WebObjects in 10.6, upcoming iPod rumors

This week's top Apple news saw a jailbreak for the iPhone 3GS, rumors about new iPods, a patch to an SMS vulnerability in the iPhone, and discussions about the status of WebObjects and Quicken for Mac. Come on in!
Hopefully the holiday weekend didn't leave you too hung over to get your daily dose of Apple news. But in case you missed it, this week we discussed cameras in iPods, the whereabouts of Quicken for Mac, the death (or not) of WebObjects, next-gen iPod touches, and an iPhone 3GS jailbreak, to name a few stories. Read on for our roundup:

More evidence supports earlier iPod camera rumors: We have heard rumors that Apple intends to add cameras to the iPod touch and even the iPod nano. New evidence supports the idea, though it's no guarantee that it's a sure thing.

Mac Quicken '09 still missing in action: All references to the new version of Quicken for Mac have been removed from Intuit's website, leaving only the old 2007 software. A year and a half after the "complete rewrite" was showcased, has the company decided to ditch the software in favor of its Web offerings? It turns out the answer is no—Intuit has just pushed the release date back to February of 2010.

WebObjects sliced from 10.6—but prognosis of death premature: Apple is cutting WebObjects as a default install on Snow Leopard Server, but that doesn't mean Apple or the development community has lost interest in the Web development framework. In fact, just the opposite may be true.

Apple patching critical SMS vulnerability in iPhone OS: Safari Charlie says that Apple is working on a patch for a serious flaw he identified in the SMS implementation on the iPhone. Further, he warns that users interested in security should avoid jailbreaking their phones.

Next-gen iPod touch already showing up in usage logs: Apple is already testing a new version of the iPod touch, according to analytics data for iPhone applications. That's not too surprising at this point, though, considering that an update to the device is already expected for this fall.

Demand for 13" MacBook Pro better than Apple planned: Supplies of some 13" MacBook Pros appear to be quite constrained, suggesting the notebook is more popular than even Apple expected. While having to leave a customer waiting for a new computer is never ideal, it's a good sign that Apple will report healthy sales numbers for its most recent fiscal quarter.

Core i7: Fastest Processor Ever?

Core i7: Fastest Processor Ever?
Intel said today that it has shipped over 100,000 Core i7 processors in more than 70 countries and gotten design wins in 500 different systems and 35 different motherboards. But most interesting to me was Intel's contention that the Core i7 was "the fastest processor on the planet." No question the reviews thus far have been very favorable - and the 3.2GHz version does seem to be scoring ahead of the earlier Core 2 Quad or AMD Phenom X4 on nearly all the standard PC benchmarks.

I tried some of the high-end spreadsheets I've been using on a Falcon Northwest system with a 3.2 GHz Core i7 and 12GB of memory (I used it at the normal speed, not overclocked.) The results were quite good, but also quite dependent on the test. On a large Monte Carlo simulation, it did spectacularly well, finishing the spreadsheet in 5.7 seconds compared with 7.6 seconds on a system based on a 2.5 GHz Core 2 Quad T9300 with 4GB of memory and 13 seconds for one with a 3 GHz Core 2 Extreme X9650 processor and 2 GB of memory. That's a big win. But on a complex model involving a large data table, it just tied the 3 GHz system, taking 68 minutes.
As usual, then, speed depends on the application you are running, so I'm not sure any one processor is the fastest for everything. My guess is the Monte Carlo application took better advantage of the 8 cores, while the larger model was limited more by memory. Obviously, other components are important as well. All of these systems have done notably better on these tests than AMD-based systems to date, though I'm looking forward to seeing how the Phenom II ("Deneb") does when it comes out around CES.
Intel formally took the wraps off its Core i7 processor, the first one based on the Nehalem architecture design. Intel has of course been talking about this for some time and allowed lots of magazines to benchmark it and the associated x58 chip set two weeks ago. But now I've had a chance to run some tests.
The basic outlines of the chip have been disclosed for some time. The basic Core i7 is a quad-core design with 8 MB of Level 3 cache, and includes an integrated memory controller for DDR3 memory. This is the first time Intel has introduced a single-die chip with four cores aimed at the desktop market; its previous quad-core chips have had two dies on a single chip; and it's the first mainstream Intel chip with an integrated memory controller. Both were areas where AMD was first, but Intel has now caught up in those areas. The chip has other features, most notably bringing back hyper-threading, so it now can run up to 8 threads at a time. Other features include a Quick Path Interconnect, PCI Express 2.0 support for discrete graphics, and most interestingly, a "turbo burst" feature that lets one core run faster when the other cores are not being used. Three models were announced today - a 2.66MHz version for $284, a 2.93 MHz one for $562 and a 3.2 GHz "Extreme" part for $999 (all prices quantity 1000, which is how Intel normally lists its prices).

AMD presents Upcoming Phenom II CPU At 6.0 GHz+

AMD presents Upcoming Phenom II CPU At 6.0 GHz+
"Today during a press briefing at AMD's offices in Austin, TX the company showed off some upcoming technology that should be available sometime early in 2009. What was most impressive was the overclocked speeds of the pending Phenom II X4 45nm processors. On air cooling AMD showed the quad-core CPU running at nearly 4.0 GHz while with much more extreme liquid nitrogen cooling help the same CPU reached over 6.0 GHz! It looks like AMD's newest processor might finally once again compete with the best from Intel, including its recent Core i7 CPUs."
This is far from impressive. Showing the overclocking results, especially on liquid nitrogen, is not a good indication of the day to day performance of the processor.

For example, here is a video from 2006 where a Pentium 4 processor is overclocked to 5 GHz.5 GHz Project: CPU Cooling With Liquid Nitrogen: Video
However, today’s discussion was keenly focused on AMD's upcoming Phenom II X4 processor, two models of which will launch in early January that will be socket AM2+ compatible. In addition, some time in Q1, AMD will launch new AM3 socket Phenom II X4 processors with support for DDR3-1333 memory. In the short term, (read CES ’08 time frame release) specifically, there will be two chips available with clock speeds starting at 2.8GHz but with a lot of headroom for future clock speed ramps as well as some heavy duty overclocking. In addition, with the transition to 45nm fab process technology for Phenom II, AMD is claiming a 30 – 40% power consumption reduction under full load and up to a 50% reduction under idle conditions.
AMD’s demonstration of the product and their overclocking prowess with the chip. On display were several machines setup to overclock with everything from standard air cooling to water, phase change refrigeration and finally Liquid Nitrogen. On air, the Phenom II X4 was able to hit around 4GHz at 1.55V with 32ºC temps. With water cooling at 1.6V the new Phenom II X4 broke 4GHz with a 39ºC core temp and in a Vapochill setup we saw 4.4+GHz. The final icing on the cake, so to speak, was the LN2 setup where the Phenom II ran stable at speeds well in excess of 5GHz and booted at speeds in excess of 6GHz.