• Toshiba Shows off 4-inch 367dpi 720p Resolution Retina Display Panel

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, Featured, iPhone, News, Rants & Raves, Tech. No Responses

    Toshiba has indeed made a lot of hype over revealing last week their new four-inch LCD display that incorporates 367 pixels-per-inch density, runs at 1280 x 720 pixel resolution natively. Today, Engadget had a chance to spend some time with Toshiba’s new entry at SID 2011, and here what they had to say about the new display panels:

    We got the lowdown on Toshiba’s latest four-inch LCD a couple of days ago, and today at SID 2011 we got up close and personal with the pixel-packed display. It’s one thing to read about a 367ppi screen that shows native 720p video, and it’s quite another to experience it in person. We can report that it is, in fact, as awesome as it sounds — onscreen images were clear, crisp, and chromatically brilliant. Pixel density enthusiasts will also be happy to hear that Toshiba confirmed the display will make it to market this year. Of course, the rep wouldn’t tell us which phone will take the iPhone 4’s crown as the ppi champ, though we imagine it’ll be something powered by little green bots.

    They have recorded a small footage that you can watch below:

  • Apple Thinks Smaller is Always Better. Apple Introduces a Nano SIM Card Design

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, Gadgets, iPhone, News, Rants & Raves, Tech. No Responses

    Reuters reports that Apple has proposed a nano SIM card design smaller than the micro-SIM currently used in the iPhone 4 and iPad, the new design won the backing of French giant carrier Orange. The design allows Apple and other companies adopting the card to design smaller and thinner devices.

    “We were quite happy to see last week that Apple has submitted a new requirement to (European telecoms standards body) ETSI for a smaller SIM form factor — smaller than the one that goes in iPhone 4 and iPad,” said Anne Bouverot, Orange’s head of mobile services.

    “They have done that through the standardisation route, through ETSI, with the sponsorship of some major mobile operators, Orange being one of them,” she told the Paris leg of the Reuters Global Technology Summit.

    With finalization of the standard and technical issues still to be worked out, devices using the smaller SIM card could hit the market next year.

    This is a great news and for Apple smaller and thinner is always better. This comes in bar with rumors speculated that Apple will introduce nano iPhones in the future. However, Don’t expect the new SIM until 2012, at the very earliest

  • iPhone 4S, with 8MP Camera, Production to Begin in August?

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    Due to the launch of iPhone 4S planned as early as September 2011, Digitimes reports that Apple has lowered its expected shipment volume of iPhone 4 ahead of the September launch for the fifth-generation iPhone – “iPhone 4S.”

    for the second quarter of 2011 from 20 million units, to 17.5-18 million units consisting of 16 million units of the 3G version and 1.5-2 million units of the CDMA version, according to Taiwan-based supply chain makers. Bases on global sales of 18.6 million units of iPhone 4 and shipment volumes in the first quarter of 2011, there are an estimated 1.5-2 million units in stock, the sources indicated.

    Production of iPhone 4S will begin in August and the earliest launch may be in September. All the 3G and CDMA chips for iPhone 4S will be supplied by Qualcomm and the rear camera will be upgraded to an 8-megapixel resolution model with OmniVision Technologies and Taiwan-based Largan Precision to supply image sensors and lens kits respectively.

  • Steve Jobs to Nike CEO: ‘Get Rid of the Crappy Stuff’

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, Featured, iPad, iPhone, Rants & Raves, Steve Jobs, Tech. No Responses

    Carmine Gallo shares this interesting story on Forbes, shortly after becoming CEO, Mark Parker talked to Steve Jobs on the phone asking for some tips:

    “Do you have any advice?” Parker asked Jobs. “Well, just one thing,” said Jobs. “Nike makes some of the best products in the world.  Products that you lust after.  But you also make a lot of crap.  Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff.”

    Jobs was “absolutely right,” Parker admitted, adding that Nike “had to edit” when making business decisions:

    Parker said Jobs paused and Parker filled the quiet with a chuckle.  But Jobs didn’t laugh.  He was serious. “He was absolutely right,” said Parker.  “We had to edit.”

    Parker used the word ‘edit’ not in a design sense but in the context of making business decisions.  Editing also leads to great product designs and effective communications. According to Steve Jobs, “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on.  But that’s not what it means at all.  It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.  I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done.  Innovation is saying ‘no’ to 1,000 things.”

    But “Can anyone innovate like Apple?”

    The simple answer: While anyone can learn the principles that drive Apple’s innovation, few businesses have the courage to do so.  It takes courage to reduce the number of products a company offers from 350 to 10, as Jobs did in 1998.  It takes courage to remove a keyboard from the face of a smartphone and replace those buttons with a giant screen, as Jobs did with the iPhone.  It takes courage to eliminate code from an operating system to make it more stable and reliable, as Apple did with Snow Leopard.  It takes courage to feature just one product on the home page of a Web site as Apple does with each new major product launch.  It takes courage to make a product like the iPad that is so simple a child can use it.  And it takes courage to eliminate all of the words on a PowerPoint slide except one, as Steve Jobs often does in a presentation.