Sunday, May 17, 2009

Apple's future iPods rumored to get cameras like iPhone

Published: 12:00 PM EST

Apple may be planning to add camera functionality to a couple of its next-generation iPod models, according to a new report, which also claims that upcoming iPhones will retain the handsets' existing form factor.

Citing tips passed on from one of its sources, Hardmac, the English-language version of France's MacBidouille, says that when Apple refreshes its iPod touch and iPod nano players later this September, both will feature a camera like the iPhone.

Despite some inaccuracies in Hardmac's earlier batch of rumors, adding a camera to the iPod touch may be a logical step for Apple, in that it would nearly double the market for camera-related applications on the App Store set to explode following the release of next-generation iPhones, which will include video recording capabilities as one of their biggest features.

The assertion that the more affordable and compact iPod nanos will also gain camera functionality is a bit more dubious but shouldn't be ruled out entirely. Although there's no developer platform surrounding the nano to help leverage such a feature, the players do include a built-in photo viewer.

Adding a camera to the nano may be a simple but material enough measure that could help drive upgrade cycles on the part of consumers, some of which may be turned on to the novelty of having rudimentary point-and-shoot capabilities built into a device they carry regularly, doing away for the need to tote a separate device more frequently.

iPod nano with Cam

Separately, the report cites the same sources as saying that this year's iPhones will feature "exactly the same shape and size than the current iPhone 3G, despite fakes and rumors circulating." This prediction is fairly consistent with one waged by a self-alleged insider in China, who outlined several specifications rumored for the new handsets in an overseas forum post first discovered by AppleInsider earlier this week.

Apple execs disclose options for boosting iPhone market share

Published: 02:00 PM EST



Related AppleInsider articles:* Rumor has AT lowering prices; growing geographically; or segmenting the market with different models."

Uncertain whether these assertions where those of the analyst or derived from specific comments by Apple, AppleInsider contacted Reiner for clarification. Surprisingly, the remarks came from management. "[T]hey are not saying they will necessarily do all of these," the analyst said. "This is basically the menu of options."

Still, the revelation is noteworthy given that it's the first time members of the company's leadership have expressed openly that they may be interested in catering to a broader demographic by fragmenting the iPhone line into a family of phones with materially distinct features and price points.

These comments may support the discovery of references to
multiple new iPhone models in the company's pre-release builds of iPhone Software 3.0. The remarks on lower pricing are similarly interesting, though they've been made previously during earlier sit-downs with other analysts.

For his part, Reiner says he expects "some combination of all these" options to materialize over the next six months. In speaking to AppleInsider, he added that when it comes to segmentation of models, "Apple said that one thing would be a constant: iPhone will remain a software centric device."

Oppenheimer's visit to Apple's campus was the second in as many weeks by an equity research firm that provides ongoing coverage of the company. Last week, Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu made the trip in conjunction with a pack of investors that tagged alone for the ride down from San Francisco..

In his write-up of the face-to-face encounter with Apple chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer and Tom Boger, a senior manager in the company's Mac division, Wu similarly noted that no new product information was shed. However, he said he walked away from the sit-down with higher conviction in his "Buy" thesis on the company and a belief that Apple shares can support a higher trading multiple going forward.

"Apple seemed particularly excited about the China market but wouldn't comment on timing," he said, referring to the iPhone maker's prospects for capitalizing on the world's largest cell phone market, and suggesting a move into the region could come as early as this summer alongside new iPhones.

Government statistics indicate that there are more than 600 million wireless subscribers spread across the country, with market research firm iSuppli estimating that another 90 million are likely to sign up with a wireless provider this year. So the stakes are high and share ripe for the picking.

Both China Mobile, the world's largest wireless provider, and China Unicom, its smaller rival ranking second in the country, have both confirmed ongoing negotiations with Apple. However, recent reports indicate that momentum may have recently shifted in China Unicom's direction after talks between Apple and China Mobile, believed to be its first choice of partner with 415 million subscribers, reportedly broke down.

At the root of the issue were reported demands on the part of China Mobile that it be able control the local version of the App Store. The carrier was also at one point said to be asking that Apple ship it iPhones with both Wi-Fi and 3G technology disabled for competitive reasons. And while there's no concrete information to suggest Apple would agree to make such concessions, references to "ChinaBrick" discovered in betas of iPhone Software 3.0 leave room for debate.

Apple could also approach China with a multi-carrier strategy, which turned out to be a healthy move in the land of Oz given that it led to increase competition, and ultimately more options consumers, company officials told Wu during their meeting.

"In regards to new carriers beyond AT&T in the U.S., management commented that it remains happy with AT&T but that competition has been good and cited Australia as an example where there are three carriers carrying iPhone," Wu wrote.

Apple fires its return salvo as Microsoft issues misleading 5th ad

Published: 09:55 PM EST

After appearing to remain aloof to Microsoft's jabs that Macs don't give enough choice, Apple has responded with ads which insist that poor Windows PC choices are no choices at all.



Two of the three new TV spots debuting this week directly reference Microsoft's "Laptop Hunters" ads, which since their debut in March have insisted that Windows PCs offer more choice for less money.

The most direct answer is "Elimination." Faced with deciding between Justin Long's Mac and several PCs, a shopper named Megan watches the PCs walk away as fewer and fewer of them meet her criteria of a big screen, a fast processor, and -- the dealbreaker -- a system that "just works" without crashes or viruses. In the end, Megan is left alone with the Mac as her only real choice.

"PC Choice Chat" echoes the theme with John Hodgman's PC character trying to advise radio show callers on what PC to choose only to find that he doesn't have an answer to requests for a PC free of viruses and with good customer support. Supporting this, the "Customer Care" spot has PC hiding the frustrations he's had getting help as he's bounced between hardware, software and sales staff while on the phone.

Each of the ads appears a gentle, if exaggerated, response but is a mirror of Apple's first official stance against Microsoft's campaign. The Mac maker argued that many Windows PCs aren't bargains at all as they won't do what their users want from them. Macs are better regardless of cost, Apple maintains.

Not to be outdone, Microsoft the very same week has issued a fifth ad of its own, and what's probably its most head-on challenge to Apple's pricing yet. Lauren (not the actress of the first ad) looks for a system with "speed, portability and battery life" under $1,700 and briefly looks at Macs, eventually settling on a Dell Studio XPS 13 on sale for $899. The system is arguably the 13-inch MacBook's closest competitor and has a similar screen, dimensions and even the same GeForce 9400M graphics that Apple briefly touted as an exclusive edge over the frequently lethargic Intel integrated video in many Windows portables.







In some regards, the Studio XPS 13 supports Microsoft's case. For its $1,099 official price, and especially the sale price shown in the ad, the system is unambiguously faster than Apple's MacBook at that level: it has a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo Apple reserves for its $1,499 model, 4GB of stock memory that isn't available on any MacBook below the 15-inch Pro, and a 320GB, 7,200RPM hard drive that Apple only supplies as a build-to-order option. It has only slightly less real-world battery life in reviews and weighs only a bit more.

Once again, however, the ad relies on conscious misdirection to make the PC seem more appealing. Although the ad shows Lauren trying a 13-inch MacBook, it quotes her and her mother Sue complaining about the $2,000 price of the 15-inch MacBook Pro -- not only falling out of the size category the two had been considering but falsely portraying Macs as twice as expensive when Apple already offers a $999, if somewhat slower, MacBook. Even Apple's fastest aluminum MacBook would have fallen within Lauren's budget and saved her $500 over the price quoted in the ad.

Apple isn't content to depend solely on marketing to correct this perceived distortion of its value. As learned last month, the it plans to produce less expensive Macs in the near future that the Cupertino firm hopes will cancel out Microsoft's few remaining arguments against switching to a Mac.

Apple freezes Snow Leopard APIs as software nears final stretch

Published: 10:00 AM EST

Apple this past weekend distributed a new beta of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard that altered the programming methods used to optimize code for multi-core Macs, telling developers they were the last programming-oriented changes planned ahead of the software's release.

More specifically, Apple is said to have informed recipients of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard build 10A354 that it has simplified the application programming interfaces (APIs) for working with Grand Central, a new architecture that makes it easier for developers to take advantage of Macs with multiple processing cores.

This technology works by breaking complex tasks into smaller blocks, which are then routed -- or dispatched -- efficiently to a Mac's available cores for faster processing. This allows third-party developers to leverage more of a Mac's hardware resources without having to be well-versed in multithreaded programming.

People familiar with the latest Snow Leopard build say it was these Grand Central "dispatch" methods that were tweaked, or simplified, alongside build 10A354. Going forward, Apple reportedly told developers that "no further API changes are planned for Snow Leopard."

This means developers can now press forward with Snow Leopard versions of their applications with confidence that further Apple-instated changes won't force them to make significant alterations to their code between now and the time the software hits the market. It can also be seen as a sign that the the operating system upgrade is one step closer to reaching a final developmental stretch that will focus on stability and optimization.

