Briefly: Mac Web use climbs, doubleshot patent, iPhone memory
A study of Web traffic published on Thursday suggested Apple's influence is on the rise. Simultaneously, a company patent borrowed a cue from Microsoft's Zune, and flash chips from Samsung could be the first step towards finished iPhones.
Mac's Web effect grows
Net Applications began March by reporting yet another increase in the amount of traffic the stats firm saw online. A poll of its over 40,000 customer sites worldwide showed that 6.38 percent of surfers were using some variant of the Mac OS. The majority of those, 4.29 percent, were using PowerPC-based Macs, Net Applications said.
The increase was a modest but tangible boost to Apple's impact over recent months. Use grew slightly over the 6.22 percent reported in January, but represented only a small climb compared to the more impressive 0.55 percent spike seen as 2006 drew to a close.
While not conclusive figures by any means, the regularly released numbers have often served as unofficial barometers of Apple's marketshare by Net Applications and the industry. Last month's statistics appear to support claims that Mac sales had doubled year-over-year in January.
Doubleshot casing patent creates enigma
More puzzling was the surfacing of an Apple patent for an "electronic device formed with doubleshot injection molding." Apple's famous product designer Jonathan Ive was listed as one of the inventors.
The patent, granted March 1st but originally filed in August 2005, refers to the process of creating a handheld's shell by injecting plastic into a mold twice, producing two layers that ultimately form one layer.
The immediate benefit is to produce thinner walls that allow for new construction techniques. A first-generation iPod shuffle was used as an example and is likely to be the impetus for the patent's existence.
However, the new grant also raised eyebrows by recalling Microsoft's Zune, perhaps the best-known example of doubleshot injection used in a music player. The Redmond-designed device uses the extra layer as a hidden contrasting color that only manifests itself at sharp angles, producing a "glow" around the edges.
Apple never tried for such an effect itself using the precise methods described in the patent, but the curious timing -- seven months after the iPod shuffle launched at 2005's Macworld Expo -- pointed to a desire on Cupertino's part to guard its particular idea for later use.
Flash memory headed to Apple's iPhone factories?
Meanwhile, DigiTimes claimed to have word that some of the very first components of the iPhone's hardware would soon be shipping to Apple.
The Taiwanese trade publication said on Thursday in a discussion of rapidly tumbling memory prices that recent orders made with Samsung for flash chips from Apple would be the Korean electronics giant's saving grace, freezing flash memory prices for the near future. Initial shipments were scheduled to begin soon, the report said.
No mention was made of an exact timetable for the deliveries.
Mac's Web effect grows
Net Applications began March by reporting yet another increase in the amount of traffic the stats firm saw online. A poll of its over 40,000 customer sites worldwide showed that 6.38 percent of surfers were using some variant of the Mac OS. The majority of those, 4.29 percent, were using PowerPC-based Macs, Net Applications said.
The increase was a modest but tangible boost to Apple's impact over recent months. Use grew slightly over the 6.22 percent reported in January, but represented only a small climb compared to the more impressive 0.55 percent spike seen as 2006 drew to a close.
While not conclusive figures by any means, the regularly released numbers have often served as unofficial barometers of Apple's marketshare by Net Applications and the industry. Last month's statistics appear to support claims that Mac sales had doubled year-over-year in January.
Doubleshot casing patent creates enigma
More puzzling was the surfacing of an Apple patent for an "electronic device formed with doubleshot injection molding." Apple's famous product designer Jonathan Ive was listed as one of the inventors.
The patent, granted March 1st but originally filed in August 2005, refers to the process of creating a handheld's shell by injecting plastic into a mold twice, producing two layers that ultimately form one layer.
The immediate benefit is to produce thinner walls that allow for new construction techniques. A first-generation iPod shuffle was used as an example and is likely to be the impetus for the patent's existence.
However, the new grant also raised eyebrows by recalling Microsoft's Zune, perhaps the best-known example of doubleshot injection used in a music player. The Redmond-designed device uses the extra layer as a hidden contrasting color that only manifests itself at sharp angles, producing a "glow" around the edges.
Apple never tried for such an effect itself using the precise methods described in the patent, but the curious timing -- seven months after the iPod shuffle launched at 2005's Macworld Expo -- pointed to a desire on Cupertino's part to guard its particular idea for later use.
Flash memory headed to Apple's iPhone factories?
Meanwhile, DigiTimes claimed to have word that some of the very first components of the iPhone's hardware would soon be shipping to Apple.
The Taiwanese trade publication said on Thursday in a discussion of rapidly tumbling memory prices that recent orders made with Samsung for flash chips from Apple would be the Korean electronics giant's saving grace, freezing flash memory prices for the near future. Initial shipments were scheduled to begin soon, the report said.
No mention was made of an exact timetable for the deliveries.
Comments
Kind of odd they choose to break it down at all, but it's interesting to see that 30% of Mac users (according to this survey, anyway) are already using Intel Macs. That's a quite a large percentage only 1 year post-transition.
Correction: actually, 4.3% are using PPC-based Macs, 2.1% are using Intel-based Macs, so majority is still well PPC-based (as one would expect).
Kind of odd they choose to break it down at all, but it's interesting to see that 30% of Mac users (according to this survey, anyway) are already using Intel Macs. That's a quite a large percentage only 1 year post-transition.
I agree, that's actually a pretty impressive adoption rate for intel Macs. When CS3 and new Mac pros come out I'll bet Intel Macs will equal PPC Macs.
While not conclusive figures by any means, the regularly released numbers have often served as unofficial barometers of Apple's marketshare
Last month's statistics appear to support claims that Mac sales had doubled year-over-year in January.
