We are nearly there…

by Ravenizer

 

There’s only gonna be one topic on the lips of the technoscenti in the next 24 hours: Apple’s new MacBook and MacBook Pro. It’s been leaked online, but mystery still surrounds its hidden connector, track-pad and docking skills… read on for all the gossip!

The new MacBook and MacBook Pros have leaked! The latest spy shots show the laptops sporting slick new aluminum cases, as well as side-mounted optical drives and expansion ports down their left side.

It’s these details that have led some to predict that the new laptops will be dockable inside brand new Apple monitors.

What’s more, the MacBook Pro features a mystery connector towards the front of its case.

What could it be? HDMI? eSATA for fast external hard drives? A docking connector for those rumoured monitors?

We’ve also heard rumours that the new portables will come with glass-covered multi-touch trackpads, and even Blu-Ray drives stashed inside.

Also, the much awaited 2.2 Update is expected to be released tomorrow as well.

Whatever surprises are in store, we’ll find out tomorrow when Apple formally unveils the new laptops. Until then, sit tight and let Infinitech do the news hunting for you!

1 MORE DAY.

by Graphickz

 

Hey all,

We at Infinitech are sworn to get you the latest scoops on Apple rumors and product releases. 1 more day to the launch and the tension is mounting. What is confirmed is that the new notebooks are based on an NVIDIA chipset, which is a huge relief for all you gamers out there. They are also aluminum, and are NOT tapered like the MacBook Air.

As Ravenizer had mentioned, the Macbook Air is probably not going to get an update. I mean, how could Apple update a Notebook so early? People would just stop buying the Mac since it gets outdated way too quicklyt.

What we could also expect in the event, would be the release of the much awaited 2.2 Firmware for the iPhone (and iPod Touch?) With the fantastic new Emoji, and hopefully some improvements to the stability of the OS as well as the inclusion of 3G Radio TUning capabilities, this is the most anticipated FIrmware yet!

1 MORE DAY Ladies and Gentlemen!

MacBook Air : What Happens Now?

by Ravenizer

 

Okay. So the new MacBooks are like two days away now. But what is really going to happen. Seriously, Apple will not release a new MacBook Air. Come on people. Start thinking realistic here. The MacBook Air was only released recently in Feburary. It’s not Apple convention to update a product line’s hardware in less than a year. Furthermore, it’ll make all those early adopters feel like morons. So what is going to be the fate of the MacBook Air. Let’s discuss this further.

In terms of hardware, I think Apple has struck a fine balance between performance and power consumption. Until either sees huge tecnical advances, the update seems like a distant dream. The new NVDIA chipset sounds promising, but they still take up too much power. And remember, Apple had Intel build a special Core 2 Duo for them. With such a close partnership, I do not see Apple rushing Intel into any more developmental impossibilities just yet. However, I do forsee an update of the line when we finally hit a release date with Montervina.

So owners of the MacBook Air, I see no worries for you guys in this Apple event. Hold on to see some spectacular improvements to the other machines in the line though. What do you think will be launched on the 14th? Leave us your comments.

If you guys wanna read the LiveBlog off Gizmodo, you would be pleased to know that the event happens at 10:00 AM PDT. Here is a list of time conversions to make things easier:

• New York , 1:00 PM (14 Oct)
• London , 6:00 PM (14 Oct)
• Toronto , 1:00 PM (14 Oct)

• Singapore , 1:00 AM (15 Oct)
• Shanghai , 1:00 AM (15 Oct)
• Hong Kong , 1:00 AM (15 Oct)
• Tokyo , 2:00 AM (15 Oct)

• Berlin , 7:00 PM (14 Oct)
• Kabul , 9:00 PM (14 Oct)
• New Delhi , 10:30 PM (14 Oct)

Yet Another Update

by Graphickz

 

The rumor mills have been churning and we are too. Yet more pictures of the Macbook and Macbook Pro cases made by the special Brick method are being released from unknown sources. We have the latest scoops right here on Infinitech.

MacBook Case

MacBook Pro Case

 

Optical drives are still on the right and all the I/O ports are still on the left. The cases do not appear to be tapered like the Macbook Air, but are expected to have large trackpads to match. Power button is located in the top right corner, and it does not appear to be any latch on the Macbook and Macbook Pro. The other pictures can be viewed here.

