Is Apple slowly preparing us for its tablet launch?
The end of O2's exclusive iPhone contract this week is a sign of major change in Apple's product lineup. The addition of the smartphone to the product catalogues of Orange and Vodafone is sure to start a price war between the three networks that will carry it. Apple's flagship money spinner is certain to become cheaper, but if it finds its way into even more people's pockets, it'll also lose some of it's appeal.
Part of the phone's desirability comes from its relatively high price. Human psychology dictates that we see a more expensive product as higher quality, and the iPhone has always carried a larger price tag and longer contract period than more bog-standard phones. Two years and 25 million worldwide sales later, the phone doesn't cause quite the same buzz it did when it launched. Apple's lineup is now missing a single, ultra-desirable product, worth camping for in a queue outside their store for weeks on end. But if the rumours turn out to be true, and Apple is poised to release a lightweight, touchscreen tablet PC, the throne of desirability which the iPhone once occupied wont be empty for long.
Although Apple hasn't actually confirmed that it is to produce a tablet PC, analysts and Apple followers are certain it will. There are unconfirmed reports from some who claim to have already used it. Engadget has mentioned a rumour that Apple spoke to some US magazine publishers about possible formats for e-publishing, a sign that the company could offer Ebooks for the device alongside its music on iTunes, hoping it to be the 'killer-app' that sells the device. Of course, Ebooks haven't quite taken off in the same way digital music has, so if the Apple tablet proves popular, it could be the device that sell Ebooks to the general public, rather than the other way around.
Why we may never see a Core i7 Apple machine
With the recent crop of new Apple desktop hardware - The Mac Pro, iMac and Mac Mini (all of which we reviewed in Personal Computer World) - we noted the use of Intel's older Core 2 Duo processor rather than the newer and more powerful Core i7 chip. The Mac Pro is an exception, but Apple's high end workstation doesn't use Core i7 either, as it's built around Intel's Xeon 5500 processor (which is similar, but not identical, to Core i7)
It's a certainty that Apple will upgrade its range to use Intel's newer processors at some point, but it may be the recently announced Core i5 and Core i3 that it chooses rather than Core i7.
If you haven't been following Intel's roadmaps, Core i5 will use a completely different socket to current Core i7 processors, using 1,156 pins rather than 1,366, meaning if you want to use a Core i5 processor, you need to fork out for yet another new motherboard. Intel's decision to bring another socket to the market has been met with confusion and some disappointment from those who have already invested in Core i7.
The good news is that Core i5 processors and components should be much less expensive than Core i7, but still offer high performance, partly thanks to an integrated memory controller that gives better memory performance than its predecessor.
This leaves Apple with a choice of processors for its next mainstream desktop line. We'll bet on them choosing Core i5 for the iMac, Core i3 for the Mini and sticking with Xeons in the Mac Pro, meaning LGA 1366 Core i7 processors end up never used in an Apple computer.
Of course, Apple hasn't even announced a new desktop line, and Core i5 processors aren't on the market yet, making this little more than speculation on our part. However, as long as Core i5 is relatively affordable and offers a reasonable performance boost, we'll call this an educated guess on what Apple's next move will be.
More on the Quicktime hijack and the Atlantic divide
Some respondents to my blog about Apple's Quicktime seem to have missed the point: Windows without QT opens .tifs and allows you to save them; it will not save them with QT loaded, unless you pay extra as prompted or (if you know how) you have unchecked the file association.
Retrying this exercise today I discovered that if you change the file association within the QT control panel, the software simply switches it back again. Only by changing the association from within Windows (My Computer> Tools> Options> File Types) could I persuade the machine not to open .tifs using QT.
I do not suggest deliberate fraud in this attempt to get you to pay for functionality QT has itself disabled, and it may even be a bug - the software appears to be under the impression that a .tif is a movie.
I would however point out that more than one TV company in Britain has recently got into trouble for phone-in competitions for which people were allowed to enter after the result had been decided, at some small cost to themselves and considerable profit to the companies involved.
Again there was no suggestion of deliberate fraud; but the courts took the view that mistakes providing profit to the perpetrators should not have happened, and stemmed from institutional laxity resulting in a breach of public trust.
