News for Wednesday, 4 March 2009

Yesterday, Apple released minor and major updates for almost all its hardware models, except for the MacBooks. We were a bit surprised when we received confirmation that all those products were already in stocks in almost all APR and resellers. Some readers who placed orders from the Apple Store yesterday afternoon, have already seen their shipping information updated with delivery forecasted today!
If we would have to speculate, we would say that Apple might be trying to make the current fiscal quarter as good as possible by maximizing the number of new products to seduce as many customers as possible. If it would work for this quarter, it might be a problem for the coming quarters, maybe not the next one directly, but the one after, as one would now not expect any major updates for the next 4 to 6 months. So, what kind of innovating products can we expect from Apple in order to maintain its attractive power on customers? Snow leopard in June and new iPhone in July? But what else?

As promised to some readers, we have disassembled an old and a new Airport Extreme N to compare the hardware.

Of course, one can not see the difference when looking at both stations from the outside.


However, when looking inside at the logic board and components, one can easily spot many changes and improvements. The Wi-Fi card now features 4 connectors and as many antennas. So, if you were expecting to run dual band 2.4 and 5 GHz from a previous Airport Extreme N with the appropriate firmware, you will have to forget this idea.
Hereafter are some captures of the Airport station administration, showing the new information and the dual band options:





The firmware pre-installed is the version 7.4, instead of 7.3.2 for the previous models. One can also see the two simultaneous 2.4 and 5 GHz networks, shared and guest networks, MobileMe setup pages, etc.
We will released performance tests as soon as we are done with our investigations.

during its investor conference, Orange revealed that its had sold 810,000 iPhone since the beginning of its exclusive partnership with Apple. It has also be a very effective way of attracting new customers (and keep them for 12 to 24 months depending on the subscription plan). So one can easily understand why the two other major carriers in France have been working so hard to denounce the exclusive partnership and make it illegal.

Among the new product unveiled yesterday by Apple, the new Mac Pro is most likely the best "coup" made by Apple in the past months. Indeed, this new model is powered by Intel Xeon Nehalem CPU, supposed to be officially announced by Intel at the end of the month. It gives Apple quit some time over competitors.

The new architecture is really impressive with CPUs and their memory controller installed on a daughter card as well as the RAM modules. However, one should clear mention that if you are choosing a single Quad Core configuration, you will not be able to add a second Xeon (and its associated heatsink) later on. Indeed, the single Quad Core Xeon belongs to the Series 3000 and is not designed to work with a second CPU. The memory controller integrated in the CPU should provide a clear gain of performance without forgetting the support of hyperthreading giving access to 16 logical cores for the Octo Core model
However, we are also disappointed by some choices made by Apple. First the premium price applied for most Octo Core models. The high-end model will cost more than 5000 €, a price most likely to high even for Pro users looking for the fastest machine. Of course, it might directly be linked to the exclusive Xeon Nehalem installed inside. While the design of the case has been revised, it is a pity that Apple did not think of including a 2.5" enclosure instead of the second optical drive space; it could have been used to install a SSD. Indeed, we have recently shown that a SSD might be faster than a RAID volume composed of two Velociraptor...

Yesterday, the CeBIT was opening its doors in Germany. Both GPU giants, AMD/ATI and NVidia took this opportunity to unveil their new graphic solutions dedicated to mobile computing.

The new Radeon HD 4830 and 4860 are engraved at 40 nm to dramatically reduce power consumption while allowing performance gain, especially for the high-end model with its 640 shader units.
On its side, NVidia unveiled 4 cards:

The GeForce GTX 280 features 128 computing cores, the 260M model has 112, while the 160M and the 150M only 32. All cards can sport up to 1 GB of VRAM. NVidia claims that those cards can be up to 50% faster than the previous generation.
For all those figures and claims, one will need to have to test with those GPU installed in computers.

OCZ unveiled a new SSD model, combining all technology currently available for this manufacturer.

Behind this huge heatsink placed on a PCI Express 8x card is hidden 4 SSD connected to a RAID controller featuring 256 MB of cache. The reported performance levels are simply amazing, with 500 and 600 MB/s; respectively in writing and reading mode.
The price of this product is still unknown, but it might seduce many Pro users looking for faster data transfer speed and access. However, one will need specific drivers, not available on Mac OS X, and in addition this volume might not be bootable.

Retrospectively, Apple released of lot of updated products yesterday, more than initially rumored or even expected. After the new Mac mini, iMac, Mac Pro, Time Capsule and Airport Extreme n, the MacBook Pro 15" have also been upgraded. The entry-level model is now featuring a 2.66 GHz CPU (instead of a 2.53 GHz before) while the option for a 2.8 GHz high-end CPU is now replaced by a 2.93 GHz CPU.
In addition an option for a 256 GB SSD is now available. However, there is still no option for a non-glossy panel yet...
More information: MacBook Pro @ Apple Store

A reader, whose name we will conceal, reported an edifying history to us.
A great advertising agency has just gained a contract to promote the printers manufactured by a very large computer maker, whose name we will conceal even if it is not difficult to guess.
Once the contract given to this agency, this manufacturer requires that it throws out its Dell PCs and install products of its marque. Worse still, and it is for this that we speak about it here, it did the same to the large network of Macs that risks that all the professionals who work with this platform will disappear.
Of course the same applies to the printers Xerox and Canon which will also pass out through the back door.
We do not hide from you that we find this behavior Highly Punishable…

The two below joined the update party in the midst of all the hardwares upgrade frenzy.
iLife '09

03/03/2009 This update improves overall stability and addresses a number of other minor issues. It is recommended for all users of Aperture, iLife “09, and iWork “09. (Update)

iPhoto 8

03/03/2009 This update improves overall stability and addresses minor issues in a number of areas, including internet connectivity, keyword import, and slideshow export. (Update)