Apple, Mac, iPod and iPhone News, Reviews, Help and Tips

Apple's future iPods rumored to get cameras like iPhone

2009-05-17T17:41:00.045-07:00

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.

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

2009-05-17T17:41:00.043-07:00

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

2009-05-17T17:41:00.041-07:00

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

2009-05-17T17:41:00.039-07:00

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

2009-05-17T17:41:00.037-07:00

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

2009-05-17T17:41:00.035-07:00

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.

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

2009-05-17T17:41:00.033-07:00

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.

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

2009-05-17T17:41:00.031-07:00

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.

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

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

2009-05-17T17:41:00.029-07:00

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

2009-05-17T17:41:00.027-07:00

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

2009-05-17T17:41:00.025-07:00

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"

2009-05-17T17:41:00.023-07:00

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

2009-05-17T17:41:00.021-07:00

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

2009-05-17T17:41:00.019-07:00

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

2009-05-17T17:41:00.017-07:00

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

2009-05-17T17:41:00.015-07:00

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.

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.

"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

2009-05-17T17:41:00.013-07:00

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

2009-05-17T17:41:00.011-07:00

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

2009-05-17T17:41:00.009-07:00

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

2009-05-17T17:41:00.007-07:00

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

2009-05-17T17:41:00.005-07:00

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 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

2009-05-17T17:41:00.003-07:00

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.

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

2009-05-17T17:41:00.001-07:00

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.

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

2009-05-15T09:48:00.009-07:00

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

iPhone's US web presence beats RIM and WiMo combined

2009-05-15T09:48:00.007-07:00

Published: 02:00 PM EST

The popularity of Apple's WiFi mobile platform as a handheld web browser device is rapidly accelerating worldwide and dominating web traffic in the US, according to a new report issued by mobile advertising firm AdMob. Apple's strong position promises to color how the mobile web develops.

iPhone casts a huge shadow

Based on its logs of worldwide web traffic to mobile devices, AdMob noted that international web requests from the iPhone increased by 86% month over month in December, giving the smartphone a 10.8% share of all mobile device requests.

Worldwide requests only jumped 9% overall in the month, but North American requests grew by 20%. Much of that increase was due to iPhone traffic in the US, where the phone generated a whopping 48% of smartphone requests, up from just 9% in May. That is all the more impressive considering that the iPhone is only available on AT's network, where the device appears to consume more than half of the mobile data bandwidth in use.

AdMob reported that behind Apple's leading share of the US smartphone market, RIM was in second place with 19% and Microsoft's Windows Mobile trailed with 15%. Palm OS captured a 9% traffic share in December, down dramatically from a 20% peak in June due to the Palm Centro. Google's Android platform recorded a 2% share for the month.

iPod touch busts a move

"iPod touch requests on AdMob's network exploded on December 25," according to the report, with web traffic from the device increasing by 3.4 times over the previous month. iPod touch traffic was at 18 million requests in July, but jumped to 292 million in December.

The iPod touch is the number two device in AdMob's figures, with a 4.7% traffic share worldwide. Added to the first place iPhone, Apple has a 15.5% share of the company's traffic figures.

AdMob's smartphone numbers

AdMob's figures are based on the company's network of 6,000 mobile web sites and 400 mobile applications which serve the firm's ads to mobile devices. Smartphones generated 33% of the company's overall reported traffic worldwide.

Of the worldwide smartphone market, Symbian OS continued to lead with 41% of the market, including more than a 90% share of Asia and Africa. However, the iPhone grabbed a second place share of 32%, with a strong showing in North America, Europe, and Latin America. Conversely, Symbian has very little showing in North America.

Next in line internationally are the RIM OS used by BlackBerry devices at 10% and Windows Mobile with a 9% share, both of which are largely limited to North America. Palm, Danger (Sidekick) and Android claimed 4%, 2% and 1% share of the OS pie, respectively. AdMob stated that smartphones running Linux had a negligible share.

Just within the US, Apple dominated the smartphone market with a 48% share, not including any traffic from the WiFi-only iPod touch.

