AmTech on 3G iPhone; Adobe Lightroom 2.0; Apple China boss lured

[AppleInsider]

AmTech is chiming in with its own report on a 3G iPhone which the firm believes will be accompanied by a revised 2.5G model sporting a slight casing redesign. Meanwhile, Adobe has released a beta of its Lightroom 2.0 post-production photography software; Apple's China chief has been poached by the nation's leading search firm; and Germany receives fresh iTunes TV content.

AmTech on new iPhones

American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu on Wednesday joined a chorus of other analysts in forecasting Apple to introduce a new version of its iPhone handset around June.

"Our checks with supply chain sources indicate that the iPhone is likely to undergo a product transition in the June-July timeframe, about a quarter earlier than expected," he wrote in a research note to clients. "We had previously thought a 3G version would be available in mid- to second-half . Besides a software upgrade to version 2.0 in late June, we now believe we will likely see new hardware as well."

Giving the analyst higher conviction is the accelerated timetable in which iPhone inventory levels have gone lean, which he said is consistent with Apple's tendency to wind down stockpiles ahead of an update.

"We believe Steve Jobs could unveil these new iPhones at his WWDC keynote in early June," he told clients. "In addition to a 3G version, our sources indicate that the 2.5G model could see a minor casing change and lower price point closer to $299-349 vs. its $399 price today."

While the iPhone currently stands as a relatively minor contributor to Apple's top line, generating only 2-3 percent of the company's revenue, Wu believes it will one day become as large as the current Mac business, fueling approximately $15 - $20 billion in annualized revenue.

Adobe release Lightroom 2.0 beta

In its latest move aimed at battling Apple's Aperture for share of the post-production photography workflow software market, Adobe on Wednesday released a free public beta of its Lightroom 2.0 application that won't expire until the end of August.

Among the enhancements that can be found in the new version are:
Localized corrections — Enhance specific areas of an image for unsurpassed nondestructive flexibility and control reminiscent of the traditional darkroom dodge and burn experience.
Improved organizational tools — Find the images you need quickly and easily.
Multiple monitor support — Add an additional monitor to efficiently manage photographic workflow and presentation.
Flexible print package functionality — Create custom layouts containing multiple sizes of a photograph on a single page.
64-bit support — Lightroom 2.0 now takes advantage of the latest hardware architectures with improved memory handling and performance.
A complete set of detailed release notes [49.5KB PDF] are also available.

Apple China Boss heads to Baidu

Reuters is reporting that Baidu.com has lured Apple's former China head for the role of chief operating officer in the latest high-level executive shuffle at China's largest search engine.

Peng Ye, who oversaw all business operations in China for Apple as the country general manager, joins Baidu on the heels of the appointment of ex-General Motors executive Jennifer Li to the post of chief financial officer, the media outlet said.

Baidu is reported to maintain a slight edge over Google as China's most popular search engine.

TV programming comes to German iTunes Store

Apple said Wednesday that hit television programming from Germany’s top networks, including ProSieben, Sat.1, ZDF Enterprises, Brainpool and US broadcasters ABC Studios and MTV Networks is now available from the iTunes Store in Germany.

“iTunes is the world’s most popular online music and TV store with over four billion songs and 125 million TV episodes sold,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “We’re off to a great start with over 35 TV shows available on the iTunes Store in Germany.”

German iTunes customers can now choose from a wide range of award-winning primetime programming including “Stromberg,” “Tramitz and Friends,” “Switch!,” “Shaolin Wuzang” and “Kaya Yanar-Made In Germany,” as well as the Emmy Award-winning US programs “Lost,” “Desperate Housewives,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “South Park.”

Shows are priced at €1.99 and €2.49 per episode.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[stevemiller]

regarding lightroom 2.0 beta, the new features sound most welcome, but i'm disheartened that 64 bit support is intel only. i guess i got suckered by apple's claims that my 64-bit ppc would be futureproof. as a fcp/after effects/photoshop/lightroom user, have i or will i ever get any value from my 64 bit hardware on a ppc platform?

[SpamSandwich]

Interesting mix of stories....

[Cubert]

What?!?!? No Knight Rider in the German iTunes Store?

There will be riots in the streets.

[skottichan]

Originally Posted by Cubert

What?!?!? No Knight Rider in the German iTunes Store?

There will be riots in the streets.

BAH! You beat me to it.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by SpamSandwich

Interesting mix of stories....

It's 4 short articles that would be wasted with individual threads. We've seen it countless times before.

Originally Posted by Cubert

What?!?!? No Knight Rider in the German iTunes Store?

There will be riots in the streets.

Don't forget Baywatch.

[SpamSandwich]

Originally Posted by solipsism

It's 4 short articles that would be wasted with individual threads. We've seen it countless times before.

