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Can Apple Make Retina Display MacBooks A Reality?

Charles Moore — Fri, 18 May 2012 16:19:25 +0000

ZNet’s Adrian Kingsley-Hughes contends that bringing a Retina display MacBook to market would involve balancing three factors: cost, NPD DisplaySearch senior analyst Richard Shim estimating that high pixel density Retina display panels would add around $100 to the bill of materials for a MacBook; yield – since higher pixel density screens have a lower manufacturing yield due to a number of reasons, including increased manufacturing time and defects; and power, Kingsley-Hughes noting that higher pixel density screens will put more pressure on the battery, with concurrent penalties in size, weight, runtime, charge time, heat generation, and computing performance as is being experienced by third-generation Retina display equipped iPad users.

For the full commentary visit here:
http://zd.net/Lef4z9

Tablet Revolution Coming: Working Anywhere Without Compromise

Charles Moore — Fri, 18 May 2012 16:18:32 +0000

ZNet’s James Kendrick says the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device ) movement is just getting started, fueled by the capable tablet, and maintains that with tablets it is now possible to get a full day’s work from almost anywhere, without compromise, in large part because mobile OSes have evolved to provide powerful mobile experiences.

Kendrick maintains that whether it’s an Android tablet, iPad, or even the BlackBerry Playbook, any of those tools are up to the challenges he regularly throws at them, conceding that there is always room for improvement but the fact is what we have is already pretty darn good, which, he suggests, is why Microsoft is so anxious to get in the mobile space with tablets – they see it as the future.

For the full commentary visit here:
http://zd.net/khyuwi

Why Ultrabook Laptops Aren’t Just MacBook Air Clones

Charles Moore — Fri, 18 May 2012 16:17:24 +0000

PC World’s Melanie Pinola notes that PC Ultrabooks are sleek, super-thin laptops that often feature a silver, wedge or tapering design – just like the Apple MacBook Air. However, she contends that despite Ultrabooks’ design similarities with Apple’s ultraportable, Ultrabooks really are a unique new breed of Windows laptops, offering a distinct combination of performance, good looks, and features – some of which not available on the MacBook Air.

Nor are they necessarily copycats. Pinola observes that in 2003 – five years before Apple introduced the MacBook Air – Sony released a premium, super-thin, 1.8-pound laptop, The Vaio X505, whose enclosure tapered down to 0.4 inches at the front (thinner than the Air) and had the sleek metallic body found on Ultrabooks today. She also notes that the Envy Spectre XT, for example, has a magnesium body with a brushed design and a rubber bottom coating, while the Air uses aluminum with no pattern or bottom coating, and while even though Ultrabooks do look exactly like the MacBook Air, often there are significant differences inside. Besides running Windows, using Intel processors, and meeting the thinness requirement, laptop makers are free to adapt Intel’s specifications for Ultrabooks as they see fit.

Some Ultrabooks push the dimensions of Ultrabooks with larger displays, and Ultrabooks tend to offer more I/O ports and expansion headroom and flexibility than the MacBook Air does, with options for both SSD and hybrid HDD drives, the hybrid alternative increasing storage capacity in exchange for a bit of a performance hit, and some models offer discrete Nvidia graphics cards.

For the full commentary visit here:
http://bit.ly/LehbTB

Affordable UltraBooks Coming, But They Won’t Necessarily Be Called UltraBooks (Or MacBooks)

Charles Moore — Fri, 18 May 2012 16:16:16 +0000

Tech.pinions’ Ben Bajarin predicts looming laptop wars coming — not between Macs and Windows based notebooks, but intramural rivalry between Intel-spec.ed Ultrabooks and non-Ultrabook thin and light laptop designs from PC vendors.

Bajarin says one thing he’s learned in 12 years as an industry analyst it is that OEMs don’t generally like being told what they can and can’t do with their hardware designs, and while every OEM wants to take advantage of the thin and light designs driving UltraBooks, they may want to vary the CPU capabilities, but if they want to use, say, an non-Intel chip such as AMD’s 2nd-Generation A-Series APU, codenamed Trinity in a design that looks exactly like an UltraBook, they can’t call it an UltraBook, since the latter is an Intel trademark with strict guidelines attached. He notes that HP recently launched a new laptop line called SleekBooks, and he expects that similar Ultrathins will enter the market well below the price of UltraBooks, suggesting that with all of these options consumers may very well go with price and walk with with something other than an UltraBook – perhaps even not knowing they didn’t purchase a real UltraBook.

Bajarin also suggests that while Apple’s iPad has for some users served as a supplement to their existing notebook making it easier to delay the purchase of a new system, he thinks that pent-up demand for laptop upgrades is substantial, and whether it’s UltraBooks or generic thin and lights that will look and smell like UltraBooks but be priced quite a bit lower, he anticipates at least a short term positive spike in notebook sales over the next few years.

