Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play isn't having the best of starts in the world, having been delayed by UK carrier O2 due to "software issues," and it's now missing its targeted launch date of April 1st with two more of the local operators, Vodafone and Three. Both have today announced that, due to shipping issues, they won't be able to meet tomorrow's launch date -- leaving only Orange on track to release it on time. T-Mobile, Orange's partner in Everything Everywhere, says it'll have the Xperia Play in "mid-April." Still, the wait isn't that much longer as Three hopes to sell you a Play "early next week" and Vodafone, a bit more cautiously, is shooting for availability "as soon as possible."
Xperia Play meets shipping delays in UK, Vodafone and Three bump launch to next week originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 11:23:00 EDT.
With queues still forming at 4 AM at some Apple stores, and whole countries selling out completely, demand for the iPad 2 is so high that Apple suppliers are ramping up production of its various components.
AppleInsider reports that Samsung is hiring 300 new engineers for a semiconductor plant in Austin, Texas, and AU Optronics has an order to make flat panel screens (although this has not yet been confirmed). With earlier stories about other suppliers being taken on to make Apple's A5 processor and touch sensors, it does seem as if Apple is indeed ramping up production. Analyst Charlie Wolf with Needham & Company predicts Apple will make 30 million iPads this year and 40 million in 2012.
Samsung alone will make something like US$7.8 billion worth of components for Apple next year, and others are looking for a share of Apple's business. With a new iPhone model expected later this year, this doesn't look like a process that's going to slow down any time soon.
CNET reports that in its fight to keep Apple from trademarking the name "App Store" for its own mobile marketplace, Microsoft has hired a linguist to testify that the phrase "app store" simply means a store that sells apps, and therefore should not be used by Apple to talk about its own platform. Basically Microsoft is trying to use every trick in the book (that book being the dictionary in this case) to keep Apple from nailing down a hold on the App Store title.
This isn't the only litigation around the term -- Apple is also going after Amazon for trying to use "Appstore" to name its own marketplace. And I'll throw in one more wrinkle that doesn't seem to have occurred to the lawyers yet: I also heard an echo of "Apple" in the phrase "App Store" or even the term "apps" -- while it technically comes from "application," of course, I always thought it was pretty lucky for Apple that the first three letters of their name had showed up in the market that's become one of their biggest moneymakers.
Just installed Google Blogger on my Android HTC Hero.It's very basic but it will do.Can even ad pics.
A couple of tweets from CNET's Brian Tong are fueling speculation that a new batch of iMacs are on their way to the US, with an expected debut in late April or early May.
In a tweet a little over a week ago, Tong noted "New iMacs en route by ocean to U.S. available end of April or 1st week of May. No major cosmetic changes." That tweet was followed by another today that reiterated the timeframe for new iMac models.
Over at MacNews, Dennis Sellers made some predictions that are quite reasonable to believe. He expects the new iMacs to feature dual- or quad-core Sandy Bridge processors. At the low end of the price spectrum would be 21" models running dual-core Intel Core i5 CPUs at 2.3 and 2.7 GHz, while the high end would feature 27" iMacs with quad-core Intel Core i7 CPUs at 2.0 and 2.3 GHz. Sellers speculates that the new iMacs would come equipped with Thunderbolt I/O, an easy guess since the fast new I/O standard has already made a debut on the latest MacBook Pro models.
I disagree with Sellers on his estimate of hard disk capacities. He's anticipating 500 GB to 1 TB models. Apple already sells configure-to-order (CTO) models with 2 TB capacities, along with 256 GB SSD boot drives, so I'd expect to see the company start at 1 TB and possibly outfit CTO models with 3TB of storage. Most drive manufacturers are now selling 3 TB SATA units at reasonable prices, so there's no reason for Apple to at least make them an option for buyers. With storage that spacious, it might make more sense for Apple to squeeze two high-capacity drives into a new iMac for onboard data mirroring.
These new iMacs are probably already a done deal if they're indeed on the ships heading for the US. That doesn't mean that TUAW readers can't join in on the speculation. What would you like to see in a new iMac? Leave your comments below.
