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The Macbook Air: A Sign of Things to Come

October 25, 2010 by Gabe S. 2 Comments

Along with the release of the Macbook Air on Wednesday, Apple did two things.  They dropped the price of the external SuperDrive from $99 to $79, and then made it completely unnecessary.  The Macbook Air was originally criticized for its lack of an optical media drive, limiting its ability to install new software.  To mitigate this problem, Apple allowed the Air to wirelessly share the optical drive of another computer over Wi-Fi or you could purchase the external SuperDrive if need be.  A lot of complaints died down however once people realized that they really didn’t use optical media much anymore.  Think about it, when was the last time you used your CD drive?  For me, almost never.  I watch movies through streaming services, load music from iTunes, and can install most software through the internet.  However still, there are still a few instances where I still need my media drive.  Namely: to install high profile, commercial software like iLife and Microsoft Office, or to repair my computer with the restore software bundled with the hardware in the event of a meltdown.

On Wednesday, Apple removed those needs for the CD drive through the Mac App Store and a tiny USB drive that comes with the System Restore software on the new Macbook Air.  From now on, I may never need a CD drive again.  Think about it: I can now download upgrades to iLife and iWork instead of purchasing the CDs.  Hell, I can pick and choose which specific programs in the suite I want to upgrade and just by those.  The USB drive is smaller and probably faster and more reliable than using a DVD for system restore anyway.  We can definitely expect for Apple to start shipping these USB drives in future notebooks.  Jobs has explicitly said that the Macbook Air is the future of the Macbook, so this is only one small way that the Macbook Air will push its enhancements upon the rest of the line. Read more of this post

Filed under Apple, Hardware Tagged with ,

Apple’s Triumphant Return to the Mac Platform

October 20, 2010 by Gabe S. Leave a Comment

Over the past year or so, many have worried that Apple doesn’t care about the Mac.  iOS on the iPhone and iPad is now their bread and butter, many assume.  Mac computers and Mac OS just don’t matter any more.  Well, sorry to disappoint you all, but the Mac is very much alive and kicking.  Today, Apple not only showed how successful and important Mac computers are, but has given us a glimpse of the very bright future to come.  Software, hardware, and a lot of stats, it was a big day for Apple and I’m super excited.  Let’s hit the ground running.

This One Goes to 11

Apple’s first big unveil was the release of iLife ’11, the next version of their comprehensive “digital lifestyle” software suite.  The majority of the time was spent focusing on iPhoto, iMovie, and Garageband, all of which have really good new features.  iPhoto now supports fullscreen editing and sharing.  The app can now take up the entire screen, pushing the dock and toolbar out of sight so you can focus on your work.  It has a lot of new UI features that are very similar to an iPad app, which I love.  Facebook integration has been improved along with a new email client that is built into the program, allowing you to easily email photos without going back and forth between Mail and iPhoto.  It also comes with new slide shows with music composed by the London Symphony Orchestra, and has much more impressive photo book system.  Apple is really pushing the ability to make professional-grade photo books and letterpress cards. I’m inclined to agree: these look top-notch.

iMovie ’11 has brought some very cool new enhancements.  Apple took the audio editing system out of Garageband and has dropped it into iMovie, allowing you to edit the audio tracks of your movies with much more accuracy.  iMovie now has a movie trailer builder which looks awesome, I mean just a ton of fun.  Sure, we’re going to see a plague of stupid trailers now because of it, but they are very cool and professional looking.  Apple also took the facial recognition software out of iPhoto and put it in iMovie, allowing you to track your “actors” in each shot, you can even group shots by who is in them, allowing you to focus on footage with specific people.  An excellent addition to the software I think.  Apple has also added in more post-effects, slowly returning to feature parity with iMovie ’06…. very slowly. Read more of this post