For the full commentary visit here:
http://bit.ly/JRVds4

Apple refurbished iMacs available starting at $999

MacPrices — Fri, 18 May 2012 13:27:33 +0000

The Apple Store has Apple Certified Refurbished iMacs available for up to $340 off the price of new models. An Apple one-year warranty is included with each model, and shipping is free:

- 27″ 3.1GHz iMac: $1659 $340 off MSRP
- 27″ 2.7GHz iMac: $1419 $280 off MSRP
- 21″ 2.7GHz iMac: $1249 $250 off MSRP
- 21″ 2.5GHz iMac: $999 $200 off MSRP

Apple offers refurbished 15″ MacBook Pros for up to $370 off MSRP

MacPrices — Fri, 18 May 2012 13:25:54 +0000

The Apple Online Store is offering Apple Certified Refurbished October 2011 15″ MacBook Pros for up to $370 off the cost of new models, including free shipping. Apple’s one-year warranty is standard:

- 15″ 2.5GHz MacBook Pro Core i7: $2079 $380 off MSRP
- 15″ 2.4GHz MacBook Pro Core i7: $1869 $330 off MSRP
- 15″ 2.2GHz MacBook Pro Core i7: $1529 $270 off MSRPApple offers refurbished 15″ MacBook Pros for up to $370 off MSRP

Apple refurbished Oct ’11 13″ MacBook Pros available for up to $230 off MSRP

MacPrices — Fri, 18 May 2012 13:23:38 +0000

The Apple Store has Apple Certified Refurbished October 2011 13″ MacBook Pros available for up to $230 off the cost of new models, including free shipping. Apple’s one-year warranty is standard:

- 13″ 2.8GHz MacBook Pro Core i7: $1269 $230 off MSRP
- 13″ 2.4GHz MacBook Pro Core i5: $1019 $180 off MSRP

Open-box special: 27″ iMac for $300 off MSRP

MacPrices — Fri, 18 May 2012 11:44:00 +0000

MacMall has open-box return 2011 27″ 2.7GHz Thunderbolt iMacs available for $301 off the cost of unopened boxes. Shipping is free, and Apple’s one-year warranty and all materials remain intact:

- 27″ 2.7GHz iMac: $1398.47 $301 off MSRP

iPad mini Coming In Third Or Fourth Quarter 2012 – Report

Charles Moore — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:11:05 +0000

Chen Meiying of the Chinese language Liberty Times reports that according to market rumors, a 7.85-inch iPad mini is expected to launch the end of the third quarter or in fourth quarter, 2012.

Meiyang says sources are reporting that supply chain certification has been completed for screen panels from AU Optronics and LGD supply, backlight modules from Radiant, thin-film sensor touch panels from Japan Nissha Printing, F-of TPK cover glass with a target of 6 million units before year end and CMO as a second supplier expected to be assigned to two million orders.

Meiyang also cites an IHS report that while iPad shipments last year hit a new high of 40.5 million units and an annual growth rate of 168%, but after Amazon and Barnes & Noble launched the ow-cost Kindle Fire and Nook tablet PCs, in last year’s fourth quarter Apple iPad shipped 15.4 million units – a growth of 39 percent from the third quarter, but its market share proportion slipped to 57 percent, the lowest level since the launch of the iPad. Consequently he suggests that Apple needs a low-cost iPad mini to recover share in the tablet market.

For the full report visit here:
http://www.libertytimes.com.tw/2012/new/may/16/today-e5.htm

Retina MacBook Screens Already Available In OEM Channels, But Costly

Charles Moore — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:10:00 +0000

CNET’s Josh Lowensohn and Brooke Crothers report that super high-resolution 13.3-inch and 15.4-inch so-called “Retina Display” panels are already available in the OEM supply channel, but cost substantially more than the standard resolution screens used in current Apple notebooks.

It’s being widely rumored of late that Retina display resolution will be a marquee feature of the MacBook Pro redesign anticipated for launch sometime in the next six weeks. However Lowensohn and Crothers observe that the high-res screens are projected by NPD DisplaySearch Senior Analyst Richard Shim to cost nearly $100 more than the panels Apple currently uses in MacBooks – 15.4-inch OEM units about $160 as opposed to $68 for current model panels and $134 for 13.3-inch model, compared to $69 for the current 13.3 inch displays Apple uses in its MacBook Pros.

Shim projects that Retina-quality 15.4-inch panels will have 2,880 x 1,800 resolution or 220 pixels per inch (PPI) compared with 1,440 x 900 res. and a PPI of 110 for today’s 15-inch MacBook Pros, while the 13.3-incher would have 2,560 by 1,600 resolution and a PPI of 227, up from the current 13.3-inch MacBook Air’s 1,440 x 900 pixels, and PPI of 127.

A conundrum, Lowensohn and Crothers say, is how much of the added OEM level cost for high-res displays will be passed on to consumers. Apple held the iPad 2 price points for its Retina third-generation iPads, although the authors, citing IHS iSuppli estimates, note that the third-generation iPad’s display costs Apple $87 – only $30 more than the $57 OEM cost for the iPad 2 panel. They also point out that a resolution upgrade to 1,680 x 1,050 offered for the current 15-inch MacBook Pro costs $100 more.