Apple's influential mobile data traffic volumes

AdMob's numbers give Apple a representation on the mobile web and in web advertising that overshadows the company's actual unit sales, largely because iPhone and iPod touch users actually use their mobile devices for data more frequently.

However, that also means that advertisers are seeing more reason to craft ads to target iPhone users. That in turn is a crushing blow to Adobe Flash as an ad medium, as the iPhone does not render Flash content. As Apple's mobile device sales increase, the relative importance of Flash will not only continue to wane, but additional attention will be directed toward the development of open standards-based HTML and JavaScript content.

Google and Nokia's adoption of the WebKit browser engine used by Apple's Safari web browser will also help to accelerate the mobile web's adoption of standards-based web apps and sites, a development that is occurring faster on mobile devices dominated by the iPhone and iPod touch than on the PC desktop, where progress toward standards-based web development has been held up for a decade due to the dominance of Microsoft's less than compliant Internet Explorer.

Apple files patent for camera hidden behind display

2009-05-15T09:48:00.005-07:00

Published: 03:00 PM EST

Microvision's tiny video projector wows Macworld attendees

2009-05-15T09:48:00.003-07:00

Published: 06:00 PM EST

While Apple demonstrated some cool new technologies in its consumer software packages, one of the most impressive new technology introductions at Macworld Expo was hidden away in Moscone Center's North Hall: a tiny video projector the size of an iPhone.

The highly mobile new projector was developed by Microvision, based on a new video projection technology called PicoP. Unlike existing display technologies such as Texas Instrument's DLP, which uses micro-mirrors, a high powered lamp, and a relatively large color wheel, Microvision's new PicoP uses three primary color lasers and a single aiming mirror.

The result is a highly compact projection engine that the company hopes to eventually embed into a mobile phone. The functional prototype device the company was showing paired the tiny engine (lower right black unit in photo) inside an iPhone-sized package (left unit) housing a rechargeable battery and its supporting video circuitry.

The device projects a ten lumen video picture, which is rapidly drawn right to left in successive lines similar to the beam of a CRT, but without the tube. Even in bright show lighting, the tiny unit could cast a bright, clear, and vibrant video picture from a standard iPod Nano, using Apple's regular video output cables.

The device's ten lumen picture sounds very low compared to the commonly 1000 lumen images projected by bulb-based projectors, but that also means the device uses much less power and doesn't require expensive bulbs that require a cool down cycle. In the video (below), a scan line is visible due to the shutter speed of the camera; in person, the video appears flicker free.

Microvision's prototype can use either a composite video or RGB video input at standard definition WVGA video resolution (edit: 848x480; originally reported here as 640x480), optionally displayed in a 16:9 wide aspect ratio. The battery is rated for 2 hours, and the focus-free unit can project a picture up to about 100 inches diagonal.

The unit is expected to be available for purchase this summer in limited quantities in the $500 price range. Microvision isn't planning to compete against existing video projection technologies used in home theater, but rather intends to open up a new market for highly mobile video projection, selling both small devices like the prototype on display as well as inking deals with hardware manufacturers to install projection into their mobile devices.

Fitting the PicoP engine into a future iPod or iPhone model could dramatically change how consumers experience video, and greatly simplify business presentations by doing away with all the cables and devices. Microvision has more details on its website.

Microsoft intros Windows 7 beta, Songsmith app at CES

2009-05-15T09:48:00.001-07:00

Published: 07:00 PM EST

In Las Vegas to lead his first CES keynote yesterday, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer announced a free Windows 7 public beta, available for download tomorrow, and a new piece of song composition software akin to Apple's GarageBand.

"Windows has become the language that over a billion people speak at every country and culture around the world," Ballmer told an audience of thousands on hand for the year's largest consumer electronics show. "I believe Windows will remain at the center of people's technology solar system."

Included in the keynote were several�new feature announcements, outlined in a press release.��Home Group will let Windows users easily connect multiple home PCs together for printer, music, photo, and video sharing.��Device Stage presents a single, simplified interface for managing devices and running common tasks.��Peek quickly renders all open windows transparent, making icons on the desktop visible.

