Wednesday, May 4, 2011

GigaOMApple (11 сообщений)

TheAppleBlog    GigaOMApple

http://gigaom.com
рекомендовать друзьям >>

  • iOS, OS X and The Death of the Scrollbar

    Among those who have tried OS X Lion for the first time, there is near universal dismay at the “reverse scrolling” behavior in the Apple-provided applications. It feels strange to push your fingers up on the trackpad to see content that is further down in the document, when we have had years of practice moving our fingers down instead.

    The difference is best understood as a change in the user’s point of view. Instead of pulling the scrollbar down, you push the content up. The change signals a huge shift not just in scroll direction, but in user interface design where gestures are used to manipulate content instead of on-screen interface controls like scrollbars and sliders.

    Scrollbar, We Hardly Knew Ye

    The venerable scrollbar has been with us for ages. It was probably invented at Xerox PARC in the 70s, well before the graphic user interface (GUI) Macintosh was released in 1984. Back in those days, if you wanted to control something in the GUI, you had to be able to point at a control and click on it. The scrollbar was an obvious visual control to manipulate an application’s viewport, the section of content visible in the current window. It was versatile as well. The scroller not only provided the means to move the viewport, but its position also indicated where you were in the document.

    One of the first steps away from direct manipulation of visual controls was the scroll wheel mouse, introduced in 1995 as a different way to move the scrollbar. Apple’s touch-sensitive trackpad and Mighty Mouse later used two-finger gestures for scrolling. However, the controls were still present on the screen to provide visual feedback on the scroller position.

    The downside of the GUI was that every control needed to take up some real estate on the screen. Pretty soon we had apps with toolbars that were bigger than the content area.

    iOSification

    After over 25 years of scrollbars in Mac OS X, Apple was willing to rethink the UI for the touchscreen when the iPhone was introduced. Gestures provide a way around the need for an on-screen control for every GUI interaction and devote more space to the content itself (quite important on a small screen). Scrollbars were no longer controls, and remained only as a visual indicator of where you were. Instead, you moved content in the viewport by direct manipulation – you pushed the content itself up or down by making a gesture with your finger. This direct manipulation of the content itself is so intuitive on a touchscreen that even toddlers quickly grasp its use.

    Different Strokes for Different Folks

    On the touchscreen we have grown accustomed to using gestures to manipulate content directly. Unfortunately, when applied to the desktop this approach creates some cognitive dissonance for longtime Mac users as we try to use two-finger scrolling or mouse gestures they way we were taught, to move scrollbars indirectly.

    What If You Don’t Know About Gestures?

    Because the scrollbar fades out of view until moved, the scrollbars are not easily discovered and there is no visual indication of how to move content in the viewport. We rely on our memory of when we used to see scrollbars. In some applications like Safari, it is not clear where we are in the viewport because there is no scroller or thumb to tell us. Not only is it nigh impossible to discover how to scroll the content for someone unfamiliar with gestures, there is no indication (beyond cut off graphics and text) that you *need* to scroll down the page to see anything below the current viewport.

    As it stands, the Lion UI is also a bit inconsistent now. Mail, Address Book, iCal, Safari, etc. all sport the new fading scroll indicators. However, iTunes still uses a scrollbar. Of course, gestures work the iOS way, and the scrollbar works the Mac way. Confusing. I have to think that other controls on desktop apps that could be replaced with gestures, like the zoom slider in iPhoto, might also disappear eventually.

    Frankly, Apple’s human interface guidelines and enforcement of those guidelines in the App Store become even more important once you widely adopt gestures. They just need to be consistent. If you can’t see a control on-screen, you are going to try standard gestures. Developers must adhere to those expected behaviors if users are to have any chance of figuring out how to scroll. Can you imagine an app with no scrollbar on-screen that requires you to use four-finger swipes to scroll? How would you figure that out? Would you bother before deleting the app in frustration? Could you imagine a future with mandatory 3-minute introductory videos to explain all the non-standard gestures?