Other important considerations would be the higher-res displays’ more intensive demand on computing power and battery reserves, and consequent greater heat generated – all in the interest of a feature that mostly amounts to eye-candy, although there is some functional advantage in being able to display more stuff on-screen. However, even that seems at cross-purposes with Apple’s recent orientation toward full-screen apps.

For the full report visit here:
http://cnet.co/JjIz1M

Samsung Wrests No. 1 Smartphone Position From Apple; Worldwide Cellphone Sales Decline 2 Percent in Q1 2012 – First Year-over-Year Decline Since Q2 2009

Charles Moore — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:08:29 +0000

Worldwide sales of mobile phones to end users reached 419.1 million units in the first quarter of 2012, a 2 percent decline from the first quarter of 2011, according to Gartner, Inc. That marks the first time since the second quarter of 2009 that the market exhibited a decline.

“Global sales of mobile devices declined more than expected due to a slowdown in demand from the Asia/Pacific region,” comments Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. “The first quarter, traditionally the strongest quarter for Asia which is driven by Chinese New Year, saw a lack of new product launches from leading manufacturers, and users delayed upgrades in the hope of better smartphone deals arriving later in the year.”

All vendors were impacted at different levels; however, white-box vendors seem to have suffered the most. While tier one players such as Nokia were negatively impacted on sell-in numbers (sold into retail), white-box vendors were unable to adjust production and were left with a build-up in inventory by the end of the quarter. Gartner expects some of this volume to be sold during the next couple of quarters, because the channel is likely to lower the prices to dispose of the stock.

“The lower results in the first quarter of 2012 have led us to be cautious about sales for the remainder of the year,” says Annette Zimmermann, principal research analyst at Gartner. “The continued roll-out of third generation (3G)-based smartphones by local and regional manufacturers such as Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo, Yulong and TCL Communication should help spur demand in China. In addition, the arrival of new products in mature markets based on new versions of the Android and Windows Phone operating systems (OSs), and the launch of the Apple iPhone 5 will help drive a stronger second half in Western Europe and North America. However, as we are starting to update our market forecast we feel a downward adjustment to our 2012 figures, in the range of 20 million units, is unavoidable.”

Samsung became the world’s top mobile handset vendor during the quarter, displacing Nokia which had held the No. 1 spot since 1998. Samsung’s mobile phone sales reached 86.6 million units (see Table 1), a 25.9 percent increase from last year. Samsung took back the world’s No. 1 smartphone position from Apple, selling 38 million smartphones worldwide. In addition, Samsung’s Android-based smartphone sales in the first quarter of 2012 represented more than 40 percent of Android-based smartphone sales worldwide; no other vendors achieved more than a 10 percent share of the market.

Sales of smartphones continued to drive mobile device market growth, reaching 144.4 million units in the first quarter of 2012, up 44.7 percent year-over-year. This quarter also saw the top two smartphone vendors, Apple and Samsung, raising their combined share to 49.3 percent, up from 29.3 percent in the first quarter of 2011, and widening their lead over Nokia which saw its smartphone market share drop to 9.2 percent.

Nokia’s mobile handset sales reached 83.2 million units, a 22.7 percent decrease from the first quarter of 2011. Smartphone sales are becoming of paramount importance at a worldwide level. For example, smartphone volumes contributed to approximately 43.9 per cent of overall sales for Samsung as opposed to 16 per cent for Nokia, Mr. Gupta said.

Driven by the continued success of the iPhone 4S, Apple’s sales grew 96.2 percent in the first quarter of 2012 as the new model expanded into new markets and carriers. Sales in China were particularly strong this quarter. With more than 5 million units, China became the second-largest market for Apple after the U.S. On top of the sales through official carriers channels, there was an increase in transshipments from Hong Kong where volume has been growing over the past few quarters to reach a sell-in of more than 3 million units.

“RIM sold 9.9 million mobile handsets in the first quarter of 2012, with its global share declining to 2.4 percent as competition increased in its international market strongholds. RIM desperately needs to deliver winning BB10 products to retain users and stay competitive. This will be very challenging, because BB10 lacks strong developer support, and a new BB10 device will only be available in the fourth quarter of 2012,” said Mr. Gupta.

In the smartphone OS market, Android accounted for more than half of all smartphone sales (56.1 percent) in the first quarter of 2012 (see Table 2). Gartner analysts said the smartphone market has become highly commoditized and differentiation is becoming a challenge for manufacturers.

This is particularly true for smartphones based on the Android OS, where a strong commoditization trend is at work and most players are finding it hard to break the mould, Mr. Gupta said. At the high end, hardware features coupled with applications and services are helping differentiation, but this is restricted to major players with intellectual property assets. However, in the mid to low-end segment, price is increasingly becoming the sole differentiator. This will only worsen with the entry of new players and the dominance of Chinese manufacturers, leading to increased competition, low profitability and scattered market share.

Additional information can be found in the Gartner report “Market Share: Mobile Devices, Worldwide, 1Q12.” The report is available on Gartner’s website at:
http://www.gartner.com/resId=2015915

For more information, visit:
http://www.gartner.com

No Contest: Apple iOS to Maintain Tablet Dominance in 2012 – IHS

Charles Moore — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:06:36 +0000

After suffering a temporary dip in market share in the fourth quarter of 2011, Apple Inc.’s iOS is expected to reassert its commanding leadership of the worldwide tablet space in 2012, according to an IHS iSuppli Worldwide Tablet Market Tracker report from information and analytics provider IHS (NYSE: IHS).

