April 9th, 2009

Apple hoarding NAND flash memory, 32GB iPhone here I come!

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 10:07 am

Categories: Flash, NAND, iPhone, iPhone 3.0

Tags: Apple iPhone, NAND Flash, Apple Inc., NAND, Flash Memory, Memory, Semiconductors, Hardware, Components, Jason D. O'Grady

DigiTimes reports that Apple has purchased 100 million 8GB NAND flash chips from Samsung and others and that it’s constricting supply for other smaller players in the market. So much so that downstream suppliers are worried about a supply shortage.

What good are 8GB chips you ask? Simple. They’re used to create 16, 32 and even 64GB devices.

Today’s news all but confirms that Apple will offer a 32GB configuration of the next iPhone hardware which is widely expected to be announced at WWDC in June. The new video recording capability and higher-res 3.2MP camera expected to arrive in the iPhone 3.0 hardware are going to be memory intensive and Apple needs to address the new features with higher memory capacities.

CrunchGear also speculates that part of The Great NAND Hoard of 2009 may also be destined for a 64GB iPod touch, but I have my doubts.

March 31st, 2009

Analyst: Low-end iPhone to drop Wi-Fi

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 3:02 pm

Categories: Flash, International, WiFi, iPhone, iPhone 3.0

Tags: Apple iPhone, Apple Inc., Wireless LANs, 3G, Wi-Fi, Wireless And Mobility, Cellular Phones, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Jason D. O'Grady

A research report published by analyst Daniel Amir for Lazard Capital Markets claims that Apple is expected to begin production on a high-end iPhone with 32GB of NAND beginning this spring. According to the report production is anticipated to begin in April, ramp up in May with an announcement in June. Probably the worst kept secret in Silicon Valley.

The interesting part of his report is that Apple is also working on a “low-end” 3G iPhone for announcement at the same time. Amir reports that the low-end iPhone may only be available in the fast-growing, emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India, and China (the so-called BRIC countries). He also notes that the low-end model may dispense with some features, like Wi-Fi, in order to cut costs.

Previously rumors have swirled of a $99/8GB iPhone that would help Apple capture market share with price sensitive buyers not willing to shell out the $200-300 that the current iPhone commands.

Tip: CNet News.com

February 15th, 2009

Flash 10 coming to most mobiles; except iPhone

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 10:04 pm

Categories: Adobe, Flash, Software, iPhone

Tags: Apple iPhone, Adobe Systems Inc., Mobile, Macromedia Flash Player, Smart Phones, Advertising & Promotion, Palm OS, Handhelds, Cellular Phones, Operating Systems

Adobe announced that Flash Player 10, a full-fledged version of the Adobe Flash player is coming soon to a whole slew of smartphones at the GSMA Mobile World Congress which opened Monday in Barcelona, Spain. Unfortunately, the iPhone isn’t one of them.

The full Flash Player 10 (not the stripped-down mobile version) will be available on smartphones running Windows Mobile, Google’s Android, Nokia S60/Symbian, and the new Palm operating systems beginning in early 2010.

When asked about the iPhone, Anup Murarka, director of Technology Strategy and Partner Development for Adobe said:

“We would love to see it on the iPhone, too… But it’s Apple’s decision on when and how they support any new technology. So we will continue to work on it.”

Tip: CNet

February 2nd, 2009

Flash coming to Android, can iPhone be far behind?

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 10:10 am

Categories: Android, Android Market, Flash, Google, Software, iPhone

Tags: Apple iPhone, Adobe Systems Inc., Apple Inc., Flash, Smart Phones, Corporate Communications, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Marketing, Jason D. O'Grady

Andy Rubin first demonstrated Flash running in a Web browser on a T-Mobile G1 running Google’s Android OS (video) during the Adobe MAX developer’s conference in November 2008. It’s worth noting however, that the Flash update still isn’t publicly available for the G1.

Can it be long before we see Flash running on the iPhone? Since its announcement there’s been a lot of speculation as to when we’ll see Flash running on Apple’s popular smartphone.

AppleInsider notes:

in an interview with Bloomberg at the Davos, Switzerland event, Adobe chief Shantanu Narayen describes development as a complicated two-way process rather than maintaining the previous image of a one-sided effort that would depend on App Store approval before it could launch. “It’s a hard technical challenge, and that’s part of the reason Apple and Adobe are collaborating,” he says. “The ball is in our court. The onus is on us to deliver.”

