Apple seeks expert in WiMAX; impromptu 5th Ave. lineup; more

[AppleInsider]

Apple is on the hunt for an engineer familiar with WiMAX, Ultra-wideband, and other next-generation wireless technologies. Meanwhile, confusion reigned on Thursday as a lineup appeared at the Fifth Avenue store without warning, Oppenheimer Funds has opened its coverage of Apple, and a thief of 330 iPhones has agreed to surrender to local police.

Apple in job search for WiMAX engineer

A recent search by Apple for a Senior RF System Engineer reveals that the company is "exploring new wireless technologies."

Part of a group dedicated to researching cutting-edge wireless standards and implementing them in Apple devices, the engineer will need to be experienced with "Mobile TV," Ultra-wideband (UWB), and WiMAX, in addition to more ubiquitous standards such as 3G cellular data, Bluetooth, and GPS.

While the group isn't described as committed to using the hardware for any one product, the acknowledgement opens the door to the use of these wireless formats in future devices. WiMAX in particular is supported by Apple's favored chip supplier, Intel, and is soon to be jointly deployed by Clearwire and Sprint in a US-wide network that will offer fourth-generation (4G) wireless Internet access to handhelds and computers.

Intel's upcoming Centrino 2 platform for notebooks has the option of a Wi-Fi and WiMAX combination card, dubbed Echo Peak, that offers both wireless services.

Technologies such as mobile TV and UWB have typically seen more limited uses to date. In the US, both AT&T and Verizon offer digital over-the-air TV broadcasts as subscription services, while UWB is used under the Wireless USB moniker as a means of providing near-USB speeds to supporting peripherals at short range. The feature is currently an option for notebooks from Dell and a handful of other PC makers.

Mystery customer lineup appears at Fifth Avenue Apple store

While Apple's customers are known to go to great lengths to queue up for announced products, an impromptu queue spotted by Engadget on Thursday afternoon has observers scratching their heads.

At least 60 people are said to have waited outside the glass cube despite the lack of any new products or special events -- with some mistakenly convinced that a 3G iPhone was ready for them at the other end. Barriers and Apple staff were present to control the lineup.

Representatives from Apple provided the most logical explanation: the store is simply queuing up iPhone customers to manage the risk of overcrowding at the underground location. Despite its reputation, the Fifth Avenue store is not a large store and is known to be full-to-bursting even without additional factors at work, such as ongoing iPhone shortages and the looming Memorial Day weekend.

Still, the line has triggered enough speculation that the founder of the public performance group Improv Everywhere has stepped in to clarify that this isn't an elaborate stunt by the troupe.

Oppenheimer opens coverage on Apple with optimistic look

Adding to the roster of financial institutions tracking Apple's fortunes, OppenheimerFunds on Thursday began its first look at Apple with a positive investors' note that set a target for Apple's share price at $235.

Analyst Yair Reiner argues that most researchers' views of the expected 3G iPhone's impact are overly conservative and that new models for both home and business will help Apple beat its own predictions, boosting iPhone shipments from the officially predicted 10 million in 2008 to 14 million. As many as 28 million handsets could ship in 2009, he says.

Reiner also forecasts the Cupertino, Calif.-based firm claiming a significant share of the market in the long term, reaching five percent by 2012.

The electronics giant is "ideally positioned" to reap the rewards of a shift towards entertainment-oriented PCs and from basic cellphones to all-in-one media computers, the analyst writes.

iPhone thief surrenders

A high-profile inside job at Apple's Salem, New Hampshire Apple store that saw over 330 iPhones stolen has come a step closer to its conclusion, as one of the thieves has given himself in to area police.

Although arrested at the same time as fellow Apple store employee Chris Nashed, Josh Garrard until Wednesday was fighting extradition from his home state of Massachusetts until he chose to surrender in Salem and face criminal charges.

More details have also surfaced regarding the crime in the wake of the original arrest. Garrard and Nashed had already admitted to planning to resell the iPhones but are now known to have been paid by a buyer who purchased the phones at $420 -- a heist that resulted in a $138,600 profit at the time.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[Slewis]

Null.