MacBook Chipset

by Graphickz

 

Hey all,

Just a short update on the MacBook that is going to be released on October 14th. The Macbook will now run on an NVIDIA chipset, based on the MCP 79 platform. Intel still supplies the main processor for the Macbook.

Kept uncharacteristically secret by NVIDIA for most of the year, the MCP79 platform is so far considered a substitute for Intel’s Centrino 2 “Montevina” platform, offering support for the same 1066MHz front side bus, optional DDR3 memory and PCI Express 2.0 interfaces.

By using an NVIDIA chipset, this means that there are now more advantages.

• Smaller physical size using one chip rather than two
• DriveCache, which uses Flash storage to speed up boot times
• Hybrid SLI which switches from discrete to integrated graphics when battery is low

So basically what this means is that the aluminum MacBook will be slimmer, start up time will be faster due to the DriveCache, and even more advanced power saving features over and above Mac OSX.

The Graphics card is also being changed from an integrated Intel unit, to an NVIDIA 9300 and 9400 series, which uses integrated graphic processing units or GPUs. That means, when Apple releases Snow Leopard, NVIDIA chipsets would be able to offload general processing onto the GPUs.

Let’s wait and see.

Apple Event – October 14 2008

by Graphickz

 

Hey all,

Just to wrap up on the past few weeks. The rumor mills have been churning out what they believe to be is the newest MacBook on the block. In this event, Apple is rumored to be releasing the new versions of the Macbook, Macbook Pro, and Macbook Air. The Macbook has the most noticeable material change, shifting from the scratchy, glossy plastic, to the rather eye-catching anodized aluminum. The Brick, was actually just a reference to the manufacturing process, where by the new Macbooks are carved by water and air jets out of a solid block of aluminum. 

So Apple, sent out an invitation to press yesterday, here is how it looked like.

The invitation sent out to Media.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apparently showing a 13″ screen, this is rumored to be the new Apple Macbook, that will be unveiled on October 14, at Apple’s Town Hall in Cupertino. The Macbook doesn’t appear to have tapered edges as previously expected. It now looks more like a part of the Apple Family. What do you think?

There were different variations of the invite sent out, and this was the clearest and sharpest of the lot. The New Apple price ranges are expected to take a dip, due to the crashing US Market. The Macbook is rumored to sell at $800 and the Macbook Pro at around $3000. This would largely increase the profit margins at Apple, and hopefully push up the share prices for Apple, which fell a whopping 9% last week. 

These are the pictures of the rumored 13″ MacBook. 

MacBook Keyboard Layout

USB Hubs and Connectivity Ports

Slot Loading Optical Drive

So there you have it, the New MacBook. Looks alot more like the MacBook Pro now. Now lets move on to the MacBook Pro, which is largely rumored not to have its design changed, as consumers are used to having the rather “expensive” feel of the laptop.

iPhone Tech Talk, World Tour

iPhone Tech Talk World Tour

Don’t miss this unique opportunity. The event is free, but space is limited.

Apple technology evangelists and engineers will soon be traveling the globe bringing iPhone development expertise to a city near you. Learn about the tools and technologies you’ll use to create great iPhone applications, then work with the experts to optimize your code, refine your user interface, and apply the knowledge you gain from the sessions to enhance the capabilities of your iPhone application.

Finally, Apple has heard the cries of Developers around the world, who cannot afford to fly to the States to attend WWDC year after year. Having joined the Apple Developer Connection (there is a free membership), we received an email invitation to the event, and had to register our places in our island nation of Singapore. Most of the countries have already been fully booked! Thankfully though, not in our country. We will attempt to carry out a live-blogging session during the intro and provide insights that we have learnt during the event. Developing for the iPhone is a very exciting prospect and the Infinitech Team hopes to bring you ground-breaking applications and games to add to your arsenal.

Once again, sorry for the lack of updates.

Spotlight Event

by Ravenizer

 

Hey guys.

The infinitech Team would like to apologize for not bring able to update the blog in the past fornight. All of our writers have been extremely busy with acedemic examinations. But all those aside, the Rumor Mill is back, spinning faster than ever. It’s MacBook Week over at Apple Campus and the invites have been sent out. No, we are not going but we’ll definitely have the juicy details.

