The unit will weight almost 19kg, but have some awesome features. You can choose between two options.

The first one will get you a new quad-core Mac Pro and costs $2,499. It will include:

• one 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon W3530 processor with 8MB of fully-shared L3 cache;
• 3GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory, expandable up to 16GB;
• ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
• two Mini DisplayPorts and one DVI (dual-link) port (adapters sold separately);
• 1TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
• 18x SuperDrive® with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
• four PCI Express 2.0 slots;
• five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire® 800 ports;
• AirPort Extreme® 802.11n;
• Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
• Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad and Magic Mouse.

The second option will offer you an 8-core Mac Pro with a suggested retail price of $3,499. It will include:

• two 2.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5620 processors with 12MB of fully-shared L3 cache per processor;
• 6GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory, expandable up to 32GB;
• ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
• two Mini DisplayPorts and one DVI (dual-link) port (adapters sold separately);
• 1TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
• 18x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
• four PCI Express 2.0 slots;
• five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire 800 ports;
• AirPort Extreme 802.11n;
• Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
• Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad and Magic Mouse.

Additional updates are still available if you plan to improve this monster:

• one 3.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon W3565 processor for the quad-core Mac Pro;

• one 3.33 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon W3680 processor for the quad-core Mac Pro;
• two 2.66 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon X5650 processors (12-cores) for the 8-core Mac Pro;
• two 2.93 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon X5670 processors (12-cores) for the 8-core Mac Pro;
• two ATI Radeon HD 5770 cards with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
• one ATI Radeon HD 5870 card with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
• up to 16GB of DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory for the quad-core Mac Pro;
• up to 32GB of DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory for the 8-core Mac Pro;
• up to four 512GB solid state drives (SSD); or
• up to four 1TB or 2TB Serial ATA hard drives running at 7200 rpm;
• Mac Pro RAID card;
• dual-channel or quad-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel card; and
• up to two 18x SuperDrives with double-layer support.

It will cost you almost $5000 to reach a 12-core processor performance and 32Gb RAM, but at least you will know you can ride a machine right from your desk. In a world where you can feed a whole city with $5000, there will be always guys who will spend this amount just for fun.

When you will purchase an Apple Mac Pro you will find in the box:

• Mac Pro
• Power cord
• Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad
• Magic Mouse
• USB keyboard extension cable
• Install/restore DVDs
• Printed and electronic documentation

Accessories include: Magic Trackpad, Apple Battery Charger, wired Apple Mouse, wireless Apple Keyboard, Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter, Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (for 30-inch DVI display), Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter, the AppleCare® Protection Plan; and pre-installed copies of Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server; iWork®, Logic Express 9, Final Cut Express 4 and Aperture 3.

Source

Expanding the problem towards four other big mobile producers was not a smart choice for Apple and the time will surely prove that.

All four blamed companies filled press releases where they explained about their antennas and some(Samsung) claimed as “unacceptable” the decision of Apple. RIM made it clear that they are a global leader in antenna design and the they always avoided the designs like the ones Apple used on iPhone 4. HTC responded through a PR voice that they had just 0.016% users complaining about antenna issues. Nokia, one of the largest mobile producers ensured customers that they put antenna design on top of their priorities when they design a new phone.

Nokia

“Antenna design is a complex subject and has been a core competence at Nokia for decades, across hundreds of phone models. Nokia was the pioneer in internal antennas; the Nokia 8810, launched in 1998, was the first commercial phone with this feature.

Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying human behavior, including how people hold their phones for calls, music playing, web browsing and so on. As you would expect from a company focused on connecting people, we prioritize antenna performance over physical design if they are ever in conflict.

In general, antenna performance of a mobile device/phone may be affected with a tight grip, depending on how the device is held. That’s why Nokia designs our phones to ensure acceptable performance in all real life cases, for example when the phone is held in either hand. Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying how people hold their phones and allows for this in designs, for example by having antennas both at the top and bottom of the phone and by careful selection of materials and their use in the mechanical design.”

HTC

“Approximately .016% of customers”, Eric Lin, the company’s global PR and online community manager exclusively revealed to us before adding that “we have had very few complaints about signal or antenna problems on the Eris”.

