Open Source Software

The big news that’s doing the rounds in the electronics world is that the iPhone will be launched in Japan pretty soon. Just as people all over the world are clamoring for unlocked iPhones it looks like the folks in Japan are just about to be treated to the real deal. The second largest economy in the world is all set to have iPhones of their own and reports from the Wall Street Journal suggest that Jobs and the other guys at Apple are working out some kind of a deal with NTT DoCoMo’s president Masao Nakamur for the domestic launch of the iPhone. It’s been rumoured that Apple is also in talks with telecom company Softbank and is keeping everyone guessing in true Apple fashion. However DoCoMo is still first preference for Jobs and his men. What is interesting to note is that Apple has not considered Japan’s second best telecom carrier KDDI for the job.
Japan is an important target for Apple if it wants to reach its 10 million device target by the end of 2008. It’s been reported that as usual the topic of how the revenues are to be shared is an issue of debate but Apple is apparently confident of sealing the deal. Also since DoCoMo and Softbank and competitors it is quite likely that the carriers will budge first. Looks like after conquering North America, Apple is now targeting the gadget freaks in Japan.
While there is no doubt that Apple will have its way with carriers ultimately, whether they will have to settle for second best, only time will tell. DoCoMo doesn’t have an EDGE or GSM network so maybe the 3G iPhone which rumours have been hinting at. Apple will have to bring out a phone that is compatible with UMTS or HDSPA standards.
It is also reported that Apple is in tough talks with Chinese carriers who are firm that they will not share revenue as is the Chinese rule. Now that’s a battle that will be interesting for who wins.

Darwin is an open-source software which has been released under the Apple Public Source License. This Unix computer operating system was released by Apple Inc. under their own license in 2000. Darwin comprises of code evolved by a hybrid of codes developed by Apple along with code derived from NEXTSTEP, as well as from FreeBSD and other free software projects.

In fact, the Mac OS X was developed critically around Darwin as the core set of components. Not only that, Darwin also has the capability to be run as a standalone operating system.

The evolution of Darwin can be traced back to NeXT’s NEXTSTEP operating system (later known as OPENSTEP), which was originally released in 1989. Later in 1997, Apple bought Next, and the company immediately announced it would use OPENSTEP as the foundation for its next operating system. This operating system was to be Rhapsody in 1997 and the Rhapsody-based Mac OS X Server 1.0 in 1999. A year Read the rest of this entry »

Apple’s transition to Intel is at last absolute for consumers. Once the Power-Book got changed into the MacBook Pro, the iBook into the MacBook, and the iMac and Mac mini got microsoft substitutes, the pro desktop segment was the prime location for attack, a place where until now only Intel’s Core 2-based Xeon “Woodcrest” processors could manage.

Apple’s own powerful web browser is called ‘Safari’. It is engineered to render web pages with amazing speed and includes a number of innovative features. Safari is the in-built web browser for Mac OS X 10.2.8 and above. Safari claims to loads pages up to 2 times faster than Internet Explorer 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2 to become the fastest web browser on any platform. A dedicated effort to implement web standards of Apple was made for the development of Safari. Following the standards is the easiest way to ensure most favorable Read the rest of this entry »