After dipping to 55.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to a final estimate, the Apple operating system’s share of worldwide tablet sales – a segment including both media tablets and PC-type tablets – is set to recover to 61 percent for the full year of 2012, about the same portion it had in 2011.

Apple’s dominating media tablet market share in the fourth quarter of 2011 had been diminished by a surge in sales of Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet, which is based on Google’s Android operating system. This had caused Android’s share of the tablet operating system market to climb to 41.1 percent, up from 31.1 percent during the third quarter of 2011. However, as Apple reasserts its leadership, Android’s share will decline to 38.4 percent for the full year of 2012.

“The key to Apple’s media-tablet success has been its offering of a complete hardware-plus-content ecosystem,” says Rhoda Alexander, director for monitors and tablets research at IHS. “The combination of a good-looking device, well-designed applications, video, books and music has provided consumers with an easy-to-use product and an appealing use case. Such an ecosystem took Apple years to put together, starting with the iPod plus iTunes Music Store more than nine years ago, and it’s proving to be a challenge for the company’s competitors to replicate it.”

Further bolstering Apple’s commanding position in the market, supply-side sources indicate that the company will deploy a smaller, 7.8-inch display version of the iPad later this year, although Apple has yet to confirm this. A smaller screen does not necessarily mean a substantially lower price; rather, IHS expects Apple will place continuing emphasis on the quality of the overall tablet experience and the benefits of selecting the company’s products.

Growth Tablets

Sales of tablets this year – including both media tablets and PC-type tablets – will soar to 126.6 million units, up a remarkable 85 percent from 68.4 million units in 2011. The impressive performance of tablets this year builds on an even mightier 253 percent explosion last year from sales of 19.4 million units in 2010. Tablets comprise one of the strongest categories in the consumer electronics market today, with heady growth in the next few years matching the wild exuberance of the cellphone or mobile handset industry in its initial years of market-busting expansion.

Tablet sales will rise another 63 percent next year, on their way to 360.4 million units by 2016, as shown in the figure below.

Enter the PC Tablet

While media tablets such as the iPad dominate now and throughout the forecast, new ultrabook offerings and the release of Windows 8 later this year will help drive stronger sales in 2013 and beyond of PC-type tablets, IHS predicts. PC tablets will appeal to users wanting the flexibility of a tablet with the versatility of a traditional computer. These devices are able to manage multiple windows and applications including traditional full desktop applications, but can also convert to a slate form with touch capability. The smaller, lighter form of some of the new ultrabook offerings, touch improvements in Windows 8, and more aggressive pricing will help drive growth in this category.

Media tablets are often designated as “consumption-type” products with which users can browse the web, send email, view video, play games or interact with applications.

Within the media tablet space, however, the market is fragmenting into two segments – value products largely serving as “consumption-type” portable media players; and higher-performance units incorporating more complex applications and stronger processors. Much of the growth in the future will come from the value segment, but the performance sector will provide the stronger challenge to traditional PCs in both business and consumer markets.

Overall, the growth last year of media tablets dwarfed that of tablet PCs, and media tablet sales will continue to outperform those of tablet PCs in 2012. By next year, tablet PC growth will accelerate to nearly 160 percent, compared to a still-robust 60 percent increase for media tablets.

The PC tablet growth is a form transition within the larger notebook market and does not reflect any cannibalization of the media tablet opportunity. This is because PC tablets will still lag well behind their media tablet counterparts next year, numbering a little over 8 million units compared to more than 197 million units for media tablets.

For more information, visit:
http://www.isuppli.com/

13″ 256GB MacBook Air on sale for $110 off MSRP

MacPrices — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:15:25 +0000

B&H Photo has the 13-inch 256GB MacBook Air on sale for $1489.95 including free shipping plus NY sales tax only. Their price is $110 off MSRP, and it’s the lowest price available for this model from any Apple Authorized Reseller.

Apple refurbished 2011 Mac minis available for up to $150 off MSRP

MacPrices — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:05:56 +0000

The Apple Store has restocked Apple Certified Refurbished 2011 Core i5 Mac minis for up to $150 off the cost of new models. Apple’s one-year warranty is included with each mini, and shipping is free:

- 2.3GHz Mac mini Core i5: $519 $80 off MSRP
- 2.5GHz Mac mini Core i5: $699 $100 off MSRP
- 2.0GHz Mac mini Server: $849 $150 off MSRP

Save up to $60 with Apple refurbished iPod touch

MacPrices — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:01:50 +0000

The Apple Store has Apple Certified Refurbished iPod touches available for up to $60 off the cost of new models. Each touch comes with a standard Apple one year warranty and free shipping:

- 8GB iPod touch: $169, $30 off MSRP
- 32GB iPod touch: $249, $50 off MSRP
- 64GB iPod touch: $339, $60 off MSRP

