Apple Launching Quad Core Graphics A5X Powered iPad 3 With Retina Display

Subject: Mobile | March 7, 2012 - 04:10 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: tablet, mobile, ipad 3, ipad, ios, apple

Apple officially launched the new Apple iPad 3 tablet today, and consumers will be glad to know that many of the rumors around the Internet are not far from the truth. The new iOS powered tablet will be packing a retina display, new A5X with "quad core graphics," and an optional 4G LTE radio. The retina display on the iPad 3 is 2048x1536 pixels, and works out to 264 PPI (pixels per inch).

The iPad 3's hardware will further include an updated A5 SoC that also includes a quad core graphics aspect, whatever they mean by that. Phil Schiller states that the new A5X chip "has four times the performance of NVIDIA's quad-core Tegra 3 chip." Apple has also updated the camera in the iPad 3 such that it has a 5 megapixel camera with image stabilization, hybrid IR (infrared) filter, and backside illuminated senor capable of recording 1080p video.

On the 4G LTE front, both AT&T and Verizon will carry the iPad 3 in the US, and the 4G radio will also work on Rogers, Bell, and Telus' networks in Canada. In other markets, the iPad 3 will still be able to connect to 3G networks. According to Ars, the new Apple tablet will maintain the same physical dimensions, and will enable 10 hours of battery life while on 3G or Wi-Fi and 9 hours of battery life when the 4G LTE radio is in use.

The iPad 3 will come in either black or white colors, and will be available for purchase March 16th in the US, Canada, UK, France, and Germany (among others), and March 23th for the rest of the world. The iPad 2 will also stay around at a lower price point of $399 for the 16 GB Wi-Fi model and $529 for 3G.

The iPad 3 will come in at the following price points:

Lastly, despite rumors, the iPad 3 will not be getting Siri access, and the physical home button is still present.  Pre-orders for the new tablet start today, and more information on the pre-order is available over at apple.com/ipad.  What do you guys think of the new tablet, will you be picking one up when it launches?

Qualcomm Shipped Most Smartphone and Tablet GPUs in 2011

Subject: Mobile | February 25, 2012 - 09:31 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: ti, qualcomm, nvidia, mobile gpu, jpr, apple

The researchers over at Jon Peddie Research pushed out their results yesterday for shipments of mobile GPUs in SoC (system on a chip) platforms, and they found some interesting results. The article covers the number of shipments by the major players in the mobile device GPU space and uses those numbers to estimate the amount of market share each of the companies has using an average of all the four quarter shipment numbers. Further, they found that from Q1 2011 to Q4 2011, the number of mobile device GPUs shipped by all manufacturers had a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 18%. That's a fairly impressive growth rate that shows the smartphone and tablet hardware market is continuing to steadily grow.

In terms of market share, at the end of 2011 Qualcomm was leading the pack with 31.4%, and the only other manufacturer to come close to that number was Apple with 22.7%. The little Adreno GPU by Qualcomm was obviously a popular choice last year!

To make things even more interesting, they note that although Qualcomm has the highest shipment rates, it was Samsung who enjoyed the highest CAGR with a 39% growth rate (bringing them up from 9.2% in Q1 to 14.9% in Q4). Apple then followed behind Samsung's numbers with 26% CAGR. Finally, Qualcomm had the lowest percentage growth rate but maintained the highest number of shipments.

The table below shows off the relative market share for the major SoC mobile device manufacturers, as provided by Jon Peddie Research.

They further state that the mobile GPU war is really heating up, especially between Samsung, Apple, and Qualcomm, and I tend to agree. This area of the technology market is seeing some very impressive growth and is really booming as mobile GPU SoCs are continuously released and they are getting more powerful each iteration. It is an area that has a lot of competition and is growing rapidly, much like desktop computers did 10 to 20 years ago when personal computers really started to be affordable and powerful enough to take over the world (well, market share wise).

Another interesting point about the marketshare results in that of NVIDIA's shipments.  With all the marketing behind the Tegra SoC and its popularity in high end smartphones and tablets, I was under the impression that they had a lot more marketshare than they do such that when I first saw the JPR chart, I did a double take and had to be sure I read them correctly!  It will be interesting to see how they do this year and whether they will start to see increased growth.

It will be interesting to see if Samsung can catch up to Qualcomm and whether or nor Qualcomm will still be the heavyweight champion by 2012. Nvidia is still just breaking into this market but they have a very powerful GPU, so it will be interesting to see just how much they manage to grow this year. What are your thoughts on these numbers? How do you think things will unfold this year? Let us know in the comments below!

Asustek? Your Ultrabook orders are ah pulled.

Subject: General Tech, Systems, Mobile | February 15, 2012 - 02:02 AM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: ultrabook, Pegatron, asustek, apple

Pegatron Technology, an independent spin-off company of Asustek, will apparently stop manufacturing ultrabooks for Asustek as early as the end of March. According to a Digitimes, Pegatron will give up ultrabook orders from Asustek due to pressure from their new partner, Apple. Apple has not been pleased by the competition that ultrabooks bring to their MacBook Air lineup of higher-end ultrathin laptops.

