It is really difficult to fix something that is not broken, but Apple has yet again proved all wrong. The company announced a brand new line of MacBook on Monday (9 March) which includes some very interesting upgrades that will definitely make Apple lovers drool. The new MacBook doesn’t fall in the Air or the Pro series, rather it is somewhere in between. Adorned in a metal chassis, the new MacBook is lighter and slimmer than any of the previous models and will now come in a brand new gold colour as well. The new machine will come with a 12-inch Retina display and includes a redesigned keyboard which will offer a better tactile feedback and better backlit illumination thanks to individual LED lights underneath every single key. Even the touch-pad has been redesigned with a new pressure sensor which can sense the pressure of the taps you make. On the inside, the logic-board has been largely reduced and is now as small as one would find in a tablet. This was achieved with Intel’s new Core M processor which does not require a fan for cooling, making it silent as well. The inside is dominated by battery packs which on its own are quite unique. Apple has used an innovative battery which has a layered wafer design to accommodate the curve at the bottom. One of the biggest features, however, was the introduction of a reversible USB-C port, the first on any computing machine. This port is universal as it can be used to charge the laptop, exchange data and also be used as a display port. While it does sound exciting, there is a drawback. Apart from a headphone jack, Apple has only put one USB-C port on the new MacBook which will make it impossible to charge and use a USB drive or connect to an external display at the same time. On the configuration side, the new MacBook will come with a 1.1 GHz dual-core Intel Core M processor, 8GB of memory, 256GB of SSD storage and Intel HD Graphics 5300 with an approximate price of $1,299 (Rs 82,000 approx); and the higher configuration including a 1.2 GHz dual-core Intel Core M processor, 8GB of memory, 512GB of SSD storage will start at $1,599 (Rs 1,00,000 approximately).The MacBook Pro and Air models have also seen an upgrade and will now feature the new 5th gen Intel processors, new Thunderbolt 2 ports and a slight cut in prices.
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Apple Inc launched its long-awaited watch on Monday, including yellow or rose gold models with sapphire faces costing up to $17,000, but some investors questioned whether Chief Executive Tim Cook's first product would be a breakaway hit. Apple's first new device since Cook became CEO will be available for order on April 10 and in stores on April 24, including chic boutiques in Paris, London and Tokyo. According to analysts, the watch is expected to hit the India market in July this year. However, a section of the market feels that considering the growing importance of India, the watch could see its India debut even in June. It may cost well over Rs 30,000 for the base model. In a nod to both fashion and technology, Cook shared the stage with model Christy Turlington Burns, who used it to train for a marathon, and Apple engineers who showed how to send drawings, pictures and even heartbeats with the watch. Apple shares barely budged, however. Investors and analysts agreed that Apple would sell millions to fans but questioned whether it had a "killer app" that would engage a broader audience. Apple in September gave a sneak peek of the watch which included many features shown on Monday. Read Also: Why People Are Waiting For Apple Watch "I think there's a niche market for these kind of Apple tech people who love Apple and will buy anything they come out with. But I just don't know if it's going to be the power product that everyone's looking for," said Daniel Morgan, senior portfolio manager at Synovus Trust Company in Atlanta, Georgia, who described Wall Street as "scratching its head". Members of the style establishment, in Paris for shows from the glittering likes of Chanel, Givenchy and Hermes mostly said they saw the watch as a gadget, not this season's must-have accessory. The Edition price tag which is inexpensive compared with a Patek Philippe Nautilus at just over $42,000 on 11main.com, inspired plenty of jibes on social media, including many who questioned whether it would become outdated and compared the price to a car's. "Wonder what kind of gas mileage it gets," asked Twitter user Christopher Caruso. The Apple Watch sport will start at $349 for the smaller, 38-mm model. The standard version of the watch will start at $549 and the high-end "Edition" watch will be priced from $10,000, said Cook, who loved the Dick Tracy ability to hold phone calls by watch. Cook said the new smartwatch "is the most personal device we have ever created," and can display a variety of faces ranging from a classic watch to an animated Mickey Mouse. "With the built in speaker and microphone you can receive calls on your watch. I have been wanting to do this since I was five years old," Cook said. Apple enters a market that already has a number of players, ranging from South Korean giants Samsung and LG, to Japan's Sony and startups such as Pebble. The different models reflect different materials. A $17,000 Edition in the smaller, 38-mm size, has a case made from a customised version of 18-karat rose gold, which is especially hard, along with a sapphire display. It comes with a magnetic charging case. A $349 Sport model the same size has an aluminium case, a 'sport band' and a magnetic charging cable, and no case. All the watches share digital faces that can look like traditional time pieces, show the heart beat of a friend, and display photos and interfaces for apps. "Apple's been very good at personalizing its products," said Angelo Zino, an analyst at S&P Capital IQ, who said the "intimacy" of the watch was appealing. He saw 10 million in sales this year. In the presentation, Cook described the watch handling many functions currently associated with the iPhone, which tethers wirelessly to the watch and connects it to the Internet. The watch will track exercise and remind wearers of events with a tap on the wrist. Cook also laid out other product successes and launched a new MacBook notebook computer that starts at $1,299 and weighs as little as 2 pounds. Every major car brand had committed to delivering Apple's CarPlay entertainment system, and the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have 99 percent customer satisfaction rates, he said. The Apple Pay payment system is now accepted at 700,000 locations, and Time Warner Inc's HBO in April will debut its streaming HBO NOW service on Apple TV. Apple also is offering researchers new development tools, called ResearchKit, to help medical researchers design apps for clinical trials, the company said.