MacBook Pros bundled with discounted AppleCare, save up to $180

MacPrices — Thu, 17 May 2012 11:49:40 +0000

MacConnection has MacBook Pros bundled with discounted AppleCare Protection Plans yielding savings up to $180 off full MSRP:

- 13″ 2.4GHz MacBook Pro w/AppleCare: $1378.99 MSRP $1448
- 13″ 2.8GHz MacBook Pro w/AppleCare: $1678.99 MSRP $1748

- 15″ 2.2GHz MacBook Pro w/AppleCare: $2038.99 MSRP $2148
- 15″ 2.4GHz MacBook Pro w/AppleCare: $2388.99 MSRP $2548

- 17″ 2.4GHz MacBook Pro w/AppleCare: $2668.99 MSRP $2848

Which New MacBook Pro Rumors Stand The Best Chance Of Becoming Reality? – The ‘Book Mystique

Charles Moore — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:18:39 +0000

A veritable tsunami of MacBook Pro rumors engulfed the Mac Web this week, indicating that a new product launch can’t be too far off now. With Apple’s obsessive secrecy about such things, predicting specifications and feature sets of unreleased products is almost always mostly speculation and guesswork, and launch timing only slightly less so, although historical precedence can be some help there.

A broad strokes consensus regarding a redesigned MacBook Pro (or MacBook Pro replacement) is that it will be thinner and lighter than the current models, whose case design dates back to October, 2008; that the new models will be powered by Intel’s new Ivy Bridge family of Core 1 CPUs; and will lose their internal optical drives in order to facilitate a more svelte form factor and perhaps also free up internal room for greater battery capacity.

Beyond that, it gets trickier to predict, but rumors of a Retina display and USB 3 support in particular have been gaining traction over the past several weeks, both of which will be newly supported by Intel’s Ivy Bridge silicon. I think USB 3 is pretty safe bet. My inclination would be skepticism about ultra high resolution displays were it not for the intensity and volume of rumors affirming that Retina display Macs (not just MacBook Pros) are coming.

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If Retina-grade screen resolution it is, I have definitely mixed feelings. While better image quality is nice to have in the abstract, the qualifier is what the cost will be in terms of hardware overhead and bandwidth demand, especially with the increased emphasis on Cloud computing these days.

The example of the New iPad with its Retina display is not reassuring. Despite the fact that it has some 42 percent greater battery capacity than the iPad 2 and a quad-core graphics engine as opposed to the preceding model’s dual-core GPU, Apple’s newest iteration of the iPad is slower, has shorter battery life, offers essentially no improvement in task performance, takes about 42 percent longer to recharge, runs hotter, and is thicker and heavier than the still available iPad 2. And the larger size of Retina display optimized apps eat up both bandwidth and data storage capacity. All in support of what amounts to essentially eye-candy.

As Scripting.com’s Dave Winer observed in a recent blog he was an early adopter of Apple’s latest and greatest iPad, back in March, while the ultra high-res Retina display was nice at first, it very quickly became commonplace with “the gee-whiz effect” fading almost immediately and the downside being that he’s always running up against the battery issue with all those Retina pixels sucking down the power, and the bigger battery takes longer to recharge, and the New iPad is noticeably heavier and hotter-running.

Consequently, Winer says he’s started using his old iPad again, discovering that he likes it better than the new Retina unit; it’s lighter, the battery lasts longer and recharges much more quickly, and “Having gotten used to the new iPad, the old one feels like an upgrade!” he declares.

Dave Winer’s experience underscores what has been my take on the New iPad from the outset, and the reasons why I don’t feel hard done by in the slightest continuing to use my 11 month old iPad 2. I’ve been saying since first reviewing the specs for the New iPad that were I shopping for a tablet right now, I would almost certainly opt for the $399 iPad 2. Unfortunately it’s doubtful that Apple will continue to offer non-Retina resolution MacBooks if a Retina resolution revolution is indeed is upon us.

Philosophically, my inclination would be in the opposite direction, willingness to accept somewhat lower display resolution and imaging quality in the interest of speed, efficiency, and a smaller bandwidth footprint. Speaking of which, according to a report last week by The Globe and Mail’s Paul Taylor, mobile operators in the are already scrambling to keep pace with a mobile data tsunami that threatens to overwhelm their networks, with data overload and spectrum crunch key themes at the wireless industry’s recent CTIA conference in New Orleans due growing popularity of data-hungry online video streaming and downloads. Increased use of Cloud computing combined with greater bandwidth demands of higher-resolution optimized data can only exacerbate the problem and slow performance.

Nevertheless, a shift to Retina resolution in MacBooks is enthusiastically anticipated by some, with 9To5Mac’s Mark Gurman calling it the most important Mac innovation in years — the culmination of years of research and development in ultra-thin mobile computing and super-high-resolution displays — based on reports from Far East sources familiar with the quality of new MacBook Pro screens in test-production that enable users to adjust sharpness and image sizes. At least that would allow dialing down resolution somewhat to enhance performance. HardMac’s Lionel references evidence that we might soon see Retina display Macs found in the latest OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion beta indicating 1920×1200 standard resolution, but user switchable to as great as 3840×2400.