RIM

Apple’s attempt to draw RIM into Apple’s self-made debacle is unacceptable. Apple’s claims about RIM products appear to be deliberate attempts to distort the public’s understanding of an antenna design issue and to deflect attention from Apple’s difficult situation. RIM is a global leader in antenna design and has been successfully designing industry-leading wireless data products with efficient and effective radio performance for over 20 years. During that time, RIM has avoided designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4 and instead has used innovative designs which reduce the risk for dropped calls, especially in areas of lower coverage. One thing is for certain, RIM’s customers don’t need to use a case for their BlackBerry smartphone to maintain proper connectivity. Apple clearly made certain design decisions and it should take responsibility for these decisions rather than trying to draw RIM and others into a situation that relates specifically to Apple.

Samsung

The antenna is located at the bottom of the Omnia 2 phone, while iPhone’s antenna is on the lower left side of the device. Our design keeps the distance between a hand and an antenna. We have fully conducted field tests before the rollout of smartphones. Reception problems have not happened so far, and there is no room for such problems to happen in the future.

Sources: Nokia, HTC, RIM, Samsung

The conference begun in Apple way: “We are not perfect” “We want to make all our users happy”, said Steve.

Then Steve admit that antenna issue is real, but this problem is on all smartphones(Nokia, BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung). This thing may be possible, but why is Apple quoting other companies when they should have mind their own problem and solve it !? We think Apple point of view was shameless regarding this issue.

After the conference Nokia released a statement saying that when they build a phone,  they “prioritize antenna performance over physical design“. This is the full statement:

“Antenna design is a complex subject and has been a core competence at Nokia for decades, across hundreds of phone models. Nokia was the pioneer in internal antennas; the Nokia 8810, launched in 1998, was the first commercial phone with this feature.

Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying human behavior, including how people hold their phones for calls, music playing, web browsing and so on. As you would expect from a company focused on connecting people, we prioritize antenna performance over physical design if they are ever in conflict.

In general, antenna performance of a mobile device/phone may be affected with a tight grip, depending on how the device is held. That’s why Nokia designs our phones to ensure acceptable performance in all real life cases, for example when the phone is held in either hand. Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying how people hold their phones and allows for this in designs, for example by having antennas both at the top and bottom of the phone and by careful selection of materials and their use in the mechanical design.”

After this, we were able to see that iPhone 4 is one of the best smartphone from the market and has been sold in more than 3.000.000 pieces. It has been reviewed by many publications(engadget, consumer reports, etc) and all claimed it’s a wonderful phone.

There has been 22 days since Apple discovered this problem and they start making their own tests about antenna signal on several phones: BlackBerry Bold 9700, HTC Droid Eris and Samsung Omnia II.

Steve claimed that every phone have week spots and admit they made a big mistake when they designed iPhone 4: they marked the spot where the antenna signal could have problems.
Apple posted on their site a new section where we could see their Antenna Design and Test Labs.

Apple never releases a product without thoroughly testing it first. To do this, we built our multimillion-dollar antenna design and test labs. These labs feature 17 different antenna characterization chambers (or anechoic chambers) designed to accurately measure antenna and wireless performance.

Apple engineers tested iPhone 4 in a variety of scenarios, environments, and conditions in order to gauge performance. They spent thousands of hours in cities in the U.S. and throughout the world testing iPhone 4 call quality, dropped-call performance, call origination and termination, and in-service time. They tested iPhone 4 while stationary, at high and low speeds, and in urban, dense urban, and highway environments. In low-coverage areas and good-coverage areas, during peak and off-peak hours — iPhone 4 was field-tested in nearly every possible coverage scenario across different vendor and carrier equipment all over the world.

To calm down all users, Steve presented some data numbers:

-AppleCare recorded 0.55% users complaining about iPhone 4 antenna or reception.

-AT&T had 1.7% return rate for iPhone 4(iPhone 3GS had 6% return rate).

-AT&T recorded less than 1 additional call dropped/100 calls compared to iPhone 3GS.

Reports say that duct tape or bumpers solves the signal strength problem. To prove that Apple cares about all of their customers they will send every iPhone 4 owner a free case(bumper), until September 30. From next week you can apply to get a free case from Apple website. If you already bought one, you will be refunded by Apple. If you’re still unhappy with your iPhone 4 you can return the phone undamaged within 30 days of purchase for a full refund.

In the end will like to finish here and say that we think Apple took the right decision, by offering free bumpers to everybody and we believe that with or without this issue they will continue to sell their products with big success.

Source

Reports say that when you hold iPhone 4 in your left hand, you will experience signal loss problem. On the left side of the phone is a little space in the magnetic band and when this is covered the strength of the signal is weakened or lost.