With the private release of build 10A354, Apple also reportedly informed developers about a couple of other recent changes to the software, namely the addition of Chinese handwriting recognition support for Macs that include a multi-touch trackpad. Similar software was added to iPhone Software 2.0 a year ago, allowing users to draw Chinese symbols on their handset's touchscreen and then select matching symbols suggested by the iPhone Software.

In support of the handwriting recognition software in Snow Leopard, Apple also reportedly tweaked the system's Language & Text Preference Pane to include support for bidirectional text.

Also drawn to developers attention in build 10A354 is a new codec due to debut with Snow Leopard called MPEG-4 High Efficiency AAC (or HE-AAC). Apple said the codec is an extension of the Low Complexity AAC (or AAC-LC) codec that's optimized for low-bitrate steaming of audio and podcasts.

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is expected to hit the market sometime this summer with a near finalized version likely to make a public appearance at Apple's annual developers conference in about a month.

Meanwhile, Apple this weekend also equipped developers with Mac OS X 10.5.7 build 9J61, which corrected one more minor issue with the impending Leopard update.

AT&T acquisition to beef up 3G coverage in rural US

Published: 10:45 AM EST

AT&T on Friday confirmed plans to acquire wireless properties from rival Verizon in a bid to strengthen coverage of its 3G network in rural areas of the US stretching across some 18 states.

The deal for $2.35 billion in cash will see the exclusive US iPhone carrier take control of 18 of the 24 markets that Verizon is divesting as part of its recent acquisition of Alltel Wireless, which helped the telecommunications firm snatch the title of the largest US wireless carrier away from AT&T.

More specifically, Friday's agreement will see AT&T acquire wireless properties, including licenses, network assets and 1.5 million current subscribers in 79 service areas, primarily in rural areas of Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming.

"Wireless continues to be AT&T�s greatest growth driver, and this transaction will complement our existing network coverage, particularly in rural areas," said AT&T chief executive Ralph de la Vega. "The acquisition will add network assets, distribution channels and 850 MHz spectrum in a significant portion of the U.S., enabling even better coverage for AT&T�s subscribers in those areas."

Converting those markets from Verizon�s CDMA network to GSM technology and transitioning operations to AT&T is expected to take about 12 months and cost about $400 million. Once the transition is complete, subscribers in those areas will be able to take advantage of AT&T's 3G network and supporting devices like the iPhone and BlackBerry Bold.

AT&T told investors the deal is expected to deliver substantial long-term stockholder value. It's the latest move on the part of the Dallas-based company to build out its mobile data services, which represent its key area of growth. In 2008, AT&T pumped more than $15 billion into building out its wireless network.

Amazon introduces iPhone-optimized Kindle book store

Published: 01:00 PM EST

Responding to popular request, Amazon on Monday announced a version of its Kindle electronic book store formatted specifically for Apple's multi-touch devices and designed to supplement the recently released Kindle for iPhone application.

This optimized Kindle store offers both iPhone and iPod touch users easier access to browse and download from Amazon's library of more than 280,000 Kindle formatted books.

"Now when users of the Kindle for iPhone app click on 'Get Books,' the new Kindle Store tailored for the size and shape of the iPhone and iPod touch screens automatically opens in Safari," the retailer said.

Released March 4th, the Kindle for iPhone application quickly became the most popular books application on Apple's App Store. It ties into Amazon's 3G Whispersync technology, which saves and synchronizes Kindle customers� bookmarks across Kindles, iPhones and iPod touches, so users never lose their place. For instance, users can read a few pages on their iPhone or iPod touch and pick up right where they left off on their Kindle device, or vise versa.

"The response to Kindle for iPhone has been tremendous," said Ian Freed, vice president, Amazon Kindle. "The most common feedback we heard from customers was that they wanted a better experience for purchasing new Kindle books from their iPhones."

The iPhone optimized Kindle store is the latest in a string of Kindle-related announcements from Amazon geared towards building electronic books into a more material piece of its business. Last week, the retailer introduced the latest member of its Kindle family of devices: a big-screen DX model suited for more natural display of textbooks, magazines and newspapers.

Kindle for iPhone Store

Amazon in recent weeks also scooped up the developer of Stanza, a popular iPhone application that provides users with 24-hour access to a catalog of over 100,000 eBooks in the open ePub format, an eBook container not supported by its Kindle devices.

Chinese rumor claims 2009 iPhone will be modest upgrade

Published: 07:00 PM EST



A forum thread on a Chinese Apple fan site is generating some interest by AppleInsider readers because one commenter claims to have used prototypes of Apple's next-gen iPhone because he purportedly has a friend working at the company's manufacturing partner Foxconn.

The commenter, who goes by the name patapon200, describes the next iPhone as a "repeat" in physical design with many of the changes relating to speed and other less overt upgrades.

Supposedly, the largest changes are increases in clock speed and memory: the roughly 400MHz Samsung ARM processor used in the present-day iPhone 3G will be upgraded to a 600MHz part, he says, while system RAM will be doubled to 256MB. After testing, the tipster maintains that the speed of using the phone has "really improved" versus current models.

The commenter, who posted to one of China's largest iPhone fan sites, also claims that the handset will ship in 16GB and 32GB configurations while echoing earlier rumors of a 3.2-megapixel camera. He adds, however, that the new camera will autofocus. Other claims include an electronic compass to get the phone's heading independent of GPS, per recent rumors.

In his series of posts, the commenter provides an alleged internal model number of the new iPhone, N88, while noting the M68 and N82 model numbers used for earlier iPhones. He also posted a screen capture supposedly taken on the device, showing the 32GB of storage (29.3GB after formatting), iPhone 3.0 firmware, and Apple model number, MB717LL, that doesn't yet exist on the public record. The latest iPhone 3G revisions range only up to MB705LL. No evidence is given of the external model number that drew attention in February.

iPhone MB717 screencap

The commenter expresses disappointment when claiming the screen will still be the familiar 3.5-inch, 480x320 model used in the past. He doesn't provide a timeframe for this alleged new iPhone but claims the hardware was thought to be in a Process Validation Test, or PVT, as of late April; it's unclear what this means, but it may refer to testing assembly shortly before production.

Some aspects of the rumor are dubious enough to call into question at least some of the story. It suggests that the next iPhone will have FM, for example -- a technology Apple has left out of all iPhones and iPods to date. The screen capture also makes reference to connecting to an AT&T network as the carrier, though it's not the same revision number seen by most US iPhones, which usually connect to ATT3.1 and not the ATT3.5 mentioned in the screenshot.

The poster makes brief mention of Apple's long-in-development tablet and even gives it an internal model number, K48, but provides few other details besides mentioning a 9.7-inch touchscreen that has surfaced in previous rumors.

AppleInsider isn't sure what to make of these two week-old claims but republishes them for interest's sake.

Intel to launch Calpella with quad-core notebook chips in Q3

Published: 09:50 AM EST

Intel still plans to launch its next-generation Calpella notebook platform, expected to find its way into Apple's MacBook lines, sometime in the the third quarter of this year, according to a new report.

Citing its usual "sources at notebook makers," DigiTimes claims the chipmaker recently outlined its notebook plans for the remainder of the year to its partners. The plans were broken down by the nicknames Intel has given to its various mobile platforms and theretail price segments they're expected to target.

Of interest to Apple followers is Calpella, Intel's Nehalem-based, sixth-generation Centrino platform for mainstream performance notebook PCs and the successor to the Montevina platform found, in part, in the current line of MacBooks and MacBook Pros. It will reportedly target 14-, 15-, 17-, and 18-inch notebooks that will retail for prices above $1,200.

There had been rumors that Intel would be forced to delay Calpella until late October at the earliest so that its manufacturing partners could clear inventories of existing chips that have piled up due to the poor economy. However, Tuesday's report claims the Santa Clara-based firm remains committed to a third-quarter launch, which would see the platform come to market in some capacity by the end of September.

While Intel hasn't gone on record to talk about Calpella's family of microprocessors, rumors suggest the platform will initially launch with three 45-nanometer quad-core "Clarksfield" chips: a 1.6GHz Core 2 Quad P1, a 1.73GHz Core 2 Quad P2, and a 2.0GHz Core 2 Extreme XE. The chips are expected to retail in lots of 1000 for $364, $546, and $1,054, respectively. Each is expected to sport an 8MB Level 3 cache except the 1.6GHz model, which will reportedly have a 6MB Level 3 cache.

Based on what Apple is believed to pay Intel for chips in its current MacBook Pros, the Mac maker would be most likely to adopt the 1.6GHz and 1.73GHz variants for its professional notebook line if it were to use any of the quad-core chips. Intel will follow up the release of Clarksfield with "Arrandale" 32-nm dual-core chips sometime in the first half of 2010, which will sport higher clock speeds and could play to the 13-inch MacBook line. Arrandale chips could also be used in the MacBook Pro line if Apple forgoes adoption of the first round of quad-core Clarksfield chips.