What's the difference? Is there a global thread shortage now?

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by SpamSandwich

What's the difference? Is there a global thread shortage now?

It's a just preference, but I prefer the way AI does it.

The articles are short, so I'd rather not be checking 4 very short articles with very few replies when these can be consolidated into one thread. This was released 3 hours ago and there are only 7 replies.

[quinney]

Originally Posted by SpamSandwich

What's the difference? Is there a global thread shortage now?

Apple has slowed the production of threads in anticipation of a new model of thread
to be introduced next Tuesday.

[SpamSandwich]

Originally Posted by quinney

Apple has slowed the production of threads in anticipation of a new model of thread
to be introduced next Tuesday.

LMAO!

[8CoreWhore]

Got the Lightroom 2.0 Beta. SWEET!!!! Nice tools!!! The competition between LR and Ape is good for us!

[Tofino]

Originally Posted by Cubert

What?!?!? No Knight Rider in the German iTunes Store?

There will be riots in the streets.

unless the Hoff is singing, germans don't want it...

[nvidia2008]

Originally Posted by Tofino

unless the Hoff is singing, germans don't want it...

All Knight Rider episodes have been reedited with Hoff singing scenes and will be re-released (special German edition) over the next few months...

[nvidia2008]

Originally Posted by stevemiller

regarding lightroom 2.0 beta, the new features sound most welcome, but i'm disheartened that 64 bit support is intel only. i guess i got suckered by apple's claims that my 64-bit ppc would be futureproof. as a fcp/after effects/photoshop/lightroom user, have i or will i ever get any value from my 64 bit hardware on a ppc platform?

If you are running pro apps and more that 4GB RAM, Leopard, etc. then I think you are getting 64 bit value to some extent.

Hell, I had an AMD*64* 3 years ago. 64 bit was overly hyped across all industries over the past 5 years.

I think it is only becoming apparent what it is really useful for, now.

Here's an interesting article:
http://developer.apple.com/macosx/64bit.html

There has been claims by Adobe that Tiger apps cannot address more than 3GB of RAM for each individual application. Apparently maybe FCS2 apps may not individually exceed 4GB RAM per application.

I am obviously learning about these myself.

However, let's look at 64bit being first and foremost, having a role at smashing the 3+GB barrier for *total system memory usage*.

Now, then each app individually can only address 4GB for a lot of apps, but this is rapidly changing.

I believe for 10.5 and 10.6 over the next few years there will no longer be any RAM limitations, that is, the system and applications can use as much RAM as is available, be it 8, 16, 32, 64GB etc.

If one is serious about Photoshop, I believe you can run CS3 at 4GB to the app, maybe make another 4GB Ramdisk, then the rest are for system and various apps. This would be for a 16GB PPC or Intel machine... (you don't have to explicitly make a Ramdisk for Photoshop, it uses a lot of remaining RAM outside of the 4GB for CS3, as scratch memory space...) http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=438956 .Apparently.

Right now, it is up to the apps. If you are mainly into scientific applications, then 64bit apps have immediate benefits.

Creative/ Pro Apps, right now not pushed to full potential yet.

[Crtaylor]

Let's just hope Adobe does not have a change of heart. I just read in a macrumors.com story that Adobe will only have a 64-Bit version of Photoshop CS4 for Windows and only a 32-Bit version for Mac. Supposedly, Apple dropped their Carbon 64 efforts, which is the reason Adobe is seemingly giving windows users the upper hand. I have no idea why, since Mac OSX is a 64-bit system anyway.

If the Mac looses its upper hand in the graphic arts industry, that would be a huge blow.

I'm also wondering if Apple should make their own version of Adobe Creative Suite...

[bluefish1102]

Ha....who is this author kidding... "Baidu is reported to maintain a slight edge over Google as China's most popular search engine."

Baidu has 3x the market share of Google in China

[Akac]

Originally Posted by Crtaylor

Let's just hope Adobe does not have a change of heart. I just read in a macrumors.com story that Adobe will only have a 64-Bit version of Photoshop CS4 for Windows and only a 32-Bit version for Mac. Supposedly, Apple dropped their Carbon 64 efforts, which is the reason Adobe is seemingly giving windows users the upper hand. I have no idea why, since Mac OSX is a 64-bit system anyway.

If the Mac looses its upper hand in the graphic arts industry, that would be a huge blow.

I'm also wondering if Apple should make their own version of Adobe Creative Suite...

Simply put: There are two native frameworks to right Mac OS X applications: Cocoa and Carbon. Photoshop is written in Carbon as it has 20 years of code to deal with. Lightroom is in Cocoa. In Leopard Apple decided to make only Cocoa 64-bit. Originally they planned to make Carbon 64-bit but changed that mid-last year.