How to get a copy of the Apple Watch with a guaranteed ship date of April 28th

With supply of the Apple Watch exceedingly low, and shipping times delayed as a result, Apple today sent out emails to iOS developers offering them an opportunity purchase a 42mm Apple Watch Sport with a blue Sport band with a guaranteed shipping date of April 28th.

The purpose behind the offer is, quite naturally, to give developers a better chance to test out their Apple Watch apps as soon as possible. Note, though, that not every interested developer will be able to get a new Apple Watch so quickly. Because supply is limited, developers who apply will be chosen by Apple at random this Thursday.

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Posted in 2015 at 07:42PM, April 21

Samsung to Produce A9 Chips for Apple's Next-Generation Devices

Longtime Apple rival and supplier Samsung will be responsible for manufacturing the A9 chips for Apple's next-generation iPhone and iPad, Re/code confirmed today. Over the past several months, there's been a lot of confusion over whether Samsung or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) would produce Apple's A9 chips, but recent rumors suggest that Samsung's technological advances have put it ahead of TSMC.



Apple signed a chip production deal with TSMC back in 2013 with the hopes of diversifying its supply chain sources and reducing its reliance on Samsung because of ongoing legal battles, but it has been unable to break away from Samsung for its A-series processors. Both TSMC and Samsung produced 20-nanometer A8 and A8X processors for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in 2014, though TSMC handled the bulk of the orders.




20-nanometer A8 chip in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, via Chipworks


At a time when Samsung's mobile division is seeing profit loss due to flagging sales, the company's semiconductor business has helped to balance out some of the losses with continued growth. During the last quarter, Samsung's chip division earned 2.7 trillion won, making supplier relationships like the one that it has with Apple highly important to the company.



Samsung is reportedly already manufacturing A9 chips for Apple, built on its 14-nanometer chip process that has outpaced TSMC's production capabilities. As detailed by Re/code, the 14-nanometer process will result in smaller chips that use less power.

That's because Samsung holds a technological edge over TSMC when it comes to the latest manufacturing process. Samsung has managed to shrink the size of the transistors on its chips to 14 nanometers -- effectively packing more processing power into a smaller space and consuming less power. TSMC is still at 20 nanometers.

Samsung has not confirmed that it is producing chips for Apple, but Samsung semiconductor president Dr. Kinam Kim said in October that Samsung is expecting chip profits to grow over the coming year thanks to demand for its 14-nanometer chips.



Little is known about Apple's next-generation iPhone, but based on past releases and upgrade cycles, the new smartphones will use A9 chips and may feature updates to the camera. Rumors have also suggested that Apple may be planning to incorporate an A9 chip into its "iPad Pro," which may debut in the second or third quarter of 2014, and the A9 in some form will undoubtedly also make an appearance in 2015 iPad Air/mini upgrades.

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Posted in 2015 at 07:42PM, February 04

Facebook's 'Paper' App for iOS Updated With Photo Sharing Improvements [iOS Blog]

Facebook today updated its Paper app to version 1.2.5, adding several improvements to the app's photo management capabilities. It's now possible for users to access their "Favorited" photos album on iOS for faster sharing of preferred photos, and the Camera Roll in the app organizes photos by date.



The "Favorites" album was introduced with the iOS 8 Photos app revamp and houses all of the images that a user favorites via tapping the heart icon on individual pictures within the app.



Today's Paper update also includes performance enhancements that are designed to make various features within the app run faster, including photo uploads.

We've been working to perfect your experience with Paper. In this release, we've focused on making it even faster and easier for you to share photos, in addition to fixing a few issues you've let us know about. Thanks for your feedback!



Here's what's new and improved:



- Camera Roll organized by date. When selecting media to share in the composer, photos and videos are now organized by the date they were taken.

- Share your Favorited photos. Quickly share photos from the new Favorites album introduced with iOS 8.

- Faster performance. We've improved the responsiveness of several parts of Paper including posting a photo.

First introduced in January of 2014, Facebook's Paper app is a news creation and curation tool that pulls in content from a user's Facebook news feed and other well-known publications, organizing it into a magazine-style layout for easy reading. Many people have come to prefer Paper over the standard Facebook app to read through their news feeds.



Facebook's Paper app can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

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Posted in 2015 at 07:42PM, January 28