The overaggressive marketing of QT Pro is similar in principle if not in scale, constituting a breach of trust that happens to be potentially profitable to Apple. At the very least the QT installation and screen prompts should have made clear that changing file associations might disable some functionality and that, as an alternative to buying QT Pro, users could try giving .tifs back to Windows which will happily save them for free.
To answer another of my flamers: my comments were not anti-American; they were my perception of cultural differences. Pretending there are none is not going to bring nations together. You would, for instance, have to recognise that most French people speak French before you could even speak to them.
Western Europeans tend to be more suspicious of big business than Americans, partly because there is a stronger left-wing tradition here, and perhaps also because so many big companies are American and we fear being swamped. To take another glaring difference: there would probably be riots in the US if strict gun controls were imposed; in London there would probably be riots (well, noisy demonstrations) if they were lifted.
Looking at the figures for gun deaths in the US, I think the attitudes of many of its good citizens towards gun control are crazy; but it's their funeral (literally, in many cases) and I don't hold it against them so long as they don't point the wretched things at me.
Apple maxes out during CES
Apple marketers have been playing a curious game this week, with a string of announcements coinciding with the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. They have unveiled a new 1U rackserver, the Xserve, using two 3GHz quad-core Xeon processors, which they boast is "up to twice as fast" as its predecssor. Also a "fastest yet" Mac Pro using two 3.23GHz quad-core Xeon processors. And today it is announced that iTunes pricing will be standardised across Europe, promising to end within six months the much resented mark-up for the UK.
An Apple statement implied that this mark-up is the fault of record labels, which it says charge more for this country than elsewhere in Europe. The statement said: "Apple will reconsider its continuing relationship in the UK with any record label that does not lower its wholesale prices in the UK to the pan-European level."
The turnaround will of course have nothing to do with placating Europe, which has a more questioning attitude towards Apple product lock-ins than the company's US fan base.
The announcements may have been timed to keep Apple in the news during CES. But they will also raise speculation about what there is left for Steve Jobs to announce in his keynote at next week's Apple love-in, Mac World 2008. Let's hope it's that much-rumoured Mac ultra-portable.
iPhone could increase Apple viruses
The iPhone might be a catalyst for new Mac viruses and malware admitted anti-virus experts at F-Secure.
The iPhone runs a basic version of OS X, so any malware written for it might attack Mac desktop and laptops too. Although there are a lot of unknowns, there's no doubt that the more devices Apple sells, the bigger a target it becomes. Apple's financial statements suggest its on track to sell 6.5-7 million desktops and laptops in 2007. This makes the 10 million iPhones Jobs wants to sell in 2008 a much bigger target.
A proof of concept trojan horse, where a Safari browser vulnerability meant hyperlinks got the phone to call premium rate numbers, was demonstrated last month.
All research suggests hackers and malware writers are focussing on making money through their work, which hasn't been a major issue up until recently and the well structured and easy to access billing system inherent to mobile phones makes them an attractive target for criminals. In fact, the Russians saw their phone bills go sky high in one such attack last year.
Of course, it's not just the iPhone that is becoming vulnerable to such attacks and a far more pressing concern are insecure spying tools that have serious consequences for our privacy. Iain from Vnunet has more on that though.
F-Secure specialises in mobile anti-malware products and Kimmo Alkio, CEO of the company, said mobile phone attacks aren't a big problem, but are growing, especially since smart phones are set to outsell PCs by 40million units in 2009.
For now, Alkio let the facts speak for themselves: “There are approximately 350 known malware on the mobile phones compared to over 400,000 malewares on the PC.”
PCW goes on Safari
Our story today about all the vulnerabilities that have been found in Apple's new Safari browser may seem a little unfair, considering that this is beta code in which one would expect to find bugs. In fact the whole point of beta testing is to find them. But if you shoot your mouth off as much as Apple chief Steve Jobs does, you must expect to get some flak back - and he did say the browser would be secure from Day One.
I've been using Safari intermittently for a day and quite like it. It has a clean design and crisp response and seems to run some of our company's web-based apps rather better than Explorer. Cliff Joseph will be posting a full review soon. But it has to be said the Apple, for all its self-proclaimed user friendliness, is not above giving its users cryptic messages. The one above left appears occasionally when you click the Back button. Its reference to a "form" may mean something to Apple's coders, but in the context of what I was doing it means nothing to me.