Further more, a conversation between an Apple user and Steve Jobs was these days discussed and featured all over the Internet. The user told Steve that Apple should be ashamed by the signal performance of iPhone 4. Users mock about it, saying that it’s impossible to make a call without dropping. Steve replied arrogantly, telling the user to “calm down”, “relax”, this is happening only in weak signal areas and Apple is working to solve this small issue soon.

Last week, Apple released a letter explaining that this is just a software problem and will be fixed with a coming update.

Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.

To fix this, we are adopting AT&T’s recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength. The real signal strength remains the same, but the iPhone’s bars will report it far more accurately, providing users a much better indication of the reception they will get in a given area. We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see.

We will issue a free software update within a few weeks that incorporates the corrected formula. Since this mistake has been present since the original iPhone, this software update will also be available for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G.

Here is a video from Youtube where you can see a demonstration of this signal issue during calls.

More than this, it seams that Apple wants to hire Antenna engineers. Here is the proof:

In the end is clearly that Apple have an antenna issue with iPhone 4, but the problem is they want to cover this into a software issue. We will continue to follow this subject and we expect Apple to solve it soon.

Apple Jobs, Apple

The event begun as usual with numbers, huge numbers recorded by Apple:  2 million iPads sold, 5 million books downloaded, 15.000 new apps submitted each day and 95% accepted, 5 billion downloads and $ 1 billion paid to developers. Another big news for book readers is that PDF(viewer/reader) is now available at the iBooks section. Three major new apps were presented than: Netflix, Guitar Hero and Farmville.

Than, the major announcement was made: iPhone text appeared on the screen and so the next Apple phone will be called iPhone 4 and not 4G or HD as we were supposing. The shape and some of his specs were seen before, thanks to an Apple developer who forgot the device in a bar and Gizmodo.

The new Apple gadget has the designed well reshaped with stainless steel banding around the sides and a glass front+back. Steve was glad to say that  iPhone 4 will become one of the thinnest smartphone on the market(having just 9.3mm).

On the left side of the phone we have now three metal buttons: two for the volume and one is the mute button. MicroSIM slot is hosted on the right side of the phone. Above the screen there’s the 3.5 mm headset, a microphone and the On/Off button, while at the bottom is the usual microphone, a 30-pin connector and the speaker. Near the earpiece, a VGA camera(30 fps) will finally give us the chance to videochat with other users.

The display made a big leap forward and as Steve Jobs claimed seems to be one of the gorgeous ever made. Retina display means a 4x increase of the pixels that 3GS had. The retina display has now 326 pixels per inch and managed to deliver an unbelievable experience on a 3.5-inches screen with 960 x 640 resolution and 800:1 contrast rate. Everything on the display is 4x times better than 3GS model, we’ve putted a comparison photo to understand better.

Along the accelerometer, compass and proximity sensor, a three-axis gyroscope is now available. The new 6-axis motion sensing system will be perfect for gaming on an iPhone 4 device.

At the back of the phone is a 5 megapixel camera that comes as well with LED flash, backside illuminated sensor, 5x digital zoom and tap to focus. In order to achieve a high quality, Apple kept the size of pixel sensors from 3GS model and now camera captures more photons. Another cool feature of the 5 megapixel camera is HD video recording.

Videos can be recorded in full 720p(HD) at 30 fps and tap to focus, built-in-video editing, one-click sharing or the LED flash will be there to help you. More than that, iMovie app will deliver you the tools to create movies or video postcards by inserting your favorite selection of videos, music, photos.

iPhone 4 be featuring a quality set of connectivity options: GPRS, EDGE, 3G, Wi-Fi(b/g/n), Bluetooth 2.1, USB 2.0 port and GPS. Internal components are also changed: the battery is bigger, the processor is the A4 made by Apple, but the flash memory remains the same(16Gb or 32Gb). The browser is expected to be Safari 5, but no announcement has been made during this event.

Each phone will have the fourth iPhone operating system version which now is called iOS 4 and will be featuring: multitasking, folders, iAd, Retina Display integration, unified inbox and threading in Mail, lots of enhancements in camera and photos, deeper enterprise support, and tons of new features everywhere.

Steve Jobs keynote ended with a demo where he could test the last feature called FaceTime video calling. FaceTime is an app that requires Wi-Fi(for now) and one of the two cameras to enable video calling between two iPhone 4 phone users. In the future it is expected that video chat calls will be enabled on any kind of phone device, but this is a matter left to discuss with cell phone carriers.  During calls you can switch views between front or back camera and between and share the entire view and sound to your call friend(landscape or portrait mode also supported).

