News for Tuesday, 30 January 2007

In an article freshly released by a local newspaper "Le Soir", the minister of finance confirms that after months of negotiations with Apple representatives, Apple will install the Video-On-Demand feature of the European iTunes Store in Luxembourg, where is already installed the European iTunes Stores.
This information confirms our previous exclusive report about iTS video offers to be available in Europe for March/April.

We missed it this morning, but Apple now offers for 1.95€ the (in)famous AirPort Extreme 802.11n* Enabler for Mac.
This update is only valid for Intel Core 2 Duo processor (except the 17-inch, 1.83GHz iMac) or a Mac Pro with AirPort Extreme.
This update adds in the IO802.11Family.kext extension, an enabler named AirportEnabler.kext (64Ko).

Apple offers now the iPod Shuffle in 5 different colors, the same ones than for the iPod nano (except the classy black one). After let's "put some music on", we now have let's "put some color on"

For sure not a revolution, but it might be the answer to some consumer requests.
If you want to have a look at them, here is the link to the Apple Store

As already mentioned by us and others, the new Apple TV seems to be a best-seller whereas nobody really knows what is inside.

On January 15th, Apple Insiders reported some information regarding the hardware inside the Apple TV. We investigated further, and obtained information from an Asian source who had the pre production sample in his hands. We consider information reliable enough to publish them:
- the processor is a ULV Pentium M Dothan featuring 2MB of L2 cache on a 400MHs FSB. This CPU is not as powerful as the Core Duo, however, it is more than enough for what is required, the key point here being heat release as low as possible, price wise, ULV Dothan are much cheaper than ULV Core Duo Yonah.
- the chipset should be a Mobile Intel 915PM Express, so without an integrated graphic processor.
- The GPU will be a NVidia GeForce Go 7300 (G72M-V), connected via a PCI Express bus and featuring 64MB of VRAM. This GPU supports the Turbo Cache function, and H.254 hardware decoding.
- The HD is a 2.5" with 40GB capacity, and again for maintaining low power consumption, it is an ATA format and not a SATA.
- Video output is controlled by a dedicated chips, the Silicon Image SiI1930. It supports the HDMI 1.1 as well as HDCP. All HD video resolutions can be displayed, and audio over 8 channels at 192 kHz is supported too.
Officially, Apple TV does not support 1080p HD video, while component are in theory able to do so. It might be linked to a lack of CPU power, or a marketing strategy aiming to offer a 1080p ready Apple TV later in the year.
Of course, the Apple TV is very similar to a Mac Intel mini, and one can bet that its OS is a dedicated OSX Tiger or Leopard.

All Apple Stores are closed.
So be ready for product updates.
PS: according to rumors and sources, it should be the new iPods, a way to avoid having all news networks looking at windows Vista.
PS2: It might also be the new Quad Core-based Mac Pro together with the new Apple Display models, even though we would rather expect them to be introduced during the NAB mid-February

Samsung announced today a new 60 GB 1.8" hard drive. While that storage capacity is nothing new (the high end iPod uses a 80 GB 1.8" disk), the form factor of the disk is: Samsung's new product uses perpendicular recording technology to fit 60 GB on fewer platters, which allows the disk to be only 5mm thick (a thickness only obtained with 30 GB disks until now).
Apple could therefore use this disk to release a future 60 GB iPod that would remain 11mm thick (against 14mm for the current 80 GB).
On top of its very thin form factor, that disk also has the benefit of running very silently.

Of course we can ignore this event: Windows Vista is available.
Even though we are a Mac-dedicated website, we have to follow evolution on the Windows OS as we also do it with Linux world.
We already said that Vista will give head hake to consumers to purchase the right version they really need, without mentioning that the new MS OS version will be expensive... for now real reason to our point of view.
However it is always good to have competition from Microsoft as it is probably the only way to keep Apple under pressure to innovate and offer substantial evolution for Mac OS.
Moving from Panther to Tiger was an update built up around the widgets, so if you do not use them, then you probably did not notice much in-depth modifications.
Leopard is expected to be a major (r)evolution of OSX, and should be available latest in June.
But back to Vista, with more than half a billion US$ spent into marketing this new OS version, Microsoft will probably make it a best-seller, even though many PC websites are not astonished by Vista, and do not really appreciate the built-in user management (how can you be creative?).
If Vista is not the expected success, then Microsoft might really start being in trouble after releasing so many products with mixed adoption among consumers. Business and enterprise IT are still Microsoft's monopoly due to dozen of thousands IT engineers who went to "Microsoft schools". But again, this will also evolve, and first signs of Apple OS and Linux in Enterprises IT solutions might shake Redmond's giant.

Atheros announced the availability of a new chipset supporting Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR.
This single chip solution eliminates the need for external flash memory by integrating its own SRAM, making it a self managing solution, probably the best way to go.
The list of Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR enhancements:
- Secure Simple Pairing: Improves ease of pairing of Bluetooth devices while implementing strong security
- Encryption Pause and Resume: Increases security in the link by ensuring that no user data is transmitted without encryption and enables periodic update of the keys
- Extended Inquiry Response: Provides better filtering of devices before
connection
- Sniff Subrating: Reduces power consumption when devices are in the sniff, low-power mode, increasing battery-life
Many BT 2.0 components or devices can be upgraded to support such new features by simply updating their firmware. For Apple hardware, it remains unclear if current BT 2.0 compatible models would be upgradeable to 2.1 via a future update, Apple might request another fee, like they try to impose it for the 802.11n.