Apple hiring to improve battery life in future versions of OS X
Apple is actively recruiting new employees who can help to improve battery life on the company's Mac OS X platform in the years to come.
Anthony Chivetta, a member of Apple's OS X team, posted links to a pair of new job openings on his team via his Twitter account on Monday. There he revealed that Apple is looking for employees who can "help improve the performance and battery life of OS X.
One of the positions listed is for a Software Power Infrastructure Engineer. In that role, the employee will "design the latest tools to automate the collection power information."
The second opening is for the role of Software Power Engineer, as Apple seeks candidates who will work on the power efficiency of both OS X and its bundled applications.
Both jobs are to be located at Apple's corporate headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.
Power efficiency has been a key focus for Apple's Mac lineup in 2013, thanks in part to Intel's latest Haswell processors. The company's MacBook Air models were updated in June with the new low-power processor offering all-day battery life. New Haswell-equipped MacBook Pros are also expected to arrive in the coming weeks.
Power consumption and battery life are also key areas of focus for Apple's forthcoming OS X Mavericks operating system update. Apple has boasted that Mavericks is both the most powerful OS X ever, while also being the most power-efficient version of the platform.
Key features in Mavericks include Timer Coalescing, which groups low-level operations together to reduce CPU usage, and App Nap, which places applications that are hidden from view in an idle state. The Golden Master of Mavericks was provided to developers last week
While these new hires sought by Apple won't play a role in the launch of Mavericks or this year's Mac hardware, the available positions suggest that improving battery life is a key area of focus for the company in developing its next generation hardware and future versions of OS X.
Anthony Chivetta, a member of Apple's OS X team, posted links to a pair of new job openings on his team via his Twitter account on Monday. There he revealed that Apple is looking for employees who can "help improve the performance and battery life of OS X.
One of the positions listed is for a Software Power Infrastructure Engineer. In that role, the employee will "design the latest tools to automate the collection power information."
The second opening is for the role of Software Power Engineer, as Apple seeks candidates who will work on the power efficiency of both OS X and its bundled applications.
Both jobs are to be located at Apple's corporate headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.
Power efficiency has been a key focus for Apple's Mac lineup in 2013, thanks in part to Intel's latest Haswell processors. The company's MacBook Air models were updated in June with the new low-power processor offering all-day battery life. New Haswell-equipped MacBook Pros are also expected to arrive in the coming weeks.
Power consumption and battery life are also key areas of focus for Apple's forthcoming OS X Mavericks operating system update. Apple has boasted that Mavericks is both the most powerful OS X ever, while also being the most power-efficient version of the platform.
Key features in Mavericks include Timer Coalescing, which groups low-level operations together to reduce CPU usage, and App Nap, which places applications that are hidden from view in an idle state. The Golden Master of Mavericks was provided to developers last week
While these new hires sought by Apple won't play a role in the launch of Mavericks or this year's Mac hardware, the available positions suggest that improving battery life is a key area of focus for the company in developing its next generation hardware and future versions of OS X.
Comments
This is what I like about Apple. They continue to push ahead in all aspects of hardware and software design. From better physical batteries to better battery performance in their sw.
Just brilliant.
I am expecting an announcement for an event this week with it happening on the 15th. I don't necessarily expect new Pro HW to ship right away but having the new OS ready to launch within 10 days of that seems pretty likely.
Apple may want to consider hiring some of the many laid off engineers from NASA if they want battery and power management experts.
While these new hires sought by Apple won't play a role in the launch of Mavericks or this year's Mac hardware...
You mean the new hires whom Apple is searching for today won't play a role in the products likely to be launched later this month? Fascinating.
And thanks for continuing to set a higher and higher bar for performance of your products. Macs are gonna rule the roost for years to come.
Mavericks is going to breath new life into my aging 2007 MacBook Pro. It's gonna be awesome! Thanks Apple.
And thanks for continuing to set a higher and higher bar for performance of your products. Macs are gonna rule the roost for years to come.
I just put the GM on a 2007 MBP today. Definitely some weird glitches getting through the setup assistant, having gone straight from Lion to Mavericks.
Seems to be performing much better than on Lion, but still quite a bit slow with only 4 GB of RAM.
[I believe], this is more evidence that Apple is looking to bring the ARM processor to laptops. I'll bet money that OS XI will support ARM and the new MB-Air will be even thinner and lighter than anything out there.
[I believe], this is more evidence that Apple is looking to bring the ARM processor to laptops. I'll bet money that OS XI will support ARM and the new MB-Air will be even thinner and lighter than anything out there.
Believe all you want. That's the power of belief.
This is more evidence that performance and efficiency continue to be a sweet spot Apple is targeting at all levels of OS and Hardware integration, not just within the embedded space.
That's pretty much backwards thinking. If you think bringing on someone now to make their OS more power efficient your logic only makes sense if they plan to get Intel chips where ARM chips currently are.
That's pretty much backwards thinking. If you think bringing on someone now to make their OS more power efficient your logic only makes sense if they plan to get Intel chips where ARM chips currently are.
I know it sounds cool, but it would create app compatibility / fragmentation. I don't doubt one day arm can get to intel performance, but at the same time intel annually makes inroads into power savings too, and staying with intel does not split the mac osx ecosystem.
Time Cook on stage sometime in the future,
"A question has arisen lately, is there room for a 4th category of device..."
Wild guess - OSX on a iPad / MacBook variant device?
Time Cook on stage sometime in the future,
"A question has arisen lately, is there room for a 4th category of device..."
asked and answered 2 weeks ago.
The consensus (in my mind;-) was that Intel is so far ahead in performance and is improving power efficiencies so quickly, that no ARM chip save for the most magical of Apple technologies would be able to meet the Intel offering. Unlikely any cross over device in the 2 years that a person hired today is to deliver magic within.
My guess hire is schooled in the ways of low power intel/haswell optimizations. So Apple can keep it's AXx power engineers focused on the iOS side of the house. Driving OSX efficiencies to the level of iOS (14 hours on a charge), especially with 15" retina displays, thunderbolt/USB3.0 connnectivity and other '-book' differentiators will be a full time job. And would make the MacBook Air the logical competition to the Surface Pro
... and they probably know a thing or two about launches ;-)
Define ‘variant’. As in a 15” iPad running OS XI instead of iOS or OS X? I’m all over that.
Not really, and apple likely never will come out with XI at this point, the new naming scheme would have been this, unless this was considered a preview for next year, but not likely.
I hope this provides well, and can be inter grated into IOS for the future.
Mavericks is going to breath new life into my aging 2007 MacBook Pro. It's gonna be awesome! Thanks Apple.
And thanks for continuing to set a higher and higher bar for performance of your products. Macs are gonna rule the roost for years to come.
Wow. I thought mine *just* made it (early 2008 MacBook Pro 2.4ghz.)
Nice to see even earlier Macbook Pros supported!