Clarksfield
Intel's rumored initial Clarksfield lineup of quad-core mobile chips under the Calpella platform.

Current MBP Chips
Here's what Apple paid (estimated) for its MacBook Pro chips prior to swapping out the 2.53GHz chip with a 2.66GHz chip.

Still, as AppleInsider noted in its report on the expected release of more affordable Macs, Apple should be afforded the option of tweaking its notebook lines as early as this spring if it so chooses. Arriving a few months ahead of Calpella and Clarksfield will be a refresh to Intel's current Montevina notebook platform that will introduce a T9900 3.06GHz chip and P8800 2.66GHz chip alongside price cuts to existing models.

MacBook Pro owner among those suing Nvidia over faulty chips

Published: 11:00 AM EST

Apple, Dell, and HP notebook customers are banding together in an effort to gain class-action status on a combined lawsuit against Nvidia, which could potentially force the graphics chip maker to replace or compensate for faulty graphics processors in millions of computers.

Five plaintiffs are reportedly leading the charge [PDF], spearheaded by Louisiana resident Todd Feinstein, who purchased a MacBook Pro last April only to find that it "operates at excessively hot temperatures, has a screen which is fuzzy and displays only grey or black at certain times, and periodically shuts down entirely without warning."

Last July, Nvidia informed the Securities and Exchange Commission that it would incur a $150 million to $200 million charge to cover repair and replacement expenses resulting from "a weak die/packaging material set" in certain versions of its previous MCP and GPU products employed by various notebook vendors.

"The previous generation MCP and GPU products that are impacted were included in a number of notebook products that were shipped and sold in significant quantities," the chipmaker told the Commission. "Certain notebook configurations of these MCP and GPU products are failing in the field at higher than normal rates."

SlingPlayer for iPhone to sell for $30 and support WiFi only

Published: 12:00 PM EST

Apple sometime in the next 24 hours will release Sling Media's highly anticipated SlingPlayer application for the iPhone onto its App Store but the software will arrive without 3G wireless support, AppleInsider has been able to confirm.

Formally announced at January's Macworld Expo, the SlingPlayer Mobile application promised to allow iPhone users to stream live television over WiFi or 3G wireless networks by tapping into home TV setups equipped with a Slingbox.�A built-in remote control function would reportedly allow for channel surfing and DVR setup.

Sling Media submitted the application to the App Store nearly six weeks ago but it has thus far failed to see approval amid rumors that AT&T had asked Apple to deny the software in its original form because the carrier was concerned about the app's potential to saturate its 3G network.

Those rumors appear to have been true. AppleInsider spoke to SlingMedia on Tuesday and confirmed that Apple will push the application onto the App Store sometime between 12:00 a.m. and 6:00 am eastern time tomorrow. However, it won't be the version of the application originally submitted with support for 3G and EDGE streaming.

Instead, the version Apple approved is WiFi-only. It will sell for $29.99 in the US and Canada, and 17.99 British pounds overseas. Officially, the application will support the SlingBox PRO, SOLO, and PRO-HD. Legacy Slingboxes, which include the Classic, AV, and TUNER, will also work with the app but Sling Media won't provide any service for technical problems with these products, including problems caused by updates to SlingPlayer Mobile software, Slingbox hardware, or iPhone firmware.

Sling Media's concession to release its iPhone app as WiFi-only is surprising given that a version of SlingPlayer runs on several other AT&T devices over 3G like the BlackBerry Bold. With a $30 price tag and a WiFi-only limitation, it will be interesting to see how well the application fares in its first week on the App Store, especially since its lack of wireless network access is likely to curb its appeal, forcing users to find a hotspot before streaming video.

Some have theorized that AT&T's motives for asking Apple to deny a 3G capable version of the application may be more closely tied to the carrier's plan to launch a similar 3G service than any potential concerns over network saturation. The AT&T service would reportedly allow iPhone users to steer video recorders for its U-verse digital TV offering from their handsets.







AppleInsider has been testing SlingPlayer for the iPhone for the past several weeks and will publish a full review shortly after the application becomes available.

Apple releases Mac OS X 10.5.7, Safari 3.2.3 & 4.0 beta update

Published: 04:05 PM EST

Apple on Tuesday released Mac OS X 10.5.7, a recommended update for all Mac OS X 10.5.x Leopard users that includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility and security of Macs. Separately, the company released Safari 3.2.3, an update to Safari 4.0 beta and security updates for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.

MAC OS X 10.5.7

The Mac OS X 10.5.7 client software is available as a 442MB delta download for Macs running Mac OS X 10.5.6 and as a 729MB combo update for Macs running earlier versions of the Leopard operating system. A list of specific enhancements included in the release follows:

General

* Includes latest security fixes.
* Includes additional RAW image support for several third-party cameras
* Improves performance of video playback and cursor movements for recent Macs with NVIDIA graphics
* Resolves an issue with Dvorak keyboard layout in Mac OS X 10.5.6
* Improves the reliability and accuracy of Unit Converter, Stocks, Weather and Movies Dashboard widgets
* Addresses a situation that may cause issues when logging into Gmail
* Improves reliability when syncing contacts with Yahoo!
* Expansion Slot Utility for Mac Pro now reports the correct PCIe slot configuration
* Improves network performance when connected to certain Ethernet switches that have Flow Control enabled
* Improves stability for network home directories hosted by Mac OS X Server v10.4
* Improves Finder search results for network volumes that may not support Spotlight searching, such as Mac OS X Server v10.4, Time Capsule, and third-party AFP servers
* Includes several improvements to Directory Service and Client Management, which are described in the About Mac OS X Server 10.5.7 Update article

iCal

* Improves overall reliability with CalDav
* Improves reliability when automatically syncing with MobileMe

Mail

* Addresses reliability and sync issues with Notes
* Addresses an issue that may cause the BCC field to populate incorrectly when redirecting a message from the Sent mailbox

Parental Controls

* Improves consistency with Parental Controls and application restrictions
* Addresses an issue in which time limits may not work properly with full-screen games and Fast User Switching

Printing

* Resolves an issue that may cause certain third-party printers to print to the incorrect paper tray
* Non-admin user accounts can now be allowed to add and remove printers by enabling Parental Controls and selecting "Can administer printers"
* Includes other printing reliability and stability improvements

MAC OS X SERVER 10.5.7

Mac OS X Server 10.5.7 is available as a 452MB download for servers running 10.5.6 Server and a 951MB download for those running earlier versions of Leopard server. A specific list of enhancements is available here.

SAFARI 4.0 BETA 1 (SECOND UPDATE)

Readers will recall that Safari 4.0 beta 1 failed to function with betas of Mac OS X 10.5.7 while it was under development. Therefore Apple has quietly updated its Safari 4.0 public beta with a new version supporting -- as well as requiring -- Mac OS X 10.5.7.

The new beta also addresses 3 security issues with the Safari 4.0 beta 1, including vulnerabilities with the browser's URL input validation, a heap buffer overflow problem with libxml, and a memory corruption issue in WebKit's handling
of SVGList objects.

SAFARI 3.2.3

Separately, Apple on Tuesday also released Safari 3.2.3, which addresses security issues with the web browser. The update is available as a 40MB download for Mac OS X 10.5.x Leopard, a 26.29MB download for Mac OS X 10.4.x Tiger, and a 19.69 download for Windows XP and Vista.

TIGER SECURITY UPDATES

For users running Mac OS X 10.4.X Tiger, Apple also released Security Update 2009-002. It's available as a 165MB download for Intel Macs, a 75MB download for PowerPC Macs, and a 203MB download for all Mac OS X Tiger servers.

Microsoft launches assault on Apple's "iPod tax"

Published: 06:30 PM EST

Microsoft is no longer content with turning up the heat against just Apple's Mac lines and has begun a new marketing campaign that attacks the perceived additional costs of filling an iPod with music versus a Zune, but one which omits key flaws in the process.

A new Zune Pass page and matching commercial from the Redmond, Washington-based Zune maker claim that loading a 120GB iPod classic with music solely from the iTunes Store would cost $29,700 where a Zune Pass unlimited subscription service would cost the same $15 per month; the difference is such that it would take 165 years of using the Zune service to match what it would take to load the iPod to the brim.

The campaign also argues that the permanent ownership of tracks is a negative, rebuffing Apple chief Steve Jobs' long-held assertion that people want to own their music instead of renting it. As iTunes shoppers have to commit to any songs they download, they can't backtrack if they decide they don't want the music they just bought. And, since subscriptions by definition encourage exploration of music that would otherwise be too prohibitive, Zune Pass members can download "whole discographies" at will rather than cherry picking individual albums or tracks, Microsoft claims.

