Many have speculated upon the killer feature that could be incorporated into the long-rumored Apple television set, a feature that would turn the television industry on its head. While it’s difficult to predict what such a feature would be, one analyst points towards a massive hard drive, in excess of 2 terabytes, as the low tech piece of hardware that would facilitate the killer feature which has been the subject of previous rumors…the 4K resolution (via Motley Fool). 4K resolutions are 4 times the size of 1080p HD resolutions and, as an example, Sony has just begun shipping a tv with a resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels packed into a 55 inch display.
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Author Archives: AppleBitch
Is The Apple Television Killer Feature A Massive Hard Drive For 4K Movies?
Rumor: Low Cost iPhone To Be Better Than Expected
A new report is today suggesting that the long rumored low cost iPhone that Apple is expected to release later this year will actually be of a better standard than many were expecting. The report comes from AllThingsD who have been speaking to Mark Moskowitz and Gokul Hariharan, analysts from J.P. Morgan. The analysts suggest that the low cost iPhone will launch at a price point of $350-400 and would be a ‘mid-range’ device, rather than a lower priced, less functional product.
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Rumor: iOS 7 To Have Massive New Design
Apple has apparently been working on some extremely significant changes for iOS 7, and the next generation operating system will have some massive design alterations that will make it stand apart from its predecessors. The rumor comes from 9to5Mac who, after talking with sources familiar with the new OS, have suggested that iOS 7 will feature a ‘flat’ user interface which gets rid of the skeumorphic designs of the previous iOS versions. This will mean a massive change for users who are very familiar with the existing iOS user interface.
The report notes that there will be new icons for Apple’s native iOS apps, such as the Phone app, the iMessage app and the Contacts app. Interestingly, the software has also been tested in he wild, using devices with polarizing filters to prevent items on the screen being visible to people other than the user of the device, although its unclear if this has been off Apple HQ.
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Rumor: New MacBook Pro And MacBook Air To Launch In June At WWDC
Apple will apparently be making some significant updates to its laptop line-up at the Worldwide Developer Conference in June of this year, according to a new report from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Kuo, who has provided several pieces of accurate pre-release information in the past, is saying that Apple will be launching new versions of the MacBook Air and the Retina Display MacBook Pro, both including the latest Intel processors, codenamed Haswell. The analyst also suggests that Apple will be continuing to produce the non-Retina Display version of the MacBook Pro due to the popularity of the device in in developing markets.
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Apple Announces WWDC 2013
Apple has today announced the dates for its popular Worldwide Developers Conference which will take place from June 10-14 at the Moscone West Convention Center in San Francisco. The tickets for the five day event, which will be in high demand, will be made available tomorrow for $1599 per person and will be made available from the WWDC web site at 10am PST, 1pm EST, 6pm GMT. The event will be open to Developers who will likely receive a preview of the next iterations of the iOS and OS X operating system for mobile and desktop Apple devices.
Last year, the tickets for the event took less than 2 hours to sell out and Apple did not give any advance notice of the ticket availability. This year, with one day notice, all registered members of the Apple Developer program will have an equal chance of securing a ticket. The event itself will involve over 100 technical session presented by Apple engineers, demonstrations of novel iOS and OS X features for integration into apps, and presentation of Apple Design awards to showcase excellent and innovative apps.
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A New Twitter #Music Service
Following on from confirmations this week that Twitter had purchased the music discovery service We Are Hunted, a new music discovery service has been launched called Twitter #music. The service comes to iOS devices in the form of an app which is available free from the App Store and allows users to utilize trending topics on Twitter to discover new music.
The service gives four mastheads to facilitate new music discovery and playback. These mastheads are termed Popular, Emerging, Suggested and NowPlaying. Both the Suggested and the NowPlaying mastheads give information about what friends are listening to and new artists based upon musicians that are followed by the user. The app itself takes its music from either iTunes, Rdio or Spotify although only Rdio And Spotify offer full track playback i.e. iTunes will only offer previews until a track is purchased.
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Facebook For iOS Gets Big Update With ‘Chat Heads’
The Facebook app for iOS devices has received a significant update today, adding a new feature that first appeared with the release of the new Facebook Home user interface layer app for Android devices. The Facebook iOS app now includes ‘Chat Heads’ as a launchscreen pop-out for the app meaning that you can touch the right side of the screen and start a new messaging conversation to enable a ‘Chat Head’ on the right side of the screen. The location of the Heads can then customized on the screen, acting as a fast access button for using the Facebook messaging system. The Chat Heads are accompanied by ‘Stickers’, which essentially Emoji pictures that can be included in the messaging.
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Rumor: iRadio Agreements Now ‘Imminent’
A licensing agreement between Apple and Universal Music Group for the rights to stream audio for the highly anticipated iRadio music streaming service is now apparently ‘imminent’ according to a new report. The Verge suggests that the negotiations have almost reached a satisfactory place for both Universal and Apple and that Warner Music, another major music label, isn’t too far away. The news follows on from previous reports suggesting that the negotiations were moving forward significantly.
Apple is apparently working on an iRadio service much like Pandora and the service is expected to launch later this year once agreements with the multiple music licensing companies have been reached. The company is expected to pay similar royalty rates as Pandora, which are thought to be around 12 cents per 100 hundred songs streamed. This is despite heavy negotiating by Apple for a 6 cents per 100 songs royalty rate.
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Rumor: iPhone 5S And iPad Mini 2 Not Arriving In Late Summer
Challenges surrounding the construction and manufacturing of the new iPhone 5S and the second generation iPad mini mean that the new devices will actually launch later than had been predicted, according to KGI Securities analyst Ming Chi Kuo (via MacRumors). Kuo, who has in the past provided some accurate pre-release information for Apple products, had originally suggested that the new iPhone 5S could be set for a July launch, with the iPad mini 2 hitting the market the following month in August.
However, in his latest note to investors, the analyst now believes that ‘challenges’ are pushing back the timescale for the launch of these devices and that they might not now be released in late summer after all. The analyst doesn’t provide any information on when he thinks the release dates may fall but does indicate that it could now be in the August-November window.
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Rumor: Microsoft Office 2014 For Mac To Arrive In April 2014
A new report is suggesting that Microsoft is targeting April 2014 for a launch of the next generation of Office products for Mac. The new software, tentatively called Office 2014 is on the Microsoft roadmap for next year, according to a source for ZDNet who say that the ‘Gemini 1.5′ update will hit in April of 2014 and that the iOS version of Office could arrive in October 2014, including the long rumored iPad version of Office.
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