Matthew Panzarino at TNW Apple:
Former Vice President and Apple board member Al Gore has confirmed that new iPhones will be released in October. He specifically stated that ‘the new iPhones would be out next month’ at the Discovery Invest Leadership Summit today.
John Paczkowski at AllThingsD:
Tuesday, Oct. 4.
That’s the day Apple is currently expected to hold its next big media event, according to sources close to the situation, where the tech giant will unveil the next iteration of its popular iPhone.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt at Fortune Tech:
A look at previous lag-times suggests that he is right. As the chart at right shows, the wait between iPhone introduction and sale has decreased from 171 days in 2007 to 17 days in 2010.
Likewise, the lag time for the iPad shrank from 66 days in 2010 to 9 days this year.
Elmer-DeWitt is referring to Brian White, Managing Director of Equity Research at Ticonderoga Securities who suggested the time between announcement and availability will be short.
Apple likes Tuesdays to announce products. More accurately Steve Jobs likes Tuesdays. I’ve heard Tuesday is ideal for a couple of reasons. Most folks are just getting over the weekend and revving up on Mondays. So anything announced on Mondays might fall on sleepy ears. Having an event on Tuesday allows reporters a day during the workweek to get to Cupertino. No one likes to waste a weekend trying to get to a meeting on Monday. Tuesday is also early enough in the week for the announcement to pack news bandwidth through Friday. So Tuesday, October 4 it may well be.
Steve Jobs likes Fridays too. To make things available for you to buy. This also makes sense to me. Friday is a wind down day. A day when your bank account gets an ACH direct injection of funds. The day before the weekend so you can play with your new toy. I’m not a betting man, but here’s my guess to when those new iPhones will be available for purchase: October 7. Yes, it’s only three days after the announcement, but this time around, for federal employees and a few lucky folks, its a three day weekend thanks to Columbus Day.
Did Gore say iPhones as in two iPhones? You mean the low-cost iPhone 4S and the completely redesigned iPhone 5 with a larger display? Color me pessimistic, but I think Gore just meant there will be iPhones as in a black one and a white one with different storages. Like what we have now with the iPhone 4. You see Apple likes manufacturing efficiency. More accurately Tim Cook bleeds manufacturing efficiency. And building two completely different iPhones at the same time would go directly against what Cook is all about. So that’s why I don’t see two different iPhones being announced. If I were to pick it’d be an iPhone 4S.
While it was theoretically nice to have less stuff taking up both mental and physical space in my work area, I eventually moved toward the middle ground of incorporating a few items back into the mix. There’s a vast difference between a functional, uncluttered workspace and complete minimalism [...]
Key phrases from Patrick Rhone at Minimal Mac:
For me, less is almost always more. With less I can focus and focus is required to put into words what’s in my head. But there is a limit to less. I need my fountain pen because the friction between nib and paper somehow works for me. The photos were taken with an iPhone and it’s usually attached to the MacBook Pro, propped up by a Glif, and connected to an Apple Bluetooth keyboard. This setup works really well for me since I can quickly respond to messages. The LEGO sports car I put together is a nice visual distraction. Oh, and I need something to drink, preferably coffee.
BOE Technology’s (BOE) first 8.5G TFT LCD panel production line began trial operations in June 2011 and is expected to enter mass production in October. According to industry sources, BOE has been developing high-end products and may begin production of 3D TV panels using film patterned retarder (FPR) technology at the end of 2011 or beginning of 2012.
The Gen 8.5 LCD fabrication plant is located in Beijing, China. The opening ceremony was held earlier this year on June 28. Initial input capacity in October is expected to be 15,000 glass substrates and may increase to 30,000 by the end of 2011. DigiTimes reports BOE’s Gen 8.5 LCD fab is designed for a maximum monthly input capacity of 90,000 substrates, but other media sources cite BOE president Chen Yanshun stating full production capacity at 120,000 glass substrates per month. BOE expects to reach full capacity in the second quarter of 2012.
FPR, a LG Display developed passive 3D technology that handily beat out active shutter in a recent test conducted by DisplayMate’s Dr. Raymond Soneira, will be BOE’s choice of 3D technology. BOE is expected to manufacture FPR 3D LCD panels in three sizes, in inches: 32, 46, and 55.