[solipsism]

So the phones would have been sold for $399 + 5% MA sales tax = $418.95, but were stolen to be sold to a single buyer at $1.05 past the price with taxes? What am I not getting about this story?

[riversky]

Originally Posted by solipsism

So the phones would have been sold for $399 + 5% MA sales tax = $418.95, but were stolen to be sold to a single buyer at $1.05 past the price with taxes? What am I not getting about this story?

This iPhone is going for over $1000 in China and Israel. I bet they were shipped overseas.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by riversky

This iPhone is going for over $1000 in China and Israel. I bet they were shipped overseas.

Are there no legal channels that could get them at the retail price?

[SpamSandwich]

Cool news about WiMax. Here's to hoping CLWR responds positively to this development.

[retroneo]

Hopefully they are adding HSPA to the MacBook Pro and Air...

Some people are complaining about the coverage a 3G network that covers 275 cities. Check out Clearwire's non-existent coverage here - and it's unlikely that they'll add the original goal of 19 extra cities at the end of this year.

Why put high-speed wireless data on hold, when we can have it now?

WiMax also has far worse coverage characteristics (higher frequency) than HSPA. The networks are expensive to roll out. Real world speeds aren't significantly higher either, and revisions to HSPA offer great performance improvents before then end of the year and again before the end of next year.

Already there are 166 HSPA networks that have coverage in 77 countries.

[Slewis]

Null.

[NanoAkron]

Originally Posted by solipsism

Are there no legal channels that could get them at the retail price?

No. There aren't.

[mbmcavoy]

Hey, not a topical response - I'd like to comment on AI's practice of combining several unrelated subjects into a single article. It's bad.

I would much prefer several separate, short articles, that way I can jump right to the subject I'm interested in. Even more annoying, the comments on the subjects are jumbled in the same thread. No, it isn't all that hard to skim past the stuff I don't care much about, but is it that hard to post the articles separately?

Anyone with me, or am I just grumpy?

[SpamSandwich]

Originally Posted by mbmcavoy

Hey, not a topical response - I'd like to comment on AI's practice of combining several unrelated subjects into a single article. It's bad.

I would much prefer several separate, short articles, that way I can jump right to the subject I'm interested in. Even more annoying, the comments on the subjects are jumbled in the same thread. No, it isn't all that hard to skim past the stuff I don't care much about, but is it that hard to post the articles separately?

Anyone with me, or am I just grumpy?

New guy, huh? I've mentioned this a number of times.

[SurfRat]

Originally Posted by mbmcavoy

Hey, not a topical response - I'd like to comment on AI's practice of combining several unrelated subjects into a single article. It's bad.

I would much prefer several separate, short articles, that way I can jump right to the subject I'm interested in. Even more annoying, the comments on the subjects are jumbled in the same thread. No, it isn't all that hard to skim past the stuff I don't care much about, but is it that hard to post the articles separately?

Anyone with me, or am I just grumpy?

Little annoying for me as well...

I notice you guys are picking up more and more 9to5mac stories (without linking of course) any reason for that?

[petermac]

Originally Posted by mbmcavoy

Hey, not a topical response - I'd like to comment on AI's practice of combining several unrelated su

Anyone with me, or am I just grumpy?

I'm with you, so that makes me grumpy too.

[winterspan]

Originally Posted by retroneo

Hopefully they are adding HSPA to the MacBook Pro and Air...

Some people are complaining about the coverage a 3G network that covers 275 cities. Check out Clearwire's non-existent coverage here - and it's unlikely that they'll add the original goal of 19 extra cities at the end of this year.

Why put high-speed wireless data on hold, when we can have it now?

WiMax also has far worse coverage characteristics (higher frequency) than HSPA. The networks are expensive to roll out. Real world speeds aren't significantly higher either, and revisions to HSPA offer great performance improvents before then end of the year and again before the end of next year.

Already there are 166 HSPA networks that have coverage in 77 countries.