As for form factor, contrary to a dominant rumor mill consensus that the new 15-inch MacBook Pro will draw heavily on the industrial design of the late-2010 (current) MacBook Air, Gurman says his sources familiar with the prototype units say that will not in fact be the case, and that the new 15-incher will be more along the lines of an ultra-thin, yet more robust, version of the current MacBook Pro design without wedgie tapering like the MacBook Air has.

Gurman agrees that the optical drive will be out, leaving users dependent on the Mac App Store or other online download options (ie: more bandwidth) for software installation, and obliged to buy an external optical drive if they need backward compatibility for software and data archived on DVDs and CDs. In general however, he predicts that the new Pro’s general layout will continue with ports arrayed along the sides, including a MagSafe charging port, two USB ports, two audio in/out-sized ports, and the battery meter on the left side and two Thunderbolt ports, an SD card slot, and another USB port on the right, but no Ethernet port and especially if those USB ports are upgraded to USB 3 spec., as anticipated now that Intel is finally incorporating native USB 3 support in their new ivy Bridge CPU — FireWire probably a goner as well. USB 3 offers less than half the data transfer speed of Apple’s Thunderbolt I/O interface, but is supported by a much wider range of devices, in most instances at significantly lower prices than T-Bolt gear. Digitimes’ Josephine Lien and Steve Shen say that IC design house Genesys Logic has reportedly received USB 3.0 card reader controller chip orders destined for new MacBook Air notebooks in the second half of 2012, according to industry sources.

Gurman says graphics card support has not yet been finalized from among several different graphics chipsets, but he’s seen direct references to NVIDIA’s GeForce GT 650M graphics card which NVIDIA claims offers both lively graphics performance and battery-life efficiency while the CPU choices will likely be one of Intel’s several quad-core i7 Ivy Bridge mobile processors, including several with a low thermal profile.

AppleInsider Staff also say a Retina display MacBook Pro is coming, possibly to be unveiled at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference that runs June 12 to 15. The Appleinsider folks also say their sources maintain that what sounds like a dedicated system-software-only flash memory module will be used to speed up boot times and extend battery life. That would presumably be in tandem with a rotating platter hard disk drive in order to support professional grade on-board data storage capacity at affordable cost, although all-SSD alternatives will doubtless remain available for those so-inclined.

A report by The Register’s Chris Mellor cites storage industry research firm TrendFocus predicting that thin and light laptops will increasingly use hybrid disk drive setups that combine near-SSD speed with traditional HDD capacity at substantially lower cost than with pure SSD solutions, noting that storage drive industry heavyweight Seagate thinks hybrid drives will eventually enter every part of its product portfolio. Hybrid drive arrangements sound to me like the ideal way to go. We’ll have to see if Apple agrees.

One rumor that I think has virtually zero likelihood of becoming reality is that the new MacBook Pro could have a Liquidmetal case instead of the aluminum used in all Apple laptops since the demise of the last polycarbonate enclosure MacBook last year. inquisitr.com proposes that the Macbook Pro 2012 redesign may utilize Liquidmetal construction, referencing a recent blog by SlashGear’s Chris Burns reporting he’d received a tip from an anonymous source claiming to have seen Liquidmetal technology being used in an Apple device much larger than an iPhone, and saying that while a vague tip, anonymous to boot, wouldn’t normally be something he’d cover, “the possibility that this could be the next big MacBook Pro feature is just too perfect not to consider.”

Liquidmetal alloy technology was developed by a California Institute of Technology research team that later organized themselves into the Liquidmetal Technologies firm. Apple paid $20 million for exclusive licensing rights to Liquidmetal Technologies’ “amorphous metal alloys” in 2010.

Theoretically, replacing the expensive and demanding process of machining unibody housings from a single billet of aluminum with Liquidmetal casting should be significantly cheaper and faster than machining for volume production, and combined with Liquidmetal’s other desirable qualities such as high tensile strength, excellent corrosion resistance, very high coefficient of restitution and excellent anti-wearing characteristics, the upside for both Apple and for end-users could be substantial.

However, earlier this month AppleInsider reported that Dr. Atakan Peker, who discovered and developed the formulation that later became the Liquidmetal amorphous (moldable) metal alloy is guessing it would take hundreds of millions of dollars and over three years for Apple to ready the technology necessary to mass-produce large products, such as laptop enclosures, made from the material, saying in an interview with Business Insider that Apple is most likely years away from using the alloy in large-scale projects, noting that there is “no suitable manufacturing infrastructure yet to take full advantage of this alloy technology.”

Someday maybe. Even likely. But not with this coming MacBook Pro release, folks.

The Geekbench benchmarking site has posted a reference, possibly referring to the new 15-inch MacBook Pro, to a ‘MacBook9,1′ with a quad-core Intel Core i7-3820QM Ivy Bridge processor operating at 2.7.0 GHz and running Mac OS X 10.8 (Build 12A211) hitting a GeekBench score of 12,252 – compared to an approximate score of 10,500 for the Core i7-2860QM Sandy Bridge processor used in the current MacBook Pro.