    It’s Not All Bad

    The scrollbar in OS X Lion does have an advantage in that it doesn’t take up as much space and visual weight in the interface. Gestures provide enough flexibility in control schemes that we don’t have to rely on a mouse click on the scrollbar control to move the viewport and a mouse click on the content to move the cursor. We have multiple ways to interact directly with the content. Content is highlighted before UI controls. What remains to be seen is if the change will prove as comfortable in practice as the theory might suggest.

    Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd):


    The cloud-optimized networks of tomorrow run on Brocade Ethernet fabrics today. Assess Your Cloud Readiness. Download Forrester Study »


    Переслать  


  • Apple Releases iOS 4.3.3 and iOS 4.2.8 With Location Bug Fixes

    Apple released iOS 4.3.3 (and iOS 4.2.8 for Verizon iPhones) Wednesday, which brings changes in the way location information is stored and backed up, as well as a number of other fixes and improvements. Apple promised this update after the location storage cache was widely publicized two weeks ago.

    As promised, the update changes the iOS location database file in the following ways, according to the update documentation:

    • Reduces the size of the cache
    • No longer backs the cache up to iTunes
    • Deletes the cache entirely when Location Services is turned off

    In addition to location fixes, BGR reported that an early build of iOS 4.3.3 also included battery life improvements and fixes for the iPod music player. Apple seems to have moved very quickly to get this update out in order to allay customer concerns regarding location tracking. Has the company done enough to satisfy any worries you may have had?

    Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd):


    The cloud-optimized networks of tomorrow run on Brocade Ethernet fabrics today. Assess Your Cloud Readiness. Download Forrester Study »


    Переслать  


  • Apple Said to Have Hired the Audio Genius Behind THX

    Apple has reportedly hired Tomlinson Holman as its new audio chief, according to a tweet by Leo Laporte Wednesday morning. Laporte said he had it “on good authority” that Holman “is joining Apple to run audio.” Holman is the brain behind Lucasfilm’s THX sound, and the world’s first 10.2 surround sound system. Apple had yet to respond to a request for confirmation as of this writing.

    Holman is currently a film sound professor at the University of Southern California, and he has received an Academy Award for Technical Achievement. He spent 15 years as the corporate technical director for Lucasfilm, and all of the company’s THX patents stem from his work and research. Holman also has experience designing loudspeakers and amplifiers in addition to his work in the film industry. His experience covers all aspects of audio, according to Holman himself in a 1996 interview. He says that his ability to avoid narrow specialization is what got him his earliest jobs.

    If Apple has indeed brought Holman on board, it could signify big things in store for Mac, iOS and even iTunes audio. Apple already builds optical audio out into all new Macs, via the headphone port (it works with optical TOSLINK cables using an adapter), which can provide true surround sound from your computer to your home theatre system, but it could stand to improve the quality of its built-in Mac and iOS device speakers and headphones. There have also been rumors that Apple may be looking to improve the sound quality of iTunes audio files, which is definitely something Holman could assist with.

    Isn’t it time we got good (not just okay or passable) sound from our computers and iOS devices? Admittedly, we’ve come a long way since the days of the first speakerphone, but considering the advancements in display and video quality (a game Apple’s already winning with its Retina Display), I think it’s about time we saw similar investments made in sound quality, too.

    Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd):


    The cloud-optimized networks of tomorrow run on Brocade Ethernet fabrics today. Assess Your Cloud Readiness. Download Forrester Study »


    Переслать  


  • Apple's iOS Is the Big Revenue Bread-Winner

    Apple’s iOS (software and devices) is responsible for about 75 percent of Apple’s profits as of last quarter, while OS X is responsible for only about 20 percent, according to a new report from market intelligence firm Asymco. Combined, both platforms account for about 96 percent of Apple’s overall profit picture, where four years ago, Mac OS X (the only OS offered by Apple at the time) accounted for 50 percent of the company’s total profit.