At the end let’s not forget the colours(White and Black) and the pricing which will be $199 for 16GB or $299 for 32GB.

Apple’s iPhone 4 will be released on June 24th, but pre orders will start from June 15th and by the end of September a total number of 88 countries will get it delivered.

Source

As we were used to, since 2007, Apple announces the next iPhone version in June, so we think this is the perfect time to unveil the next generation of iPhone. Don’t forget this is the first iPhone which leaked before it’s release date and some of his rumored features are: 5 megapixel camera, improved display, videochat conferencing, HD recording, microSIM slot, 512 Mb RAM and a bigger battery.

The event is running from June 7 to June 11 and will focus on unveiling latest innovations for developers: Application Frameworks; Internet & Web; Graphics & Media; Developer Tools and Core OS.

At the same event, Steve Balmer is rumored to present the next release of Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, that appears to allow developers to write native applications for the iPhone, iPad and Mac OS.

Apple engineers will deliver over 100 solutions-oriented technical sessions and labs. WWDC 2010 gives an incredibly diverse community the opportunity to connect with thousands of fellow iPhone®, iPad™ and Mac® developers from around the world.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution with the Apple II, then reinvented the personal computer with the Macintosh. Apple continues to lead the industry with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system, and iLife, iWork and professional applications. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store, has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

Source and Apple

All started in 2007 when Apple launched iPhone mobile device and same time with him, the iPhone OS. From the beginning they refuse to comment about any Flash support or things related to it, but few years after it seams they couldn’t resist and say directly: we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads.

Apple made a clever move in 2008 with iTunes, which became the unique place to download official apps for Apple gadgets. Unofficial Apple blocked any third-party software from running unless you hack(“jailbreak“) your iPhone that could destroy your warranty or even ruin the device. At that time they claimed they are doing this(iTunes) for a reason: to have secure apps, free from viruses , spam and malware.

This was maybe a real basis, but they forgot to tell us that almost every download will cost money and Apple will only have to gain from this move. It was simple to understand that if you want to use/own an iPhone you either have to “jailbreak” it on your own risk or you have to buy apps and other stuffs from iTunes.

For developers wasn’t also easy to make apps for Apple as soon as they have the right to accept or refuse any soft product if it doesn’t comply with their rules. Strange apps as Wobble iBoobs, Baby Shaker which were considered a little sexy or violent appeared on iTunes while apps which involved public figures, even if they were used in comic books, were denied.

Same story happened after iPad release which is also locked, so you can’t use third party apps, even this is a tablet, not a phone. Let’s not forget the microSD card extension made unavailable on all Apple devices.

In a poor world where you could feed a whole country with 1 mil $, Steve figured out how to be more selfish and make more and more money. The recent “innovation” was announced during iPhone 4.0 OS and was named iAd. It’s easy to figure out from the name what this means->ads on iPhone. Steve told us the bright side-it would be an outstanding experience. This will be surely a plus for Apple and developers of the ads, but a minus for other ad platforms which use flash and can’t provide their services properly.

At the end of iPhone 4.0 OS press event, Apple allowed a little Q&A session with journalists, where Steve Jobs also participated. During the meeting one of the question was:

Is there going to be any change in Apple’s position on Java or Flash on version four?

and the response was short and easy to guess

NO

This was the point where everyone started to ask how could this not be possible and weeks after Apple couldn’t resist anymore and release a letter called “Thoughts on Flash” signed by Steve Jobs itself.

Letter was full of accuses :

• Adobe Flash is not an open source as HTML, CSS and JavaScript are.
• The lack of Flash doesn’t affect so much the users, because H.264 is more modern than Flash and is viewable on Apple products.
• Apple accused Flash for reliability, security and performance saying that Flash is the reason that cause Macs to crash.
• Flash drain battery when playing videos while the modern decoder, H.264 can play them for a long period.
• Flash was created for PC and it needs to be modified in order to run on touch devices, but once again Apple wants to use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript.

This intelligent move seeks to somehow lay low Adobe Flash, but if Apple can resist Adobe(Flash), we are not so sure it will resist Google(Chrome) or Microsoft(Silverlight) platforms.

Final interesting thing is that Google announced Flash to be available on Android 2.2 version, which will be released during 2010, while Apple could face antitrust investigation(for iAd platform and Flash).