Filed under Apple, Hardware, Software

And So It Begins… The Tablet War

September 28, 2010 by Gabe S. 1 Comment

Yesterday, RIM joined Samsung in a new front against Apple.  Both companies have long struggled to overcome the Cupertino juggernaut in the mobile phone sector as the BlackBerry continues to lose market share and Samsung’s Android efforts remain underway.  At the other end of the mobile spectrum, Apple’s iPad ushered in the area of truly useful tablet computing and has stood virtually alone in that market.  However, RIM and Samsung are striking back in a big way.  Samsung announced the Galaxy Tab two weeks ago as a tablet companion to their Galaxy S phone.  Yesterday, RIM announced the “PlayBook”, a tablet mobile device meant for the business-oriented consumer (long RIM’s bread-and-butter clients).  These two products are interesting to say the least but can they cut into the iPad’s market share or will Apple again define the sector like they have with PMPs and phones?

It is inaccurate to say the the iPad was the first tablet computer, as well as to say that it has been unchallenged since its release in April of 2010.  Indeed, other tablet PCs exist from other companies, they’re just not very note-worthy.  An upstart from Singapore called Fusion Garage released the “JooJoo” in March, but the device was decidedly less polished compared to Apple’s product, with a pretty shoddy skin over Linux and poor hardware implementation.  On the other side, Archos has made several Internet-based tablets over the past few years, but they have never caught on.  That said, their newest line of tablets may have what it takes as they move away from trying to shoehorn Windows 7 in the devices and instead are running versions of Android 2.2.  Windows-based tablets exist in numerous styles as well.  HP was going to release the “Slate” as a Windows 7-based tablet, but it has been brought back to the drawing board (possibly for a WebOS make over).  So yes, the iPad has had competition, you just didn’t know about it.  Of course, an Apple product will gain more fanfare than any of these, and it seems that only Apple has been able to make an extremely polished device through their straight-jacket-tight control of iOS.  So what makes the efforts of RIM and Samsung more important?  They’re getting the word out.  I KNOW about these machines and I didn’t have to go peeling through pages of google searches to get some concrete information on the devices.

So let’s measure them up.  Samsung’s Galaxy Tab is really a big brother to the Galaxy S.  They both use the same “Hummingbird” processor (which is virtually identical to the A4 used by Apple) at 1Ghz, have the same 512MB of RAM, and run the same OS: Android 2.2 (though the Tab’s version is probably specialized for the higher resolution).  So the differences?  The Tab uses a 7″ LCD screen at 1024×600 instead of the Galaxy S’s 4″ Super AMOLED at 800×480.  The device will be sold directly through cellular carriers, probably at a subsidized rate, and as such comes with a variety of 3G technology.  The device isn’t out yet, but many preliminary assessments have shown interest in the device.  Though it clearly is not carrying the fanfare of the iPad, I expect the device to be a nicely crafted alternative.  However, the Galaxy Tab represents a lot more than just a competitor to the iPad.  It will stand to prove if Android can work as a tablet OS.  Google has already remarked that Android was not meant for a tablet interface, and developers who are using the mobile OS for such purposes must work at their own risk.  iOS for the iPad has been heavily modified for the larger resolution of the tablet form factor, so I’d say it will be very hard to match the same level of integration as the iPad on the Galaxy Tab.  Most Android tablets are going to need extensive UI skinning for expanded functionality and probably their own app store, which will probably not be as widespread or rich as the iPad’s.  The Tab will be a testing ground to see if these factors can be over come.

RIM’s PlayBook is similar to the Galaxy Tab in its 7″ form factor and similar resolution.  However, RIM is not selling this as a giant BlackBerry like Samsung, this device runs a completely different OS developed by QNX, a company that built “Unix-like” operating systems for embedded systems.  I’ve never heard of QNX before this announcement, and apparently it was nothing to write home about.  RIM has probably done a number on the OS to update it for their purposes.  The PlayBook’s biggest feature is the hardware.  RIM has stuffed this device to the gills with a 1Ghz, dual core ARM Cortex-A9 (finally seeing a commercial application of that new core), 1GB of RAM and a good amount of flash memory for storage.  It also comes with two cameras, both capable of capturing 1080p video.  No one has had hands-on time with the device, but it is certainly interesting.