    Surprisingly, Apple’s Mac sales have quadrupled in the last five years, and without the bottoming out of prices that the PC business has experienced. So even though Apple’s Mac business is much stronger than it was before the introduction of the iPhone and iOS, it’s still gradually making up less and less of Apple’s overall business. That’s more of a testament to the success of iOS than any sign of weakness for OS X.

    All told, Apple takes in $9.8 billion in profit from the sale of integrated hardware/software devices. How does that stack up to the Windows way of doing things, in which the software is licensed to independent hardware makers for use on their devices? According to Asymco, Microsoft took in around $2.7 billion from Windows and Windows Live last quarter. That’s about twice what Apple made on the Mac, but it’s only less than a third of what Apple made on iOS and OS X combined. Google employs a completely different model, licensing its Android OS for use on hardware for free, and counting on revenue from search and the Android market.

    The report from Asymco shows what other companies are already trying to emulate Apple: controlling both hardware and software sides of the equation is a key ingredient to higher profitability. HP, another company with the sales volume necessary to use such a model, announced that its recently acquired webOS operating system would be appearing not only on its mobile hardware, but also on HP computers in 2012. It’s a risk, but if Apple’s example is any indication of potential success, it’s a risk worth taking.

    Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd):


    The cloud-optimized networks of tomorrow run on Brocade Ethernet fabrics today. Assess Your Cloud Readiness. Download Forrester Study »


    Переслать  


  • Intel's Big Mobile Power Play Could Be With Apple… and ARM?

    Is Intel about to announce a foundry deal to make Apple chips today? As my colleague Kevin Tofel has pointed out on more than one occasion, Intel is losing the mobile chip war to ARM. Intel’s Atom mobile chip is seen by most as too power-hungry for use in cell phones and tablets, and as a result the chip-maker is finding itself left behind in the growing mobile market. But according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gus Richard, the company is looking to change all that not by swimming against the current, but by partnering up with Apple in order to make ARM-based chips itself.

    According to the EE Times, Richard says that his sources indicate Intel (which recently made forays into the foundry business) is competing for some of Apple’s chip-making capacity. Apple is reportedly looking around for additional suppliers of the A4 and A5 chips it uses to power its iPod touch, iPhone and iPad devices, in an effort to reduce its reliance on Samsung, its existing manufacturing partner for Apple’s ARM-based application processors. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) has been cited as a new foundry partner for Apple in the past, but Richard says Intel is another likely candidate.

    It does make sense for the two to partner, as Intel would become one of the largest ARM suppliers (and therefore a major player in the mobile device market), and Apple would be able to distance itself from Samsung, which it recently took to court for patent infringement (Samsung countersued in response). Samsung’s Galaxy line of smartphones, tablets and now portable media players are Apple’s closest competition in terms of post-PC device dominance. The cosy supplier relationship between the two companies won’t be as easy to maintain as Samsung’s star continues to rise.

    Intel would also benefit, as it owns its own manufacturing plants, which are expensive to build and more economical to run full-out — producing chips even when there is no demand. Additionally, as semiconductor designers make chips that pack in more transistors, the chips themselves become smaller, and more fit on a single wafer of silicon.

    Essentially, it means that Intel is producing more and more chips as its semiconductor designs get better. But since it has so far missed the mobile wave, it is faced with a coming future where it has multi-billion fabs producing more and more chips that fewer people want. Sure, the demand for Intel’s PC and server chips will continue, but Intel can’t afford to stay on the sidelines of the mobile revolution, so if it can’t get there with its own silicon, it may decide to get there making someone else’s. Then its capital investment in manufacturing — which has been all but abandoned by most chip design firms who now outsource their chipmaking — will still contribute to the bottom line.

    Richard notes that any significant shift in Apple’s foundry supplier relationships will take as much as a few years to materialize. That’s because of how Apple manages its supply chain, part of which involves signing high-volume contracts in order to lock-in prices and create component scarcity for competitor products.