Reinforcing the monetary focus, the company has opted out of using the 'real' people found in its Laptop Hunter ads and has instead recruited Capital Investment Advisors expert and frequent media show guest Wes Moss to push its case. He argues that it makes more sense for iTunes customers to consider a subscription service like the Zune Pass depending on the amount of music they consume.

But, similar to the thorough dissection that followed the anti-Mac ads, criticism has already emerged that accuses Microsoft of deliberately padding the actual costs of owning an iPod and using it with the iTunes Store. Variable pricing is one of the most immediate concerns. Microsoft assumes an average cost of 99 cents per song; as many albums cost $10 or less but have more than 10 tracks, the actual cost of buying songs can dip well under that amount. Changes in pricing per song also render it more difficult to calculate a final price in either direction.

As observed by many, the campaign similarly assumes that customers are bent on filling their devices to capacity and are only using sheer quantity rather than quality. It's commonly accepted that most users only buy to provide enough headroom for their own listening demands. Also, those who buy the iPod classic, 120GB Zune or other large-capacity players are more likely to have music encoded at high or even lossless quality, swelling the size of the files themselves and greatly reducing the number of songs that can fit in the available space.

The marketing push likewise sidesteps the limitations of the Zune Pass itself. Although it's now possible to keep 10 download tracks per month, most of the downloaded songs will disappear the moment the subscription ends -- leaving owners with just a fraction of what they had listened to before. Any additional songs past the first 10 also cost the same as on most other music stores and can potentially be expensive for those who plan to build large permanent music libraries.

And while all the permanent downloads come as unprotected MP3s, files downloaded as part of the subscription are locked in a Zune-specific format, forcing users to run only the Zune desktop client and use Zune players away from their PCs. The absence of a subscription option in iTunes limits iPod owners' options but also simplifies the process of leaving iTunes.







No matter the merits, Microsoft is known to be prepping more than just promotional spots to put the Zune in a new light. The company has stated it plans to introduce new players this year and may center the spotlight on the rumored Zune HD, its first touchscreen player and a response that may come two years after the iPod touch.

AT&T pins neutered SlingPlayer on iPhone not being a phone

Published: 08:30 PM EST

In a curiously worded statement, AT&T has claimed it prevented the iPhone version of SlingPlayer from using 3G because it would chew too much data -- and because the iPhone is, oddly, not considered a phone.

The short message justifies the decision to allow Sling Media's remote streaming only without 3G use by first noting that a Slingbox consumes a large amount of bandwidth on AT&T's cellular towers and could "prevent other customers from using the network."

However, it's here that the wireless provider's argument takes an unusual turn. As mentioned by Engadget, AT&T specifically cites its terms of service -- which have flip-flopped over the past several weeks -- as preventing users from re-routing a TV signal through the 3G connection to a personal computer. But rather than add smartphones to the clause, the company tries to fit the iPhone into this category by claiming that it's too powerful to be a regular smartphone.

"Applications like this, which redirect a TV signal to a personal computer, are specifically prohibited under our terms of service," AT&T claims. "We consider smartphones like the iPhone to be personal computers in that they have the same hardware and software attributes as PCs."

Instead, the carrier says, iPhone owners should be content to stream Slingbox video when away from home through the free Wi-Fi access they have at certain public locations, such as Starbucks coffee shops. Web video streams are also allowed.

The stance has already come under fire as evidence of a double standard at AT&T. Where the iPhone app is restricted to Wi-Fi, the BlackBerry Bold and several Windows Mobile phones are explicitly allowed to run their respective versions of SlingPlayer on the same 3G network in a compatibility list Sling maintains on its own. Some phones offered by AT&T outside of this list also run SlingPlayer and, again, aren't given the same restrictions.

Additionally, numerous iPhone apps like Joost or Ustream permit long, contiinuous video streams with bandwidth requirements not unlike those of SlingPlayer.

As such, many already view the seemingly arbitrary treatment of the iPhone as more a reflection of AT&T's ability to support an especially popular device with streaming video on its network than any actual concerns about the iPhone being too powerful to be counted among normal smartphones. The Dallas-based firm has been sued multiple times for allegedly overselling its iPhone 3G speeds and is frequently the subject of criticism in New York City and San Francisco, where the dense concentrations of iPhone users have in many cases made the 3G network all but unusable, dropping calls or reverting to 2G even in strong coverage.

For its part, AT&T has lately been promising significant upgrades to its 3G and is believed to be preparing a major, comprehensive speed upgrade on Apple's behest for May 31st -- just over a week before WWDC and before a new generation of iPhone is likely to push 3G usage even higher.

SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone: an in-depth review

Published: 08:00 AM EST

Sling Media's release of its SlingPlayer Mobile application for the iPhone and iPod touch early this morning will give Sling enthusiasts a new way to watch their home TV signals remotely from nearly anywhere, but some significant limitations in the app are likely to dampen some users' initial enthusiasm.

Sling specializes in video placeshifting, which takes audio and video inputs from either a cable, satellite, or antenna feed or the output from other video devices such as a DVR, DVD player, or Apple TV, and encodes the signal using a Slingbox for Internet distribution to computers or mobile devices running the SlingPlayer application.

Sending a remote video signal requires a fast Internet connection, and in particular a fast outgoing connection, as the SlingBox needs to push a compressed video feed out over the Internet to the remote location you hope to watch it from. However, most consumer broadband Internet accounts are designed around web browsing and consumption of inbound server-side content, meaning that they deliver far faster downloads than uploads.

DSL commonly offers 0.768 to 1.5 megabit downloads, but often as little as 0.128 uploads, while "fast cable Internet" may deliver as much as 8 or 16 megabit downloads to customers in developed areas of the US, but only a quarter or less than in upload bandwidth. Even customers reporting 50 megabit or greater downloads commonly report only getting ten to twenty percent of that speed for uploads.

That's the problem facing all server-type consumer applications like the one offered by Sling Media. Even customers who have fast Internet access both at home and in their vacation spot's hotel, college campus, or workplace will be hampered by the weakest link: the relatively slow upload service offered by most ISPs serving home users. Sling addresses this issue by applying proprietary compression and optimized signaling to deliver the most efficient transmission possible.

As Internet speeds slowly improve in the US, Sling's efficiency has enabled the company to branch out into mobile devices. In addition to the Windows and Mac OS X client software it includes with its SlingBox hardware, the company offers a separately priced mobile client for certain Symbian 9.1 phones, several modern BlackBerry smartphones, a variety of Windows Mobile Pocket PC and Windows Smartphone devices, and a beta PalmOS client that works on three recent models.

Conspicuously missing from its roster of supported mobile devices has been the iPhone; that is, up until an announcement in January demonstrated a new Cocoa Touch version of the SlingPlayer Mobile software for iPhone and iPod touch devices. That product is now available for the same price as other mobile phones, although at $29.99, the price of the iPhone app might shock App Store customers more accustomed to buying $2 games and $5 utilities.

Introducing the Slingbox

To test out the new iPhone app (App Store, $29.99), Sling shipped us its top of the line, $299.99 Slingbox PRO HD. Configuring a new SlingBox is quite simple, although not quite an Apple experience. It does, however, ship with pretty much all the cables you'll need, which is more than can often be said for new Apple gear.

The Slingbox PRO HD box accepts a single cable input as well as two auxiliary video inputs: one via standard composite or S-Video cables and a second supporting HD-quality video over component cables. The box then connects to your TV using either standard definition composite or HD-capable component cables, as well as passing through the cable feed. For audio, the device supports both standard stereo input as well as higher quality S/PDIF coax audio. It seems odd that the Slingbox does not support HDMI and digital optical audio connectors, and that it can only manage one antenna and two other inputs. The $179.99 Slingbox Solo model only works with a single input.

Slingbox

The Slingbox also provides an IR blaster cable with several outputs, which is used to allow the device to emulate a remote control. This enables a remote user to change the channel or navigate through the menus of nearly any device a user might want to plug in, although this can be an arduous process due to the delays encountered when working remotely.

The SlingPlayer software for the Mac or Windows enables users to then switch between the connected devices, change channels, fast forward through content when supported, and watch essentially anything they could watch from their living room on their laptop while traveling. The biggest limitation on the current Mac version is that it only supports viewing standard definition signals, but the Windows version also has an hour buffer that allows users to fast forward and rewind through the stream like a DVR allows, and also presents a programming guide missing from the Mac version.

By default, the player software puts your video feed in a small window and presents a virtual remote control, so the benefit of HD video isn't noticeable. However, if you want to blow up your signal to watch full screen using your notebook as a virtual TV, the SD image you get on the Mac isn't exceptional. It's also not terrible. Sling says they're working to deliver HD support for Mac users, and the latest version of the new Mac desktop software Sling Media just delivered promises to improve video playback quality.

