• 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

  • More Detail On Apple’s iPhone Nano

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, News, Rants & Raves 1 Response

    We have already learned that Apple is currently working on an iPhone Nano, which according to Sunday’s Wall Street Journal is real and may be headed to market this year.

    But what cult of Mac has got will blow your mind. Here is the whole details:

    Firstly, Apple has been working on a smaller, mass-market iPhone for a long time.

    But to do that, Apple had to figure out a way to strip away some of the components to reduce both its size and cost.

    Apple decided to lose some of the memory, which is by far the most expensive component of the iPhone (up to one-quarter of the device’s cost, according to iSuppli estimates).

    By “some” of the memory, we mean ALL of the memory. The iPhone nano will have no memory for onboard storage of media, our source says. It will have only enough memory to buffer media streamed from the cloud.

    “I’m talking strictly storage memory here,” said our source.

    The iPhone nano will pull ALL it’s content from MobileMe. When users buy a movie or TV show on iTunes, it’s available to stream to their iPhone or iPad. The service is based on technology from LaLa.com, a streaming service that Apple bought last spring and then shut down.

    “It would be a mostly cloud-based iOS,” said our source.

    The WSJ report reported many of the same details, and also hinted that the new iPhone nano will have limited storage: “MobileMe… would serve as a “locker” for personal memorabilia such as photos, music and videos, eliminating the need for devices to carry a lot of memory,” the Journal said.

    The prospect of a memory-less iPhone is intriguing, and our source has a great track record, however, it does raise a few questions.

    The device cannot surely come without any memory — what about the operating system and critical system data?

    And what about pictures and movies taken by the iPhone, assuming it has a camera? No onboard memory means photos and video will have to be streamed UP to the cloud, and presumably in real-time.

    The device will also have to stream a bunch of other data in real-time — from email attachments to documents and spreadsheets in users’ Home folders. Such a system must have some local storage, or could each and every piece of data be streamed to the iPhone’s RAM, and quickly swapped in and out depending on the task at hand? And what happens when the iPhone is inevitably offline?

    And no more loading up movies for long-haul flights, I guess. Better hope more airlines start offering free WiFi by the summer.

  • iPhone Nano and Major MobileMe Overhaul This Summer?

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, Gossips, News, Rants & Raves 2 Responses

    According to the well-informed Wall Street Journal Apple is currently working on an iPhone that is half the size of the iPhone 4 and a major MobileMe overhaul for release this summer. The report is following up on Bloomberg’s report about a smaller iPhone but adds some new details such as the device’s “N97″ codename and size.

    The WSJ also claims the new, smaller iPhone will be available “at about half the price of Apple’s main line of iPhones.” The smaller iPhone is said to be sold alongside Apple’s main line of phones so maybe this summer’s lineup will be the iPhone 5 at $199/$299, iPhone 4 at $99 and iPhone nano at $49. This new iPhone will be lighter and will have an “edge-to-edge” screen (no home button?!), and  have voice-based navigation

    The report also claims Apple is “exploring a major overhaul of its MobileMe online storage service.” MobileMe is said to become a free “locker” for all of your personal media like photos and videos. This would allow Apple to provide less physical storage on their mobile devices and pull all your media from the cloud. They also claim the new MobileMe revamp was due for release last year and will allow users to stream their iTunes libraries to their phones so they won’t need to actually sync through the iTunes desktop application. The report also says Apple is working on an update to their main iPhone (iPhone 4) and Steve Jobs declined to comment via email.

    Perhaps this is Apple’s North Carolina data center’s true purpose in life. The report also claims MobileMe could tie into Apple’s rumored cloud-based music service. Steve Jobs said in a customer email that MobileMe would get a lot better this year.

    On a final note, the report claims that both products are tracking summer 2011 launches (probably a WWDC launch) and Steve Jobs has made them his top priority. There will possibly more details about this story, so be sure to check back later today for updates.

  • Apple To Launch Smaller, Cheaper iPhone?

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, Gossips, iPhone, Rants & Raves 1 Response

    It’s definitely not as big and as old an Apple rumor as the Verizon iPhone was, but we’ve heard speculation about Apple releasing a second, smaller iPhone “nano,” just like they did for the iPod.

    We’re hearing this rumor again thanks to Bloomberg, who reports that sources familiar with the matter, confirmed to them that Apple is prepping a second, smaller iPhone:

    One version would be cheaper and smaller than the most recent iPhone, said a person who has seen a prototype and asked not to be identified because the plans haven’t been made public. Apple also is developing technology that makes it easier to use the iPhone on multiple wireless networks, two people said.

    Apparently cheaper, or about $200 without a contract, this new handset would be aimed at Android, which is available in many different form factors, and is often cheaper than the iPhone. Apparently it’s not a done deal:

    While Apple has aimed to unveil the device near mid-year, the introduction may be delayed or scrapped, the person said. Few Apple employees know the details of the project, the person said. Apple often works on products that do not later get released.

    The prototype was about one-third smaller than the iPhone 4, said the person, who saw it last year.

    Bloomberg’s story goes on and rehashes many other rumors we’ve been hearing, such as the universal SIM and dual GSM/CDMA capability.

    All in all, this sounds really fishy. We know that Apple doesn’t even want to release a smaller iPad, as apparently the user experience is poor on smaller screens. We’d believe the same thing applies to smart phones. Yet, HP/Palm recently released a smaller form factor smart phone, so who knows, maybe that’s where the industry is going?

    [via: appadvice]