The story so far is that the entire MacBook line is going Aluminum. Snazzy I must say. The biggest targets thus far are the Macbooks and the Pro. Talks are going on about a possible Apple TV update but I’m not too sure. The eventual speculations of a wireless USB hub is also interesting. That would certainly add funtionality to the MacBook Air. Although one thing that I would question would be its source of electricity. Guys and Gals out there hoping for a more functional and cheaper MacBook Air will probably have to wait it out. Having only been released for less than a year, this is as improbable as Bill Gates becoming CEO of Apple. However, due to the nature of the Notebook, I do not think that they would make any major changes to the air. It really perfect the way it is. It fulfills all my requirements as a high-school student. And because its OS X, the Operating System is nicely optimized for the less-than-average processor. In fact, you cannot feel much difference when on the Air or on the normal MacBooks. Thus, expect a possible Capacity and Processor update in next year’s MacWorld Expo. Until then, its definitely a no-go.

On a different note, the Infinitech Team would be headed down to the iPhone Tech Talk World Tour in Singapore. It’ll be held on the 4th of November at the Songspore Convention Centre. Graphickz, Spikey and I have already booked out slots and eagerly await our confirmation. So yeah, we’ll be back with more news soon. Hang in there folks! Infinitech Is back at Full Capacity.

One last thing. We are going to skip the iPhone Review firstly because, hey, we all know its the Jesus Phone. Secondly, the team has been really busy and we could not find the time to do it earlier. We believe we have passed the deadline. So yeah…. sorry about that guys.

iPhone Firmware 2.1

Hey all,

We’ve all experienced the buggyness of the iPhone 3G, the memory leak during texting, and the slow Maps. Now with Firmware 2.1, everything changes, including the extension of battery life which I find pretty amazing. It could last (and is still lasting) a whole day with 3G turned on, and frequent syncs with MobileMe.

Microsoft Exchange has become significantly faster, with calendars moving very zippy. The new Genius function for the iPhone is quite remarkable, making the decisions of which tracks go together, rather than you do it yourself. There are now the artist’s names under each of the songs, and the scrolling is just marvelous.

It appears that every time, Apple finds something wrong, they fix a whole bunch of things we would never have expected. I had almost regretted buying an iPhone, but now with the firmware update, things could never have been faster and easier to do.

However, The App Store in Singapore, still needs some working on. For instance, there are no gift cards to redeem, and for some of us without credit cards, this could get quite frustrating. There should be an option for no credit card, and just the pure value on the gift cards. 

The full review for iPhone is coming soon… and so with the new 4th Generation, iPod Nano 16GB!

Let’s Rock, Indeed

 

Okay folks. We gave just seen El Jobsco releasing a whole plethora if updates and new product releases. This was perhaps one of the most leaked event in the history of Apple events but hey, even Old Jobs was cool about it! So here is the event wrap up.

 

Firstly, Jobs started the whole Keynote with a simple sentence about reports of him dying. He called them ‘exagerratrd’.

 

iTunes 8.0
The first major announcement for this keynote address was in fact the release of iTunes 8. This was one of the 2 software releases. As rumoutrd and claimed by Digg founder, Kevin Rose, there is in fact a feature known as Fenits. What genius is basically, a Automagic Playlist maker. With one click, a user can crwate an entire playlist of 25, 50, 75, or 100 songs, all that sound perfect together. I used to sit down and do this manually, because that is how I like to listen to my music. They all need to fit right. But with Grnius, we can all take this one step further.

So how exactly does genius work? Well that’s really simple. I was thinking along the lines of BPM, artist locale, genre and such. Well, it’s all if that, plus more. You see, computers, no matter how advanced, will never be able to approviate and let alone understand music the way we do. So, how did Apple pull this off? Simple. They got help from humans. Not just one or two humans, but the entire population of the world that usues iTunes. Genius uses algorithms written specially for this feature. It reads playlist compilations from all over the world and remeners them. It also uses other factors like BPM and Gener to figure out the beat possible listening experience that a user can get. One thing though, the team at Infinitech is not sure if this works with non-iTunes purchased music. It will be a pity if it doesn’t. Seriously. The Infinitech Team discovered that Genius does indeed work with our own music.