Flash is kind of running on the iPhone now via iMobileCinema. The problem is that it’s only available for Jailbroken devices and it’s especially buggy.

One conspiracy theory is that Apple has a vested interest in keep Flash off the iPhone because it opens the door to a potential flood og Flash-based applications that will compete directly with the offerings available in the App Store. Flash could effectively release Apple’s stranglehold on the iPhone software market and they’ve got to be concerned about what that could mean to their bottom line.

Does Flash effectively circumvent the App Store?

November 2nd, 2008

Netflix Watch Instantly comes to the Mac

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 10:25 pm

Categories: Flash

Tags: NetFlix Inc., Apple Macintosh, Desktops, Hardware, Jason D. O'Grady

A week after a limited pool of Mac users were asked to test it, Netflix has opened the streaming portion of its movie rental service to all Mac users. The service, called Watch Instantly, uses utilizes Microsoft’s Silverlight browser plug-in.

A post on the Netflix blog has the details and notes that they recently added a lot more movies and recent episodes of Heroes, CSI and NCIS.

If you have an Intel Mac jump over to www.netflix.com/silverlightoptin to enter the beta program. You’ll find the streaming movies & TV episodes under the main “Watch Instantly” tab on the top of Web site.

(Photo: Engadget)

October 1st, 2008

Adobe actively developing a Flash Player iPhone

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 9:02 am

Categories: Adobe, Flash, Software, iPhone

Tags: Adobe Systems Inc., Macromedia Flash Player, Apple Inc., Games, Personal Technology, Jason D. O'Grady

Flash Magazine reports Adobe Systems’ Senior Director of Engineering Paul Betlem confirmed that Adobe is developing a Flash Player for the iPhone at the Flash On The Beach (FOTB) conference in Brighton, UK. The only problem is that Apple controls which apps get approved for distribution in the App Store and Flash, unfortunately, isn’t going to be one of them.

Jon Gruber said it best:

If there were a Flash player for the iPhone, you could write games and other software in Flash rather than in Cocoa Touch. And you could sell games and apps directly for the Flash player, completely circumventing the App Store. Does this sound like something Apple would allow?

If Apple won’t allow apps like Podcaster and Mailwrangler (let alone a competing Web browser) what are the odds that Apple would allow flash? Unfortunately, it just isn’t going to happen folks.

The question is: does Adobe go rogue and release the code for Cydia/jailbroken iPhones. I doubt that too, but one can dream…

July 8th, 2008

iPhone hacked to run Flash Lite

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 9:07 am

Categories: Flash, Hack, iPhone

Tags: Apple iPhone, Blogging, Development Tools, Internet, Software Development, Software/Web Development, Jason D. O'Grady

According to a post over at Gizmodo, Belgian programmer Thomas Joos has hacked together a way to run Flash Lite on the iPhone. It requires a lot of work, mostly via b.Tween and eyeGT and its not sanctioned by either Adobe or Apple, but either way it gives us hope that some day flash will come to iPhone.

More information is in Joos’ blog post on the topic.

May 8th, 2008

Seeking the iPhone in Adobe's annual analyst briefings

Posted by David Morgenstern @ 6:45 pm

Categories: Adobe, Flash, Google, Microsoft, Windows, iPhone

Tags: Apple iPhone, Adobe Systems Inc., Google Inc., Corporate Communications, Advertising & Promotion, Financial Accounting, Marketing, Finance, David Morgenstern

Even if you’re not an analyst, Adobe’s 2008 financial briefings available online make interesting viewing, from its showcase of new AIR tools to the “soul” of Adobe, Google and Microsoft. And then there’s the iPhone.

The recordings cover the morning and afternoon sessions as well as a Q&A session at the end of the day. The presentations include discussions of Adobe’s strategic vision, rich Internet application platforms and IDEs, creative applications, business products and a financial outlook.

Adobe Flex and AIR were very big on the technology demonstrations. A number of RIA (rich Internet apps) were shown, such as NASDAQ QMX, which replays microsecond data across a time frame. It was described as Tivo for the stock market.

On the financial side, company execs highlighted the heavy growth of some products that are buried in the reports of its segmented operational units.

For example, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Business Productivity Business Unit, Rob Tarkoff said that the Acrobat Connect Professional training platform saw compound annual growth rate of 150 percent. The virtualized analyst meeting provided a good demonstration of Acrobat Connect Pro.

