Apple is on a mass hiring spree for Asian staff, beginning in the middle of last year, as noted by the Wall Street Journal. The Journal says that Apple is trying to speed up product development in China and Taiwan to help launch a larger lineup of devices. Apparently, the company is aggressively hiring away from HTC and other firms to form strong product teams in Asia.
AllThingsD is out with a fresh report this morning about the iPad mini supposedly “outshining” the new iPad.
AllThingsD’s John Paczkowski summarized Tokepa analyst Brian White’s thoughts, citing “chatter from Apple’s overseas supply chain,” and he said the Cupertino, Calif.-based company is not “cutting corners” despite trying to keep the iPad mini’s price on-par with Google’s Nexus 7 and Amazon’s Kindle Fire. White mentioned the iPad mini possibly being even “slicker than the new iPad.”
Not much to go on, I realize. But White’s supply chain sources have been solid in the past, and here at AllThingsD we too have been hearing promising things about the iPad mini’s design, which sources say demands a lot of the companies manufacturing it. This is something White has been hearing, as well, and he thinks it could make the device hard to come by initially. “The new ‘iPad Mini’ is more challenging to produce than prior iPad iterations,” he says. “We believe supply will initially be constrained.”
It is interesting that White has travelled around talking to Asian suppliers and can claim the iPad mini will upstage the original iPad, but he cannot offer one specific detail on how this will happen. Perhaps he is held to secrecy on these topics.
Anyone who has ever misplaced an iPad and felt a sudden urge of panic —or better yet, anyone who has ever watched an iPad’s battery drain without access to power while on a long trip— can now rejoice, as there is a solution to both problems in one, nifty case.
Wireless NRG developed a renewable charging resource for the iPad by simply converting the sun’s rays, indoor lights, and practically any other luminescent substance into a perpetual stream of free energy. The high-end, portable charging case, dubbed “KudoCase,” launched earlier this summer for $199.95 with a slew of innovative accessories. But that’s not all…it responds to whistling. If your iPad is ever lost at a friend’s house, just whistle. The KudoCase will set off an alarm. Yeah, I know—awesome.
Anyway, enough jibber-jabber—check out the hands-on review below.
(The 1080p version is processing; coming soon.)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HojGMzJQBC4&feature=youtu.be]
From 9to5Toys.com:
Too cheap to buy Apple’s $70 Bluetooth keyboard? It’s O.K. you cheap bastard, we have you covered.
Right now, a “white Bluetooth wireless keyboard,” which connects to second-generation and third-generation iPad and iPhone 4S (or any Bluetooth device), is available on eBay for $16.99. The deal features free standard shipping with delivery on or before Aug. 25. It looks almost exactly like an Apple keyboard (Samsung involvement?), but we wouldn’t bet it is aluminum. With that said, the seller has a 99.6-percent positive rating from 116,000 customers.
Check it out:
Buyer beware:
@9to5mac I bought that keyboard and it had two letter “E” keys. Also, half of the other keys stopped working after the first use.
— Don Southard (@binaryghost) August 21, 2012
@9to5mac Related: instagr.am/p/LGBPZDEBKO/
— Don Southard (@binaryghost) August 21, 2012
MacRumors noticed that Apple placed images of their new LED Cinema Display on their website yesterday. The leaked display looks identical to the current model, but will have a Thunderbolt port on the back to easily connect with Apple’s latest Thunderbolt machines: iMacs, MacBook Pros and Mac Pros, MacBook Airs, and Mac minis in the very near future. You can tell that these are new displays based on the unreleased model number, previously thought to be a new White MacBook that they are attached to and by the OS X Lion wallpaper.
The differentiation is important because, as Apple has warned in a previous KB article, the CD no longer has to be the end of a Thunderbolt chain of devices. For instance, you could have an external hard drive array connected to your monitor permanently rather than having to plug into another device which would terminate at the monitor. For MacBook Air/Pro users, this would allow the ‘power-USB-Thunderbolt’ cable to do everything, yet again.
We’ve been getting word from some international Apple retailers that not only are MacBook Airs, Minis and White MacBooks getting updated soon, but those Macs are also going to see modest-significant price drops in some countries we’ve polled. While we can’t get into the specifics of where and how much, we can tell you some models are being reduced more than the equivalent of $100.
A few things to consider: One, the US Dollar has dropped significantly against Pacific currencies like the Japanese Yen and Korean Won (below) in the past year. Apple has in the past adjusted its products against currency fluctuations.
Also, Apple has been streamlining operations across the globe over the past few years and has been able to bring its prices more in line with US prices.
While these price drops are great news for our friends overseas, it doesn’t necessarily correlate to price drops in the US.
But we wouldn’t rule price drops out either, there have been unreliable reports of a $899 base price of a MacBook Air.
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Twitter user Chronic, a credible source of Apple rumors in the past (and lately), has dispelled his own rumors of an alleged Sandy Bridge MacBook Air refresh this week. Instead, he writes on Twitter explaining that “source had mixed up part numbers”, it is unlocked iPhones that will be headed to US Apple Stores for Wednesday. Here are your part numbers: MC603 (16GB, Black) MC604 (16GB, White) MC605 (32GB, Black) MC606 (32GB, White). It isn’t clear whether those phones are actually unlocked in the traditional sense or whether they are just being sold without plan like Apple has done traditionally in the past before a major refresh.