These two devices are starting the fight against the iPad.  Will they win?  I can’t say, but they are at least standing in opposition to the Apple device.  Maybe now Apple will be more motivated to improve the iPad for the next generation, because they will certainly have to.

Filed under Corporate Affairs, Hardware, Mobile Tagged with , , ,

Why Don’t We Re-Fabricate Old CPU Designs?

September 26, 2010 by Gabe S. 3 Comments

This idea came to me as I was walking home from dinner this evening because as I usually do when I walk alone, I think about all things tech (no, seriously).  And as I delved deeper into my pondering, I began to wonder more and more why this isn’t the case.  Throughout the 40 year history of the microprocessor, there have been hundreds, if not thousands of different designs for processors.  Some have been remarkably successful like Intel’s 8086 or Motorola’s 68000; and others fail like Intel’s Pentium 4 or P.A. Semi’s PWRficient.  All of these designs have their place in history, and while some succeeded and some failed, virtually all of them had advantages to consider, and I have always wondered why engineers never take second looks at these machines.

Take the PWRficient for example.  You’ve probably never heard of it, but there was a time when this chip was going to be at the heart of every Macintosh portable.  The PWRficient was developed by P.A Semi – a company later bought by Apple for ARM SoC development – and was the first PowerPC chip to not be derived from the combined efforts of IBM and Motorola for Apple.  The processor was remarkable: a dual-core, 2Ghz, 64-bit compliant chip that never exceeded 25W TDP with integrated memory controllers and some pretty sick I/O work.  PA Semi was heavily courting Apple to use the chip, called the PA6T, for their struggling portable sector when Apple couldn’t manage to squeeze a G5 in the PowerBooks.  In the end, Apple decided to switch over to Intel processors all together, leaving PA Semi’s truly remarkable processor without a prime product to show it off.  In the end, PA Semi was bought by Apple and the PA6T was lost to the annals of history.

What about something like Intel’s Pentium 4 architecture “Netburst”?  Though the architecture was featured in virtually every computer from 2001 to 2005 (unless you were smart enough to opt into an AMD Athlon 64) it is by all accounts considered a failure.  Its extremely deep pipeline lead to very high clock speeds but with also tremendous heat levels.  The heat problems were so severe that Intel was unable to adapt the architecture for 64-bit support or dual core processing.  Intel eventually scrapped Netburst and instead returned to their old P6 chip technology that was used in the Pentium M and Pentium III for the Core Microarchitecture.  Here we saw Intel return to an old architecture and reinvigorate it for a new generation.

I guess I’m wondering why what happened with the P6 doesn’t happen more often.  It seems that many chip architectures should be given new life as technology has further allowed them to become refined.  Take the G5 as another example.  While in its original production run the chip couldn’t manage to be used in laptops or extend its use beyond Apple’s desktops, that was 5 years ago.  Since then fabrication technology has drastically improved.  Heat dissipation, power usage, and chip size could be drastically reduced with an updated design, and maybe find expanded application.  Re-fabrication (the act of taking existing chip designs and rebuilding them using small transistors)  has been a common practice for devices that cannot change their internal hardware but want to make improvements to power management (game consoles are most notable examples).  Since many of these chips I’ve mentioned saw the end of their run at the 90 and 65nm node, it would be interesting to see what these chips and designs can do at the 45 and 32nm node or smaller.

This is more of an open question to any engineers out there as to why this isn’t done.  I’m sure its a combination of money and technical limitations to old designs, but it would still be nice to have some professional insight into this issue.  And while I am it, why don’t firms license out old outmoded designs to universities?  Let them experiment with the chips and see if they can’t accomplish any innovation with old designs.