As is always the case, software companies are trying to find ways of breaking out of the cyclical nature of the business. Licensing and video services revenue were discussed as helping the situation, such as the Flash Cast mobile video solution.

In addition, Adobe President and CEO Shantanu Narayen stressed to the analyst audience that some of the company’s “science projects” were closer to market than they might appear and would be building revenue streams.

Here are couple of impressions after viewing selections of the presentations:

Read the rest of this entry »

May 1st, 2008

Adobe's Open Screen Project: Back at ya' Apple!

Posted by David Morgenstern @ 11:25 am

Categories: Adobe, Flash, iPhone

Tags: Apple iPhone, Adobe Systems Inc., Apple Inc., Corporate Communications, Channel Management, Telecom & Utilities, Marketing, David Morgenstern

Flash maker Adobe on Thursday announced a consortium of phone and electronics vendors that will rally around Flash and Adobe Air content. But is the real target Apple?

According to several Web and video developers, it’s Adobe that needs to get on the iPhone bandwagon, not the other way around.

Adobe said that the Open Screen Project will prevent “technology fragmentation” by supporting its Flash and Air runtime environments and allowing software updates over the air.

In addition, Adobe will remove restrictions on use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications; publish the device porting layer APIs for Flash Player as well as the Flash Cast protocol and the AMF protocol; and offer for free the next major releases of Flash Player and AIR for devices.

Adobe executives said that Flash support was already in 3 billion phones on the market and it expected to add another 1 billion by the end of the year. However, there was no mention of the iPhone nor of Google’s new phone platform.

At the time of the iPhone SDK announcement in March, Adobe said it was looking into getting Flash on the platform. But there’s little excitement or worry, it appears. Certainly not from Apple.

Open Screen sounds like Adobe’s response: Apple had better get on the Adobe runtime environment.

Many industry analysts have fretted over the missing Flash support for the iPhone and iPod Touch devices. On the other hand, as ZDNet’s Ed Burnette observed, makers of other browser and device environments, such as Mozilla and Google, are telling developers to avoid Flash.

Read the rest of this entry »

March 28th, 2008

An analysis of data densities; SD v. SSD

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 9:04 am

Categories: Flash, Hardware, MacBook Air, SSD

Tags: SD Card, Solid State Disk, Analysis, Memory, Semiconductors, Hardware, Components, Jason D. O'Grady

SanDisk recently announced a 32GB SD card (pictured) at PMA08 that will retail for US$349 in April. That’s a lot of meggers (as an old client used to say) in a tiny little chip. So what does this new monster memory card mean for data densities in other memory form factors, like Solid State Drives (SSDs) for example?

A colleague (Shaun Redmond) breaks down the price:density ratio of the new SD card:

1. The volume of an SD card (W x D x H; mm) is 24 x 32 x 2.1 = 1,612.8 cubic mm or 1.6128 cubic centimeters (cc). (Source: SD Card Association)
2. The volume of 1.8-inch x 5mm thick HDD in the MacBook Air (W x D x H; mm) is 54 x 78.5 x 5 = 21,195 cubic mm = 21.195 cubic centimeters (cc). (Source: PhysOrg.com)
3. The theoretical data density of a 1.8-inch, 5mm tall HDD/SDD is 21.195 cc divided by 1.6128 cc per SD card times 32GB per SD card or (21.195/1.6128) x 32 = 420+GB!

Shaun used gross volumes in his calculations that include packaging and connectors on the SD card. There may be some efficiencies when packaging the memory in to a larger package (i.e. fewer connectors, plastic skin, etc.). This should allow for an even larger memory package than the 420GB calculated. However there may be a need for additional memory controllers to address the large array of memory modules within a larger 1.8-inch package.

So, what would this new 420GB 1.8-inch SSD cost? (21.195/1.6128) x US$349 = US$4,586.47 based on current retail cost of the new 32GB SD card.

Using the math above, the current 64GB SDD option in the MBA should only cost US$349 x 2 = US$698 based on the price point of the new SanDisk 32 GB SD drive. This is still more than the US$179 retail price of a 60GB 1.8-inch by 5mm thick mechanical drive, but less than the US$999 that Apple charges for the 64GB SSD option.

The gap is between HDD and SSD is narrowing all the time.