Asus really needs to find their Zen...

Have you ever seen a teenager who fights with their parents and moves out with their boyfriend or girlfriend? You know how that usually ends up with a lot of grief and a giant cellphone bill? With Pegatron currently assembling iPhones for Apple we already got the latter portion of that prophecy. How much grief all parties will incur is still pending.

On the other hand, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes of ZDNet is also rebutting the entire story with claims that it does not make sense. He asserts that Apple cannot push its weight against manufacturing and design companies and risk burning bridges.

On the other other hand, it very much does fit Apple’s recent modus operandi with their treatment of Samsung, HTC, and Google. Apple is also willing to drop large vendors with little hesitation. Apple threatened to drop Intel last summer over power concerns. From my position it is more believable than what the ZDNet article lets on.

What do you believe? Has Apple gone and bucked the Pegasus?

Ubuntu versus OSX ... Fight!

Subject: General Tech | January 30, 2012 - 02:15 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: apple, osx, ubuntu, linux

We've all seen the various Windows verus Apple comparisons, so let us head to Phoronix for a fight of a different flavour.  They've taken the new OS X and pitted it against the new Ubuntu on SandyBridge hardware to see how they compare.  From the start it looks bad for Apple, as it detected the dual Core i5 2415M as a single core CPU with hyperthreading where as Ubuntu detected the processor correctly.  They did help Apple out a bit by adding in LLVM/Clang 3.0 into the Xcode4 package as GCC 4.2.1 performs less impressively.  The results were mixed, with each system excelling at certain tasks but not others proving once again that the choice between Apple and PC is generally based on specfic task and not a general performance decision.

"After delivering benchmarks last week that were comparing the Intel Sandy Bridge performance of Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" vs. Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" when it came to the Sandy Bridge OpenGL graphics performance, here's a comparative look at the performance of Ubuntu 11.10 against Mac OS X 10.7.2 from the Intel Sandy Bridge-based Mac."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• Guru3D Rig of the Month - January 2012
• The Ever-Changing Linux Filesystems: Merging Directoris into /usr @ Linux
• The Internet Stratification: Tales of an Unequal Web @ Techgage
• Pentax Optio WG-1 Digital Camera Review @ Maximum CPU

Podcast #182 - Intel Core i7-3930K, AMD 7000 Series rumors, a new low price SSD from OCZ and more!

Subject: Editorial | December 15, 2011 - 01:57 PM | Ken Addison
Tagged: ssd, podcast, ocz, nvidia, macbook pro, Intel, hdd, gigabyte, dell, apple, amd

PC Perspective Podcast #182 - 12/15/2011

Join us this week as we talk about the Intel Core i7-3930K, AMD 7000 Series rumors, a new low price SSD from OCZ and more!

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!

• iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
• RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
• MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file

Hosts: Josh Walrath, Jeremy Hellstrom, and Allyn Malvantano

This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!

Program length: 1:15:55

Program Schedule:

1. 0:00:32 Introduction
2. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
3. http://pcper.com/podcast
4. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
5. 0:02:54 Dell Inspiron 14z Notebook Review: A Portable Workhorse
6. 0:03:57 Gigabyte E350N-USB3 Fusion Mini ITX Motherboard Review
7. 0:08:12 Video Perspective: Antec Eleven Hundred Case Review
8. 0:12:20 Intel Core i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E Processor
9. 0:23:27 This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!
   
10. 0:24:15 Some Details About AMD’s 7000 Series Graphics Cards Leak To Internet
11. 0:27:00 Bad for reviewers, great for gamers ... AMD will allow non-reference Tahiti graphics cards
12. 0:32:10 How much of PCI-E 3.0 is just marketing speak right now
13. 0:36:05 OCZ Technology Petrol SATA 6Gbps SSDs Reduce SSD Deployment Costs by Thirty Percent (Hynix flash)
14. 0:42:30 Two Catalysts from AMD; 11.12 and a highly recommended preview version of 12.1
15. 0:45:05 Intel Scales Back Sales Outlook Due To Hard Drive Shortage
16. 0:50:10 Apple May Bring High Pixel Density Displays To MacBook Pro Notebooks
17. 0:57:56 Voicemail - 3d gaming, special graphics card, what games, etc?
18. 1:03:54 Voicemail - SSDs - SF drive and Gaming
19. 1:07:12 Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
    1. Ryan: 4GB to 8GB of memory - do it!!
    2. Jeremy: How have I never thought of this? Also, the 3930K since it proved to be about 95%+ of the performance for about 60% of the cost ... if you can find it
    1. Josh: You Monster!
    2. Allyn: Cheap SSD's for the holidays, do it!
20. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
21. http://pcper.com/podcast   
22. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
23. Closing