I'm not positive, but I believe those Clearwire locations are ONLY for FIXED-installation WiMax. Sprint/Clearwire's mobile Wimax gig is called "Xohm", and here is the offical coverage map, which looks even worse: http://www.xohmuser.com/index.php/sp...m-coverge.html


Let me preface this by saying just like any other wireless technology, there are a lot of variables at play, and one experience isn't necessarily representative of the rest. And I have no idea how Sprint's mobile-Wimax implementation is going to perform, but from my experience with fixed in-home Wimax service from Clearwire, I'm not real optimistic.
My sister had Clearwire Wimax in Boise, Idaho, which is on that clearwire map. She was in an apartment where she was unable to get cable broadband for some reason. Anyways, the experience overall was bad. Very slow, as in 400-500kbps download and even worse upload, and the latency was horrendous, usually about 500-700ms. And this was with a large fixed receiver box -- not a small mobile chip. What was really sad is that a mobile cellular broadband card for her laptop vastly outperformed out, and that's what she ended up using for service.

[ebrunn]

at people lining up for nothing

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by Slewis

To the first person who's going to point out that why do it wireless when you need to be physically close to the computer and you can charge it while it's plugged in: irrelevant. You don't have to necessarily sync it every time, you could choose to transfer only a file or two or ten without bothering to pull out the dock.

But you haven't addressed the need for power, you'll still need a cable for power or recharge anyway. A cable can provide data and power, so it looks like a net cable difference of zero, but at a higher cost.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by SpamSandwich

New guy, huh? I've mentioned this a number of times.

I wonder if AI readership is declining, which justifies merging very unrelated stories. On another site, half of these stories would get a longer thread, and the other half might get a couple posts, which is still more than some of the sub-stories.

[Slewis]

Null.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by Slewis

There's no need to address this, adding Bluetooth 3 and allowing iPods and iPhones to transfer data via Bluetooth doesn't mean the cable would just disappear, it would remain an option and that should have been assumed since I'm not touting Bluetooth 3 as a complete replacement to the cable, just an option for those who wish to use it.

It is important because of the trade-offs. Basically it saves you a couple seconds of connecting and disconnecting, assuming you keep Bluetooth "hot" all the time and wasting power, even if it's low power, it adds up, or if you turn the radio on for syncing, it's time wasted. I'd like to see a more compelling reason.

[picaman]

Originally Posted by ebrunn

at people lining up for nothing

FWIW, I saw the line at the 5th Ave. Apple Store. Walked right past it and walked right into the big glass cube into the store. I almost asked why they were lined up, but I assumed it was something for the FAO Schwartz store next door. Random lines of people are a pretty common sight in Manhattan

If it wasn't Improv Everywhere, it's an intriguing mystery. Wish I'd asked now.

[CAM]

Originally Posted by SurfRat

Little annoying for me as well...

I agree, it's annoying.

I don't mind if we wind up with articles that are super short. The consolidated articles are not worth the price of jumbled comments.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by CAM

I agree, it's annoying.

I don't mind if we wind up with articles that are super short. The consolidated articles are not worth the price of jumbled comments.

I like the practice of consolidating these snippets. They tend not have to many posts anyway and most commenters do make clear what they are posting about. Even now there are only 20 replies and about half are complaints about the combining of these article snippets.

[SpamSandwich]

Originally Posted by picaman

FWIW, I saw the line at the 5th Ave. Apple Store. Walked right past it and walked right into the big glass cube into the store. I almost asked why they were lined up, but I assumed it was something for the FAO Schwartz store next door. Random lines of people are a pretty common sight in Manhattan

If it wasn't Improv Everywhere, it's an intriguing mystery. Wish I'd asked now.

They should just form an endless line that goes around a block, with no apparent destination. That would be hilarious.

[SpamSandwich]

Originally Posted by solipsism

I like the practice of consolidating these snippets. They tend not have to many posts anyway and most commenters do make clear what they are posting about. Even now there are only 20 replies and about half are complaints about the combining of these article snippets.

I don't mind two or three combined articles when the stories are directly related or complimentary. Wildly different articles have no place being in the same thread.