    With additional reporting from Stacey Higginbotham.

    Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd):


    The cloud-optimized networks of tomorrow run on Brocade Ethernet fabrics today. Assess Your Cloud Readiness. Download Forrester Study »


    Переслать  


  • Ideas For Repurposing Your Old iMac

    At the corner of Liberal Arts and Technology you may just find an iMac featured on the wall in place of a Van Gogh or Rembrandt. So if you’re looking for a way to use your existing iMac, in an effort to justify purchasing a new one, look no further than the bare spot on your wall.  It all starts with Apple’s VESA Mount Adapter Kit or the third-party iMac Wall Mount.

    Mounting Your iMac to the Wall

    Using either the Apple kit, or the third-party variant, you can transition your free-standing iMac into a VESA compliant monitor that will mount to any VESA compliant wall mount.  You will need to purchase a seperate VESA mount to attach the iMac to the wall.  This kit only enables the iMac to be used with a VESA mount, it is not the mount itself.  Be sure to check to see if your iMac is compatible with the kit before purchasing.  The older 20-inch and 21.5-inch “Aluminum” iMac models for instance will not work with Apple’s official solution, but the third-party option will.  You may also what to hire an electrician of you are looking to hide the wires behind the wall, or to install a power outlet behind your iMac. You can use the built-in AirPort wireless networking capability to connect to your home network.  Once you have your iMac mounted, there are a few content and use options available to you.

    Home Sharing, Print Server and More

    Your wall-mounted Mac can provide a number of functions, especially if it’s always on. It can act as your Home Sharing or DLNA media server, AirPrint server (via Printopia), and even an implementation of a WebDAV file share for all of your iOS devices. You can even configure Back to My Mac as a quick and easy way to implement a means to check out the homestead when you are away, by logging on and turning on the built-in iSight camera in PhotoBooth.

    Fish Bowls, Weather Reports and Slideshows

    A wall-mounted Mac is also a prime canvas for displaying great video and animated content.  One of my all time favorites for this type of thing is SereneScreen’s Marine Aquarium.  With this screen saver you can create a realistic enough fish bowl without all of the mess.  Additionally you could look towards a more functional screen saver like The Weather Channel’s screen saver. Some of the built-in screen savers that come with the Mac will allow you to display a slideshow of your favorite family photos, or other local content.

    Buck Rogers Video Phone

    Like a scene right out of an old science fiction movie, this wall mounted iMac can also become its very own video phone.  You could create a dedicated iTunes ID, or use a family e-mail account as the means to activate FaceTime.  Just be mindful of the amount of bandwidth this solution may require.  If you are going to actually use the iMac mounted on the wall, you may want to consider getting one of Twelve South’s Magic Wands to connect a Wireless Keyboard with a Magic Pad in one easy to use package.

    Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd):


    The cloud-optimized networks of tomorrow run on Brocade Ethernet fabrics today. Assess Your Cloud Readiness. Download Forrester Study »


    Переслать  


  • Feedly Update Makes Cross-Platform Feed Reading Awesome

    Feedly — an RSS reader for the web, and iOS and Android devices — is attracting lots of positive attention thanks to a new update. Originally introduced as an iPhone app in January, Feedly got a major overhaul on Tuesday with the introduction of Feedly Mobile 2.0.

    As a longtime Reeder user, I admit that Feedly for iOS flew under my radar prior to this update, but I’m glad it finally caught my attention. Feedly Mobile 2.0 uses an HTML5 framework called Streets (created by the app’s developer) that allows the app to use the same code across platforms, and devices of different form factors. That means the same code underpins the iPad, iPhone and Android versions of the app. The original app launched more than two years ago as a web app, so it’s sort of going back to its roots by turning to web standards for this new version.

