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Notebook Shipments To Slow Down in Q1, But Apple Is “Doubling Orders”

According to Digitimes, most notebook vendors will see lower shipments in Q1 2011, mainly due to defective Intel chipsets. Apple and Samsung, however, won’t experience this slowdown and Apple is even doubling the orders of some models.

With the exception of Samsung Electronics and Apple, first-quarter 2011 shipments of notebooks from brand-name vendors will be lower than expected, according to sources from Taiwan’s notebook upstream supply chain.

Samsung has been performing better than other brands by taking up deliveries from the suppliers, the sources noted, adding that Apple reportedly is revising upward its orders with the volume of some hot-selling models being doubled.

Do we see new MacBook Pros here, relatively soon? The line is due an update, and reports suggested Intel may be able to ship the Sandy Bridge by the end of February anyway. According to recent rumors, stock of some MacBook Pro models has been running low and a refresh is coming soon.

Fourth Beta Of 10.6.7 (10J855 ) Seeded To Developers

Earlier today Apple released a new developer beta of OS X 10.6.7. The build is the fourth since January, carrying number 10J855.

No known issues are reported in the seed notes, focus areas still include Mac App Store, AirPort, Bonjour, SMB and Graphics Drivers. At this point, it appears that the public release of OS X is getting closer, as Apple has been releasing new betas every week and the initial issues have been fixed and no new ones have been reported.

The third beta (10J850) was released on February 1st.

[Thanks, Bastian]

Rumor: Apple Prototyping A 2.3” iPhone At $200 Without Contract? Customers To Choose Own Network?

With the tech world still suffocating from iPad 2 rumors and John Gruber’s predictive iPad 3 lineup bomb, Bloomberg reports this afternoon that Apple may be planning to rekindle their iPhone line with new models to better compete with Android. What’s in the mix? A rumored Apple iPhone prototype is said to be a third smaller than the current iPhone 4, meaning it would be on par with HP’s Veer at approximately 2.3 inches diagonally. How do you undercut the competition? By finally offering American consumers the option to purchase a $200 smartphone without an obligatory contract.

Apple can sell it at a low price mainly because the smartphone will use a processor, display and other components similar to those used in the current model, rather than pricier, more advanced parts that will be in the next iPhone, the person said. Component prices typically drop over time.

Whether or not you care to dig into the gigahertz war in smartphone processor technology, the current hardware for the iPhone 4 would still be relevant for the next year, despite Android handsets launching with dual-core processor. iOS, being extremely efficient would fly with a 1GHz processor pushing pixels on a 2.3 inch display. With the same great camera, the baby iPhone would be an excellent edition to Apple’s lineup when paired with larger display of an iPad. (Personally, I don’t think these smaller displays are just for tweens.) The phone would be free if purchased on contract.

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I Love Joypad For iOS

I recently completed Cave Story (for the thirteenth time) with the aid of niche but awesome iOS app by the name of Joypad. Turning your iPhone into a virtual video game controller, Joypad is a pocketable companion for 8 bit, indie, or emulator crazy Mac gamers who don’t have a USB controller accessible. NES, SNES, N64, SEGA Genesis, and GBA controllers are all available to smash those Cheeto flavored fingers on, but how well does a flat display work with bumpers?

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Yahoo Announces Livestand, Digital Newsstand For iPad and Android

In an attempt to revitalize its news and content delivery platform and target the new tablet market, today Yahoo announced Livestand, a digital newsstand for iPad and Android devices that will become available in the form of native apps in the first half of 2011. There is no release date and pricing information for now, but a few details about Livestand have been revealed.

Livestand, according to Yahoo, will deliver “a wealth of ever-changing content” from different publishers that will sign up to the project and it will be geared towards a user’s interest and contexts. It sounds like a personalized news platform à la Flipboard, although it isn’t clear at this point whether the information will be real-time, aggregated from social networks and websites, or published at regular intervals from external sources.

With Livestand, we’re using ad formats that evoke the emotion of TV advertising with a highly-visual magazine-like experience.  And they’re combined with the effectiveness of an Internet ad that’s data-rich, actionable, even location aware. It’s all personalized and in context – just like our content.

In the first half of 2011, you’ll see Yahoo!’s vast digital content library come to life through Livestand from Yahoo! – from Sports, News, Finance, Flickr, omg!, and the Yahoo! Contributor Network – as iPad and Android tablet applications.

This is all Yahoo has announced for now. It sounds fairly interesting and promising – honestly though, I’m really looking forward to what comes next for Flipboard. Sorry, Yahoo.

Advertisers Not Happy About Apple’s iAds?

Months after the introduction of Apple’s iAd advertising platform, it looks like advertisers aren’t happy about the service at all. According to a report posted by TechCrunch, many developers have noticed a massive slowdown in iAd’s fill rates recently, especially after the New Year:

The fill rate—what percentage of the ad inventory is actually filled with an ad—for two separate developers plummeted from 18 percent to 6 percent. And in a few instances for some newer apps, none of the ad slots were getting filled, compared to nearly complete fill rates from other mobile ad networks.

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PropEdit Brings Simple Permission Editing to OS X

PropEdit, a new free app by eosgarden, aims at making the process of editing file and folder permissions on your Mac super-easy. Instead of relying on contextual menus in the Finder or the Terminal to modify owner and group permissions, PropEdit offers a graphical user interface inspired by the Finder’s column view that allows you easily find your way through the system and act on files that need a permission fix.

PropEdit features an additional sidebar that contains all the options you might need to change permissions; instead of chmod in the command line, you can simply check off items to modify a file’s ownership, and so forth. It’s all very simple and strightforward.

Terminal junkies will of course stick to their insane command line skills when it comes to permission editing, but PropEdit is really good. It’s not available in the Mac App Store, but you can download it for free here.

Marathon Man Will “Run” iOS and Android Devices In Tokyo

Joseph Tame truly is one kind of a geek. Last year, he live streamed the Tokyo marathon with an iPhone head-mount. This year, the project is much bigger and involves the iRun, “the world’s most advanced mobile social media machine”. What is that? Well, it’s a complex device that can be wrapped around your body while you’re running and packs several mobile devices like phones, tablets and WiFi routers into a single structure that’s constantly connected to the Internet. Sounds geeky? Read on below.

It features four iPhones on rotatable mounts, an iPad, an Android handset, three mobile wifi routers, a wind turbine (ok, so it’s a kid’s fan that turns around…), a 4-in-one atmospheric monitor, a heart monitor, a plastic doughnut and of course the very important satellite dish for high-speed data connectivity (cunningly crafted from a bird-feeding dish).

It doesn’t end at mobile device integration, though. The iRun will connect to various applications like FaceTime and Skype to stream a live video feed, which will also be processed and broadcasted by a team of 15 people in a production studio. Joseph will send location and hearth rate with Runkeeper on the iPhone, transmit temperature and humidity date with a custom-made Android app and, as he says, look “incredibly cool” as well. That’s one particular outfit for sure.

More information on the project is available here. We think the system Joseph has built is really interesting, and we look forward to seeing everything in action on February 27th. Check out the video below. [via TUAW] Read more