China-based consumer electronics manufacturers Changhong, Hisense, Konka, and Skyworth Digital Holdings have signed a memorandum of intent with BOE to engage in joint research and development efforts for LCD TVs. These are also the same companies that have agreed to jointly promote FPR 3D LCD technology with LG Display.
Hector Lloyd has created a series of beautifully playful illustrations exclusively for Globe-Trotter, documenting the heritage and lifestyle of the suitcases in a new and imaginative sense.
Timber consists of 10 massive wood parts. It is held together by its own weight. Design and function is merged to let the observer see and understand the principles of its construction.
The Manga Guide series of books are fantastic. Remember spending countless hours reading comic books when we were growing up. Maybe we still do! The characters sucked us in and hours upon hours zipped by as we followed their fantastic journeys. During my high school years Japanese anime became all the rage. I still remember one of my favorites, Bubble Gum Crisis. The Manga Guide series combines a bit of both. And then some.
You get to explore our solar system, the Milky Way, and other mysteries of our universe in The Manga Guide to the Universe with Gloria, Kanna, and Yamane. As you follow these three girls you gain knowledge of the universe almost without friction. It’s not quite like reading Captain America or Iron Man, but it’s about as far as you can get from a typical textbook. Learning can be fun; The Manga Guide series is proof. Check out the first chapter on the heliocentric universe.
Kia introduced its GT Concept four door sports saloon during the 2011 Frankfurt Auto Show. Instead of using spectacular LCDs in the instrument cluster Kia took a few steps beyond. The Mercedes Benz S-Class and the Lexus LFA both use LCDs to replace the dials in the instrument cluster. And Lexus had no choice: the V10 engine revved so quickly an analog dial couldn’t keep up.
Maybe Kia had no other choice either in the quest to build a 3D instrument cluster. By layering three transparent OLED displays the dash in the GT Concept exhibits a 3D-like experience. On a related note, Apple submitted a patent for a 3D display system using multiple transparent OLED displays. Take a look at a video of the triple layered transparent OLED instrument panel inside the Kia GT Concept.
The second and third transparent OLED displays give depth to the speedometer, tachometer, and other dials. The overall effect is fantastic, but I have to ask the enthusiasm dampening hard questions: How long is that OLED going to last? Unless your Kia is completely blacked out, those OLEDs will need to be driven pretty hard to emit the level of brightness that can overcome what can be an unforgivingly bright environment. OLEDs are also sensitive to temperature and cars can get really hot; so how well will it perform in steamy environments? My guess is it seems we’ll be waiting a while for 3D transparent OLED instrument clusters in our cars because OLEDs that are driven hard in hot environments will die out rapidly.
The LG Optimus LTE might be the first smartphone to sport a 1280×720 pixel format. The 8-bit 4.5-inch Advanced High Performance In-Plane Switching (AH-IPS) LCD with 1280×720 pixels is good for a resolution of 326 ppi*. Which coincidentally is the same 326 ppi found on the current reigning champ the 3.5-inch IPS LCD Retina Display on the iPhone 4.
AH-IPS recently beat out Super AMOLED Plus. As reported by GSM Arena, the LG Display-built 4.5-inch AH-IPS with 1280×720 had better color accuracy, lower power consumption (624 mW v. 1130 mW), and higher brightness (600 nits v. 300+ nits) receiving the prestigious Quality & Performance Mark from Intertek.
LG is branding the 4.5-inch 1280×720 AH-IPS LCD as True HD. Rightly so. Even with an equivalent 326 ppi resolution the LG Optimus LTE trumps the iPhone 4 Retina Display in one very important aspect: 720p HD content is viewed without any scaling. You get pure 720p.
The LG Optimus LTE will be available on September 26 on South Korea’s LG U+ LTE network.
—
* Many news outlets are indicating the resolution at 329 ppi, which might mean the AH-IPS LCD is slightly smaller in the range of 4.46 – 4.47 inches.
Nebojsa Novakovic, VR-Zone.com:
Not only can the MFX engine display up to 4096 x 4096 pixels on a single monitor, but it can also handle video processing for 4K QuadHD video as well. [...]
The Intel Ivy Bridge chipset is scheduled to be released around March/April 2012. 4Kx4K would require a square display. That’s not unusual since we already have square displays. The iPod nano for instance.
