Friday January 25, 2008

- New Intel mobile processors in May - Lionel - 15:03:01

While we're still only seeing the first Penryn-core based CPU's, Intel has already listed their successors, they should arrive in May.
15 processors have been listed, and they are based on the Santa-Rosa platform successor, a.k.a. Montevina. The most noticable improvement will be the busspeed, which climbs from 800 MHz to 1066 MHz.
7 processors are created for regular laptops:
- Core 2 Extreme QX9300: (frequence not known yet) 12 Mb L2-cache, and TDP of 45W
- Core 2 Extreme QX9100: 3,06 GHz 6 Mb L2-cache, and TDP of 44W
- Core 2 Duo T9600: 2,8 GHz 6 Mb L2-cache, and TDP of 35W
- Core 2 Duo P9500: 2,53 GHz 6 Mb L2-cache, and TDP of 25W
- Core 2 Duo P8600: 2,4 GHz 3 Mb L2-cache, and TDP of 25W
- Core 2 Duo P8400: 2,26 GHz 3 Mb L2-cache, and TDP of 25W

There will also be some smaller processors (22,5 mm² instead of 35 mm²):
- Core 2 Duo SP9400: 2,4 GHz 6 Mb L2-cache, and TDP of 25W
- Core 2 Duo SP9300: 2,26 GHz 6 Mb L2-cache, and TDP of 25W
- Core 2 Duo SL9400: 1,86 GHz 6 Mb L2-cache, and TDP of 17W
- Core 2 Duo SL9300: 1,6 GHz 6 Mb L2-cache, and TDP of 17W
- Core 2 Duo SU9400: 1,4 GHz 3 Mb L2-cache, and TDP of 10W
- Core 2 Duo SU9300: 1,2 GHz 3 Mb L2-cache, and TDP of 10W
- Core 2 Duo U9300: 1,2 GHz 3 Mb L2-cache, and TDP of 5,5W
- Celeron 723: 1,2 GHz 1 Mb L2-cache, and TDP of 10W
The ultra-mobile CPU's with 10W TDP (or less) will feature a bus of only 800 MHz (instead of 1066 MHz for the other models)

Enough choice for Apple here to update current models, and even expand the current product line-up.

[translation by xavier]

- The cost of backlit LEDs will decline significantly in 2008 - Lionel - 14:59:04

Source : Digitimes

Currently a monitor using LED backlighting costs about 3 times more than its equivalent cold cathode LCD. This significant difference in price is linked to a shortage of LEDs which increases the cost and also to royalties related to patents.
The mass production of LEDs and the increase in the number of manufacturers is expected to decrease the extra cost significantly during 2008. It should be no more than 1.5 times by the end of the year.
Experts say the switch over from CCFL (cold cathode fluorescent lamp) to the LED will increase significantly when the surcharge is in the order of 2x or so, in the course of the year.
Apple should move as quickly as possible, at least to confirm its concern for the environment.

[translation by jeremy]

- Jailbreak for the iPhone with 1.1.3 firmware - Lionel - 14:34:55

Source : FrenchiPhone

Since this morning, a solution to install Jailbreak on iPhones running 1.1.3 firmware exists.

However we suggest that you wait until the technique is further developed before you try it yourself. At the moment Jailbreak runs on a hybrid version of firmware 1.1.3 that uses the modem firmware from the previous version. This seems to block access to the Edge network and especially blocks the geo-localisation, and this is the most interesting piece of the new firmware version. Additionally, there are a number of applications that are not compatible with firmware 1.1.3.

We will keep you informed as things advance, and let you know of a good moment to upgrade once these principle difficulties have been eliminated.

[translation by crispin]

- Disk Warrior 4.1 Now Compatible with Leopard - Lionel - 12:08:31

Source : Alsoft

One of the leading application for repairing volume, Disk Warrior is now available in version 4.1 and finally brings support for Leopard as well as Time Machine as its Hard Links. Those links targeting files are hard-coded to preserve integrity and the possibility to access to different versions of the same named file. So repairing such links is not trivial, and Disk Warrior has to rebuild all file history to make Time Machine volume repair reliable.
The update will be free for owners of the version 4.0, or it will cost 49.99USD for owners of previous versions or 99.95USD for a first purchase.

[translation by Linathael]

- MacBook Air: first benchmarks - Lionel - 12:03:35

We've heard many things about the MacBook Air, people praising and criticising its small formfactor, its single USB connector, ... . On the opposite, it still performs good, especially when compared to other "ultra portable" computers, that usually lose most of their performance.
Gizmodo has compared the 1.6 GHz model with 80 Gb HD to a MacBook Pro 2.2 GHz (previous model) and a MacBook 2 GHz (also a previous model).
Contrary to all expectations, the MacBook Air's performance is actually close to the MacBook 2GHz in most of the tests. It even outperforms the fastest computer with great advantage, in an MP3-encoding test.
The 800 MHz FSB definitely is the major catalyst here (the other models have a 667 MHz bus). It's also remarkable that processes that require a lot of interaction with the harddrive are doing quite well, thanks to the 8Mb cache memory. Apple has chosen for the only 1.8" HD with 8 Mb cache here, usually these models feature only 2 Mb.
The lack of a bigger harddisk and limited connectors will still be considered an obstacle for those who want to use it as a desktop replacement and don't need a very powerfull machine, especially in 3D graphics.

[translation by xavier]

- Excel 2008 is slower ! - Lionel - 11:47:04

During MWSF, Microsoft finally released the new suite of office applications, Office 2008. These applications run natively on the Intel processors.
Although one appreciates the improvement with the visual interface and functions, we have really been waiting for the improvement in performance when running on the Mac Intels. It is true that Entourage, for example, is now much more fluid; especially when using a very large database of mail - no longer does one have the impression that it is stored on a network disk.
A reader of XLR8Yourmac was surprised with the slow feel of Excel 2008. He decided to test the effect by launching many calculations - stopwatch in hand.
Surprising as it seems: the version Excel 2004 running under the Rosetta emulator (on a MacBook Pro Core Duo 1.83 GHz) took 178 seconds while version 2008 took 774 seconds, 4.3 times longer.
This is the first time that we have heard that a native application takes longer than when running under an emulator. Part of this comes from the functioning of Rosetta that does a beautiful job of storing in cache calculations previously done. However even in this case an application well optimised running natively should win hands down.
It will be difficult for those who have already installed version 2008 to make other tests, since the installer strongly advises that all previous versions are removed!

[translation by crispin]

- AT&T has 2 million iPhone clients at the end of the year - Lionel - 07:28:23

AT&T announced that at the end of 2007, 2 million clients had activated their iPhones in the US.
According to their statement, the sale of the iPhone had been good in October and November and had doubled in December.
At the time of the keynote of the MWSF, Steve Jobs had announced that Apple had shipped 4 million iPhones. The UK should account for 200 000 (unofficial number) and France for 70 000 (official number). We ignore all those sold in Germany.
Even if we consider that some iPhones bought in 2007 in the US or the UK were gifts that have yet to be activated, the difference between the numbers sold and those that have been activated remains enormous, greater than 1.5 million!
A good part of these iPhones have certainly ended up on the grey market of unlocked phone, these function outside the control of the official operator and to a certain measure, outside the control of Apple.
In future it will be difficult for Apple to ignore these people; even though they are outside the established rules, they are nonetheless clients of Apple.

[translation by crispin]