McGraw-Hill’s CEO Terry McGraw Confirms Apple Tablet?

McGraw-Hill’s CEO, Terry McGraw, yesterday confirmed that the Apple tablet would be announced today. In the video he was very excited about working with Apple and spoke of how the announcement would be today and how it’s “based on the iPhone operating system” and that it will be “transferable”, which I’m assuming means everything in iTunes.

He also says that they’ve got 95% of their materials up and ready to run as e-books, and it’s not a stretch to think that Apple has made similar deals with other major publishers as well. This still isn’t official confirmation of the tablet but it’s pretty obvious now that it’ll be coming.

iPhone OS 4.0 Only For 3G and 3GS?

According to a source, the new iPhone OS 4.0, which is rumored to be shown at the upcoming Apple event; will include multitasking, which has been wanted for a long time but many iPhone users but only those who jailbreak the device can use this feature. The source also says there will be a new UI, “to make navigating through the OS easier and more efficient” and also OS-wise mutli-touch gestures. However I see it unlikely that Apple will majorly change the UI of the OS as they like to keep things familiar.

The source also says how they will also be “some brand new syncing ability for the contacts and calendar applications” but that the new OS will only be available for the iPhone 3G and 3GS, this makes sense for the multitasking as the iPhone 2G doesn’t have enough RAM to be able to multitask properly.

Apple Event Invites Sent Out

The invites have now been sent to all those invited to the Apple event on January 27th. The invite has a spray painted look, a time of 10 am Pacific and a place of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The invite says ‘Come see our latest creation’ hence confirming we are going to be seeing something new from Apple, so at the point everything is pointing to a tablet, but as before we could be completely wrong.

iPhone OS 4.0 To Have Contacts On The Home Screen?

Apple recently applied for a patent to put contacts on the iPhone home screen. The patent gives pretty solid evidence that the next iPhone OS iteration will include this feature.

The patent shows that the custom icons for contacts won’t just be for speed dialing but will be able to perform wide range of things, such as launching any app you specify that is personalized to the contact or display information about the contact.

One of the options has the icon for the contact that shows up on your home screen based on the persons proximity to you, so if someone gets within a certain range to you then they will show up on your home screen, however this will probably only work on iPhones or possibly phones that have GPS.

The icon can also be used to invoke one or more applications that are personalized to the contact. The icon can be modified to display information related to the contact. In one aspect, an icon associated with an entity can be temporarily displayed on the mobile device based on the proximity of the mobile device to the entity.

Vodafone iPhone Now On Sale in UK

An email was sent out today to all Vodafone customers about the release of the iPhone on their network today. Vodafone has joined the other 3 carriers of the iPhone in the UK (O2, Orange and Tesco Mobile.)

According to Vodafone, they estimate they will be able to sell 50,000 iPhones by the end of the day. If they achieve this they will beat Orange’s launch record of 30,000 and outsell the Google Nexus One, which only sold 20,000 in it’s first week.

Related:
Vodafone UK To Offer iPhone January 14th

Samsung Announces New 64GB NAND Chip

Samsung has just announced a new 64GB memory moviNAND that could be used in the next-gen iPhone, which is rumored to be out this summer, as with Apple’s usual iPhone release time.

The chip measures 1.4mm in height and it’s composed of 16 30nm-class 32Gb MLC NAND chip and a controller. It’s expected that we might see this new chip, as each new iPhone is shown a bigger size is released so 64GB could be on the table for the iPhone 4G.

Toshiba, meanwhile announced the upcoming release of 64GB NAND chip, so it might be either Samsung or Toshiba.

R5 Release Dates (January 2010 – July 2010)

Check the R5 Release Dates page for the latest release dates. (Dates go up to December 2010)

January 2010
The Soloist – January 12th 2010
Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard – January 14th 2010
The Men Who Stare at Goats – January 14th 2010
Fired Up! – January 14th 2010
Shrink – January 21st 2010
Solitary Man – January 21st 2010
Leaves of Grass – January 21st 2010
The Final Destination – January 26th 2010
Smokin’ Aces 2: Assassins’ Ball – January 26th 2010
City Island – January 26th 2010
Shorts – January 26th 2010
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel – January 28th 2010
The Stepfather – January 28th 2010
This Is It – January 2010

February 2010
The Informant!  – February 2nd 2010
500 Days of Summer – February 4th 2010
Whiteout – February 9th 2010
The Time Traveler’s Wife – February 9th 2010
Couples Retreat – February 9th 2010
The Invention of Lying – February 16th 2010
The Informant! – February 16th 2010 (Second Date)
Amelia – February 18th 2010
Into the Blue 2: The Reef – February 18th 2010
Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead – February 18th 2010
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant – February 23rd 2010
The Blind Side – February 23rd 2010
Tooth Fairy – February 25th 2010 (Second Date)
Daybreakers – February 2010
The Greatest – February 2010

March 2010
Free Willy: Escape from Pirate’s Cove – March 2nd 2010
A Christmas Carol – March 4th 2010
The Invention Of Lying – March 2nd 2010 (Second Date)
Fantastic Mr. Fox – March 4th 2010
The Marine 2 – March 4th 2010
Ninja Assassin – March 9th 2010
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief – March 11th 2010
Where the Wild Things Are – March 23rd 2010
Surviving Evil – March 25th 2010
The Cabin in the Woods  – March 25th 2010
Sherlock Holmes – March 30th 2010
The Wolfman – March 2010
Motherhood – March 2010
Shutter Island – March 2010
Triage – March 2010