Windows 7, which is now�feature-complete, has "all the right ingredients - simplicity, reliability, and speed," Ballmer said. �According to Microsoft, special attention was paid to "performance, reliability, security, compatibility and battery life."

Windows 7 will also fully support multitouch, enabling "people with touch-screen monitors to use multiple fingers to interact with their PC screens in a more intuitive way."

A new "Play-to" feature will allow "easier streaming of music, video and photos to devices in a home network."��Windows Media Player now supports "more media formats", but no specific list was provided.

Ballmer did not give an official timetable or release date, although ZDNet says Microsoft is informing customers that�the public beta will expire August 1st in the software's EULA.

According to a�CNN report, the energetic and uptempo Ballmer referenced Apple indirectly, touting PCs as the best combination of "value and power" in the market.

"That's why we say, 'I'm a PC and proud of it!'" Ballmer "bellowed", wrote CNN.

As reported by PC World, Microsoft also announced a new music composition program called Songsmith that seems to be aimed directly at Apple's�Magic GarageBand.

According to its�website, "Songsmith generates musical accompaniment to match a singer's voice.� Just choose a musical style, sing into your PC's microphone, and Songsmith will create backing music for you." �A bizarre demonstration video depicts a stumped jingle writer and his daughter discovering Songsmith together, who then pass the program on to someone else who sings Songsmith a love song. �The video is complete with "follow the bouncing ball" lyrics on the bottom of the screen.

Mac industry gathers to discuss future of Macworld Expo

2009-05-15T09:47:00.029-07:00

Published: 07:00 PM EST

Macworld Expo organizers hosted a Town Hall meeting last night, featuring an open discussion with Macworld Conference & Expo vice president and general manager Paul Kent.

Rumors have spread that Macworld could go the way of Apple Expo Paris, which folded without Apple's participation. �Instead, Kent insists Macworld will go on.

"We come to Macworld to be inspired," said Kent.��"This show is going to evolve and you need to know that we are embracing this evolution."

Kent suggested future Macworld Expos could connect with film festivals, music��festivals, and digital photography.

"We want Apple to go build more great products, and then we'll be here to show you how to use them," he said.

Apple vice president Phil Schiller said in Tuesday's keynote that Apple reaches millions every month through its network of Apple Store retail outlets, far more than the reach of a week-long Macworld.��Kent countered by saying only 10 percent of the products being exhibited are actually available in the Cupertino-based company's stores.

Others suggestions during the Town Hall meeting included a return to Boston or New York for future events, or rotating between cities.

According to Kent, 60 companies have already registered for the 2010 Macworld Expo, including Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, and Other World Computing.

Free registration is already underway for�Macworld Expo 2010.

IDG World Expo invites ideas for the future of Macworld at�suggestionbox@macworld2010.com.

New storage options playing big role at Macworld

2009-05-15T09:47:00.027-07:00

Published: 10:00 PM EST

Checking out the latest in Mac-friendly gear is a big part of Macworld, and this year was no exception. Here's our roundup of new storage options, ranging from external to networked from names like HP, Iomega, LaCie, Verbatim, and more.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) has launched a new home server that can work with both Mac and Windows computers. �Based on the Microsoft Windows Home Server platform, the HP MediaSmart Server ex485/ex487 is a "central repository for automatically backing up and accessing digital music, videos, photos and documents from multiple computers on a home network." �It automatically organizes files from all PCs, streams media across a home network and the Internet, and publishes photos to social networking and photo sharing sites. �Also included is a feature that centralizes iTunes music libraries for playback to any networked Mac or PC running iTunes. �

Mac, PC, Server, and online (through Amazon S3) backup is also supported. �Smart power management settings schedule times for the server to "sleep" and "wake up". �Additional drives can be added for capacity up to 9TB in a unit with an Intel Celeron 2.0GHz 64-bit processor and 2GB of 800-MHz DDR2 DRAM standard. �With 750GB of space, the server costs $599. �For 1.5TB, it's $749. �You can

Eye-Fi adds WiFi, geotagging to any camera

2009-05-15T09:47:00.025-07:00

Published: 11:00 AM EST

Apple gave a lot of airtime this week to the new geotagging features in iPhoto 09, which allows users to organize and search photos based on the GPS data assigned to them. Eye-Fi's SD memory cards will enable any camera to tag photos with a location, making the cards a great camera upgrade for iLife 09 users.

