Briefly: 30-inch Cinema updated, India,10.4.6, Apple and BAPCo

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
30-inch Cinema receives a boost



Ars noted this afternoon that Apple has quietly enhanced the specifications of its high-end 30" HD Cinema Display.



The display's brightness, which was previously 270 cd/m2, is now listed at 400 cd/2. Meanwhile, its contrast ratio also appears to have been bumped from 400:1 to 700:1.



Pricing remains unchanged at $2500.



Apple expanding presence in Asia



Apple today launched eight products in the Indian market, expanding its offerings overseas.



During a press briefing, Yeo Eng Yiong, the company's product marketing manager for Asia Pacific, announced the roll out would include the 1GB iPod nano, iPod AV connection kit, iPod Hi-Fi, iLife '06, the Intel Core Duo iMac, Mac mini, iWork '06, and MacBook Pro.



The products -- which were unavailable to Indian customers until today -- are being offered through Apple's existing network of distributors and dealers in the region.



New Mac OS X 10.4.6 seeds



Apple continues this week to seed external pre-release builds of its upcoming Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" update at a relatively swift pace -- usually an indicator that a release is in the near term.



Just days after it gave developers Mac OS X 10.4.6 build 8I1116 (Intel) and Mac OS X 10.4.6 build 8I124 (PowerPC), the company has seeded Mac OS X 10.4.6 build 8I1119 (Intel) & Mac OS X build 8I127 (PowerPC), tipsters and bloggers are reporting.



In these latest seeds, developers are reportedly asked to test Quartz- and ImageIO-based applications. No known issues are were reported to developers.



Apple joins BAPCo



Apple has reportedly joined BAPCo, the industry-standard Windows benchmarking consortium.



BAPCo is responsible for the SYSmark 2004SE and MobileMark benchmark suites used by media outlets, corporations,Â*and government agencies worldwide.

Â*

The consortium's existing members include the likes of AMD, Intel, Transmeta,Â*ATI, nVidia, Microsoft, Ziff Davis Media, CNET, Dell, HP, Toshiba, Seagate, VNU, Atheros, and ARCintuition.



The move is reportedly significant in that it indicates Apple is interested in Windows-based performance testing... Readers are free to speculate about the significance of this tidbit in the AppleInsider Forums.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 17
    deapeajaydeapeajay Posts: 909member
    I can't imagine Apple looking to do official tests on a hacked XP running on mac.



    Could it be to test a windows emulator?
  • Reply 2 of 17
    tednditedndi Posts: 1,921member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by DeaPeaJay

    I can't imagine Apple looking to do official tests on a hacked XP running on mac.



    Could it be to test a windows emulator?




    I wonder if Apple will sell a Virtual OS X for windows!!!!





    schwing!





  • Reply 3 of 17
    Probably more likely they are developing a "virtual windows" for mac and want to test its performance (hopefully near real time!)
  • Reply 4 of 17
    Probably to keep the benchmarks honest and to get insight into what they look for. With people running Photoshop in Windows XP on a MacBook Pro and noting it is faster than other Core Duo machines running XP, the inevitable comparison is between Photoshop running under XP and under OS X on the same Intel Mac to find out if Windows or OS X is the faster OS.
  • Reply 5 of 17
    mchumanmchuman Posts: 154member
    There are rumors the new OSX due in Jan 07 will include native windows emulation. Perhaps apple will never support running a hacked copy of Vista on the mac, but realizes the demand for it and is actually making tools to run vista/xp easier than the way people are doing it now!
  • Reply 6 of 17
    deapeajaydeapeajay Posts: 909member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by McHuman

    There are rumors the new OSX due in Jan 07 will include native windows emulation. Perhaps apple will never support running a hacked copy of Vista on the mac, but realizes the demand for it and is actually making tools to run vista/xp easier than the way people are doing it now!



  • Reply 7 of 17
    eaieai Posts: 417member
    Native windows emulation would be a "killer feature" for OS X. However much the apple fans hate Windows, the new customers that Apple want are used to it and not being able to use their favorite app on it is probably the #1 reason not to switch.
  • Reply 8 of 17
    icfireballicfireball Posts: 2,594member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by eAi

    Native windows emulation would be a "killer feature" for OS X. However much the apple fans hate Windows, the new customers that Apple want are used to it and not being able to use their favorite app on it is probably the #1 reason not to switch.