    Despite its flexibility, Feedly doesn’t make any trade-offs in terms of appealing visuals or usability. The app looks terrific and loads sources incredibly quickly on both generation iPads and the iPhone in my testing. It looks fantastic, though it provides a more barebones reading experience than something like Flipboard, with support only for portrait orientation and with a bare minimum of interface flourishes. I definitely prefer the minimalist approach, and Feedly’s high degree of functionality is right up my alley.

    The app can work, like Reeder, as a basic Google Reader client with two-way syncing, but it can also analyze your feeds using an editorial algorithm to provide a curated front page of the stories that will interest you most. Even after just a little bit of usage, Feedly has proven fairly good at surfacing content I find interesting. If you’re a fan of either Reeder, Flipboard or Zite, and you haven’t yet checked out Feedly, the new 2.0 release provides plenty of reason to do so. It’s a free app, too, so no commitment necessary.

    Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd):


    The cloud-optimized networks of tomorrow run on Brocade Ethernet fabrics today. Assess Your Cloud Readiness. Download Forrester Study »


    Переслать  


  • 5 Reasons Why Thunderbolt Is a Big Deal (and Why You Should Care)

    Apple proved today that it is firmly behind Thunderbolt as a standard for the future of Mac computing. It put not one, but two of the new high-speed I/O ports on the new 27-inch iMac, as if to firmly reinforce the point. Some are hailing it as the FireWire replacement, but here are five reasons why Thunderbolt is actually a much bigger deal than that.

    1. It Will Change How We Think About External Storage. Do you have any external drives attached to your Mac? No matter how much space you have internally on your machine, you’ll probably always find yourself reaching a point where you need more. And no matter whether you have USB or FireWire drives, transferring and accessing these files will lead to delays, no matter how slight, which make using them for regularly-accessed content a bit of a pain. Thunderbolt will make external storage as fast as internal storage, so that you can expand your machine’s potential storage capacity almost infinitely without making any performance sacrifices. It may take some time for external Thunderbolt devices to become affordable to the average consumer, but it will happen, and it will help make storage space constraints a vague memory.

    2. It Will Allow for Everything HD All the Time. Apple’s mobile devices will only get better at high-quality HD video capture, and its strong ties to professional A/V hardware and software companies like Canon, Nikon and Adobe aren’t likely to go anywhere anytime soon. The data demands of photo and video devices will only increase as consumers expect more from them, and moving files between devices (and manipulating that data once it’s there) will require better tools with more muscle. Thunderbolt will make high-quality video transfer and editing quick and painless, and will even help editing after the fact of media by working as a scratch disk or a connection tech for distributed rendering.

    3. It Will Extend Beyond Macs. Apple is a self-described mobile device company. Any new technology initiatives it undertakes will definitely also have mobile considerations, and Thunderbolt is no exception. Apple has a patent on the books that will allow its proprietary 30-pin dock connector (the one used for iOS device) to work with both Thunderbolt and USB 3.0. Thunderbolt on mobile devices has amazing potential for improved connectivity, including drastically faster sync, backup and update times; improved handling of video out duties; high-speed camera-to-device transfer; and even multi-display connection possibilities for future, more powerful iPhones and iPads.

    4. It Will End Your Connectivity Limitations. The new 27-inch iMacs have two Thunderbolt ports that provide connections for up to two additional monitors, which is double the amount previous iMacs have supported. But it doesn’t end there. Thunderbolt can operate as a true, powerful expansion bus, which should allow it to support network connectivity, USB 2 and 3 and FireWire, and even external video cards thanks to adapters. Basically, anything that can be used with a PCIe expansion slot could work as a Thunderbolt device. No matter what you want to be able to plug into your Mac, you’ll be able to do it, so long as there is enough interest from third-party adapter and device manufacturers. And once Thunderbolt is on all new shipping Macs, it’ll be too attractive a potential audience to pass up.