Wrong on both counts. These sorts of web-usage statistics are a closer reflection of installed user-base, not of market share. Even then, the results are heavily skewed by business-owned machines. Most businesses use Windows, so a user with a Windows machine at work and a Mac at home may visit websites during the day on Windows, and during the evening/weekends on a Mac.
There is nothing patentable about this process - in fact in the case of Apple and Microsoft the actual IP most likely has nothing to do with the "two-shot molded" aspect of the housing designs. Unless they are performing some very tricky and unique molding which, at first glance, I would say they are not!
I'll have to look at the patents.
For those who don't know: Google now has a search engine app specifically for the USPTO.
PP= polypropylene
TPE= thermoplastic elastomer
some definitions here
For those who don't know: Google now has a search engine app specifically for the USPTO.
...and by the way, Google's patent search is fantastic. They should be handed a contract to streamline and improve all governmental information and document access. Imagine what they could do!
Two-shot molding is extremely common in consumer products. Generally, a base component made of a material such as PC or PP is molded as the first shot. The mold containing this first shot moves or rotates to a given point and then stops. At this new point, a completely separate injection occurs into the mold cavity containing the first shot. This second shot is almost always a soft, pliable material such as a TPE. Chemically speaking there is a bond between this second shot and the harder first shot.
There is nothing patentable about this process - in fact in the case of Apple and Microsoft the actual IP most likely has nothing to do with the "two-shot molded" aspect of the housing designs. Unless they are performing some very tricky and unique molding which, at first glance, I would say they are not!
I'll have to look at the patents.
For those who don't know: Google now has a search engine app specifically for the USPTO.
I agree. My own experience with this has me somewhat confused as to just what the article is claiming for Apple.
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20070228PD200.html
Where's my 64GB flash-based wide touch screen video iPod already!? $44 per iPod for flash memory.. I'd pay an extra $50 for that!
Wow, who knew flash was so cheap? Check the tables in the accompanying article:
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20070228PD200.html
Where's my 64GB flash-based wide touch screen video iPod already!? $44 per iPod for flash memory.. I'd pay an extra $50 for that!
Uh... That would require 16 chips. Notice that $22 (for 32GB) is the price for eight 4GB chips. Yes, you could cram a bunch of NANDs in there for $44, but it'd be the thickness of two Zunes! Not too hip, if you ask me.
-Clive
Uh... That would require 16 chips. Notice that $22 (for 32GB) is the price for eight 4GB chips. Yes, you could cram a bunch of NANDs in there for $44, but it'd be the thickness of two Zunes! Not too hip, if you ask me.
-Clive
How big are these 4GB chips? Considering they have 4GB miniSDHC these days, and the actual chip is only a subset of the total size of the card, I would have thought 8 or 16 of those would not take up that much space. I mean, considering the current iPods have little *hard drives* in them.. how could a dozen chips, more or less, be any worse than that?
Wow, who knew flash was so cheap? Check the tables in the accompanying article:
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20070228PD200.html
Where's my 64GB flash-based wide touch screen video iPod already!? $44 per iPod for flash memory.. I'd pay an extra $50 for that!
No no. The prices are in Gb, not GB. Gigabits.
64 gigabits, or 8 gigabytes, is $44.
64 gigabytes would cost $352.
Since when is storage measured in bits and not bytes?
In the memory industry, it always has been. Even today chips on DIMMs are measured that way. The resellers just don't talk about it that way. What's worse is that some genius convinced IEEE that we need to rename all these terms. We've been calling (mega|giga|kilo) wrong all this time because the metric definition is base 10 and we are using it for base 2 numbers ( for real world example, consider published harddrive sizes ) , so rather than saying gigabyte and then if it is ambiguous, adding that you mean a binary gigabyte, you should now call it a gibibyte.
Lame. Thankfully it won't take much for it to not catch on, since the general public has finally come to understand these prefixes, and it took 20 years to get there.
so rather than saying gigabyte and then if it is ambiguous, adding that you mean a binary gigabyte, you should now call it a gibibyte.
Lame.
I don't think it's lame at all. I wish folks such as Apple and Microsoft would start using the gibi/mibi/kibi etc. prefixes. When people are talking data rates, it is never clear whether they are talking base 10 or base 2 prefixes, and HDD manufactures quote capacity with base 10 prefixes whilst OSes use base 2 prefixes. It makes much more sense for the two different prefixes to be, you know, spelt differently.
However, I believe the proposal was made many years ago, so it already looks like it hasn't caught on
Since when is storage measured in bits and not bytes?
It isn't that complete storage solutions are measured in bits. It's that the individual chips in the solution are measured in bits.
A 1 G BIT chip would be only one of eight chips in an 8 G BYTE memory card, or FLASH.
Some chips can be divided up in several ways. A 1 Gb chip might be used as a 1 Gb chip, or a 125 MB chip. Occasionaly, it might be even used as a quarter of a package, where four of the chips would comprise a 512 MB package.
I don't think it's lame at all. I wish folks such as Apple and Microsoft would start using the gibi/mibi/kibi etc. prefixes. When people are talking data rates, it is never clear whether they are talking base 10 or base 2 prefixes, and HDD manufactures quote capacity with base 10 prefixes whilst OSes use base 2 prefixes. It makes much more sense for the two different prefixes to be, you know, spelt differently.
However, I believe the proposal was made many years ago, so it already looks like it hasn't caught on
The problem is that both ways are correct. It's just that RAM and drive manufacturers arrived at different solutions, for their own purposes.