John Carmack On iOS Performances→

John Carmack On iOS Performances

From Ars Technica’s interview with John Carmack:

Whether the iOS devices will reach that same level of performance before the next console generation ships is quite an interesting question. There are some very different designs for power consumption considerations that go into their hardware design, and cranking things up to give that level of power but gets burning hot in your hands and uses up the battery in 30 minutes is absolutely possible with the form factor right now, but it’s probably not the right decision from the standpoint of what the device really is and is supposed to be. But even at the same power draw, they’re going to be doubling and doubling again the performance level.

In the not-too-distant future, we’re going to be seeing multicore on mobiles, and I’m very interested in when the transition to 64-bit addresses is going to come in the mobile space.

If there’s one thing that’s holding developers from creating full-featured game experiences on iOS, that would be battery life.

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The MacBook Tablet Shows Up, Again

According to the most loyal Apple fan, two are the “dream products” Apple has in store: the iMac Touch and the MacBook Tablet. While we don’t know whether such machines would make for great innovations or terrible hybrids, the loyal Apple geek surely can dream. And it’s not that patents Apple is granted do anything to convince him that these products aren’t real.

As noted by Patently Apple, the much rumored and long-awaited MacBook Tablet showed up again in a patent published a few days ago. It’s a convertible MacBook / iPad-like device with a touchscreen and a physical keyboard, something that Steve Jobs could really describe as a MacBook hooking up to an iPad. Other patents Apple was granted include one for multi-touch scrolling behavior and the iPad’s virtual keyboard.

Dell is getting ahead of Apple in the convertible notebook market with its latest Inspirion Duo hybrid, and we’re not sure whether Apple will actually ship something like a MacBook Tablet in the next few years. It sounds cool thinking about some sort of MacBook Air with a touch screen, but, as usual, Apple patents are something the loyal Apple fan shouldn’t rely on.

Spaced: Beautiful App With The Latest News From Space

NASA is holding a press conference tomorrow “to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life”, and what better way to check on the coverage of the conference than Spaced app for iPhone and iPad?

I found this app in the App Store this morning while I was looking for my daily software fix. I’ve always been interested in reading space-related material, but I’ve never really subscribed to a set of sources with my RSS reader or bought magazines for that matter. I just followed a bunch of people who regularly tweet that kind of news and I don’t mind giving Reddit’s space section a read every two days or so. Read more

Adobe Launches Flash 10.2 Beta

Are you one of those who recently uninstalled Flash from your computer? I did, mainly because I use Chrome – which comes with its own instance of Flash. If you’ve really uninstalled Flash though, you might want to take a look at Adobe’s latest beta release of the popular plugin.

Version 10.2 beta comes with initial support for Stage Video, a new API Adobe demoed a few weeks ago that is aimed at reducing processor usage by relying on the GPU instead. While hardware acceleration had been deployed in the previous versions of Flash, Stage Video offloads all video tasks to the GPU reducing the CPU load by up to 85%.

Flash 10.2 beta also improves text rendering and support for dual monitors. It’s available for download here, press release embedded below. There are a lot of fixes in this new release as well, so make sure to hit the Adobe source link for a full rundown of what’s new. [TUAW via Adobe] Read more

Renault To Launch First European iAd Tomorrow

Looks like everything’s ready to go for iAds in Europe. With a press release on their official website, European car maker Renault announced that they’ll launch the first iAd campaign in Europe tomorrow, December 2nd.

The advertising campaign will be aimed at promoting the Twizy, a new electric tandem vehicle that will be available next year. It’s a “city car” that’s completely electric and comes with four wheels, a steering wheel and a very unusual shape. The iAd (you can take a look at the video below, in French) will allow users to check on various Twizy information such as charging times. Read more

Unreal Development Kit Coming to iOS→

Unreal Development Kit Coming to iOS

When it ships, the UDK iOS will include the same editors and code used to create a number of blockbuster games, and will be available to anyone wishing to publish games via the App Store. Toolsets of this quality generally cost developers anywhere from $500 to tens of thousands of dollars, so by releasing the UDK for free, Epic is drastically lowering the barrier of entry for iOS developers wishing to create graphically impressive games.

We can’t wait for Infinity Blade to show up on December 9th. It’s a taste of great things coming to iOS gaming in the future.

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Apple Posts New iPad Ad To Showcase iOS 4.2 Features

A few minutes ago Apple posted a new iPad commercial on its website called “iPad is amazing”, aimed at showcasing the new features of iOS 4.2. Everything’s in there: AirPlay, AirPrint (although limited to some HP printers), multitasking and the usual selection of apps.

Surprisingly enough, no folders are shown in the video. As for the apps that made an appearance in the commercial, it’s nice to see the official TED app developed by Matt Drance in there.

We’re working on getting a Youtube version up as quickly as possible. In the meantime, check out the video here.

Update: Youtube embed below.

iOS 4.2 Comes With Technology To Minimize Network Congestion→

iOS 4.2 Comes With Technology To Minimize Network Congestion

With its latest iPhone iOs 4.2 software, it looks like Apple is joining efforts to cut smartphone signalling down to size. Tests by Nokia Siemens Networks have shown that iPhone iOs 4.2  supports a technology called Network Controlled Fast Dormancy, which we have already introduced into our networks. Basically, the technology makes the network and the handset work together to create the best conditions for smartphones to work quickly, yet have a long battery life and minimize network congestion.

Nice.

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