Filed under Hardware Tagged with ,

3DS Hardware Specs Fully Revealed? An In-Depth Analysis

September 23, 2010 by Gabe S. 5 Comments

In case you haven’t figured it out through reading my multiple posts, I’m a sucker for specs.  I love having solid lists and clear-cut explanations of exactly what kind of hardware is running in the latest gizmos and gadgets.  Processor specs, memory amounts, and GPU features all make me smile, especially when they’re good and when I own the device that they act as components in.  Gaming machines have an even more special place in my heart for numerous reasons.  In part, it’s knowing that these components and specs come together to create art before my eyes, that they will build the world that I am about to enjoy and explore.  I also enjoy seeing what the limits of game machines are, given certain specs.  It’s wonderful to see the efforts of developers overcoming technical and physical hurdles that exist in limited hardware.  Developer efforts on the Nintendo Wii, a game machine that is by all accounts filled with antiquated hardware, really amaze me despite severe limitations in the design.  Or on the mobile front, the Nintendo DS remains the most successful handheld video game console in the world, despite remarkably simplistic hardware.

However, time never stands still and Moore’s Law trudges on to faster, smaller, and more capable hardware.  Eventually products become too old and need refreshes.  Nintendo was able to maintain the original DS’s hardware through several updates but the hardware has run its course.  Now, we are on the eve of the release of Nintendo’s next generation handheld, the 3DS, which most notably brings auto-stereoscopic 3D technology.  I’ve already gone through the basic features and design on the 3DS in a previous article, but now things are getting a bit more clear.  Apparently IGN has used their extensive sources to pin-point the exact specifications for the new hardware.  Before I get to that, indulge me as I refresh your memories (or introduce you all together) on the original DS’s specs so that we can make some relative comparisons. Read more of this post

Filed under Games, Hardware Tagged with ,

Apple’s Fall Music Conference Brings the Goods

September 1, 2010 by Gabe S. 3 Comments

As is now customary, Apple had their fall conference to discuss all things involving their music side of the business.  iPod updates, new software, and a few surprises for everyone.  Apple was a little creative this year with their changes to some long-standing hardware.  Was it all for the better?  That’s hard to say.  Let’s run down the list of the things announced and weigh in on their pros or cons.

Up first is the new iPod Touch.  Like usual, Apple has updated the wildly popular media player for feature parity with its sibling, the iPhone.  This year brings the faster A4 processor (though still with 256MB of RAM), the new retina display (lacking the IPS tech), and a forward facing camera for Facetime over Wi-Fi with an email address.  Also included is an HD video-capable camera, though still shots are limited to 960X720.  Overall, it’s a nice inclusion.  The thing is also even thinner than before, which is pretty incredible.  Prices remain the same, starting at $230 for 8GBs.  Up next, Apple has refreshed the iPod Shuffle.  Some may remember the last update was extremely controversial.  While the last update made the PMP super tiny and included interesting voice control, it eschewed the hardware buttons that many enjoyed.  This year’s model brings back the older form factor with the buttons, but keeps the voice control for those who want it.  Personally, I think Apple should have done that from the start, honestly. Read more of this post

Filed under Apple, Hardware

Next Intel Chip Roadmap Leaked

August 15, 2010 by Gabe S. Leave a Comment

It’s called Sandy Bridge.  We’ve known it existed for a few years and would debut after Nehalem in the 2010-2011 time frame.  Today however, we now have a better idea of what exactly we can expect from the new architecture.  In short; it’s more evolutionary than revolutionary, and it looks to be fixing many of Nehalem/Westmere’s minor woes.

Read more of this post

Filed under Hardware Tagged with , ,

New Mac Hardware

July 28, 2010 by Gabe S. Leave a Comment

Before I begin, excuse the usual lack of quality and possible gramatical errors in this post. This was very sudden news to me in my Internet-deprived state and I’ve resorted to punching this post up on my iPhone over an EDGE network.

