Category — History

The next generation of iPhone appears set to claim exclusive access to advanced graphics core and video decoding technology, thanks to a secret licensing deal between Apple, mobile graphics leader Imagination Technologies, and Samsung, the iPhone’s ARM “system on a chip” manufacturer. The result may be an ideal platform for handheld gaming and high definition video playback.
Continues: Apple’s bionic ARM to muscle advanced gaming graphics into iPhones

Daniel Eran Dilger
Apple’s acquisition of PA Semi appears to fit well into the company’s plans to pioneer the development of a new WiFi mobile platform with the iPhone and iPod Touch. Apple is certainly not the only company to see the vast potential in mobile devices. The market for smartphones and mobile Internet devices is currently broad and diverse, with lots of competition both in the hardware components used and in the operating system and development platforms offered.

Today’s growth in mobile messaging and computing devices bears some similarity with the explosion of desktop personal computing in the early 80s described in the previous segment. The difference is that today there is no big equivalent to IBM threatening to enter the market; all the existing, leading competitors in mobile devices are already large and established companies.

Unlike the 1981 IBM PC, which pushed the unremarkable x86 processor and Microsoft’s copycat software ahead of superior technology, mobile devices today are being sold on their actual merits in terms of hardware and software. Of course, that doesn’t mean there isn’t anyone working to shoehorn the square pegs of x86 processors and Microsoft Windows software into the round hole of mobile devices. Here’s a look at the state of chips in mobiles, and how PA Semi expands the options for Apple in the mobile market.

How Apple’s PA Semi Acquisition Fits Into Its Chip History
Why Did Apple Buy PA Semi?

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Apple’s acquisition of PA Semi does not signal an entirely new direction for the company. Throughout its history, Apple has designed sophisticated custom chips for use in its computers, in addition to codeveloping complete microprocessors. According to those in the know, it appears that after acting to jettison its internal custom silicon efforts and delegate much of that work to Intel, Apple experienced some remorse and acquired PA Semi to get right back into the chip design business. Here’s a look at Apple’s history in chips, leading up to how Apple’s acquisition of PA Semi relates to the beleaguered future of Microsoft’s Windows.

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Just ahead of its recession defying, record setting Q2 2008 earnings reports, Apple revealed plans to buy PA Semi, a chip designer specializing in processors based on IBM’s Power architecture. This news sparked a flurry of confusion from observers: why is Apple getting into the semiconductor business after partnering with Intel in its Mac systems, aligning with ARM licensees for its mobile WiFi iPhone platform, and particularly after decisively migrating away from PowerPC in 2006?

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Microsoft’s current and future operating system projects, Windows Vista, Windows Seven, and Singularity, share too much in common with Apple’s failures of the mid-90s. Each project bears a striking resemblance to the three catastrophes that nearly killed Apple in the early 90s, and for many of the same core reasons. Here’s why, and what this means for the future of the PC desktop, the Windows platform, and new emerging mobile markets.

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Windows Enthusiasts have been working hard to advance the idea that Apple has become the new Microsoft, supposedly by monopolizing the market for music sales and MP3 players and in creating new bodies of technology in its own image to discover territories outside of Microsoft’s reach. However, they’re missing something far more interesting: Microsoft is reverting to become the beleaguered old Apple of the mid 90s. Here’s how.

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Demonstrators waving red flags in favor of the Beijing Olympics mingled rather peacefully among those protesting China’s atrocities in Tibet, its support of genocide in Darfur, and its record of human rights violations against its own citizens. Meanwhile, in efforts to avoid any serious confrontation or stop the Olympic torch run through the City, officials decided to hide the torch in a van and spirit it from the ballpark to Van Ness and Pine, where it was then run up to Fort Mason and then through the Marina to the Golden Gate Bridge, avoiding the planned route down the Embarcadero.

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Is Apple’s announcement of Exchange Server support in the upcoming iPhone 2.0 software an admission of failure for the company’s apparent plans to push its own Exchange alternative in Mac OS X Leopard Server? Reader Pete Wann asked the question; here’s what I think about it.

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Daniel Eran Dilger
The previous article, The Unavoidable Malware Myth: Why Apple Won’t Inherit Microsoft’s Malware Crown, outlined that Microsoft’s malware crisis is a product of that company’s engineering mistakes, not an unavoidable problem facing whatever computing platform becomes the most popular in the future. Even for those holdouts who choose to ignore the realities of the malware economy–so they can insist that the only reason Macs aren’t infected with viruses is because Apple isn’t selling enough of them–there are other reasons why future platforms, including Apple’s Mac and iPhone, aren’t fated to be plagued with Microsoft’s malware crisis of the past and present.

There are five factors related to the future of computing platforms that will prevent Apple from inheriting Microsoft’s malware legacy. Here’s why these factors will have such a significant impact on the future of malware, and why the world’s greatest malware threat will continue to be firmly attached to Microsoft, the company that introduced the epidemic to the world in the first place.

The Unavoidable Malware Myth: Why Apple Won’t Inherit Microsoft’s Malware Crown

“No Windows for Old Men” composition by Michael Jackson.
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Daniel Eran Dilger
Jefferson Graham of USA Today reports that Amazon’s MP3 store “has quietly become No. 2 in digital sales since opening nearly six months ago,” behind Apple’s iTunes. That idea is being widely publicized by the big music labels, who hope to gain some leverage against Apple in order to push their own plans for the future of music sales. But is it accurate, is Amazon any threat to Apple’s iTunes, and what effect will the rumored plans for iPod-bundled music have on the online music industry? Here’s a look.

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Blogs have been buzzing about an article in Mechanix Illustrated from 1969 that made a series of predictions for life in 2008: flying cars that whisked commuters to work on autopilot at the speed of bullet trains, supersonic rocket planes, homes automated by a central computer, a society fed seaweed that tastes like steak, intelligence pills, and other science fiction ideas. Nobody has pointed out that the main prediction that has become a reality is represented by the iPhone.

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Daniel Eran Dilger
When the iPhone was unveiled a year ago, it was obvious that it would outclass the status quo in mobile phones, particularly in the US where mobile operators have been holding back innovation. Far less obvious was the potential for the new phone to rival dedicated handheld gaming consoles. Here’s how well the iPhone stacks up against the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP in both hardware and as a business model.

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Roger Kay has resorted to religious fantasy in order to find something assailable about Apple’s rapid growth in consumer electronics and its mounting impact on the enterprise. Using more idioms than one could shake a gilded lily at, Kay strung together a series of weak complaints that ranged from misstatements to completely false assertions, bound together by a non sequitur (and non secular) mortar of inanity.

Auf Deutsch: Roger Kay – oder die Flügel des Ikarus im Vergleich zum Höhenflug von Apple
Übersetzung: digital express

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Shortly after Apple announced the iPhone SDK, Sun announced the intention to bring its Java Micro Edition platform to the iPhone. Questions remain about whether Sun will be able to deliver, if Apple will allow it, and what purpose this would serve for iPhone users. Even more interesting is where Java came from, and where it’s subsequently going in the mobile arena.

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Certain pundits have developed a rash of malignant concerns about iPhone 2.0’s SDK. The first issue they’re scratching at is the iPhone’s apparent inability to run multiple applications at once. The suggestion is that the iPhone is a multitasking impaired appliance just like the original Mac or the Palm Pilot, and unlike the supposed multitasking powerhouse that is Windows CE, which powers Windows Mobile devices. That’s wrong, here’s why.

Auf Deutsch: iPhone 2.0 SDK: Der „kann kein Multitasking“ Mythos
Übersetzung: digital express

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