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If you were to believe the hype swirling around the Apple Watch, to be launched in a few hours at the Spring Forward event, you would think the world will never be the same again. The watch was shown off last September and everyone got to see it – on stage – but it’s taken all this while for it to come to fruition. Whether it’s going to be an expensive fashion accessory or something that will take charge of our very health and well-being, we will only know when the gadget is on thousands of wrists. Meanwhile, there are some reasons why so many are waiting with baited breath.REASON NUMBER 1Apple Watch: Source Apple.comThe fashion and luxury industry wants only a Johnny Ives designed Apple watch with which to craft expensive variants. The rumoured price for the basic watch is $349, but plush variants could be anything from $5,000 to $20,000. Apple’s recent splash in Vogue are one big indication of how wrists are going to glitter. REASON MUMBER 2 A man displays the Huawei Watch during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona March 3, 2015. (Reuters)Other wearable makers are hoping Apple will open up the category, taking smartwatches and bands mainstream. But it could as well end up owning the category, as it did music players with the iPod, and for a while, tablets with the iPad.REASON NUMBER 3Source: Apple.comApp developers have always loved making apps for the Apple store, where they manage to make more revenue. The Apple Watch will truly “Spring Forward” the app industry as it modifies apps to work with the Apple Watch and comes up with entirely new uses. The gaming industry is particularly interested.REASON NUMBER 4 Smartwatches and bands have been all about fitness and health, that being the logical and easy thing to execute on these devices. All set to go beyond measuring heart beats, steps and sleep, the healthcare industry wants to push many services to the watch and Apple’s ecosystem.REASON NUMBER 5The Apple logo inside an Apple store (Reuters)Apple being the most valued company in history, based on market capitalisation with a market-cap of over $620 billion, there are enough people who want the future of the company to be assured. There are high expectations from Apple which must be seen to be constantly innovating – the Apple Watch is just that next big thing.
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Ultra-high definition or 4K LED TVs have had a sluggish start and manufacturers have been struggling to sell units across the country. Keeping aside the high price tag, one of the primary reasons for the slow progress has been the limited amount of content available as there are hardly any channels that broadcast 4K content anywhere in the world. The only small source of 4K content that one can enjoy is available through YouTube and other streaming services, that too in limited numbers. Another major constraint comes in when broadcasters need to transmit 4K content to the consumer as there is a requirement of large amount of bandwidth.DTH providers Tata Sky and Videoconhad recently announced their very own 4K based set-top boxes becoming the first in the country to provide such service. However, there is a catch, since there are no official 4K based channels there will be only one channel dedicated to 4K content. This channel will show the high-quality content from various sources and the most attractive content would be the on-going ICC Cricket World Cup as some of the matches are being broadcasted in 4K resolution. Anil Khera, Chief Executive Officer of Videocon d2h said “While there are other service providers that have set-top boxes, we are the first to launch a platform for content in 4K UHD. The World Cup will have some matches in 4K UHD, and the channel will air the India matches and the semi-final and final.” Picture Courtesy: SonyA Tata Sky official confirmed to us that they are now ready with the technology and hope to provide more sports content if and when the broadcast is done in 4K. Other than sports, Tata Sky and Videocon have confirmed that they will be showing shows from various international sources including Discovery, Nat Geo and more.The progress from SD to HD was quite a slow process but will the progression from HD to 4K take a similar time-frame? According to a Samsung sales person, “We have seen a decent amount of interest from the consumer in 4K televisions and as they become more affordable, the consumer will vouch for them and demand 4K content which the broadcasters will have to provide in due time.”