    Many Apple fan boys may hate windows...but that dosn't mean they hate windows emulating software....



    let me explain...



    an emulator that dosn't run windows...



    ...but windows programs.
  • Reply 9 of 17
    deapeajaydeapeajay Posts: 909member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by icfireball

    Many Apple fan boys may hate windows...but that dosn't mean they hate windows emulating software....



    let me explain...



    an emulator that dosn't run windows...



    ...but windows programs.




    heeey, nice point



    kind of like rosetta for windows apps. But not, because they're not on different processors... a rosetta for the OS. Of course I can't see Visual Studio working transparently in OSX.
  • Reply 10 of 17
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    I like that the contrast ratio was upped on the 30" units, but for the upped brightness, I hope that its dimming isn't curtailed. I'm not sure how to describe it, but screen brightness has become a dumb metric, except that I now prefer a lower number than a higher number. Generally, the higher the number at the highest setting, the brighter the dimmest setting gets. On my current LCDs, a Windows laptop and a Samsung panel, and I turn the brightness down almost all the way.



    I was hoping there would be a refresh to include the iSight capability within the screen across the Cinema Display line, that would make the cost easier for me to accept even if I would only rarely use it.



    On the Windows angle, I'm in the camp that I really want to see some form of interoperability with Windows programs. If I have to, I am willing to consider dual booting, but obviously that is a last resort, VirtualPC or some other in-OSX compatibility would be nice..
  • Reply 11 of 17
    Quote:

    Originally posted by TednDi

    I wonder if Apple will sell a Virtual OS X for windows!!!!





    schwing!









    Actually read that Dell can run the Intel versions of OS X . So theres hope for those who have Windows boxes to run OS X.



  • Reply 12 of 17
    satchmosatchmo Posts: 2,699member
    Now if Apple could just bring the price of their 20" LCD display down to earth, it might actually stop people opting for Dell's 20"widescreen.
  • Reply 13 of 17
    chagichagi Posts: 284member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by satchmo

    Now if Apple could just bring the price of their 20" LCD display down to earth, it might actually stop people opting for Dell's 20"widescreen.



    No kidding. It also looks like a large number of vendors are starting to ship lower cost 20" widescreen models, Benq and Viewsonic being two examples. Both companies are now shipping monitors that are roughly half the price of the 20" Cinema display (and yes, one could argue that there are differences in quality, just pointing out how the market is changing).



    I've also been reading that there is an oversupply of panels in the LCD industry, so we could potentially see some further price drops over the coming months. For example, I've been noticing some rather nice pricing on 19" panels, which have historically been priced at about $450-$500+ CND.
  • Reply 14 of 17
    Quote:

    Originally posted by icfireball

    Many Apple fan boys may hate windows...but that dosn't mean they hate windows emulating software....



    let me explain...



    an emulator that dosn't run windows...



    ...but windows programs.




    what about the security and stuff? couldn't that also be a potential securit threat?
  • Reply 15 of 17
    marlormarlor Posts: 7member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Ender at Eros

    what about the security and stuff? couldn't that also be a potential securit threat?



    This sort of "emulator" actually exists, it is called WINE, and is developed primarily for Linux. There was actually a humorous test done to see how viruses run under WINE.
  • Reply 16 of 17
    noah93noah93 Posts: 168member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by McHuman

    There are rumors the new OSX due in Jan 07 will include native windows emulation. Perhaps apple will never support running a hacked copy of Vista on the mac, but realizes the demand for it and is actually making tools to run vista/xp easier than the way people are doing it now!



    Never going to happen. That would just be like apple saying "Our OS is not good enough, but the piece of $h!t M$ turns out is good..." Maybe they will help buid an emulator for people that need it [ or just put in native support for windows apps somehow, without the windows interface, etc...] and are willing to pay. but no way I can see this as a free add-on.



    would be great though.
  • Reply 17 of 17
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Marlor

    This sort of "emulator" actually exists, it is called WINE, and is developed primarily for Linux. There was actually a humorous test done to see how viruses run under WINE.



    lol, that's pretty funny. thanks for the link
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