Hasta La Gadget!

Apple is rumored to be considering a bid for ARM, the British company that designs the processors found in some smartphones including the iPhone, according to The London Evening Standard.

ARM’s share prices soared to an eight-year high on Wednesday as a result of the rumor, but ARM chief executive Warren East today told The Guardian that there was no necessity for the company, whose market capitalization stands at $4.6 billion, to be acquired.

“Exciting though it is to have the share price pushed up by these rumors, common sense tells us that our standard business model is an excellent way for technology companies to gain access to our technology,” East told the Guardian. “Nobody has to buy the company.”

However, that statement does not deny the rumor, as some publications have suggested. Companies sometimes use statements provided to the press to talk tough and indirectly negotiate with potential buyers, using ambiguous statements such as East’s.

The takeover offer is rumored to be in the $8 billion range, which would be 20 percent of Apple’s $41.7 billion cash reserves, as MacRumors’ Arnold Kim points out.

The benefits of such a buyout are, however, questionable. Some suggest Apple could acquire ARM to shut out competitors wishing to use the processor, but that wouldn’t prevent them from using mobile processors from other companies. Also, Apple purchased chipmaker PA Semi in April 2008, and Steve Jobs has said the purpose of that buyout was to make system-on chips for mobile devices.

“PA Semi is going to do system-on-chips for iPhones and iPods,” Jobs told NY Times in June 2008.

(A teardown of the iPad, however, reveals Apple is still using an ARM-designed processor.)

Also, Apple is ARM’s biggest customer, and ARM pockets royalties for every iPhone and iPad sold, as well as other mobile devices using ARM chips. Given those facts, an ARM acquistion does seem unnecessary indeed.

City aflame with takeover talk of ARM and Xtrata [London Evening Standard]

See Also:

• Rumor: iPad’s A4 Chip Was Outsourced
• iPad Dissection Reveals Its Secret Powers
• Development of Apple’s iPad Chip Estimated at $1B

Photo of a DIY digital clock equipped with an ARM processor: htomari/Flickr

The “Looking Glass” will be a larger version of the “Streak” tablet, and will arrive in November, according to documents leaked to Engadget. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20003190-260.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Circuit Breaker/a/p

On Thursday, Opera released a PC emulator for Windows, Mac, and Linux to help developers test widgets for Opera Mobile. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-20003188-12.html” class=”origPostedBlog”The Download Blog/a/p

Manufacturers want you to recycle old gear when you upgrade, but Kyle Wiens would prefer that you keep your old gadgets and fix them yourself.

Wiens, CEO of repair company iFixit, has remade his gadget-repair website into a collaborative wiki with the goal of crowdsourcing repair manuals for every type of device imaginable. He calls the movement “Repair 2.0.”

“I don’t think we can continue manufacturing new things, consuming them and throwing them away at the rate that we do,” Wiens told Wired.com. “What we’re doing is we’re allowing people to join together and help each other save money, help the environment and care for those things.”

Previously, iFixit was a repair site that posted step-by-step disassembly instructions for gadgets posted by iFixit staff. The company makes money by selling parts (like replacement iPhone screens) that intrepid fixers can use in their repair projects. Later, iFixit implemented a gallery tool for anybody to post an illustrative teardown manual for their gadgets (which Gadget Lab helped introduce with a Sony teardown contest).

Now, the site has repurposed itself into a full-blown wiki for repair manuals, where contributors can collaborate on repair instructions in real time. For each product, iFixit contributors can create individual manuals with instructions for specific repairs (e.g., a manual for fixing the Wi-Fi module in a MacBook, or a manual for replacing a battery in a Samsung cellphone). All the manuals on iFixit will be free and noncopyrighted.

The DIY-repair concept is derived from a longstanding culture of gadget teardowns. Typically, when manufacturers ship products, they don’t publicly disclose full details about their internal parts. Some hardware geeks disassemble electronics to learn more about their components and the evolution of industrial design. IFixit has been an extremely popular site hosting teardowns immediately after a major gadget is released.

Wiens said the next step was to make teardowns beneficial for the environment and consumer culture by repurposing them into easily digestible repair guides. He added that fixing gadgets only increases their value.

“To some extent things have lost their soul, and I think repairing things yourself re-injects some soul and connects you to the stuff that you own,” Wiens said.

See a video of Wiens’ introduction of iFixit 2.0 below.

See Also:

• Gallery: Sony Gadget Teardown Porn
• Teardown Reveals iPhone Camera Could Fit the iPod Touch — Barely
• If You Love Your Gadgets, Tear Them Apart
• iPad Dissection Reveals Its Secret Powers

Photo courtesy iFixit

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