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Last year Japanese technology giant Sony sold off Vaio, its laptop division, and there is a high possibility that it will be doing the same with its mobile division due to low sales and revenues. While Sony makes some of the best smartphones in the market, the devices have not made a big impact in any of the markets. The company was not very enthusiastic at the Mobile World Congress technology show in Barcelona as it only unveiled a mid-range smartphone and a tablet with a bunch of accessories. Sony's flagship devices were nowhere to be seen. Nonetheless the Xperia Z4 Tablet does sound like an interesting product which is laden with some of the latest hardware. Sony claims that it is one of the slimmest tablet offerings in the market and continues the company's legacy of sleek design with a glass front and back finish. To be frank, it is quite impressive. However, the tablet market in India is quite different. While the major chunk of sales is in favour of the low-end players, the high-end segment is completely dominated by Apple and Samsung. This means that Sony's new tablet will gain very little or almost no attention. Same goes for the Xperia M4 Aqua, which is a mid-ranged waterproof smartphone. It comes with an impressive design and features, but will that be enough to take on the competition from Motorola and the huge hoard of Chinese smartphone makers? Let us hope Sony can reinvent itself in the mobile market in the coming months.
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BlackBerry unveiled a new mid-market smartphone on Tuesday dubbed the BlackBerry Leap that is set to replace the Z3 device launched a year ago, in a move to woo buyers in certain emerging markets where BlackBerry still has a fairly large client base.The Waterloo, Ontario-based company said the phone, unveiled at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, would initially hit stores in U.S and European markets around April and be priced around $275.The company also said it planned to roll out two more models over the course of the next months, both with a keyboard.One will be a high-end smartphone with what Blackberry called "a dual curve all touch display" with a keyboard behind a slide. That may refer to the sort of curved screen featured in Samsung's latest Galaxy smartphone. "We don't have a code name for it but I call it The Slide," BlackBerry Chief Executive John Chen told media in Barcelona. "It will come some time this year," he added without giving a specific date.BlackBerry, once a must-have device for business executives and government officials because of its pioneering secure email service, has haemorrhaged market share to Apple's iPhone and rivals running on Google's Android software.In a bid to remain relevant, the company has pivoted in the last year to focus much more on its software business and core strengths such as data security. However, the company has stressed it remains committed to its devices business.At MWC last year, BlackBerry unveiled the Z3, priced at under $200 and built as part of a tie-up with FIH Mobile, the Hong Kong-listed unit of Taiwanese electronics company Foxconn Technology Co. The Z3 was aimed at reviving BlackBerry sales in emerging markets such as Indonesia, but failed to make much of an impact.With the new devices, BlackBerry hopes to fight its way back in the smartphone segment. "We expect to stabilize revenue and return to growth," Chen said, declining to give a time frame.Earlier this week at MWC, BlackBerry announced it planned to expand its cross-platform strategy by bringing features including the much-admired BlackBerry Hub and its virtual keyboard across to devices powered by rival platforms such as Android, Windows and iOS.(Agencies)
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The 3,500 mAh battery sits, unremoveable, but visible under the back panel of this 5-inch smartphone. The battery to phone-size ratio is in the E700’s favour. The charger will give it a quick charge. That said, there’s no special battery saving mode. It’s all a matter of pure battery heft. But if you’re one of those especially concerned with battery life, the E700 is worth a look. The battery’s performance is pretty good.
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There's someone on this planet for whom this hunk of a phone is intended. That someone is definitely not me. If I had a Lamborghini, it would be parked out front or busy gliding me across to some rendezvous — it wouldn’t be the heavyweight gold and leather smartphone I hold in my hands right now. For a start, it’s really meant for men and to me looks entirely Mafioso. Like it could be made of a chunk of car, for that matter. It arrived in a box bigger than that of a laptop — a box inside a box inside a box, and then finally five inches of Lamborghini 88 Tauri encased in satin.
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