Year: 2020

Apple loses two key operations and supply chain executives

CompuScoop Staff February 27, 2020 0

Nick Forlenza, a vice president of manufacturing design, has retired from Apple, while Duco Pasmooij, another vice president who worked on operations, is discussing an exit in the near future, according to people familiar with the moves… Apple has about a hundred vice presidents across the company…

[Apple CEO Tim] Cook, since joining Apple more than 20 years ago, has transformed Apple’s supply chain, relying on China to manufacture devices with the help of low-cost, skilled labor, and to ship those products around the world. Apple depends on its operations group to ramp up and produce devices with complex designs and technology.

To read the rest of the Bloomberg article, click here.

Roku sends Roku 2 player users end of life notice

Dan Uff February 26, 2020 0

Late Wednesday, Roku sent an email to all registered customers that have the company's Roku 2 Streaming Box that the company will no longer be supporting this version and will cease providing security and enhancement updates for it effective immediately.

The notice reads:

Dear Roku customer,

We’re reaching out to let you know that, with the release of OS version 9.1, all models of this Roku 2 player* still in operation will no longer receive new software updates.

What does this mean?

Rest assured, you can continue to enjoy this classic Roku player and stream your currently available channels. However, this Roku player will no longer receive new features, updates to existing channels, or support for new channels. You may also potentially lose existing channels if our partners decide to update their channel in the future.

We invite you to review the special offers currently available on our newer, faster products at www.roku.com/offers.

Happy Streaming!

Roku

Apple-Designed ARM Based Chips are coming soon – But WHY?

CompuScoop Staff February 26, 2020 1

For years, rumors have swirled that Apple would dump sloth-like Intel and transition to ARM-based Macs powered with Apple-designed processors. Now, just this week, Apple supply-chain uber-analyst Ming-Chi Kuo writes that that Apple plans to release a Mac with an Apple-designed processor in the first half of next year.

If you look closely, you can see lots of signs of the direction Apple has been going with the Mac. The arrival of macOS Catalina swept away all the old 32-bit code that had been sticking around the Mac since the earliest days. Pulling all the oldest code out of macOS will undoubtedly make it run more readily on 64-bit ARM processors.

Catalina also introduced Mac Catalyst, a way for iPad apps to be modified to run on the Mac. Thus far Catalyst hasn’t made too much of an impact, but in a world where the Mac runs on ARM processors, it’s not too hard to see where this is all going: Developers will be able to create a single application that runs across all of Apple’s platforms, adapting to phone or tablet or laptop…

I’ll wager that the first ARM Macs to arrive will offer more processing power than the devices they’re replacing, so any emulation that’s required will be relatively painless… Moving away from Intel means a loss for people who also need to run Windows, but I don’t think Apple’s too concerned. I fully expect that Apple’s pro-level Macs will remain on Intel or compatible processors for a while, perhaps even indefinitely.

By: Ming Chi Kuo, Apple Analyst