Yesterday was a pretty exciting day for me. Apple has finally updated the long stale Mac Pro and refreshed the iMac. The Mac Pro has recieved some really nice additions like faster base speeds, much more impressive graphics, and support for 6 and 12 core processor configurations. Processors now start at 2.8Ghz on the quad core model and 2.4Ghz on the Octo core units. The top speeds for all processor configurations have been boosted. Most interesting is that the quad core chips are derived from Intel’s hexa core technology and as such have the full 12MB of L3 cache for even more impressive boosts.

On the graphics side, Apple has cut the bullshit and started using really strong graphics. The base card is the ATI HD5770 with 1GB of RAM. It’s a fantastic card with far more RAM which is crucial in professional applications. For more power, Apple offers the HD5870 with 1GB of RAM as well. This is leaps and bounds superior to the old Mac Pro.

Unfortunately, these new features come at a price. Instead of doing a much needed price drop, the Mac Pro can now be priced signifcantly higher due to the hexa core support. I was desperately hoping that we’d see a price drop on the quad core configration. But that has not happened (duh, it’s Apple).

The iMac has also seen a modest improvement. Gone are the legacy Core 2 Duo parts. Instead the iMacs have adopted Core i3s at 3.06 and 3.2Ghz speeds. While similar in clockspeed, the integrated memory controller and hyperthreading should lead to an overall performance boost. An optional 3.6Ghz Core i5 is available which adds turbo boost back into the equation. Quad core parts are also available with a 2.8Ghz i5 and a 2.93 i7. I was sorry to see less Core i5 options, since the i3 lacks Turbo Boost and is only available at lower speeds. It would have been nice to see a midrange iMac with an i5 standard.

Graphics have improved as well. With no more Core 2s Apple can’t use integrated parts like the 9400M or 320M. Instead, all iMacs now come with Discrete graphics in the form of an HD4670, HD5670 or HD5750 with 256MB, 512MB or 1GB of RAM, respectively. I’m pretty happy that the we’ve ditched these laptop grade parts for real cards. However the 5700 class parts are not leaps and bounds better than the old setup, so users will see the most improvement on the lower end machine.

The new iMacs now also support faster 1333 Mhz DDR3 RAM and have SSD support, as do the new Mac Pros. Overall it’s a more modest update for a more consistently improved machine. Also joining the product line is a new 27″ Cinema Display that is very much like the panel in the iMac. Unfortunately, it looks like the cheaper 24″ model is being killed off and there is no budget 21.5″ option like I’d hoped.

Another day, more new Macs. Kind of a ho-hum improvement that keeps the machines current though doesn’t change the pricing issues that plague the Mac platform.

Filed under Apple, Hardware Tagged with ,

Thoughts on the iPhone 4 Press Conference

July 20, 2010 by Gabe S. Leave a Comment

It goes without saying that I and pretty much the entire world was pretty taken away with the iPhone 4 at its announcement in June. The device is drop dead gorgeous, pretty amazingly powerful, and rocking many late features needed to fight the competition.

And then “Antenna-gate” struck. The iPhone 4 uses a novel external antennae integrated into the steel band that forms the frame of the phone’s structure. This is intended to improve reception for the device, and by most accounts has indeed done so. Most reviews of the device detailed how reception, call clarity, and range has greatly improved for the device over its predecessor. However, there appears to be an inherent flaw with the device. Signal attenuation – a phenomenon that occurs with all mobile phones to some extent due to the conductivity of the human body – has been amplified with the iPhone due to the direct contact that is inherent in an external antennae. Once the media caught wind of this, the internet exploded in controversy. Read more of this post