Apple May Bring High Pixel Density Displays To MacBook Pro Notebooks

Subject: Displays, Mobile | December 14, 2011 - 04:40 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: mobile, macbook, apple

 Apple pulled off a four times increase in pixel density on it’s smartphone displays with the iPhone 4 which they dubbed the “Retina Display.” Meanwhile the company’s current 13” MacBook Pro is shackled to a 1280x800 display with an approximate pixel density of 116 pixels per inch. The low resolution (especially vertically) can make reading web pages or working with large documents a hassle as it involves quite a bit of scrolling up and down. New rumors; however, suggest that the Cupertino based company may be looking to step up the display resolution in the next iteration of the MacBook lineup. Allegedly, Digitimes has heard from “sources in the upstream supply chain” that the displays will have as high as a 2880x1800 resolution (and an approximate 261.25 PPI). Pretty impressive for a 13” display!

The current MBP

Whether we will actually see new MacBook models release with such a display remains to be seen; however, it would certainly be a welcomed move as the computer display innovation market has been rather stagnant for the past few years, even going so far as to go backwards in ~24” monitors from 1200 vertical pixels to the now standard 1920x1080 resolution. Perhaps this move by Apple will entice other monitor manufacturers to step up their game and bring 4K gaming to the PC, eventually. Heck, while we are on the topic of monitor tech traveling laterally instead of forward, what ever happened to that curved display from Alienware? Personally, I’m rooting for Apple on this one as the monitor market could use a wake up call!

Apple May Build New Data Center In Oregon

Subject: General Tech | December 4, 2011 - 10:28 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: server farm, Internet, data center, cloud, apple

CNet is reporting that Apple is currently considering constructing a new data center outside of Prineville, Oregon. The 31 Megawatt facility would be built on 160 acres outside of the small Oregon town and would join other prominent tech companies’ data centers including those of Facebook, Amazon, and Google.

According to Oregon Live, it is the area’s mild climate (meaning lower cooling costs compared to naturally warmer climates in addition to all the heat from servers), low electricity costs, and certain “rural enterprise zones” that exempt computers and equipment from normal business property taxes. They state that such exemptions could save Apple several million dollars.

Although Apple has so far declined to comment, city officials have commented that the company looking to purchase the land for the data center codenamed “Maverick” appears to be serious about going through with the purchase. Two major issues stand in the way of Apple building a large data center in the area, however. The company is concerned about tax issues against their intangible assets. Due to Apple putting a great deal of stock (er, the other kind :P) in their brand name, trademarks, and patents, they could face further taxes in the way Oregon’s State Department of Revenue taxes data centers. The largest issue; however, lies in power concerns. In order to supply enough electricity to the various data centers in the area (including Apples should they indeed be building one), Bonneville Power Administration would need to upgrade the Ponderosa Substation, construct an additional substation, and add further transmission lines. This is because the utility company’s transmission capacity to the area is currently nearly maxed out. A 31 Megawatt data center would consume enough electricity to power approximately 22,000 homes and that kind of capacity is not available in an area where towns are a fifth of that size.

The upgrade to the areas electrical subsystems would cost nearly $26.5 million and would take almost three years. Member Services Director for the Central Electric Cooperative, Jeff Beaman, believes that after the appropriate upgrades, a new data center “seems doable.”

Whether this elusive “Maverick” is indeed Apple, and whether the company decides to build a data center remains to be seen; however, it is certainly plausible. Now that Apple is moving more services to the Internet, and the increased adoption of IOS devices thanks to the iPhone being available on all the major US carriers, the company would definitely benefit from having another facility on the other side of the country as their current North Carolina based data center for performance as well as redundancy and stability reasons. What are your thoughts on the reports, is Apple looking to put more cloud (server horsepower) in your icloud?

Apple IOS Update Fails To Fix Battery Issues

Subject: Mobile | November 12, 2011 - 04:07 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: iphone, iOS 5, battery issue, apple

Owners of Apples’ latest iOS devices (especially 3GS, 4, and 4S iphones) have recently run into some battery life issues. Allyn did some testing and found that the latest iOS 5 operating system has a bug (among others) the phone is not able to enter standby mode thanks to a rogue process keeping the phone awake and wasting battery life. Apple was slated to put out the iOS 5.0.1 update, which was supposed to fix the battery life issues.

Well, the update has been released and many users are still experiencing battery life issues. Apple gave a statement to AllThingsD where it stated that although the recent iOS update addressed many of the battery issues, “we continue to investigate a few remaining issues.” According to this poll, approximately 35% (1,822 participants) are having the same battery issues after the update and nearly 14% are experiencing even worse battery issues than before the update. Conversely, almost 18% (910 participants) of people are getting improved battery life from the update. Lastly, a bit over 33% have not reported not experiencing any battery issues. The poll is currently based on a total of 5,145 respondents.

According to Apple, the battery issues are software related, so here’s hoping that they will get their iphones in a row and release an update to fix the issues. More information on Apple’s statement can be found here. Did the update fix your iphone’s battery woes?