MacRumors

Looks like Apple is continuing to build awareness for the Apple iPhone. On Monday March 12th, workers at the 5th Avenue Apple Store in New York City posted a large iPhone ad on one full side of the glass structure.

The ad showed an iPhone with the words "Introducing iPhone. Apple reinvents the phone." Photos were taken by Matthew Yohe:

Click on thumbnails for full size images. For unknown reasons, the ad was removed later in the day.

Several individuals who ordered the Apple TV early have noticed that today (March 12th) their credit cards have been charged the full amount for their Apple TV order. No shipping notices have yet been issued and the "ship date" on the order status page still reflects a March 20th shipping date. A discussion thread at Apple also reflects these happenings.

Retail Apple stores are expecting their Apple TV shipments by the 20th or 21st for display to the public.

The Apple TV was original scheduled for shipment in February but was delayed until "mid-March".

Apple's UK Store leaks some information which suggests that 8-Core Mac Pros are coming soon.

When searching for "Mac" in the UK Apple Store, the listing for the Mac Pro is:

Mac Pro
Now quad-core or 8-core processing power.
Configure yours today.

Rumors that Apple would incorporate two of Intel's Quad-core chips into a Mac Pro to produce an 8-core Mac Pro have been ongoing since late last year.

Update: Apple appears to have found it and have removed the text from their site.

Apple's laptop batteries are once again feeling heat after one MacBook owner's laptop caught fire, apparently stemming from the battery.

As I was running I saw a fire. At first I thought that the lamp had fallen and set fire to the curtain. As I got closer I realised it was my mac book .... burning! I picked it up and blew on it and swung it around to put the flames out. The book shelf it was sitting on was burnt and there were a couple of magazines that were on fire too.

According to the user, the laptop was charging at the time but not in use (asleep with lid shut). Last summer, multiple PC vendors (including Apple) issued massive battery recalls due to defective Sony-made batteries. The recalls prompted Apple, Dell, and Lenovo to hold a summit to develop Li-Ion battery standards.

Apple has historically used Li-Ion batteries in its iBook and PowerBook laptops, but has opted for Lithium Polymer batteries (Li-Poly) in its MacBook and MacBook Pro computers. One of the supposed advantages of Li-Poly batteries is reduced combustibility.

While the incident is certainly disturbing, it is unknown how widespread the issue is. Currently, there are no safety recalls affecting the MacBook or MacBook Pro, and Apple has yet to respond to the incident.

Macworld notes that Intel is officially announcing the availability of more power-efficient quad-core Xeon processors to be available today.

The new Xeon L5320 and L5310 processors consume only 12.5 watts of electricity per core, using 35-60% less power than the existing quad-core Xeons.

The L5320 operates at 1.86 GHz and the L5310 at 1.60 GHz. They both feature 8M bytes of on-die cache for faster memory data communication. In quantities of 1,000 units, the L5320 is priced at US$519 and the L5310 at $455.

No word on whether or not Apple is planning on using the newest Quad-core processors in upcoming Macs, despite persistent rumors of Apple introducing a 8-Core Mac Pro. These new processors, however, feature a slower clock speed (1.60GHz, 1.86GHz) than the existing less power-efficient (2.66GHz) Clovertown Quad-core processors.

For readers interested in the top end of performance, Intel revealed last week that later this year, they will be releasing a higher end 3.0GHz version of its Quad-core Xeon for customers who aren't concerned with power consumption.

The current 2.66GHz Quad-cores or these upcoming high end chips appear to be the most likely candidates for future 8-Core Mac Pro models, as power consumption is not a major consideration for Apple's high end desktop machines.

Macworld.co.uk reports that Apple has started airing new 'Get a Mac' ads in the UK:

These include: Naughty Step where PC suggests that doing fun stuff should be punishable; Magic where PC exchanges a file with Mac to much funfair; and Court which examines how easy it is to make a photo book.

The new ads are now on Apple's UK website. There has been some criticism of the U.K. ads in how it depicts Mac users.

The New York Times writes about Palm's recent hire of Paul Mercer, a former Apple engineer, who most recently had founded Pixo. Pixo was a software that served as the basis for the original Apple iPod.

The article suggests that Mercer's work at Palm will involve some form of response to Apple's iPhone announcement.

The designer, Paul Mercer, a former Apple computer engineer, began work three weeks ago at Palm on a line of new products, a company spokeswoman said, but she declined to comment further on the project.

Palm is one of the companies that is felt to be most affected by a succesful launch of the Apple iPhone.

Robert Cringley claims that Apple is planning on incorporating dedicated H.264 decoding chips into future Mac hardware.

Now comes the rumor I have heard, that I believe to be a fact, that has simply yet to be confirmed. I have heard that Apple plans to add hardware video decoding to ALL of its new computers beginning fairly soon, certainly this year.

The article claims that incorporating a dedicated H.264 decoding chip will allow Apple to ensure the same base performance on every machine it sells. The $50 chip is said to also offer H.264 encoding to allow users to quickly encode high quality video clips for upload to the internet.

H.264 is a high quality video format which Apple uses to encode their video content on iTunes and the web. Apple has a FAQ on H.264 on their website.