Let’s assume these conditions: frequency is 60Hz, which means that it updates content at 60 fps. Each pixel is made up of three red, green, blue sub-pixels. And each sub-pixel is 8 bit. 4K means 4096. So a 4Kx4K monitor would require a bandwidth of:
(8 bit x 3 sub-pixels) x (4096 x 4096) x 60 fps
The next step:
24 bit x 16,777,216 x 60 fps
We get 24,159,191,040 bits per second or 24.16 Gbps. The Ivy Bridge is an integrated graphics chipset.
Is there an industry standard video interconnect that can handle 23 Gbps? According to VESA, DisplayPort 1.2 has four micro-packet lanes good for 5.4 Gbps each for a total of 21.6 Gbps. So the fastest video interconnect of today can’t handle a 4Kx4K square display. Well, what about a more reasonable 4K2K display?
A 4K2K can mean a lot of things. Check out YouTube Supports 4K2K, Quad HD for all the details. Let’s pick a number and go with it. How about 3840×2160? Also known as Quad HD and more accurately Quad Full HD. The recently announced Toshiba 55ZL2 sports this pixel format. The next pixel format beyond 1920×1080 looks to be 3840×2160. What would the minimum bandwidth requirement be for a display running at 60 Hz?
24 bit x (3840x2160) x 60 fps
11,943,936 bits per second or almost 12 Gbps. Double the frequency to 120 fps (or 120 Hz) and the total bandwidth is still within the capabilities of an Ivy Bridge chipset. The problem is DisplayPort will need to bump up its bandwidth threshold from 21.6 to 24 Gbps.
The MFX engine in the upcoming Ivy Bridge integrated chipset can handle 24 Gbps, good for running a 3840×2160 display at 120Hz. Amazing.
IDC analyst Jennifer Song:
Apple’s iOS share will continue to lead by more than 40 percentage points over Google’s Android for the remainder of the year, but we expect Apple’s share to fall closer to 50% by the end of the forecast period as manufacturers bring new tablets to market.
Second quarter worldwide media tablet shipments increased 88.9% Q/Q and 303.8% Y/Y to 13.6 million units. Based on this result IDC has raised its shipment forecast from 53.5 million to 62.5 million units for 2011. That’s some impressive growth in the second quarter, but a lot has happened since.
Crazy stuff during the third quarter:
HP abandoned its TouchPad. After another round of builds to make use of the already paid for component inventory the TouchPad will be no more. A small blip in shipments due to the TouchPad in the third quarter will mean very little for the overall tablet market going forward.
Except that to generate demand on par to the iPad the competition will need to price their tablets aggressively. TouchPads flew off the shelves at US$99. Even the more expensive $149 32GB version was impossible to find anywhere. This Apotheker-led fiasco confirms that at the same price it is almost impossible to compete against the iPad.
RIM recently announced that it had shipped just 200,000 BlackBerry PlayBooks during the second quarter. Despite aggressive marketing shipment performance was dismal. I don’t see those numbers improving in the third quarter.
Google purchased Motorola Mobility (MMI). Most argue Google purchased MMI for its massive collection of intellectual property to defend Android from attacks by Microsoft and Apple. This certainly has some teeth as Google has by proxy sued Apple by transferring some patents from MMI to HTC. Those patents along with others Google purchased were used by HTC to sue Apple. Google, it turns out, also purchased more than 1000 patents from IBM, probably for similar reasons. But no one knows for sure what Google will do with MMI’s hardware capabilities, and that will probably have a dampening impact on the enthusiasm of brands making Android tablets.
During the Build conference there was a massive Windows 8 blitz. In the future Android tablets will be powered by x86 Intel CPUs. Windows 8 tablets will run on x86 and ARM CPUs.
Put this all together and the possibility is there: momentum for Android tablets might slow. Brands, especially Android tablet brands, will likely have begun drawing out their strategies for Windows 8 tablets. I don’t think tablet brands will completely abandon Android and embrace Windows 8. For many like Samsung, Windows 8 will serve as a hedge against Google, in the event that it starts showing signs of preferential treatment to MMI.
The 60 million plus tablet shipments forecasted by IDC will certainly be dominated by the iPad, but I’d bet the iPad will be significantly more than 50%.
DisplayBlog is written and produced by Jin Kim. Subscribe via RSS.