Technology News and IT Business Intelligence

According to market research firm NPD, Apple’s Mac OS X Snow Leopard has seen very strong sales thus far, having sold more than twice as many copies during its first two weeks on the market as Mac OS X Leopard did in late 2007. Early sales of Snow Leopard also exceed those of 2005’s Mac OS X Tiger by nearly four times.

“Even though some considered Snow Leopard to be less feature-focused than the releases of Leopard or Tiger, the ease of upgrading to Snow Leopard and the affordable pricing made it a win-win for Apple computer owners – thus helping to push sales to record numbers” said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD.

The report notes that Snow Leopard generated significant sales momentum, with sales dropping only 25% from week 1 to week 2. Leopard and Tiger reportedly experienced approximately 60% drops in sales numbers in their second weeks on the market.

Research analyst Gene Munster had previously estimated that Apple would sell approximately five million copies of Snow Leopard during its launch quarter, which ends later this month. Given that Apple sold over two million copies of Leopard in just its first weekend, NPD’s data suggests that Apple should easily reach Munster’s target.

Hardmac reports on a performance comparison between Mac OS X Leopard and Mac OS X Snow Leopard from Christophe Ducommun, developer of MovieGate, a video encoding and DVD creation software package. Ducommun, who is optimizing his application to take advantage of the Grand Central Dispatch and Open CL features of Snow Leopard, has found remarkable performance improvements for his software on the operating system when running on a Mac Pro.

Christophe Ducommun who keeps optimizing Snow Leopard for his application MovieGate just sent us results to illustrate how Snow Leopard can improve performance when one can make use of Grand Central and Open CL. Tests below have been performed with a Mac Pro 2007 (Quad Core 2.66 GHz with a GeForce 8800 GT).

The results include an approximately 50% increase in video encoding speed when compared to Leopard, while also reducing the CPU load during video decoding by passing some of the work to the graphics processing unit.

Snow Leopard
150 frame/s for encoding in MPEG-2
70% CPU load for decoding
130% CPU load for MPEG-2 encoding (ffmpeg)

Leopard
104 frame/s for encoding in MPEG-2
165% CPU load for decoding
100% CPU load for MPEG-2 encoding (ffmpeg)

While Ducommun’s experience is relatively rare at this point due to the inability for the vast majority of applications to make such comprehensive use of Grand Central Dispatch and Open CL at this time, it highlights the potential performance gains these core technologies can bring to Mac OS X as developers begin to take advantage of them.

Chip design firm ARM today announced the development of two dual-core chip designs based on the company’s Cortex-A9 platform. Implementations of the new chip designs, which will deliver performance in excess of 2 GHz while drawing less than 0.25 W of power per CPU, will be available in the fourth quarter of this year.

The Cortex-A9 speed-optimized hard macro implementation will provide system designers with an industry standard ARM processor incorporating aggressive low-power techniques to further extend ARM’s performance leadership into high-margin consumer and enterprise devices within the power envelope necessary for compact, high-density and thermally constrained environments. This hard macro implementation operates in excess of 2GHz when selected from typical silicon and represents an ideal solution for high-margin performance-oriented applications.

ARM is positioning the chip design for use in such consumer electronics devices as set-top boxes, digital TVs, and printers, although it has been claimed in the past that the chips would be appropriate for mobile platforms and would appear in those devices in 2010.

The iPhone 3GS utilizes a Cortex-A8-based processor from Samsung, suggesting that the Cortex-A9 could be a natural fit for the next-generation iPhone, although the thermally-constrained environment and energy requirements of the iPhone would likely dictate that the chip be underclocked as has been done for several iPhone and iPod touch models.

Apple, which acquired ARM chip design firm P.A. Semi in April 2008, has been rumored to be working on its own ARM-based chip designs for both the iPhone and the much-anticipated Apple tablet, and the introduction of dual-core Cortex-A9 processors would offer the company additional computing power and energy-saving options upon which to base its device designs.

