Apple Has The Thinnest Smartphone→

Apple Has The Thinnest Smartphone

TechCrunch reports the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority has ruled Apple, and not Samsung, has the world’s thinnest smartphone with the iPhone 4:

The ASA ruled that since the iPhone’s thickest point is thinner than the Galaxy S II’s thickest, Apple has the right to continue claiming the title. Samsung likely isn’t too pleased — save for a single thick bit, their GSII is mostly thinner, and Apple gets to maintain their positioning (in the UK at least) as purveyors of slim, sleek design.

This is a minor detail in the sea of ongoing litigations and lawsuits between Apple and Samsung, but a curious piece of information design-wise. The Galaxy S II is thinner than the iPhone 4 on most of its surface (8.71mm at the thinnest points, versus the iPhone’s 9.3mm), but the thickest point at 9.91mm (see photo) makes sure that the iPhone 4 can still claim to be the thinnest smartphone. The ASA’s interesting choice is that they didn’t measure by average thickness, they simply looked at the thickest point of the device.

Apple has touted the iPhone 4 as the world’s thinnest smartphone in its commercials and magazine ads.

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VMware Releases Fusion 4, Brings Full Lion Support

VMware Fusion 4 has today been released by VMware, the latest version of the popular emulation software for running Windows on Macs. It comes just two weeks after Parallels Desktop 7 became available, which brought significant enhancements to the software when running on Lion.

Enhancements to VMware Fusion® 4 make it a breeze to run Windows and Mac applications side by side on a Mac,” said Pat Lee, director, client product management, VMware.

Todays update to VMware Fusion similarly brings full support for Lion including the ability to add Windows programs to Launchpad, Mission Control support and even utilising full-screen mode. Furthermore, VMware claims that performance has also been improved markedly,  potentially running up to 2.5 times faster than previous versions of Fusion. Other new features include the support for running Lion in a virtual machine (as per Lions new License Agreement) and more of a “Mac-Like Experience” when running Windows.

VMware Fusion 4 is available from today for $49.99 until the end of the year, when the pricing will revert to $79.99. VMware is also offering customers who purchased Fusion 3 on or after July 20 a free electronic upgrade to Fusion 4. You can purchase it online or at select resellers including the Apple retail and online stores. Jump the break for some screenshots of VMware Fusion 4.

[Via The Loop]

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Microsoft Releases Office 2011 14.1.3 Update, Patches Some Lion Issues

Microsoft announced in late July that it was preparing updates for Office 2011 to fix bugs and generally improve Lion support. That first update finally went live late yesterday, fixing a variety of minor bugs that affected Office 2011 in Lion. Unfortunately one of the biggest complaints when Lion was released was that Outlook 2011 couldn’t import emails from Mail.app - that issue has yet to be fixed, with Microsoft simply disabling the ability to import email on Lion.

As Microsoft’s Mac department revealed back in July, another more significant update for Office 2011 will arrive in a few months. In that update Microsoft has said they will bring support for new Lion features such as Versioning, Auto Save and full-screen mode to their applications.

Jump the break for a full list of improvements, whilst you can manually download the update from the Microsoft Download Center.

[Via TUAW]

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Belkin Reveals New Thunderbolt Express Dock

Today at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco, Belkin unveiled the Thunderbolt Express Dock featuring 3 USB ports, a Thunderbolt port for daisy chaining, a Firewire port and a Gigabit Ethernet port. DailyTech notes that this is the same port setup that’s found on the new 27″ Apple Thunderbolt Display – it seems very convenient that it’s the same arrangement as what Apple is already using.

The Belkin Express Dock could be very handy for Mac users wanting to expand their current port offering and don’t want to pay $999 for a Thunderbolt display. Pricing and availability have not yet been announced but the price should be reasonably below the cost of a Thunderbolt display. The next question is, will Belkin also include a Thunderbolt cable so you don’t have to dish out an extra $50 for one? [DailyTech]

New iPad Factory in Brazil Is “Ready”, Already Making iPads for December

According to a report by Brazilian website UOL, the Brazilian Minister of Science and Technology, Aloízio Mercadante, has confirmed during a hearing with the Commission of Economic Affairs that the new factory in Jundiaí is “ready”, and already making iPads that will begin shipping in Brazil starting this December.

At first many doubted, but it will be the first time that the company will produce iPads outside Chinese territory. We are taking a big step for digital inclusion in the country,” he said. Mercadante also said that the federal government will announce in the coming days to invest in a big factory of games in the Manaus Free Zone.

Originally scheduled for November, the availability of iPads made in Brazil is the result of a joint effort by the Brazilian government and Foxconn, maker of several Apple devices and peripherals including the iPhone and iPad. A first report from April suggested Foxconn would invest $12 billion in this new factory, with iPad production starting in late August / early September – the timeline seems correct. Additionally, it was reported in June Foxconn had already hired 175 engineers and sent them to China for training on how to build iPads.

Apple Developing “Scanner” iOS App with OCR?

9to5mac reports “a source at Apple” informed them the company is working on a native “Scanner” app for iOS devices, which would allow users to use an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad camera to scan documents or business cards on the go, and have them recognized & exported as PDF, or to other iOS apps like Pages and Contacts. The report says “it isn’t certain” when this app will be released and if it will be directly bundled into a future version of iOS, however the website suggests such scanning functionality would require a better camera other than the existing 5 MP one on the iPhone 4. The iPhone 5 is widely expected to have an 8 MP camera.