Slingbox

The new iPhone app offers most of the same features to Slingbox users right from their mobile phone. To match signal quality to the bandwidth a user has available to them, both desktop and the mobile versions of the software enable standard or higher quality settings for audio and video. With an optimal connection, the iPhone app delivers pretty decent watchability and fairly good quality audio.

We tried a prerelease version of the app using AT&T's EDGE network, and discovered that despite Sling's best efforts, EDGE just isn't fast enough to support decent playback. It was impossible to get more than five to ten seconds of terrible quality video before the system fell back to a spinning cursor promising to optimize the signal quality, which typically took as long as the next five seconds of attempted video, then popped up again. Using AT&T's 3G network, which we managed to find in a few pockets here and there in San Francisco, we could actually maintain a pretty good video signal.

Slingplayer Mobile WiFi Only

End users won't be able to similarly experiment themselves, however, because Sling's iPhone app has been barred from supporting mobile networks as part of the App Store demand that developers not consume significant network resources from their apps. That means the iPhone won't be able to access Sling feeds anywhere other than the WiFi hotspots supported by the iPod touch.

That's a disappointment to iPhone users, but likely a relief to AT&T, which has been desperately scraping together the resources to support the bandwidth-heavy apps that iPhone users are already hammering its network with, primarily Mobile Safari and to a lesser extent, YouTube, Mail, and the iPhone's own iTunes and App Store. A recent report bewailing the bandwidth use of the iPhone on AT&T's mobile network recommended that all mobile service providers cut smartphone users off from iPhone-style unlimited data service entirely to protect their profits.

While that's completely farcical, it does underline why AT Sling hoped to support 3G (and even EDGE) right up to the end in its negotiations with Apple. Regardless, mobile users who are fans of the Slingbox will now have another reason to eye some of the phones offered by providers that do support SlingMedia's mobile app over their 3G EVDO or UMTS networks, including a couple models that are... sold by AT&T. Of course, those other phones don't have the same massive network effect as the iPhone.

At the same time, a variety of the other phones Sling supports also only work over WiFi, such as every BlackBerry model outside of the Storm offered by AT&T. All of the supported Curve, Pearl, and Flip models, whether offered by AT&T, T-Mobile, or Sprint, all only work with the SlingPlayer Mobile app over WiFi. A large number of older and newer BlackBerry phones are not supported at all, lending some relief to those wondering if living inside Apple's big tent is worth it. Navigation and basic usability on the BlackBerry (below) is also decidedly worse than the iPhone version.

Slingbox

Similarly, while a couple dozen Pocket PC models officially support mobile network viewing with the appropriate SlingPlayer Mobile app, only around half of the 14 supported Windows Mobile Smartphone devices will work outside of a WiFi connection, and Sling warns about poor performance when using the Motorola Q8hxx series or Samsung BlackJack II over 3G. Sling also only recommends using its mobile app on nine different Symbian models, and more than half of those only support WiFi viewing. As with Sling's other mobile offerings, the Symbian version only presents a small video area surrounded by lots of buttons that clutter up the screen (below), while the iPhone version devotes the entire screen to video playback and menus disappear when not in use.

Slingbox

With the weird assortment of incompatible phone models and splintered platforms out there, it's no wonder why mobile developers are flocking to Apple's platform, which actually delivers a coherent platform of users who actually buy mobile apps. It's certainly no secret that other phone platforms are chaotic and dysfunctional, but Sling Media's offerings provide a case study into how difficult it actually is to support a basic video playing app across more than a handful of specific phone models on each of the existing mobile platforms in the smartphone arena.

On

Apple execs to keynote WWDC, issue final Snow Leopard preview

Published: 08:50 AM EST

Apple said Wednesday that a team of its top executives lead by worldwide marketing chief Phil Schiller will kick off its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) next month with a keynote address on Monday, June 8 at 10:00 a.m. that will showcase a final developer preview of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

The opening keynote address has historically been delivered by Apple chief executive Steve Jobs, who announced in January that he was taking a six-month medical leave from his day-to-day leadership role at the company to recover from complex health issues that may have resulted from his otherwise successful bout with pancreatic cancer five years ago.

Apple executives have maintained that Jobs will return to the company in some capacity by the end of June. In the meantime, worldwide marketing chief Phil Schiller has been filling in for the company co-founder, delivering what was widely regarded as a successful keynote presentation at this year's Macworld Expo. Other members of Apple's top brass have also pitched in, like Senior Vice President iPhone Software Scott Forstall, who a couple of months later hosted a smaller media event on the company's Cupertino-based campus to preview iPhone Software 3.0.

Next month's WWDC is expected to showcase even more of Apple's top talent, who'll take turns updating attendees on the most recent advances in both Mac OS X and iPhone software. Among the execs expected to join Schiller on stage is Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering, Bertrand Serlet, who'll bring developers up to date on the company's plans for the upcoming release of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and deliver a feature complete beta of the operating systems to attendees.

"Last June, we gave developers an early look at the powerful new technologies that form the underpinnings of Mac OS X Snow Leopard," Serlet said. "At WWDC, we will be giving our developers a final Developer Preview release so they can see the incredible progress we've made on Snow Leopard and work with us as we move toward its final release."

As part of its ongoing coverage of Snow Leopard, AppleInsider had repeatedly noted that WWDC would see developers equipped with a feature-complete beta of the operating system, which may include some interface changes. People familiar with the matter have estimated that Apple will need roughly two months following the conference to bring the software to market, suggesting a release in the August time frame.

Snow Leopard and Mac technical sessions at WWDC will showcase the hundreds of refinements to the operating system and dive into its new technologies including a 64-bit architecture, QuickTime X, next-generation multicore and GPU processor support, and new accessibility technologies, according to Apple. Meanwhile, iPhone OS 3.0 technical sessions will reportedly cover introductory and advanced concepts to help developers get the most out of the iPhone OS 3.0 SDK and the more than 1,000 new APIs available for iPhone OS 3.0.

WWDC will also offer attendees the rare opportunity to work side-by-side with Apple engineers to solve code-level issues, gain insight into development techniques and get expert advice on interface design. Over 100 technical sessions will be presented by more than 1,000 Apple engineers. The conference is sold out.

Jobs cleared to raze mansion as Ive loses domain name battle

Published: 01:00 PM EST

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs has again been given the go-ahead to demolish his moldering mansion in the Woodside hills. Meanwhile, Apple design chief Jonathan Ive has lost a court battle to stop a crazed fan from using his likeness in a series of domain names.

Jobs OK'd to raze mansion

The MercuryNews is reporting that Steve Jobs can move forward with a decade-long initiative to tear down his 17,250-square-foot Spanish revival mansion in California's Woodside hills following a vote of 6 to 1 in his favor during a local council meeting on Tuesday.

Only Mayor Peter Mason, a licensed architect who has reportedly done historic preservation work, opposed Jobs' motion, saying he's troubled by the number of historic properties in the area that are being demolished rather than restored.

"It's an unfortunate thing that Mr. Jobs doesn't like the house," he said. "It's really sad that we're going to continue to tear down historic resources in this town because they're old."

Last year, Jobs submitted a revised permit application to the council showing it would cost approximately $5 million more to restore sprawling mansion built in 1929 for copper mining mogul Daniel Jackling than it would to raze it and construct a smaller home for his family.

Jobs purchased the blown-out mansion in the early 1980s and lived there -- sometimes eating his evening meals on the floor -- for about 10 years before renting it out and then leaving it to deteriorate.

Steve Jobs' Jackling House

AppleInsider recently posted an extensive photo gallery of the house taken a couple of years ago by a photographer that stumbled onto the property to find its gates, windows and doors wide open.

Ive loses bid to take over domain names

Meanwhile, Jobs' long-time design chief friend Jonathan Ive wasn't as fortunate in one of his own legal battles this month.

Bloomberg reports that the World Intellectual Property Organization denied his claim to block London resident and fan Harry Jones from using his name in a series of four domain names, including jonathanive.com and jonyive.com.

According to WIPO's domain name dispute resolution process, Ive would have had to show proof that his trademark rights were at risk in order to gain control of the domain names. However, a WIPO panel found that the evidence provided by Ive "indicates that the complainant (and Apple Inc.) do not promote the complainant�s name as a brand or trademark, and therefore do not use it in trade or commerce."

For his part, Jones claims to have first started jonathanive.com to pay homage to the designer as part of a project when he was in college five years ago. Though the site was never meant for profit, it grew over the years to receive hundreds of thousands of hits. Two years later, he came under pressure from Apple to surrender the domain names, as he explained in a recent post to the site:

In April 2006, Apple Inc. spoke to me to ask me to post a disclaimer saying that I had no links with Apple or with Jonathan Ive. I did so here, and Apple Inc. approved of the content of the website.