You can check it out at:
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/664125

As always, we’ll have to wait and see. My provisional take is that thinner, lighter form factors, goodbye optical drive, and Ivy Bridge power are virtual certainties, and USB 3.0 highly likely. Beyond that, a Retina display revolution is seeming more plausible, and the MacBook Pro would be a logical product on which to launch it, although my personal misgivings outlined above remain.

As for release dates, I won’t be surprised if Apple rolls out a new MacBook Pro before the WWDC in mid-June, although a WWDC new notebook release would be consistent with precedent as well if we go back far enough (1999 specifically).

Rumors notwithstanding, Apple will still no doubt manage to surprise us as usual, which is part of the fun.

How To Boost Your MacBook Pro’s Performance

Charles Moore — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:13:14 +0000

ZNet’s Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has posted some tips on how to make your MacBook Pro even faster. He notes that because the MacBook Pro is a portable system, you can’t crack it open and replace the CPU or graphics, so upgrade headroom is limited, but there is still potential to give this already fast machine a significant performance bump, including maxing out the RAM (“the single best performance upgrade that you can carry out”), replacing the HDD with a much faster SSD, and a special upgrade for the late-2011 13-inch MacBook Pro (Apple’s most popular MacBook model) which Kingsley-Hughes says is unique in that both the hard drive and optical drive SATA ports both support high-speed SATA-III, meaning you can replace both the hard drive and the optical drive with two SSDs and configure them into an ultra-fast RAID-0 configuration.

For details, see:
http://zd.net/JgJnLD

Barclays Capital Analyst Predicts New Macbooks and iMacs in June, 7-inch iPad (Rumored To Use Thin Film Touch) For Fall

Charles Moore — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:11:33 +0000

SlashGear’s Michael Crider cites Barclays Capital analyst Ben Reitzes predicting (backed by the authority of several billion dollars worth of guided investments) that Apple will update its MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and iMac lines as soon as next month, with Intel Intel Ivy Bridge CPUs for all MacBook laptops and the iMac, and new versions of both OS X and iOS before fall.

Reitzes also thinks a smaller model iPad would make sense for the fall, especially in the education market, where the high price of entry for Apple’s current 9.7-inch tablets is too steep for many potential customers. Crider quotes Reitzes commenting: “We do not feel that a smaller, lower priced tablet will dilute the quality of the iPad brand and iOS ecosystem either, despite prior comments by the company.”

7.85-inch iPad Rumored To Use Thin-Film Touch

Digitimes’ Siu Han and Alex Wolfgram report that Apple plans to use “G/F2″ thin-film touch technology for its 7.85-inch iPad, predicted to launch by the fourth quarter of 2012, according to industry sources. The report says Nitto will supply the key thin-film materials, with Nissha Printing and TPK producing the touch screens, according to industry sources, noting that the G/F2 design will help reduce costs and will also make the iPad mini thinner than previous iPad models since it will have one less layer of film than the G/F/F (glass/film/film) structure, with the sources projecting that 7-10 million units of the smaller iPad may ship this year.

Hybrid Ultrabook Drives To Undercut Pure SSD Solutions In Price, Capacity

Charles Moore — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:10:19 +0000

The Register’s Chris Mellor cites storage industry research firm TrendFocus saying Ultrabooks will increasingly use hybrid disk drives for their near-SSD speed, HDD capacity and ability to undercut pure SSD Ultrabook prices, with storage drive industry heavyweight Seagate predicting that hybrid drives will eventually enter every part of its product portfolio.

According to Stifel Nicolaus analyst Aaron Rakers, says Mellor, TrendFocus researchers project Ultrabooks using thin – 7mm thick – 2.5-inch, hybrid drives, HDDs with a flash cache, to get near-SSD speed while still having much greater capacity than an SSD along with a lower price, with Seagate’s next HHDD possibly arriving later this quarter or in the third quarter, with competing products from WD/Hitachi GST and Toshiba coming by year-end.

For the full report visit here:
http://bit.ly/JD1QOr

Aggregate Customer Satisfaction Index – Apple’s Debut Changes the Game

Charles Moore — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:09:06 +0000

Much like employment numbers, the aggregate customer satisfaction continues on a path of steady but mediocre growth, according to a report released by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Aggregate satisfaction is up 0.1% to 75.9 on a 0 to 100 scale, following gains in four of the last five quarters of measurement.

“Stronger customer satisfaction, particularly with domestic goods and services, would help spur economic growth, but only if household discretionary income increases,” says Claes Fornell, ACSI founder and author of The Satisfied Customer: Winners and Losers in the Battle for Buyer Preference. “Even though private sector jobs are edging back, public sector job losses continue, wages are stagnating, and workers earningsadjusted for inflationare actually falling. In such a climate, higher customer satisfaction can only contribute so much to stronger demand.”

The first quarter 2012 uptick in aggregate customer satisfaction stems from gains in the energy utility and health care sectors (reported on in April) that more than offset a 0.6% decline for the information sector.