Tech Trader Daily reports on a note to clients from research firm Wedge Partners predicting the release of updated iMac and MacBook models within the next several weeks. The refresh is expected to bring a significant redesign to the iMac, while the MacBook is likely to see only limited enhancements on the design front.

Wedge sees a redesigned iMac witjh a “thinner, organic design, likely with smoothed or rounded edges. The MacBook redesign “is likely to be limited,” Wedge asserts.

The note also suggests that the updates will bring lower price tags in order to aggressively compete against Windows 7-based PCs and the low-cost netbook segment.

Wedge Partners’ report echoes previous claims suggesting that Apple is working on refreshed iMac and MacBook designs to be accompanied by lower price points later this year, but is the first to point to a release window for the new models in the very near future.

At Apple’s “It’s Only Rock and Roll” media event last week, the company introduced new iPod touch models with 32 GB and 64 GB capacities, advertising the devices as offering “up to 50 percent faster performance”. Macworld has performed speed tests comparing the new iPod touch to the previous-generation model, and found that on a number of tasks the new model does meet or exceed Apple’s performance claims.

The speed tests conducted were similar to ones run in June on the iPhone 3GS, and while the new iPhone running Apple’s just-released iPhone OS 3.1 was not included in the latest comparison, the new iPod touch appears to even be slightly faster at some tasks than the iPhone 3GS.

But it’s not just in benchmarks such as these where the new iPod wins out. Just as the iPhone 3GS was faster than the iPhone 3G at everything, the new iPod touch feels much faster at any task you throw at it: applications launch (and quit) faster, Web pages load more quickly, processor-intensive games and programs perform better — you name it.

We’ll be testing the latest iPod touch’s performance — compared to both the previous touch and the iPhone 3GS — for our official review, but it’s clear that Apple has beefed up its newest touchscreen device.

Apple has quietly discontinued the 40GB Apple TV overnight and reduced the price of the 160GB model down to $229. Previously, the 40GB and 160GB models were priced at $229 and $329, respectively.

Now Apple is offering only a single 160GB model at $229. The changes fulfill an analyst prediction based on slipping ship dates for the 40GB model.

The Apple TV hardware has remained essentially unchanged since its introduction with the exception of hard drive size. Apple has always referred to the AppleTV as a “hobby” project and is still exploring ways to expand the market. Meanwhile, a new report claims to have found evidence that Apple’s new iTunes LP bundles were likely formatted specifically for the Apple TV. This would suggest we should see a major Apple TV software update in the near future.

Silicon Alley Insider reports that a change to accounting standards that received preliminary approval last week may alter the way Apple treats revenue from the iPhone and Apple TV. The issue relates to Apple’s policy of recognizing revenue from the iPhone and Apple TV over a two-year period from the date of purchase, a policy developed to satisfy accounting regulations as Apple provides free feature additions and software updates to the devices beyond the initial purchase.

Consequently, Apple has instituted a policy of releasing two sets of earnings numbers each quarter, one official set using Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) that parcels out iPhone and Apple TV revenue, and one set of non-GAAP numbers that includes all revenue as recorded on the date of purchase. For example, at it’s most recent quarterly earnings announcement, Apple reported official GAAP earnings of $1.23 billion on $8.34 billion in revenue, while the company’s non-GAAP earnings came in at $1.94 billion on $9.74 billion in revenue.

The Emerging Issues Task Force of the Financial Accounting Standards Board has issued preliminary approval of a policy change that would allow Apple to officially recognize most of the revenue from iPhone and Apple TV sales at the time of purchase, setting aside only a small portion of the revenue deemed to be the value of future software upgrades for future recognition.
In a report last week, Credit Suisse describes an accounting rule change that may eventually allow Apple to book most iPhone revenue upfront. Doing so would not change the company’s cash flow, so there would be no actual change in the theoretical value of the company or stock.

