Mystery Apple boxes; Safari JavaScript boost; thinner 3G iPhone?

[AppleInsider]

Stacks of unmarked boxes are appearing at a Quanta distribution center just days before WWDC. Meanwhile, the WebKit team plans a major performance boost to JavaScript in Safari; the company has released a security configuration guide; and a report claims the 3G iPhone's dimensions are smaller than case makers have previously thought.

Masses of Apple boxes appear at Quanta depot

Whatever Apple is planning to unveil at its Worldwide Developer Conference next week, it's moving a large volume of products through its supply channels, Forbes's Brian Caulfield has found.

Acting on previous reports that Apple has shipped 19 deliveries overseas from Quanta, which is believed to be a current iPhone manufacturer, the journalist visited a Quanta facility in Fremont, Calif. that appears to be overflowing with Apple deliveries.

Despite being a large facility that processes the goods of multiple manufacturers, the location on Wednesday night had dozens of tall pallets of boxes that all reportedly belonged to Apple. Some of these were clearly iMacs, but 20 others placed side-by-side were wrapped in plain brown packaging.

These boxes could be any device, Caulfield warns, but employees at the Quanta building are said to be very active and also elusive: the shipping supervisor was "really busy" during one attempt to collect information, while another worker approached on the presence of iPhones said he was "not at liberty" to discuss what the manufacturer was shipping.

SquirrelFish to give Safari's JavaScript 60 percent boost

The team refining the WebKit engine behind Safari hopes to inject the renderer's JavaScript interpreter with a new high-speed platform, MacNN reports.

Called SquirrelFish, the engine switches from the basic engine currently in Safari, which simply walks through syntax, to a much more complex bytecode engine that avoids many of the code revisits and overhead as it deciphers JavaScript on a website.

Even though still in early testing with nightly builds of the Webkit test browser, the results are described as dramatic: in a SunSpider test of the scripting language, SquirrelFish runs 60 percent faster than Safari's stock interpreter.



There are no clues given as to when Safari will see the addition, but performance is expected to get better: the team is already happy but believes the current speed is "just the beginning."

Apple posts Mac OS X Security Configuration Guide

Further evidence that Apple is beginning to take security more seriously has surfaced this week in the form of the company's new Security Configuration Guides for Mac OS X Leopard, Tiger, and Panther.

Targeted at both advanced home and workplace users, the guides are billed as helping lock down Macs against most security threats but can compromise the computer in the hands of less experienced users. Any settings ought to be "thoroughly tested" before left alone, Apple warns.

Case makers caught off-guard by 3G iPhone change?

If one report is to be believed, prototype cases for 3G iPhones allegedly made by Griffin and others may be useless by the time the Apple device is on shelves.

iDealsChina claims that last-minute changes make the actual iPhone refresh 2mm (0.08 inches) shorter and 0.5mm (0.02 inches) thinner than originally thought, potentially leaving these companies with thousands of loose-fitting cases to either sell or destroy. A mockup provided by an insider purportedly shows proof of the end product's looks.

Notably, iDealsChina both provided the earlier Griffin leak and sells iPhone accessories, making it difficult to independently determine the authenticity of the report.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[echosonic]

I find it f--king ridiculous that the shipping supervisor can

A. Get phone calls from analysts looking for insider info, and
B. Possibly disclose anything anyway

At what point does the hunt for this insider information step across the threshhold of legality?

[icfireball]

Originally Posted by echosonic

I find it f--king ridiculous that the shipping supervisor can

A. Get phone calls from analysts looking for insider info, and
B. Possibly disclose anything anyway

At what point does the hunt for this insider information step across the threshhold of legality?

It's always going to happen. Consider a similar scenario: the leaking of Harry Potter books before publication.

[meeksdigital]

I AM SO EFFING EXCITED! hahaha

oh man....

[Fleshman03]

That is obviously my new MBP! Too big for iPhones.

[MiMiC]

Originally Posted by Fleshman03

That is obviously my new MBP! Too big for iPhones.

I'm sure they are shipping 12-24 per case

[Ireland]

Originally Posted by Fleshman03

That is obviously my new MBP! Too big for iPhones.

Where did this shot come from? The boxes aren't the iPhones, they'd be there already

[Fleshman03]

Originally Posted by Ireland

Where did this shot come from? The boxes aren't the iPhones, they'd be there already

Macrumors.com.