In February 2008 another Apple Inc. employee got in touch and I was put under great pressure to give up my website. That Apple employee offered me an iPod (and later a Macbook) in exchange. This upset me, as I had spent a tremendous amount of time building and maintaining the website. When I declined the offer, I was told I must name a sales price if I did not want to face litigation. I reacted emotionally to the pressure, and gave a high price of US$ 400,000 to dissuade harassment. I had no desire or intention to sell my website to Apple Inc.

I would be happy to reach an amicable solution with Jonathan Ive. I have told his lawyers this and that I would be pleased to discuss this matter with him in person and to try any process that would allow an amicable settlement of this matter (e.g., mediation). I have received no response to this request so far.

As regular readers will know, I have the utmost respect for Jonathan and am one of his biggest supporters. I just want to be left alone to carry on running this website, and I hope you will continue to enjoy reading it.

As part of his complaint with WIPO�s arbitration and mediation center, Ive claimed that he is a "very private person" who has turned down all sorts of offers outside Apple to design cars, cameras and movie sets.

Wall-e

"My reputation has been established by the work I do, not through self-publicity. I do not usually give interviews � I seek to avoid publicity," he said, noting that the few pieces of notable work he's done outside Apple included "designing a character in a Pixar/Disney computer animated movie �Wall-e� and designing a book cover."

For those interested, the Wall-e character conceived by Ive was Wall-e's girl pal Eve.

Apple now selling iPhones online in bid to clear inventory

Published: 02:00 PM EST

In the latest sign that iPhone season is rapidly approaching and inventories of existing models need a push out the door, Apple is now offering to sell customers an iPhone 3G through its website and ship it out for free.

The move is an extension of the Cupertino-based company's Buy iPhone website, which until recently offered customers the option to pre-approving themselves for a AT&T wireless account, select a calling plan, and then driving down to their local Apple Store to pick up their newly reserved handset.

In an update to the site discovered this week, Apple now says customers can "order directly from the Apple Online Store and have your new iPhone shipped free to your door." Pricing remains the same at $199 for the 8GB model and $299 for the 16GB model.

The offer, which is available to new AT&T subscribers, is noteworthy given that Apple made a point of halting online sales of the handset when it transitioned to the iPhone 3G from the original iPhone. The move was designed to help stifle the grey market for iPhones, which thrived off people buying the phones in bulk in the U.S., unlocking them from AT&T's network, and then exporting them overseas.

With the iPhone now offered in approximately 80 countries, new models expected in the next few months, and billing information now required online, Apple appears to be tapping the popularity and connivence of its online store to help rid its warehouses of any overstock ahead of those new models.

Marketing chief Phil Schiller has made no secret that Apple plans to refresh its iPhone family of handsets each year, specifying June as the time when customers should put an ear out for news on the latest advancements.

Apple is currently beta testing iPhone Software 3.0, which is expected to ship on any new handsets the company announces this spring. It's promised the software for a "summer" release.

Steve Jobs seen returning post-WWDC brandishing new iPhones

Published: 05:00 PM EST

While all eyes are on Apple's annual developers conference as a likely forum for new iPhone hardware announcements, one Wall Street analyst is advising clients that better bets may be placed on an event a few weeks later that may also mark the return of Steve Jobs.

In a note to clients, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said he believes a press release from Apple on Wednesday regarding its WWDC keynote plans suggests the event will largely focus around software and may have even been drafted as such to reset expectations for the conference.

"As indicated in today's press release, we believe Apple will focus on the new version of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard at WWDC," he wrote. "While some investors may be expecting Apple to launch redesigned iPhones at WWDC, we do not anticipate the launch in early June."

Instead, Munster is placing his money on a surprise media event that would take place sometime in late June or early July following Jobs' return. He believes the event will be used to usher in a new "family" of iPhones, including a cheaper model that he sees playing into Apple's strategy for the Chinese cell phone market which could materialize by September.

"We continue to expect multiple models, possibly a high-end iPhone with improved specs from the current version and a low-end version with lower capacity and fewer features along with a reduced pricing plan," the analyst wrote.

With Phil Schiller announced as the keynote speaker for this year's WWDC, some investors may have renewed concern that Jobs may never return to the company, according to Munster, who maintains his belief that co-founder is on track to return later in the month, per comments from other members of the company's leadership.

"This is consistent with our expectations as well as Apple's indications that Steve Jobs is still planning on returning to the company 'at the end of June' (emphasis added)," he wrote. "In order for Jobs to deliver the keynote on June 8th, he would likely begin preparations well before his intended return date."

Munster's presumptions may carry some weight given that new iPhone hardware will require advancements present in iPhone Software 3.0, which is unlikely to be ready for public consumption as early as WWDC. Only last week did Apple issue a mandate requiring all developers to certify that new and updated app submissions are compatible with the upcoming software update.

Apple hires One Laptop Per Child security expert and noted critic

Published: 11:00 PM EST

Apple has hired Ivan Krstic, the developer of the security architecture for the One Laptop Per Child project's XO system and subsequently a vocal critic of the failed OLPC program. Krstic is a prodigy security guru with anti-malware credentials.

MIT's Technology Review cited Krsti as a Young Innovator in 2007 for his work in developing Bitfrost, the innovative new security model used by the XO, at the age of 21. He joined the OLPC project with the task of developing a security system that would be easy enough for children to use and wouldn't require an army of support personnel to manage.

One element of the Bitfrost system is that all applications are sequestered into their own virtual operating system, with rule-based limitations placed on what permissions they can access and change on the system, according to the Technology Review. This effectively prevents a virus from doing anything dangerous on the system, or as Krsti told the publication, "This defeats the entire purpose of writing a virus."

Thinking differently

After serving as the OLPC's Director of Security Architecture, Krsti was involved in an effort to adapt the system from the specialized Sugar/Linux environment running on the XO to the mainstream Linux desktop. For Bitfrost to be effective, all applications on the machine must be aware of it, making it incompatible with preexisting apps. This calls for some way to adapt existing programs to the new architecture.

There may be some common ground shared between Bitfrost and Apple's iPhone security model, which segregates third party apps into sandboxes that prevent them accessing a communal PC-style file system or accessing hardware features such as GPS without the user's approval.

Apple's propensity for examining new and better ways to deliver functionality rather than just expected features have confounded pundits who can't understand why the company didn't make the iPhone work like every other phone, with a user accessible, shared file system; a security-free copy and paste mechanism; unfettered application installation rather than mandatory code signing; and unrestricted background apps that require users to handle process management themselves. Krsti's original security development for the XO indicates a similar interest in discovering the new rather than pushing ahead old ideas out of convention.

In addition to the security model deployed for distributing iPhone software, Apple may soon reveal a similar effort to deliver secured software for Mac users; like the XO's Bitfrost and iPhone apps, this would require all software to be security savvy.

Apple has already pushed developers toward supporting application signing to enable Parental Controls, Managed Preferences, the Application Firewall included with Mac OS X Leopard, Keychain, Software Update, and other features that need to know that the applications they are working with are legitimate and not corrupted by malware. The next step may eventually include opening a software store for Mac users that enables secured software downloads at lower prices, just like the iPhone.

Krsti said in a blog posting that he "couldn�t be more thrilled" with his new position at Apple. His future with the company will likely be a stark contrast with his past in working with the politicized OLPC project.

Apple, Open, and OLPC

Nicholas Negroponte, who leads the OLPC effort, told his TED audience in 2006 that Steve Jobs had supported his early efforts building toward what would become OLPC with free Apple computer hardware back in the early 80s. However, when Jobs offered the OLPC project free use of Mac OS X software and engineering help, it rejected Apple's technology in favor of Linux, a decision supposedly based on the group's dedication to free and open source software.

Writing in defense of open software in the OLPC project, Copyrighteous blogger Mako Hill wrote that XO "laptop recipients will benefit from being able to fix, improve, and translate the software on their laptops into their own languages and contexts."

Negroponte's dedication to open source didn't last long however. As its fortunes began to wane, the OLPC rolled out plans with Microsoft to deliver new XO machines capable of dual booting Windows XP, shortly after Microsoft and Intel unveiled their own plan to compete against the XO with a low-end netbook offering called Classmate, designed entirely to ensure that third world children wouldn't be exposed to computers running anything other than an Intel CPU and a Microsoft operating system.

Microsoft didn't even offer XP to the OLPC for free; the company's software licensing demands, plus the extra hardware required to run Windows XP, added another 10% to the target price of the XO system.

Krsti's scathing expos� on OLPC

As the OLPC project became consumed by Free Software politics and proprietary assimilation by Microsoft at the same time, Krsti left the group. A year ago, he penned an inside look at Negroponte's OLPC and its strange tango with FOSS and Microsoft.

Krsti took issue with Hill's Free Software advocacy which claimed that "OLPC needs to be uncompromising about software freedom," calling it "bright-eyed idealism [...] appealing, but alas, just not backed by fact."