The ACSI’s May report covers eight industries: cell phones, computer software, fixed-line and wireless telephone service, motion pictures, newspapers, subscription TV service, and TV news. At 71.9, the information sector earns the second-to-worst ACSI score next to government services, and far more companies decline than improve.

Cell Phones & Wireless Service: Apple’s Debut Changes the Game

Starting this year, the ACSI has expanded its coverage of the cell phone industry, adding another four companies to the roster of cell phone firms. Customer satisfaction with the cell phone industry (part of the manufacturing/durable goods sector) slips 1.3% to 74, while wireless service drops 1.4% to 70.

For many users, the advent of smartphone technology has dramatically changed what they look for in a cell phone device. Two smartphones makers, Apple and Research in Motion (RIM), enter the ACSI with very different results. At 83, Apple (iPhone) leads the field by a long shot, while RIM (Blackberry) lags behind as the least satisfying at 69.

Companies with weak customer satisfaction often have weak stock performance, notes Fornell. RIM’s sales are slumping amid a bevy of problems, from hardware and software issues to server lapses that have caused email and messaging outages. Over the past year, share price for RIM has virtually collapsed.

At 83, Apple’s iPhone is a game changer when it comes to customer satisfaction, since no other cell phone company has ever broken into the 80s. Apples nearest competitors this year are three companies tied at 75: Nokia (+3%) and ACSI newcomers LG and HTC.

Motorola declines 5% to 73 and ties the aggregate of smaller manufacturers (-1%). This may be unwelcome news for Google as it hopes to make the most of its Motorola acquisition and widen the user base for its Android operating system. Samsung, another company that relies heavily on Android, backtracks 4% to a below-average score of 71.

On the service side, the aggregation of smaller carriers (such as TracFone and U.S. Cellular) maintains a strong lead at 76, despite a small downturn (-1%). All companies show modest ACSI declines except for AT&T Mobility. Last year, customer satisfaction for AT&T and T-Mobile tumbled amid merger talks. This year, AT&T recoups its loss (+5%), but only to tie T-Mobile (-1%) at 69. On the other hand, AT&T is now close to rival Verizon (-3% to 70), whose score has dwindled over three years. At 71, Sprint Nextel nominally grabs first place among the big carriers and holds nearly steady (-1%) following three years of swift ACSI progress (up from 56 in 2008).

Fixed-Line Phones: Decline Eliminates Advantage Over Wireless

For the first time in ACSI history, fixed-line phone service no longer beats wireless when it comes to satisfying customers. With a sharp decline of 4.1% to 70, fixed-line service now ties wireless and loses its ACSI advantage. At 76, small providers win the game here, just as they do in the wireless segment.

The fixed-line market is shrinking as more household opt for wireless service only. Customers who choose to stick with their land lines, however, are not happierevery major carrier is down this year. The largest ACSI decline belongs to CenturyLink, plummeting 6% to an industry low of 66 after its acquisition of Qwest. Comcast drops 3% to 67, while the rest of the industry huddles at scores of 70 to 71.

The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) is a national economic indicator of customer evaluations of the quality of products and services available to household consumers in the United States. The ACSI uses data from interviews with roughly 70,000 customers annually as inputs to an econometric model for measuring customer satisfaction with more than 225 companies in 47 industries and 10 economic sectors, as well as over 100 services, programs, and websites of federal government agencies.

ACSI results are released on a monthly basis, with all measures reported using a scale of 0 to 100. ACSI data have proven to be strongly related to a number of essential indicators of micro and macroeconomic performance. For example, firms with higher levels of customer satisfaction tend to have higher earnings and stock returns relative to competitors. Stock portfolios based on companies that show strong performance in ACSI deliver excess returns in up markets as well as down markets. And, at the macro level, customer satisfaction has been shown to be predictive of both consumer spending and gross domestic product growth. The Index was founded at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and is produced by ACSI LLC.
http://www.theacsi.org/index.php

Sale! 13″ MacBook Pro on sale for $1089, $110 off MSRP

MacPrices — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:13:34 +0000

B&H Photo has the 13″ 2.4GHz MacBook Pro on sale for $1089.95including free shipping plus NY sales tax only. Their price is $110 off MSRP, and it’s the lowest price available for this model from any Apple Authorized Reseller.

MacBook Pros on sale today with free 8GB RAM upgrade

MacPrices — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:08:35 +0000

MacConnection has MacBook Pros available today including a free 8GB RAM upgrade with high-end 15″ and 17″ models and heavily discounted 8GB RAM upgrades with the base 15″ model and both 13″ MacBook Pros. MacConnection’s savings amounts to as much as $251 over similar configurations from Apple (more if you include sales tax). Shipping is free:

- 17″ 2.4GHz MacBook Pro/8GB RAM: $2448.99 $251 savings
- 15″ 2.4GHz MacBook Pro/8GB RAM: $2168.99 $231 savings
- 15″ 2.2GHz MacBook Pro/8GB RAM: $1818.99 $181 savings
- 13″ 2.8GHz MacBook Pro/8GB RAM: $1558.99 $141 savings
- 13″ 2.4GHz MacBook Pro/8GB RAM: $1258.99 $141 savings