The user opens the app and holds the iPhone over the document or object they want scanned.  They then snap a picture of it.  Apple’s on-board software then resizes the image to ‘letter’ or business card, A4 or whatever depending on original document.  Resizing includes aligning edges that get skewed by a single scan point rather than traditional scanning methods.  The user can then manually change the size of the document or the use.

This “Scanner” app would also use either local / cloud-based OCR (optical character recognition) to separate images from text and make scanned text available for copying and pasting across iOS applications. Notably, iOS comes with an “Open in…” menu that enables third-party and native apps to communicate with each other’s supported documents and file types – 9to5mac does suggest the Scanner app would be capable of scanning a business card, and automatically add a new entry to the Contacts app.

There are a number of apps in the App Store that can turn iOS devices into portable scanners, some of them we’ve reviewed on MacStories before. Apple has also been granted a series of patents related to a possible scanning functionality for mobile devices.

iOS 5 Beta 8 on Friday, GM Next Week, France Telecom CEO Suggests iPhone 5 Launching October 15th

Two new rumors posted earlier today seem to suggest Apple is getting ready to release the last seeds of iOS 5 to developers, targeting an early October launch for the new OS, alongside the next-generation iPhone.

According to BGR, “a trusted source” claims Apple will release the eighth beta of iOS 5 this week, on Friday, with the Golden Master build to follow on or around September 23rd. Yesterday, a report claimed Apple will send a final version of iOS 5 to assemblers between September 23rd - 30th so that the iPhone 5 will come pre-loaded with iOS 5. It is believed iPhone assemblers in China are waiting for a final version of iOS 5 to install on the devices – as with new Macs released this summer with Lion pre-installed, Apple might want to release a new iPhone already running iOS 5 out of the box. BGR has a solid track record when it comes to pinpointing iOS beta releases, and the website also suggests Apple will requests “technical acceptance” of iOS 5 GM to carriers by October 5th. It is well-known carriers get exclusive versions of Apple’s iOS before the final release in order to test features like voice calling, texting, Internet browsing and perhaps even FaceTime on their networks.

Meanwhile, France Telecom CEO Stéphane Richard [Mac4Ever via MacRumors] has suggested that, based on what they heard, the iPhone 5 should launch on October 15th. October 15th is a Saturday – that would be unusual for iPhone releases, which usually happen on Thursdays or Fridays. Furthermore, previous speculation hinted at an iPhone 5 launch on October 7th - 14th – it is not clear whether Richard is referring to general date for the widely believed mid-October timeframe, or if he’s really heard something about an October 15th European launch.

It’s also worth mentioning that, if the iPhone 5 comes with iOS 5 pre-installed, the new OS would need to come out days ahead of new hardware alongside iTunes 10.5, currently in beta and required to sync iOS 5 devices with a Mac or PC. In the past, Apple released new versions of iTunes and iOS ahead of new hardware to get customers ready for the upgrade, and allow journalists/reviewers to restore the OS on a review unit if needed.

Hypothetically, based on this recent speculation, Apple could follow this timeline:

  • iOS 5 beta 8: Friday, September 16th

  • iOS 5 GM: Friday, September 23rd

  • iPhone 5 pre-orders: Friday, September 30th [link]

  • iOS 5 launch: October 5th - October 7th

  • iPhone 5 U.S. release: October 7th - October 14th [link]

For a timeline of iPhone 5 news and speculation, check out our rumor roundup and retrospective.

Update: AppleInsider is now reporting iOS 5 could come out on Monday, October 10th, based on information received from a source at AppleCare division.

Apple has reportedly informed its AppleCare division to expect an influx of iOS-related inquiries from customers beginning Monday, Oct. 10, perhaps signaling when the company plans to release iOS 5 to existing device owners.

For instance, one person familiar with the matter said his local AppleCare call center has been told to expect an eightfold increase in customer calls on that day, and that staff are being advised ahead of time for the increased traffic.

Assuming the October 10th date is correct, the iPhone 5 wouldn’t come out on October 7th, as some speculated. However, it wouldn’t be the first time Apple published a major iOS update on a Monday. Alongside iOS 5, Apple is also expected to publicly release iCloud, and OS X 10.7.2.

Apple Readying Third-Generation AirPort Express

According to AppleInsider, Apple is readying the release of a third-generation AirPort Express station, the second version of the device to use the 802.11n wireless standard. The website reports “people familiar with the matter” claim Apple is working on an update to AirPort Utility, version 5.6, which contains strings mentioning ”AirPort Express 802.11n (2nd Generation) base station” in the developer notes. The current version of AirPort Utility, 5.5.3, was last updated in June amidst rumors of iCloud functionality deeply tied with a caching system for software updates. Such rumors didn’t materialize at WWDC, and no further mentions of caching systems for iOS and OS X appeared in the developer betas released this summer.

The AirPort Express station (model MB321LL/A) was updated in 2008, adding initial support for 802.11n; the first version of the base station came out in 2004. AppleInsider reports third-party resellers claim the existing MB321LL/A model has been discontinued, whilst Amazon expects new stock to become available in 2 to 5 weeks.

One of the AirPort Express’ most promoted functionalities is support for AirPlay (nèe  AirTunes), which allows users to beam audio to the station using iTunes or compatible iOS apps, provided a set of speakers is connected to the AirPort Express through the built-in mini-jack output. Similarly, the AirPort Express enables wireless printing thanks to a USB port. Other features include Internet Sharing, extreme portability, and easy setup with AirPort Utility (which can automatically configure AirPort stations on a network).

Apple’s line of wireless routers saw updates for the Time Capsule and AirPort Extreme base station in June. The quietly-introduced new versions revealed significant power boosts and performance improvements, as well as new wireless cards from Broadcom.

[image via]