April 2010
Paranormal Activity – April 6th 2010
Fantastic Mr. Fox – April 14th 2010 (Second Date)
It’s Complicated – April 20th 2010
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel – April 25th 2010 (Second Date)
The Road – April 2010
The Boys Are Back – April 2010
The Thaw – April 2010
Creation – April 2010

May 2010
Preacher’s Kid – May 4th 2010
Date Night – May 6th 2010
Valentine’s Day – May 18th 2010
Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps – May 20th 2010

June 2010
The Lovely Bones – June 2010
Up in the Air – June 2010
Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang – June 2010
Invictus – June 2010
The Wolfman – June 2010 (2nd Date)

July 2010
Clash of the Titans – July 2010
Green Zone – July 2010
She’s Out of My League – July 2010

Updated: 14th January 2010

For the rest of the dates go to http://tinyurl.com/r5dates

Notes: Avatar R5 was removed as the release has been delayed for an unknown reason, probably pulled by the studio due to it’s popularity. Also there is no New Moon R5 date yet and no sign of one as of yet.

Note: not all dates are 100% accurate and are likely to vary, please keep checking back for updated release dates.

iPhone 4G Wishlist

So with all the rumours over the past few months I’ve been thinking what I’d love to see from the next iteration of the iPhone. Although some of the points maybe wrong if you believe the rumours, we have been wrong many times before but this is just what would make the iPhone 4G the next killer device.

  • Dual Core ARM Cortex A9 CPU

The iPhone runs pretty well on its current CPU, but having a dual core more powerful CPU would help make the phone snappier and along with the PowerVR SGX545 GPU we could be looking at desktop quality games and HD content.

  • PowerVR SGX545 GPU (HD Graphics)

With HD capability we could play games at a whole new level, surpassing any current portable gaming device on the market. Along with HD playback and hopefully HD video recording.

  • 5/8 Megapixel with Flash

The rumours say that Apple is going to include a 5 Megapixel camera in the next iPhone and possibly Flash but a lot of phones these days are pushing up to 8MP and with bigger capacities why not?

  • 720p video recording

This would help bring more products in to one, the iPhone 3GS does a good job of video recording at VGA but 720p would make that video look even better.

  • 802.11n WiFi

There has been a recent job posting looking for someone who would be able to work with 802.11n WiFi so it would be nice for the people who use it.

  • Bigger memory capacity (16GB, 32GB, 64GB, 128GB)

For some people they must have all their video and music collection with them and so we need to increase the size of memory as usual, obviously Apple controls the prices on flash memory so I’m sure they can offer it.

  • 512MB RAM

We’ve been slowly progressing, the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G both had 128MB or RAM which isn’t good when you have to reboot your device to play games, the 3GS made up for it with 256MB but why not add in a little overhead for those jailbreakers who multi-task?

  • Front Facing Camera

This is a feature that was rumoured for the 3GS but never happened, the technology has been around for years. I had a Sony Ericsson phone about 5 years ago that could video call, it was one of the first 3G devices in Europe but still the technology is there and it would make taking self-shots easier.

  • OLED Display

This would make a nice feature, not only because it looks better but because it saves on battery life which is something the iPhone really needs ever since 3.0.

  • Better Battery

As most iPhone users will tell you, unless you have a battery pack with you, your phone will not last the day. The jailbreak are trying at the current time to certain daemons from running and this apparently does increase battery life, but Apple should really sort this issue out.

  • Fully Bluetooth Support

So many people ask me you have bluetooth right? And I reply the truth, Yes. But of course then I have to tell them how it’s crippled and how I can’t even send them a picture over Bluetooth.
These are just my personal hopes for the next iPhone, obviously I know not all of them will come but hopefully Apple fits some in there. And one last thing, headphones that last longer than 4 months, I’ve been through 3 pairs in under a year.

iPhone 4G To Have Dual Core CPU?

A Korean newspaper has recently said “The next iPhone will be here in limited supply in April, and be more power than previous models”. They believe that Apple will be test running the next-gen iPhone to corporate sponsors as soon as April.

Many other blogs are skeptical about what the Korean newspaper said, as Apple never usually test run devices except for workers at Apple working on the product.

The report also talks about how the next iPhone will have the ARM Cortex-A9 CPU, which could offer speeds up to 2GHz which is a lot faster than what we have now. All of us expect the device to improve as it must for Apple to appeal to users with a prior iPhone. But a dual core CPU would work well with a multithreading GPU and would help push those HD graphics.

Apple Causing Shortage Of 10″ OLED Screens?

Rumour has it that Apple has caused a shortage of OLED screen components, possibly for their upcoming tablet or possibly for the iPhone 4G.

“We were told that Apple pre-ordered them all. All 10 inch LCDs, and all 10 inch OLEDs too,” an anonymous designer commented during CES.

Another rumor from last year said that the tablet had been delayed because Apple was waiting for OLED components for the device. It seems plausible then that Apple could be behind an OLED shortage, as they can usually control component prices due to the bulk in which they buy. As they have done with flash memory in the past for iPods and iPhone’s.

The source also says there is also a shortage of LCD screen components of the same size, hinting that Apple may offer an LCD model alongside the OLED model, maybe as a low end option. Only time will tell but it’s not long now until the event where the tablet it due to be unveiled.