Filed under Apple, Corporate Affairs, Hardware Tagged with ,

Night and Day: My New Computer

June 12, 2010 by Gabe S. Leave a Comment

Tuesday was a pretty spectacular day.  Not only was my blog featured on “Freshly Pressed” and saw its traffic increase by a magnitude of several thousand; but I finally got my new Macbook Pro for college.  So finally, after 5 years of very loyal service, I can retire my iMac G5 for something a bit more modern.  It’s been a major update to my digital lifestyle.  Instead of running a single core 2.0Ghz computer with 2GB of DDR RAM and an antiquated 9600Pro from ATI; I am now running on a dual-core, 4 threaded 2.4Ghz Core i5 with 4GB of DDR3 RAM and Intel HD Graphics or an Nvidia GT330M.  Suffice to say, it runs like a dream.  My G5 was no slouch really, and as computers go it lasted for a very long time while still being a very serviceable computer.  But it’s amazing what I’ve been missing out on.

My G5 debuted before the internet video revolution, and its hardware was not optimized for video playback.  Running youtube videos was a practice in patience as I had to let the entire video buffer for smooth playback.  Hulu, even on the 288p setting, was choppy.  Any other sites with embedded video were really a gamble if it would run at a decent frame rate.  No longer.  Youtube screams, Hulu plays like butter.  I can run HD video off the internet or from iTunes like nobody’s business.  It’s great to be able to experience what most people take for granted everyday with more modern computers.

Naturally, I had to put my computer through more tests.  Besides from the obligatory benchmarks (Geekbench got a 5070 score), I wanted to see how the computer could handle real world applications versus my old computer.  Enter: Handbrake.  Handbrake is a DVD ripping software that allows you to take DVD content from a disk and convert it to MPEG4 or H.264 video for iTunes or general playback.  My iMac, using Handbrake 0.9.4, had an average performance of around 10-15fps encoding.  So effectively, ripping a 90 minute movie would take over 3 hours on my iMac.  This is also when using lower quality codecs like the FFMpeg instead of the Handbrake recommended x264.  Using the latter codec would further reduce my encoding performance to around 5fps.  This, of course, is not the case on my Macbook Pro. Handbrake is a fantastically scalable program that can take multiple threads and GPU acceleration, plus 64-bit support.  All of this combined for some very impressive results.  On average, I experienced numbers in the 70-80fps area when using x264, with dynamic boosts over 100fps thanks to the Core i5′s Turbo Boost and Hyperthreading.  So that same 90 minute movie took about 35 minutes.  Not only that, but because of my computer’s discrete GPU, CPU usage never got terribly high.  It was a night and day difference from my G5, which would holler and wail its fans in protest of me taxing its single core.  By comparison, my Macbook Pro barely broke a sweat as the Core i5 crunched through data, the HD graphics hums through my internet browsing, and my discrete GPU sat in the wings ready to pounce if needed.  Hopefully the next version of Handbrake will have full OpenCL support for even more access to the graphics card.

The GPU situation was also interesting.  Apple’s Automatic Graphics Switching technology dynamically changes between the integrated Intel graphics and the Nvidia graphics depending on which APIs are called; OpenGL, Core Image, Core Animation, OpenCL, etc.  I installed a very nice little utility called gfxCardStatus that places a small icon on my top bar to indicate when the system changes between the two GPUs.  Internet browsing, email and iTunes expectedly use the integrated solution, but most other applications seem to switch on the discrete system.  That’s not all bad, since I’d certainly prefer having the GT330 running when using iMovie or something like Handbrake.  But it also turns on in stranger applications.  Garage Band, Apple’s music editing application, turns on the discrete GPU even though there is little in the way of graphics work.  Chrome, the Google Browser, also turns on the GPU possible due to minor use of OpenGL.  While its nice to have the extra power, that discrete GPU also uses a lot more power when I really don’t need it.  Luckily, gfxCardStatus allows me to switch to integrated or discrete only if I so choose, so I’ve more or less mitigated this problem.  Still, I’d like to see Apple offer an update to be a bit smarter about which applications really need the power of the GPU.

Man I love this computer, too bad it cost me a pretty penny and a few limbs to buy.

Filed under General, Hardware

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