"No, we don't know that laptop recipients will benefit from fixing software on their laptops. Indeed, I bet they'd largely prefer the damn software works and doesn't need fixing," Krsti wrote.

I switched to Mac OS X

Krsti added, "One of the favorite arguments of the free software and open source community for the obvious superiority of such software over proprietary alternatives is the users' supposed ability to take control and modify inadequate software to suit their wishes. Expectedly, the argument has been often repeated in relation to OLPC. I can't possibly be the only one seeing that the emperor has no clothes."

"After 12 years of almost exclusive use of free software, I switched to Mac OS X," Krsti wrote.

After describing problems with "vendors not releasing documentation that would make it possible for Linux to play well with their hardware," he added, "Until the day comes when hardware vendors and free software developers find themselves holding hands and spontaneously bursting into one giant orgiastic Kumbaya, that's the world we live in. So in the meantime, I switched to OS X and find it to be an overwhelmingly more enjoyable computing experience."

"My theory is that technical people, especially when younger, get a particular thrill out of dicking around with their software," Krsti said. "Much like case modders, these folks see it as a badge of honor that they spent countless hours compiling and configuring their software to oblivion. Hey, I was there too. And the older I get, the more I want things to work out of the box. Ubuntu is getting better at delivering that experience for novice users. Serious power users seem to find that OS X is unrivaled at it."

The OLPC mess

"OLPC was supposed to be about learning, not free software," Krsti wrote. "And the most upsetting part of the Windows announcement is not that it exposed the actual agendas of a number of project participants which had nothing to do with learning, but that Nicholas' misdirection and sleight of hand were allowed to stand."

"The whole 'we're investing into Sugar, it'll just run on Windows' gambit is sheer nonsense. Nicholas knows quite well that Sugar won't magically become better simply by virtue of running on Windows rather than Linux. In reality, Nicholas wants to ship plain XP desktops. He's told me so. That he might possibly fund a Sugar effort to the side and pay lip service to the notion of its 'availability' as an option to purchasing countries is at best a tepid effort to avert a PR disaster."

"In fact, I quit when Nicholas told me � and not just me � that learning was never part of the mission. The mission was, in his mind, always getting as many laptops as possible out there; to say anything about learning would be presumptuous, and so he doesn't want OLPC to have a software team, a hardware team, or a deployment team going forward."

Krsti later added, "That OLPC was never serious about solving deployment, and that it seems to no longer be interested in even trying, is criminal. Left uncorrected, it will turn the project into a historical information technology ["failure" Krsti used another word] unparalleled in scale."

Shortly after resigning from OLPC, Krsti wrote Negroponte, saying, "I continue to think it�s a crying shame you�re not taking advantage of how OLPC is positioned. Now that it�s goaded the industry into working on low-cost laptops, OLPC could become a focus point for advocating constructionism, making educational content available, providing learning software, and keeping track of worldwide [one-to-one] deployments and the lessons arising from them. When a country chooses to do [a one-to-one computer program], OLPC could be the one-stop shop that actually works with them to make it happen, regardless of which laptop manufacturer is chosen, banking on the deployment plans it�s cultivated from experience and the readily available base of software and content it keeps. In other words, OLPC could be the IBM Global Services of one-to-one laptop programs. This, I maintain, is the right way to go forward."

What's next

With his newfound interest in using technologies that just work, Krsti might seem a natural for joining Apple, which is all about making technology accessible to individuals.

Krsti may likely contribute his expertise in developing security software. Over the last year, he reported having joined the advisory board for the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization, the technical working group of StopBadware, and the security response team of the Python project.

This week, Krsti posted on his blog, "After a great deal of deliberation, I moved to California and joined the local fruit vendor. Today was my first day on the job, and I couldn�t be more thrilled."

An alternative argument for new iPhones at WWDC

Published: 10:00 AM EST

A prominent blogger is firing back at a Wall Street analyst who predicted this week that Apple's upcoming developers conference won't see the introduction of new iPhones, offering a simple argument as to why the company may be compelled to introduce its new hardware at the start of the conference.

On Wednesday, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster wrote that, "While some investors may be expecting Apple to launch redesigned iPhones at WWDC, we do not anticipate the launch in early June. Rather, we expect Apple to host a special event in late June or early July to launch a family of iPhones."

Responding to the assessment, which he called "goofy," Apple follower and Daring Fireball author John Gruber said the arrival of new iPhones at WWDC is "probably the easiest and most obvious Apple prediction of the year." He noted that last year's iPhone 3G made its debut at the conference so there's no reason to suggest this year will see anything different.

In addition, Gruber pointed to recent reports that have identified a built-in video camera and magnetometer (digital compass) as two new hardware-related features expected to turn up this year's iPhones. "[T]hat means new APIs, and if Apple wants to have WWDC sessions for the new hardware-specific APIs, they have to announce the hardware first," he said.

Apple earlier this week expanded its list of WWDC sessions, though a cursory review reveals nothing conspicuous about the existing lineup of iPhone labs or instructional presentations. Still, there's no shortage of other reasons why Apple is more likely to stick to recent tradition and clue its followers into its 2009 handset plans in early June.

For instance, the company has on average announced availability dates for its iPhones three to four weeks ahead of time so that it can funnel the necessary launch information and procedures to its partners around the world without extensive safeguards, and so that its customers have time to plan out their purchase and associated wireless contracts.

Apple is also expected to see more intense competition in the emerging smartphone space this year with Palm's touchscreen Pre device rumored for an introduction a day or so before the start of WWDC. It would be uncharacteristic of the company to allow a fledgeling rival to generate headlines weeks on end without revealing its own hand and stealing any thunder Palm may muster up, some argue.

Then there's the all-too-true argument waged by several AppleInsider forum members Wednesday that its imperative that Apple, at some point or other, demonstrate it can successfully launch a major new product like the third-generation iPhone without the charisma and showmanship that only Jobs can bring to the table.

"My gut feeling is that we�ve seen the last Steve Jobs keynote address," said Gruber. "I don�t think he�s leaving the company � and his medical leave has been scheduled to run through the end of June � but I wonder if he�s done as the company�s spokesman."

Apple, AT&T sued over ties to Shazam music ID service

Published: 02:00 PM EST

Apple, AT&T and several others have been named in a new patent infringement lawsuit, presumably for their connection to Shazam, a maker of music identification software distributed under the same name for the iPhone and several other mobile devices.

The 8-page complaint, filed Tuesday by Tune Hunter, Inc. in the patent litigation-friendly Marshall Division of Texas, broadly alleges that nearly a dozen tech companies are contributing to infringement of is US patent No. 6,941,275 for a "Music identification system" granted in September of 2005.

When it originally lodged its patent application with the USPTO nine years ago, the little-known firm described its invention as relating "to a music identification/purchasing system, specifically to a method for marking the time and the name of the radio station in portable device such as a key holder, watch, cellular phone, beeper or the like which will allow the user to learn via internet or regular telephone the name of the song, artist and/or music company by matching the stored data with broadcast archive."

The concept is strikingly similar to technology delivered by Shazam's popular namesake application for the iPhone, BlackBerry and G1 handsets, which helps users identify songs playing in their surroundings by capturing a sample of the track, analyzing it, and then comparing it with a remote database based on its acoustic footprint. If a song is correctly identified, users are presented with links to iTunes and Amazon -- another named defendant -- which they can use to immediately purchase the song.

In its complaint, Tune Hunter doesn't specify its gripes with each individual defendant. Instead, it charges them broadly with contributing to the infringement or inducing the infringement of its patent "by making, using, selling and/or offering to sell, and/or causing others to use [...] music identification systems and/or devices that are covered by one or more claims" of its patent.

The company, which is seeking that each defendant pay damages, attorneys' fees, and be enjoined from further infringement, claims to have notified "at least one or more" of those defendants about its patent, but says those parties took no action and continued their "willful and deliberate" infringement.

Shazam
Shazam is available as a free music identification app for the iPhone.

Among the other defendants named in the suit are Samsung, Napster, Motorola, Gracenote, LG Electronics, Pantech Wireless, and Cellco Partnership (doing business as Verizon Wireless).

Apple may have made just $45 million from iPhone App Store

Published: 06:45 PM EST

Although many imagine the App Store a cash cow for Apple, a detailed examination has revealed that the iPhone maker may only have earned between $20 million and $45 million from the store for its first billion downloads -- a figure the company is likely more than happy to accept.

Lightspeed Venture Partners' Jeremy Liew made the calculation after learning that there's typically a ratio of 15 to 40 free apps for every one paid example and after discovering an O'Reilly estimate which determines that the mean price for an app is about $2.65.