    5. It Will Only Get Better With Time. Intel is said to be already hard at work on the next generation of Thunderbolt technology, slated for a 2015 release. That tech will allow for five times faster transfer speeds, of up to 50 Gbps. But even before that, Thunderbolt could get much faster, since its 10 Gbps speeds is still considerably below its maximum theoretical speed due to the use of copper wires in Thunderbolt cable construction. Fibre optic cables could push the limits much further, though optical Thunderbolt cables won’t supply power initially, but Intel is working on getting around that limitation.

    Thunderbolt’s impact isn’t what most end users and buyers will think about when shopping for new Macs, but it is the improvement those interested in the future of Apple and computing in general should be most keen to watch, for the reasons mentioned above. The far future might be totally wireless, but in the meantime, Thunderbolt will have its day.

    Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd):


    The cloud-optimized networks of tomorrow run on Brocade Ethernet fabrics today. Assess Your Cloud Readiness. Download Forrester Study »


    Переслать  


  • Should You Upgrade to the New iMac?

    Considering purchasing a new iMac? Here’s a look at what the new models can do, compared to the previous generation, as per Apple in a call Tuesday morning with GigaOM. The key takeaway here is that these new iMacs are very, very fast:

    • The new $1199 iMac is 70 percent faster than the previous generation entry-level model at the same price point. That’s probably due mostly to the fact that it’s packing a 2.5 GHz quad-core processor, vs. the 3.06 GHz dual-core Intel chip powering the older version.
    • The new $1199 iMac is 30 percent faster than the top of the line 27-inch previous generation iMac, if you’d rather compare quad-core Apples to quad-core Apples. That means buyers of even the most basic new iMacs should be seeing considerable performance improvements over the older models.
    • The AMD graphics processor in even the entry-level new iMacs is three times faster than the one it replaces. Apple claims it can do 100 frames per second in the high-end iMac, with up to 1.3 teraflops of performance. That’s pushing weight previously only available from Mac Pros.
    • FaceTime HD support means that the iMacs can do 720p video calling with other FaceTime HD equipped Macs (MacBook Pro and iMacs for now), and can still do SD calling with all other Apple FaceTime-enabled devices.
    • Thunderbolt ports mean you can get up to 10GB per second transfer speeds with connected storage and A/V transfer devices. It also means you can daisy-chain and output to an external display on the 21.5-inch iMac, or to two displays using the 27-inch model.
    • Apple now offers SSD/HDD combos as an upgrade option that allow for faster boot times while still providing affordable, spacious storage options.

    These are a strong update for the iMac line, and anyone considering an upgrade would be well-served by these improvements. The only thing Apple didn’t change were the looks of the all-in-one, which is a good thing considering how attractive the aluminum and glass combo is. The only downsides to consider are the fact that Apple seems to have gotten rid of the 27-inch iMac’s target display mode, and that it may be preparing to ship OS X Lion this summer. But target display mode probably has limited usefulness for most, and Lion will be an inexpensive upgrade when it does arrive (plus there are no guarantees its coming in early summer, anyway). If you’ve been waiting for the right time to upgrade your Apple desktop, this is definitely a good time to do so.

    With additional reporting by Om Malik.

    Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd):


    The cloud-optimized networks of tomorrow run on Brocade Ethernet fabrics today. Assess Your Cloud Readiness. Download Forrester Study »


    Переслать  


  • New 27-inch iMac Supports Dual External Display Output

    One of the most exciting things about today’s new iMacs (and the thing that will probably result in me buying one) are the dual Thunderbolt ports on the 27-inch iMac. They’re great in that they provide a lot of potential I/O transfer power, but more importantly because it allows the new iMac to output to two external monitors simultaneously, Apple confirmed to me this morning.

    Users who want to use more than one external monitor with their Mac have so far been fairly limited in their options. You can use a USB-to-DVI or VGA solution, as I’ve mentioned before, or you can use a wireless solution such as Air Display, but both solutions offer downsides (USB video adapters don’t support things like 3D acceleration and wireless solutions inevitably have some degree of lag) that native wired DisplayPort output does not.