Apparently, to turn Genius on, one would require an iTunes Music Store Account. Thus, this new feature would be a bummer for folks living in Places without one. However, Genius is really very easy to activate. The whole process is automatic. However, it does take a while if your Library is really large.

To make sure that Genius appears on your iPods, you have to enable this feature in your Computer. We believe this measure only affects the iPod Touch devices.

Activating Genius is a Simple, 3-Step Process

Other updates that we have seen to the new iTunes include more accessablilty options. These are a Mac related feature and do not seem to be present on the Windows version of the Jukebox. Another great feature is a new colour code for Applications on the Capacity Bar. The Capacity Bar is an indicator at the bottom of any iPod’s Screen in iTunes, that shows a graphical representation of your iPod (or iPhone’s) capacity and its usage. In iTunes 8, Appls a coloured green instead of being lumped with Others as seen previously.

 

Apps now appear Green

 

iPod Galore
This event also saw one of the best line-up of iPods that Apple had ever brought to the table. With new refreshes and upgrades, we think Apple is all set to earn more money in the coming months. Stock holders, get ready for some rise and profits!

The iPod Nano is probably the most purchased iPod due to it’s small and convinent size. However, people were bit really happy with the “fat nano” that Apple released last year. This event brings to us the new Nano. Images of this iPod has been floating on the net for nearly over a week now. And Lo and Behold, we get Steve introducing this iPod to use today. So, what is new? A ton of stuff. This includes many thing borrowed from the iPhone. The new nano brings to us a new interface that has a Now Playing screen similar to that of the iPhone’s. The software for this iPod has integration for the new Genius feature. You can make Genius playlists right on the Nano. Just press and hold the Centre Button to access a new popup menu. We also see an inclusion of the Accelerometer, a first for anything outside of the Multi-touch interface product range. This, together with a whole new range of 9 colors dubbed Nano-chromatic, makes the Nano, the funkiest iPod in town. The structure of the iPod is now made of Aluminum. This makes the iPod free from any scratchable materials resulting in a Very Durable iPod.

4th Generation iPod Nano

 

The next big thing this morning was the iPod touch. Heralded as the next best thing to the iPhone, this baby just got better this morning. The 2nd Generation Touch sees the inclusion of a Volume Control. This has been the most sought after feature on this iPod. Another interesting upgrade is the inclusion of speakers. I believe that this would make the most sense as the iPod can now play games and such that can be downloaded from the straight AppStore. The new iPod Touch also features an in-built receiver for the Nike+iPod module. All you need to do is to get the foot module that you would have to put into the shoe. Apple now seem the Touch as the funnest iPod after all those upgrades. The structural aspect of the iPod seems to be a little iPhone inspired. There is the inclusion of the tapering sides, as well as a change in material. The back of the Touch is now Stainless Steel. Not completely scratch-proof, but less prone than the Chrome that we are used to seeing. Looks like Apple is finally making all of it’s products more durable!

2nd Generation iPod Touch

 

Apple has also discontinued the Fat Classics and increased the capacity on the Thin Classic to 120 GB.

Software and The Environment

The next Software announcement made today would hebrelease of the 2.1 update that everyone has been waiting for. It is free for Both the iPod Touch and the iPhone, but most importantly, Steve has promised us a stable software and all bugs fixed. So, no more crashing Apps! Also, songs are now listed with thier Artist Names and Albums unedr them in grey. A nifty little improvement I must say!

The new update is out for iPod Touch today, and iPhone on Friday (USA), and Saturday (Singapore and Asia).

Apple has also been very environmentally conscious about it’s new products. All of it’s new iPods are Fully Recyclable.

iPod Nano Confirmed

Hey all,

Apparently, the news has broken out again. Here at a first on Infinitech, we have the leaked photos of the confirmed 4th Generation iPod Nano in a Sparkling orange 🙂

 

iPod Nano 4th Gen | Orange

So, we don’t really have to wait for Let’s Rock, but I would like to see the variety of colours available, and the new tapered iPod Touch. There is much talk of iTunes 8.0 to be released, but none of them are confirmed. 

The iPhone craze here is still high, and Singtel has an event organised for Yesterday, and Today, for those who didn’t get their iPhone, and would like to buy one from the Glass Gallery@Comcentre.