At the time Apple crossed the billion app mark, this would have resulted in about 25 million to 50 million downloaded paid apps and produced raw revenue of between $70 million to $160 million. But because Apple only takes 30 percent of that revenue for itself, the company has only earned $20 million to $45 million itself. That could be cut in half again if the weighted average is actually at a lower figure such as $1.50, Liew says.

The calculation would have App Store purchases account for an extremely small fraction of Apple's iPhone revenue to date; if it were put up against Apple's early 2009 revenue alone, it would represent less than 3 percent.

App Store mean price

Still, the Cupertino-based firm is unlikely to be concerned with the exact amount of income attached to its mobile software store. Similar to its stance on the iTunes music and movie stores, Apple has maintained that the App Store isn't meant as a profit generator and is instead a means of attracting customers to the iPhone and iPod touch, where the majority of the profit exists. The reasoning is most evident in Apple's recent, app-centric marketing campaign as well as in the billion-app contest itself, which gave the prize to a downloader of Bump, a free data exchange app.

iPhone speculation heats up around mysterious Best Buy entries

Published: 10:00 AM EST

With Apple-related news grinding to a halt near week's end, some are scraping the bottom of the barrel and pointing to some unusual entries in Best Buy's inventory system as potential placeholders for Apple's next-gen iPhones.

Friday, May 15, 2009

An extensive look at Apple's new iWork.com service

Published: 06:00 PM EST

Apple's new iWork.com service lifts one of the biggest obstacles facing its iWork office productivity suite by making it easier for iWork users to collaborate with others using Windows PC and Microsoft Office. Here's a first look at how the service works and what it does.

What is iWork.com?

Apple's new service is already getting compared to Google Docs, but iWork.com isn't currently a similar offering. Google's online office programs are positioned as a web alternative to using desktop apps (specifically Microsoft Office), much the same way Gmail competes with Microsoft Outlook as an email solution. As a web application, Google's offerings are handicapped by the limitations of the web; given a great desktop email client, nobody would choose to use webmail instead. However, web apps can provide access to documents and messages from any system and any platform, even a public computer. It's often either impractical or impossible to set up standard email from a public terminal, but you can usually always check your email from an online web app such as Gmail.

Google's Docs hopes to make office productivity apps just as ubiquitous as webmail, and the company is working to make the browser a better environment for running sophisticated web apps. Web browsers are getting faster and the development tools to create web apps are improving to the point where online applications can serve as fair substitutes for native desktop apps. Google's WebKit-based Chrome browser and its V8 JavaScript engine are part of that strategy.

While Apple is also working along the same lines, with its own JavaScript acceleration efforts in SquirrelFish Extreme and in improvements to Safari and WebKit, it doesn't share Google's position as a web-centric company. Apple sells its own desktop OS and apps, so it views the web, as Microsoft does, as an auxiliary platform, not its primary one. That helps to explain why iWork.com isn't currently trying to replace Google Docs. Apple doesn't need people to subscribe to a web service, it can sell them iWork desktop apps.

For Apple, online services are a way to enhance its desktop apps rather than to replace them. MobileMe enhances Mac OS X's Mail, Contacts, and Address Book by making their data available online and to mobile devices, or at least the iPhone and iPod touch. The new iWork.com does the same thing for Keynote, Pages, and Numbers: it makes it super easy to sync documents up to the cloud for access from the iPhone, as well as making it trivial to present documents to Windows PC and Office users, with no translation required.

Additionally, users you collaborate with and add notes to your documents and even download them in their native iWork formats, as a PDF, or as Office documents. The main thing that iWork doesn't yet do is support document editing, which is sure to disappoint people who have the idea that iWork.com is direct competition to Google Docs. It's not an online document editor at all; its really just a document viewer system.

iWork.com

Learning from MobileMe

Of course, that's all set to change as the iWork.com apps grow in sophistication. There's nothing that prevents Apple from adding rich document editing features to the online service which can compete directly with Google Docs and other online office offerings. Like MobileMe, the iWork.com apps are built using SproutCore, a JavaScript framework designed to create full featured, sophisticated web apps rather than just spruced up web pages with some additional, animated AJAX functionality.

With MobileMe, Apple made two main mistakes. First, it tried to deliver too much. Portions didn't work as well as users had a right to expect, and other advertised features were missing entirely. The new iWork.com doesn't try to do everything, it simply aims at doing one thing well: presenting shared documents that are easy to access and notate. The other main flaw of the MobileMe rollout was that Apple tried to charge for it as a production-qualtity service. With iWork.com, Apple has taken a page from Google in calling the service "beta" and allowing users to hammer on it for free until they're satisfied the service is worth buying.

It's not yet known how much the service will cost. Apple previously described its online document viewer service with email notifications (as an alternative to sending email file attachments) as a planned feature of MobileMe. By spinning the technology off as a part of iWork, Apple can charge for it separately (if buyers materialize and the price is reasonable). More importantly, the service will validate the concept of online apps as a paid service independently of the still somewhat tainted MobileMe service, which was skewered by the media for being not ready for prime time at its release.

Google provides its online Docs service to consumers at no cost, but does try to find commercial business users who will pay for it. Online software in general doesn't have much of a solid business model, just as web sites have always struggled in their efforts to find a way to get paid for delivering their content. While MobileMe is regarded as a huge failure by many pundits, it remains one of the first and largest online consumer web services with a significant paying audience of a few million users.

If Apple can also make iWork.com function as an attractive, affordable service, it can add online software services as a yet another new arm of business for the company, alongside its recent ventures involving everything from smartphones to mobile software to retail store training services.

How iWork.com works

Using iWork.com requires downloading the new iWork 09 suite. A 30 day, time-limited free demo of the suite is already available for download, and can be installed and optionally purchased without affecting any existing versions of iWork already on the system.

To get started with the new online service, users login using their existing Apple Account (such as from iTunes or MobileMe), or set up a new one.

iWork.com

One can then upload a document from the toolbar, which automatically prompts the user to set up an invitation to others. The "To" field works just like Mail, completing invited members from Address Book. The From field allows the user to send the invite from any email account they have set up in Mail.

iWork.com

Click Share, and the iWork app puts up a notification of the upload progress. The file is stored on Apple's server (that "cloud" buzzword), a step that lets anyone, anywhere access the document from any fairly modern web browser. The document stays available for three months.

iWork.com

iWork.com

Invited recipients get a simple email that allows them to view the online documents by clicking on a link. Currently, there is no security in place for invited users; they are shown the document within the online viewer and logged into a session that allows them to leave comments tagged with their email address. That allows multiple users to be invited to view and comment on an online document without doing anything more than clicking the link, but it also means that any documents that get uploaded are fairly easy for anyone to access, as long as they have the URL (which appears in the email, below). Invited users can't access other documents uploaded to the same account however.

iWork.com

Unlike invited viewers, the user who uploads the document must login to the service to access it (below). That provides them with greater access, via the publish.iwork.com app.

iWork.com

iWork.com

Once logged in, the publisher can see, add and remove invited Viewers. Once removed, the invited user can't access the document anymore using their URL link. The publisher can also add or clear comments on the document, and download the document from the website in iWork, PDF, or Office formats.

iWork.com

iWork.com

Clicking on the Shared Documents link in the publish web app gives the publisher access to all uploaded files, which can be downloaded, viewed or deleted. Invited users don't have access to this link, so they can't delete documents or view other uploads they were not invited to see.

iWork.com

Instead, invited viewers get a slightly different interface via the view.iwork.com web app, which only allows them to view the document, add notes, and see other viewers. They can't send invites of their own, although they can share their URL and give access in their name to others. Anyone who leaves a comment after accessing the document following a given link will be identified as the user that URL was originally sent to, as the URL contains the invited user's email address. If they remove that identifying portion of the URL, they would be forced to login to view the document.

iWork.com

On the iPhone

Looking at the web app's source code reveals two things: first that the new app uses SproutCore to build its interface, but more interestingly that the service gives Mobile Safari users (on an iPhone or iPod touch) a customized version of access.

iWork.com

Again, the publishing user can access the document on their iPhone by logging in, although this mobile version doesn't currently present any comments or viewer invitation controls. It only allows users to view the document, or any other documents they have uploaded to their iWork.com account. Other mobile invited users will similarly only get view access, but again won't have to login with an account to see it (the URL effectively logs them in itself).

iWork.com

The new service shows a lot of potential. It's a great way to share access to office files without emailing around documents, and it makes it easy to access documents from the iPhone without needing to actually use up its RAM to store the documents locally (as email attachments, for example). Apple can enhance the service by providing online editing controls, with permissions to edit being optionally afforded to invited users, but currently the service is not an online office suite and only a document sharing service.

iWork.com

First impressions are stronger than MobileMe, but this time around Apple bit off much less, and therefore ended up with less to perfect. A followup look at iWork.com and the new iWork 09 suite will examine how well the apps and service work together, as well as how practical the service makes using iWork for those who need to share documents with the Office-using world around them.