The evolution of Apple: Steve Wozniak interview (audio)
We interviewed Steve Wozniak a while ago, who talked about his early days with Apple, designing the first computers and how the company has since evolved.
Our news editor Clive Akass recorded it for his notes, but we thought Apple fans might like to hear what Steve had to say. So the sound quality is not great, as we never intended it to be broadcast.
I've left much of it in, just chopping out rambling questions/answers that went off on a tangent and the waitress asking what they wanted to drink! The ending, by the way, is genuine - after that Steve and Clive started talking about digital voice recorders.
To give you an outline of the flow, here's what Steve talked about:
- Making the Apple 1
- The Apple 2
- Bill Gates in the 70s
- His plane crash/the Macintosh project
- Leaving Apple
- Going into teaching
- His view of Apple now
- The iPod
- Shafted by Jobs
- The Mac architecture
Apple gets more out of Vista
Apple is telling Windows users to put off upgrading to Vista until it has a compatible version of its iTunes software ready, according to the BBC.
Apparently music and video purchased from the online store can fail to play. Other problems supposedly include poor animation and other media, contact and calendar synchronisation problems.
The announcement comes as Bill Gates added fuel to the fire by slating Apple's amusing 'get a Mac' ads. No news is bad news and, like every other Vista story, Gates has given Apple credence by commenting on OS X.
On a side note, type in Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs into Google and you get a fascinating array of articles criticising Jobs for doing so little for charity, despite having a $4bn fortune. As a show-man I'm sure he could stir up hysteria about a charity in the same way he made Apple fan boys go crazy for iPhones... think iCharity.
'iPhone can't make calls' - shock report on the best phone ever
For those of us who have yet to get near an iPhone, there was some clarification in The Sunday Times yesterday of what the fuss is all about. Tom Dunmore, billed as the first UK journalist to get his paws on the machine, says that it is indeed "darn sexy".
The interface, which fronts a version of the MacOS, has context sensitive controls and features like the ability to pick out voicemails from pictures of the caller. Nothing new there, then.
A proximity sensor deactivates the screen when you put the device to your ear, and a tilt sensor reorientates the screen according to whether you are holding it in landscape or portrait mode.
Dunmore also reports that the screen is hard to type on, and describes the devices's 4-8GB of memory and 2megapixel camera as "unexceptional".
And then he tried and failed to make a phone call on it. "The software isn't quite completed yet," an Apple man told him.
Hmm...
Dunmore also pointed out (as has PCW) that the lack of 3G will entail slow web browsing. This point was echoed in The Observer by John Naughton, who wondered how well the screen would stand up to scratching - and also whether the device would prove "as unreliable as the iPod range appears to be."
He also questioned the iPhone's use of a built-in battery, rather than the swappable ones usual in mobile phones. He asked: "Will users have to send their phones back to Apple when the batteries give up the ghost?"
This issue caused huge embarrassment for Apple after an iPod user was told it would be cheaper to buy a new player than replace his batteries. The company later introduced a refitting service - at a price.
None of this is to say the iPhone is a duff product. It will probably be a success even if, like just about every Mac product of the past few years, it is only half as good as the company's chief executive Steve Jobs says it is.
Apple's homepage fuels Macworld rumours
With Macworld fast approaching, various rumours are flying around as to what Jobs & co will be presenting to the world.
In a typically immodest fashion, Apple's website (albeit the US version) is fuelling the hype by proudly stating "The first 30 years were just the beginning. Welcome to 2007".
So what exactly will Apple be launching this year? A new range of iPods seems inevitable, as does an upgrade to its MacBook - possibly an ultra-thin model. We'll also get to delve deeper in to the features of the forthcoming OS X 10.5 (aka Leopard) and its joint movie download service with iTV.
But we get the feeling there might be something slightly more significant. An iPod mobile phone has often been talked could well be on the cards for 2007, but the decreased battery life might be something Apple won't be willing to accept.
Macworld starts on January 8th and we'll be bringing you the latest news as it happens.
What do you want Apple to release in 2007? Post your suggestions below...
