That's right, Mr. Meader- don't look here for thoze rum0rz...

A voice-command-enabled WoW running along with "The Guild" videos playing would, what, cause a role-playing density feedback loop?

Yeah, there's probably something meaningful to add, but got nothing.

ddt

It sure would make it easy to write scripts. Just record the instructions to tape.

I'm constantly amazed I'm actually able to play wow semi-competitively with 1 finger and the trackball. Most games require several buttons to be pressed simultaneously. Hell, I've become a semi-competent tank. Thumbs up to Blizzard.

I should add that while I have problems with touchscreen interfaces the iPhone is still a fairly access-friendly phone compared to most other offerings. I struggle more with the iPad but I haven't played too much with them directly in front of me on my table (I'm usually reaching sideways at benches in stores etc). That may be easier to use.

What would help is a long ergonomic stylus that mimics a finger - though preferably not a meaty one that's going to rot in the heat...

But that's what fingers ARE!

I haven't looked at any of these yet but there might be something here: http://uiaccess.com/accessucd/resources_videos.html

If this is faked, I'm impressed. Of course, some people DO have way too much time on their hands, so that always has to be borne in mind.

http://showyou.com/v/14769888

Hm, double post.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2011 07:25PM by tliet.

Hmm, pictures with 'No Service' in the location of the service provider, text in German (while Apple just publishes English texts in the first few days of a new product on their site). I don't buy this one.

Hmmm. iP5 looks good. Now if only I could afford one.
Definitely looks like this guy hacked into a 'dev' site for German Apple.

OK, this seems to be getting reported everywhere, though they all trace back to the same source.

Might as well post this here.

I wonder if all of the talk about a higher resolution iPad 3 is just an Apple smokescreen for an ARM Mac. I mean, who needs double the resolution of an iPad 2 on a consumer tablet? And could it be priced reasonably? But for a laptop or desktop system, that resolution would make more sense. Maybe Apple's just ordering parts and letting folks assume that they're for an upcoming iPad.

OK, time to put my tinfoil hat back on.

I think this is just the next step in the resolution-independence trail Apple's been on for years. Keep increasing the DPI while maintaining the physical size of text and widgets to improve the overall appearance of displays. It makes sense to me.

Yeah, I agree -- the Retina Display is a good thing because it just plain looks incredible (and is better for *reading*), not because it's more "professional" or desktop-computer-like.

The ARM laptop rumors are a whole separate thing, and a thing that currently, as stated, makes absolutely no sense to me -- what new functionality would justify such a major platform shift and the loss of compatibility that'd come with it?

Quote
Roger
[...] what new functionality would justify such a major platform shift and the loss of compatibility that'd come with it?

Whif it happens, it will be because of two things (1) something we probably haven't predicted yet -- duh :-) , and (2) temporal distance to power replenishment.

And while the tinfoil commands me to like JW's idea, and what I'm typing right now doesn't preclude his idea, I agree that there is likely an independent march to higher resolution (and flexible displays, and other presentation improvements) to refine the experience. Display resolution independence goes all the way back to NeXT, and we're still not there, so it's likely still coming.

I guess I'm biased, because I don't really notice the whole "retina" thing. It looks a little sharper, maybe, but I switch between iPhone 4 and iPad 2 all of the time, and I don't even notice a change. And double the resolution is four times the pixels to push. Larger content size to take advantage of the resolution, longer download times for the content, but the same size wireless pipes feeding into the thing. It just seems like a bragging point positive accompanying a lot of actual negatives. As I am the only person I've ever seen voicing these objections, I suppose that it's just me.

I still think that we may see an ARM Mac OS laptop in early 2012.

Props, JW, for looking into it and noticing that all reports are single-sourced from the same source. That's the beginning of journalism... .

ddt

While this year may be too early, I'm 95%+ certain that Apple will be ditching x86 for ARM designs in the future. The (first?) rumors (from two independent sources) are linked here, along with Intel's public acknowledgement of Apple's threat to switch platforms.

Leaving aside the iPad 2, which can meet most consumers' computing needs today, this roadmap puts Nvidia's ARM based SOC at 5x its current performance by early 2012, increasing to 50x just two years later.

Finally, we have the cost differential, with today's A5 clocking in at $14, vs. somewhere north of $200 for the Sandy Bridge CPUs in todays Macbook Air. With Apple's average gross margin of 41.7%, that's a difference of about $350 in selling cost - before you add the retailer's margin.

Given this, it should come as no surprise that Intel is looking at providing foundry services for Apple's SOCs.

Most of the arguments I've seen about why this this can't or won't happen are worse than the ones claiming Apple would never leave PowerPC for Intel.

Does that mean we will get to see keynote bakeoffs again?

Hey, no fair posting actual informed links in the rum0rz thread!

Good to have another contributor (again).

Amazing that the cost difference is that great. Partially because of the Intel margin, no doubt, and presumably because of the more efficient (RISCier?) architecture. The Tegra 2 is around $20.

I wonder what the thermal difference is - i.e. what kind of power consumption benefit we'll see out of an ARM-based Mac. And as interesting, which way Apple will take it. Smaller battery seems potentially more interesting than extending laptop life between charges.