 59th Street.

The interesting news is that this new New York store will be the first and only Apple Store that will be open 24 hours a day. The store is under construction now and is expected to be open by the end of May.

In June 2005, Apple started the WebKit Open Source Project. WebKit is the basis for Apple's web browser core which powers Safari. The open source project has drawn programming contributions from non-Apple employees providing constant improvements to the core of Apple's browsing technology.

As a "Thank You", Apple is giving MacBook Pro laptops to 12 of the top contributors to the project, and 5 are being invited to Apple's 2006 World Wide Developer's Conference "on Apple's dime".

More information on WebKit can be found at http://webkit.opendarwin.org/

Think Secret claims knowledge of a completely new version of the iPod whose main goal in life is video playback.

The new machine will reportedly have a 3.5-inch diagonal display and use a touch screen instead of the current click wheel.

Details concerning capacity of the device and release date aren't yet available, but according to the article release could be as early as late March or early April.

Appleinsider reports on a report by UBS Investment Research who reportedly had a "sit-down" with Apple executives including Peter Oppenheimer, Ron Johnson and Phil Schiller.

"Our research indicates that new Power Macs could be announced with Intel processors by September, but Apples Rosetta emulation software should still be needed to run Adobes major high-end applications like Photoshop at that time"

As previously reported, Microsoft and Adobe's transition to Intel-native applications will take some time. Adobe's next major revisions are not expected until 2007. Meanwhile, UBS notes a "very positive reaction" to the MacBook Pro based on conversations with Apple and surveys. The remainder of the information appears speculative, with the usual expecations of "new consumer markets for iPod speakers and Apple branded cell-phones over the next year".

Meanwhile, several users note that the MacBook Pro's "ship date" at the Apple Store has changed from "February" to "2-3 weeks", which simply means that those who order today will not likely receive the MacBook Pro before March. The shipment of those waiting for their January orders of the MacBook Pro appears to be soon -- many were originally slated for shipping by the 7th of Feb, but appears to have been pushed to the 10th.

X86Project claims that the first versions of WINE for Intel Macs has been complied and running (screenshots).

The Darwine Project has been working to port WINE to run under Mac OS X. WINE is a compatibility layer that has allowed x86 PCs to run Windows Applications under Unix/Linux operating systems. This is accomplished by re-engineering Windows system calls used by individual applications. As a result, the performance of the applications should be native as no emulation is required.

It appears compatibility at this early stage is still limited, but will Mac offer users one alternative to using Windows applications under Mac OS X on the new Intel Macs. A few commercial projects providing the entire Windows environment are reportedly under way, including Microsoft's own VirtualPC application. Also, efforts to dual boot Windows on the new Intel Macs are still underway.

Some of the first Intel-native commercial Mac games are starting to be released. These new versions run natively under the new Intel processors found in the iMac and MacBook, therefore providing much better performance than the same games running under emulation (Rosetta):

The Intel (Universal Binary) World of Warcraft patch has been posted (1.9.3):

Added native support for Intel-powered Macs such as the iMac (Core Duo) and MacBook Pro. World of Warcraft is now a Universal Application. Be advised that the minimum supported MacOS X version has been changed to 10.3.9; World of Warcraft version 1.9.3 and later will not launch on older revisions of MacOS X.

Meanwhile, Unreal Tournament 2004 Universal patch was also recently released.

According to multiple user reports, Apple is updating their online stores to offer a 1 GB version of the iPod nano.

The information was apparently leaked on the Apple Australia website (image since removed for the time being).

The online Apple store is currently offline for updating as of this posting.

[UPDATE] According to a press release, the nano will now be available in a 1GB format for $149, and pricing for the iPod shuffle drops to $69/512MB & $99/1GB.

The Apple store has been updated to reflect the new models & pricing.
[ Update 2 ]: The iPod shuffle 512MB now sells for $69, and the 1GB shuffle remains at $99.

The International Solid State Circuits Conference takes places this week, and reveals Intel's plans for a dual-core Xeon server processor due in the "second half of the year".

The upcoming chip is called "Tulsa" and has an emphasis on performance. The dual-core chip is expected to come in at 3.4GHz with a 16MB unified cache. The performance is expected to boosted by up to 10% with this change. Also featured in the chip is Intel's virtualization technology allowing the chip to run multiple operating systems as well as energy conservation technology.

Apple announced at MacWorld San Francisco that they would be transitioning their entire line over to the Intel processor in 2006, suggesting that the Tulsa processor could find its way into future Xserves.

Meanwhile, IBM continues work on their Power6 processor also designed for servers. We had previously been interested in the Power6 as a basis for future PowerPC chips.