But the change would cause Wall Street analysts to jack up their earnings estimates, and it would significantly boost the company’s reported earnings. This would make Apple’s stock look much cheaper to unsophisticated investors. It might also, therefore, act as a catalyst for the stock.

The report notes that the rule change would affect only future sales, meaning that as Apple transitions to the new standard, its earnings would be somewhat inflated as the company recognized full revenue from new iPhone and Apple TV sales while still recording deferred revenue from sales in previous quarters made under the old standard.

A number of AT&T iPhone users around the United States are reporting that MMS is already working in advance of the September 25 date AT&T has officially announced as the MMS go-live date. According to accounts from forum members and across the web, MMS has started to work for some AT&T iPhone users with iPhone OS 3.1 out of the blue, requiring no action on their part to get it working.

Other forum members have followed instructions provided by Krillr.com to manually update a carrier settings file on their iPhones via iTunes, a method similar to hacks reported earlier this summer. Some have had success while others have not, though the ability to get MMS working appears to be more likely in some locations than others. Members have reported working MMS after applying the carrier file in California, Washington, Florida, Texas, and more, while others in Colorado, New Jersey, and other states describe that this method has not worked for them.

One side effect experienced by some who have tried this method is that visual voicemail ceases to function. Others report that MMS messaging will only work after the iPhone’s Wi-Fi radio is turned off.

Another potential factor in enabling MMS functionality before the official go-live date is the selected messaging plan. Those on an unlimited family messaging plan appear to have better chances at success in enabling MMS than those on a standard iPhone messaging plan.

While the methods that require the use of a modified carrier file to enable MMS do not technically appear to be jailbreaking or hacking your iPhone, following these instructions may have some negative consequences that are yet unknown, so iPhone users should proceed with caution in following them. With AT&T’s official roll-out of this feature in under two weeks, it may be less risky to wait.

Apple this week has launched three new television commercials, including one new “Get a Mac” ad featuring Justin Long and John Hodgman in their usual roles, one highlighting the gaming focus of the iPod touch, and a third showing off the video capabilities of the new iPod nano.

The newest “Get a Mac” commercial, entitled PC Innovation Lab and posted yesterday to Apple’s ad gallery, highlights several of Apple’s technological innovations, including MagSafe power connectors and extended-life batteries. In contrast, Hodgman’s “PC” character introduces several new tongue-in-cheek PC innovations, which include an “air-cushioned enclosure” and a “new, extremely long cord”.

The other two commercials, introduced during Apple’s “It’s Only Rock and Roll” media event on Wednesday, have also been posted to their respective ad galleries. Apple’s Next Level Fun commercial highlights gaming on the iPod touch by displaying a series of games, including several multiplayer scenarios, in quick succession. The new iPod nano commercial, entitled Nano Shoots Color, shows off the new device’s video camera capabilities while also demonstrating the wide variety of available color options.

Apple has posted a support article detailing a number of enhancements to its MobileMe service made possible by the launch of iPhone OS 3.1, Mac OS X Snow Leopard, and MobileMe Control Panel for Windows 1.5.

iPhone OS 3.1 brings enhancements to Find My iPhone, which now allows users to remotely set a passcode lock to prevent others from accessing the device, plays device alerts at the loudest volume, and notifies users that the feature will not function if the device’s data fetching option is set to Manual. The update also adds automatic syncing of subscribed iCal calendars and merging of bookmarks upon syncing on the iPhone and iPod touch. Finally, an issue with MobileMe Gallery image and video publication has been addressed.

Snow Leopard brings several improvements to MobileMe, including changes to Mac and iDisk syncing and support for Apple’s new “Wake on Demand” feature in conjunction with MobileMe’s “Back to My Mac” remote access capabilities. Snow Leopard also now allows users to publish movies to their MobileMe Gallery directly from QuickTime Player.

Finally, Windows users will benefit from the update to MobileMe Control Panel, which adds support for Windows 7, allows users to set a MobileMe calendar as the default calendar for Outlook, and resolves issues related to incorrect ordering of bookmarks when syncing.