Not sure if it's ok to post it here or not. Sorry if it's not.

[Fleshman03]

Originally Posted by MiMiC

I'm sure they are shipping 12-24 per case

Buzz kill.

[JoeDRC]

Originally Posted by Fleshman03

That is obviously my new MBP! Too big for iPhones.

Must be a guard out of shot, any reason they're sitting outside?

[federmoose]

Originally Posted by JoeDRC

Must be a guard out of shot, any reason they're sitting outside?

yes, to prevent rain damange...

[Tofino]

Originally Posted by Fleshman03

That is obviously my new MBP! Too big for iPhones.

or maybe apple solved the 3g power issue by using car batteries!

[Bageljoey]

Originally Posted by Tofino

or maybe apple solved the 3g power issue by using car batteries!

I was thinking of reposting the picture again just for ya yas, but it would just be a letdown after this!

[Chris Cuilla]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

but 20 others placed side-by-side were wrapped in plain brown packaging.

This could be nothing more than boxes of Playboy magazines.

And this...

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Caulfield warns, but employees at the Quanta building are said to be very active and also elusive: the shipping supervisor was "really busy" during one attempt to collect information

Could be nothing more than a journalist encountering people doing actual work for a living.

[Fleshman03]

Found some more pictures. It comes from the Forbes site.

http://www.forbes.com/2008/06/05/iph...hisspeed=25000

Try not to drool over your keyboard.

[iVlad]

iPhone comes in one big box that is packed with 14 iPhones. So those are iPhones.

Maybe the packaging became even smaller...in order to be more green.

[mydo]

Originally Posted by echosonic

At what point does the hunt for this insider information step across the threshhold of legality?

Legality? What law could be broken? If they agreed with apple no to disclose then a violation would be a contract violation and could end up in civil court. What criminal law is broken when someone tells what they know?

[AlphaBob]

The "error" concerning the case is actually a lack of knowledge of molding and plastic properties. The molds are made slightly larger because the case shrinks as it cools.

[Solar]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

SquirrelFish to give Safari's JavaScript 60 percent boost

The team refining the WebKit engine behind Safari hopes to inject the renderer's JavaScript interpreter with a new high-speed platform, MacNN reports.

Called SquirrelFish, the engine switches from the basic engine currently in Safari, which simply walks through syntax, to a much more complex bytecode engine that avoids many of the code revisits and overhead as it deciphers JavaScript on a website.

Even though still in early testing with nightly builds of the Webkit test browser, the results are described as dramatic: in a SunSpider test of the scripting language, SquirrelFish runs 60 percent faster than Safari's stock interpreter.



There are no clues given as to when Safari will see the addition, but performance is expected to get better: the team is already happy but believes the current speed is "just the beginning."

I just ran the sunspider benchs with the nightly build of webkit, vs safari 3 vs Firefox 2 vs Firefox 3 beta.

Results:


I've had my suspicions that FF2 sucked at javascript, but jeez. The test actually kicked my fan on half way through.

If the current speed is just the beginning, the next version of safari will really be rockin.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by Solar

I just ran the sunspider benchs with the nightly build of webkit, vs safari 3 vs Firefox 2 vs Firefox 3 beta.

Results:
<image>

I've had my suspicions that FF2 sucked at javascript, but jeez. The test actually kicked my fan on half way through.

If the current speed is just the beginning, the next version of safari will really be rockin.

Sometime in 2nd half of 2007 (I forget exactly when) WebKit made some major changes to the way the engine handled JS. I believe Safari 2 was already better than FF2, but much closer to it is to Safari 3.

There are also some other, more recent, improvements to the way WebKit handles JS. This probably wouldn't affect the SunSpider by much or at all, but it does allow a page to load what it has parsed sooner.

• http://webkit.org/blog/166/optimizin...n-web-browser/

[smokeonit]

1st: the quanta guy didn't disclose anything! he only answered the phone...

2nd: as long as the photos were taken from a public street or sidewalk it's legal in any free country to take photos of such things as company lots, cars or people.... only if the photographer steps onto the companies property, or any other private property, without consent of the owner it's illegal to publish the photos... in this case it is clear that the photos were shot from a public street... the parking lot seems to be open to the public street and there are no signs warning of private property, anyone can drive onto it an park there... in this case it would have been legal to drive or walk closer and take photos even closer.... as long as there's no one of the company asking the photographer to leave....