    Now, using two Mini DisplayPort adapters plugged in to the 27-inch iMacs Thunderbolt ports, users can simultaneously output to two monitors in addition to the main built-in screen of the iMac. It won’t necessarily clog up your Thunderbolt ports, either, since the tech supports daisy-chaining. That means you should be able to connect to Thunderbolt-compatible storage and then on to a display after that, too, without any loss of quality.

    Having the ability to output to two additional monitors built-in makes the 27-inch iMac a very attractive machine for audio/visual professionals, and also for pretty much anyone who values more screen real estate in their work. Before today, you could spend hundreds of dollars trying to add-on the ability to your Mac using third-party software and hardware. This could very well be the tipping point for many who were considering an upgrade, but were unsure about whether or not they really needed to do so.

    Mini DisplayPort input (which allowed the previous generation 27-inch iMac to act as an external monitor itself) appears to be missing from the list of features on the new iMac, but as far as I’m concerned it’s a very small price to pay for the huge added benefit of being able to output to more than one additional monitor. This has the power to significantly change people’s workflows and adds considerable creative benefit to a machine that’s already favored by creative professionals. Plus, once the Thunderbolt accessory market matures, having two of the ports will really help the new iMac anchor a considerably more capable work (and play) station.

    Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd):


    The cloud-optimized networks of tomorrow run on Brocade Ethernet fabrics today. Assess Your Cloud Readiness. Download Forrester Study »


    Переслать  


  • Apple Introduces New Quad-Core iMacs With Thunderbolt

    The online Apple Store went down Tuesday morning, and when it came back, new iMacs came with it. As rumored, the latest revision to Apple’s all-in-one desktop computer brings second generation quad-core Sandy Bridge processors, and the new Thunderbolt I/O port, along with a number of other enhancements.

    The new iMac now offers the Intel Sandy Bridge series of Core i processors, which first made their way to Apple products in the MacBook Pro upgrades introduced in February. They offer better power efficiency, along with improved CPU performance and much better integrated graphics performance than the previous generation.

    All iMacs are now quad-core, with 4 GB of RAM standard on each base configuration and built-in FaceTime HD cameras. Here are the detailed specs for each base configuration:

    • 21.5-inch, 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 4 GB RAM, 500 GB 7200 RPM HD, AMD Radeon HD 6750M
    • 21.5-inch, 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5, 4 GB RAM, 1 TB 7200 RPM HD, AMD Radeon HD 6770M
    • 27-inch, 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5, 4 GB RAM, 1 TB 7200 RPM HD, AMD Radeon HD 6770M
    • 27-inch, 3.1 GHz Intel Core i5, 4 GB RAM, 1 TB 7200 RPM HD, AMD Radeon HD 6970M
    The new iMacs also all boast Thunderbolt ports (which I mentioned Monday I think might be the biggest draw for these machines), including two on all 27-inch models, and an SDXC card slot, in addition to one FireWire 800 port, four USB ports, a slot-loading dual-layer SuperDrive, audio in/out ports and an Ethernet connector. Various upgrade options to the specs mentioned above are also available, including a bump up to a Core i7 processor for the top of the line 27-inch iMac.
    All the new iMacs are currently available in Apple’s online store, with shipping times within 24 hours. Who’s planning on taking the plunge?

    Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd):


    The cloud-optimized networks of tomorrow run on Brocade Ethernet fabrics today. Assess Your Cloud Readiness. Download Forrester Study »


    Переслать  




Блог о медовом бизнесе - время пчелы.

Узнайте, почему самый успешный в мире бизнес продолжает помогать таким людям как Вы, получать удовольствие от свершений и невероятных личностных достижений!
Присоединиться →






 rss2email.ru
Получайте новости с любимых сайтов:   

rss2email.ru       отписаться: http://www.rss2email.ru/unsubscribe.asp?c=6893&u=24004&r=311667163
управление подпиской: http://www.rss2email.ru/manage.asp
партнерская программа: http://partner.rss2email.ru/?pid=1