Robert Cringley has been know for posting speculative predictions in the past, but specifically notes that this is from an outside source that he believes to be true.

More details from analyst Shaw Wu's report about flash based Apple laptops indicate that he believes that Apple may deploy the iPhone's stripped down version of OS X on the rumored sub-notebook.

"The 'mini' Mac OS X will be used. In terms of software, our sources indicate that Apple is leaning towards using the same "mini" version of Mac OS X used in the upcoming iPhone. We believe this will be particularly important as it has a much smaller footprint and runs with as little as 4 GB of space."

Apple's iPhone is expected to launch June and incorporates a touch-interface. Apple has also been advertising for "Senior Panel Process Engineer" to design and develop advanced multi-touch panels. There has been no direct hints that Apple will use this in future laptops or displays, but Mac fans have certainly been speculating on this possibility.

Reuters reports on recent predictions made by Analyst Shaw Wu.

Wu revivies rumors that Apple will be incoporating Flash memory into upcoming notebook computers.

The maker of the popular iPod music player and Macintosh computers hopes to introduce so-called flash memory in small computers known as subnotebooks in the second half of 2007

Advantages of the use of Flash memory would be longer battery lives and shorter startup times. According to Wu, Apple is waiting for flash memory prices to decline but are otherwise ready to launch.

Rumors of an upcoming flash based subnotebook have been circulating for months. Another analyst (Benjamin Reitzes) mentioned this possibility back in June 2006.

In a patent application revealed yesterday (#20070054616), Apple reveals that it is working on making configuring wireless networks, especially ones with devices with limited input/output capability, more simple.

The system describes using RFID tags in networking equipment that would communicate basic configuration settings when the devices got close to one another. The devices would then be able to establish a rudimentary network based on that information and be able to automatically finish setting up a more complex and secure wireless network.

Apple's innovative use of RFID appears to be aiming to simplify the setup of wireless devices (especially ones with limited user interfaces) while simultaneously promoting the use of secured wireless networks.Raw Data: Patent Abstract

A system for automatic configuration and authentication of network devices is disclosed. A network base station, e.g., a wireless router, includes an RFID transceiver. A network device includes an RFID tag. Then the network device is brought into proximity with the base station, an exchange of information takes place between the RFID transceiver in the base station and the RFID tag in the device. When the network device is powered on, it reads the information in its RFID tag and uses this information to establish a limited connection to the base station. Once connected, the base station and network device exchange authentication and encryption parameters over the limited connection and thus establish a fully functional and secure network connection between the network base station and the network device.

Background Info: RFID (Radio Frequency Identification)
RFID has been seen widespread use over the past number of years and is widely considered a "hot" technology. Various forms of the technology have been used anywhere from express toll booths, trusted traveler border crossing, inventory management, and credit cards.

Of note, RFID technology is vulnerable to a number of its own security implications, which Apple would need to deal with in order to maintain security.

Adobe announced that their spring release of Adobe Photoshop CS3 will bring a new "Extended" edition aimed at 3D and video professionals. Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended will include all the features of the standard version, but also incorporate several new features:

Render and incorporate 3D images into your 2D composites. Stop time with easy editing of motion graphics on video layers. And probe your images with measurement, analysis, and visualization tools.

Mac customers, in particular, have been waiting for Adobe Photoshop CS3 as it represents the first version of Photoshop that will run natively (at full speed) on Apple's Intel Macs. A beta version of CS3 has been available since December.

Adobe is offering a FAQ (pdf) about the new Extended edition. No pricing announcements have been made yet, but the release has been reported to be on March 27th at a special event in New York.

Macworld.co.uk reports that supplies of several Apple products appear to be at extremely low levels, but will ship in quantity within a matter of weeks. While the pattern may simply reflect a stronger than normal demand, it is also a strong indication that product launches are on the way.

Models facing shortages are reported to be all versions of the Mac mini and the iPod Nano as well as the HiFi. The site notes that their sources indicate that the Nano will be shipping again as early as next week, indicating that if an update should occur, it may occur as early as next week.

Other models mentioned facing a shortage include the entry-level combo drive iMac, the mid-range MacBook Pro, and the entry-level and black MacBooks.

Apple's CFO Peter Oppenheimer spoke at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference today. Macworld provides a summary, a full audio feed is available from Apple, and a transcript is available from Appleinsider.

In summary, Oppenheimer offers nothing particularly revealing and reaffirms that the Apple TV will be shipping this month.

One audience member asked directly if Apple would consider licensing Mac OS X to PC vendors and the reply was "no plans to do so."

When questioned about future advertising plans for the iPhone beyond the recent Oscars ad, Oppenheimer states that "Steve and the team have some great plans but I can't share those with you in advance".

Fortune magazine has ranked Apple as America's 7th most admired company in its survey of the Top 20 Most Admired Companies. The survey was conducted by asking 3,322 "executives, directors, and securities analysts to select the 10 companies they admire most."

According to more detailed results, Apple ranked first in Innovation and sixth in Quality of products/services, and was the second-highest ranked computer company (behind IBM).

Fortune says that having "fresh ideas" and "being green" were top qualities of this year's winners.