While many modern smartphones can tag their photos with GPS coordinates (including the iPhone and iPod touch), mobile cameras often leave a lot to be desired in terms of quality. To take decent pictures, most users rely on dedicated point and shoot cameras.

Adding GPS features to a camera just for geotagging the photos it takes isn't very practical, but a Mountain View-based company has packed WiFi features into an SD memory card, enabling the chip to perform an iPod touch-style WiFi location lookup using wireless base station data from Skyhook Wireless.

In addition to geotagging photos taken by any camera using the cards, the Eye-Fi card can also wirelessly upload the photos to iPhoto, as well as directly to a wide variety of online services, including Flickr, Facebook, Picasa, Evernote, and MobileMe.

The 2GB cards start at $79.99 for a basic WiFi enabled "Home" card without geotagging, $99 for a "Share" version with online upload features, and $129.99 for an "Explore" card with both the geotagging features and WiFi syncing to online services. The Explore version includes a year subscription to Wayport WiFi network access, which usually costs $14.95.

Livescribe Pulse smart pen demos crowd aisles at Macworld

2009-05-15T09:47:00.023-07:00

Published: 11:40 AM EST

A new "paper-based computing" device from Livescribe packs a PDA into an old fashioned writing pen to deliver a programmable computer and voice recorder that remembers everything it writes, can translate text and formulas, and syncs everything it jots with your desktop PC.

The Pulse smartpen springs from an Oakland, Calif-based firm that includes a number of former Apple employees. Much of the smartpen's power comes from a tiny scanner installed on the conventional ball point writing end. The scanner picks up invisible dot patterns printed on special "Dot Paper" to keep a timeline of where the pen contacts the paper.

Livescribe sells notebooks of the special Dot Paper, and users can even print out their own Dot Paper using a 600 dpi or greater printer. The Dot Paper scanning technology is central to what the company calls paper-based computing, and allows the pen to connect to a USB cradle (pictured below) and upload all the handwritten notes and drawings the pen was used to draw.

At the same time, the pen can have its voice recorder activated, so it records audio while taking notes. That enables the user to then control playback by touching the pen to the paper; when the pen is touched down on notes that were taken during a recording, the scanner determines where the pen was when it wrote the notes and begins playing the recording from that point.

That allows notetakers to take a general outline rather than trying to write down every word. In addition to ambient recording, the smartpen can also perform intelligent tasks on words or numbers that the pen writes, as the scanning technology also performs handwritten recognition on what the pen writes. Select the calculator mode, and you can write out math problems that are answered on the unit's built in screen. It can also translate words you write into any available language, even speaking the foreign word out loud. In the demo below, the smartpen was used to calculate numbers and then translate words into Arabic.

The smartpen can load other applications, and Livescribe plans to open a software store for the device similar to Apple's App Store for the iPhone. The company already reports 2,600 registered developers working on smartpen apps. The 1GB version of the Pulse smartpen is priced at $149, and the 2GB model is $199. Each gigabyte supplies about 100 hours of audio recording capacity. The company also supplies desktop sync software for Windows and a newly released version for Mac OS X Leopard running on Intel Macs.

�Since our launch earlier this year, the number one consumer request was for the Pulse smartpen to be Mac compatible,� reported Jim Marggraff, the company's founder, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and the inventor of paper-based computing. �We designed the software from the ground-up using Mac OS X developer tools to ensure the application meets the high-standards that Mac consumers expect.�

Several new Mac, iPod, iPhone gadgets debut at Macworld

2009-05-15T09:47:00.021-07:00

Published: 12:00 PM EST

New gadgets seen at Macworld can help organize household items, record meetings and lectures, charge your iPod in an emergency, and more. This overview includes products from Griffin Technology, Shure, XtremeMac, and more.

IntelliScanner Mini Cubed is a smart scanner and software system that uses barcode technology to automatically organize household items like movies, books and wine. �Packaged in a metallic cube for easy storage, users can create personalized asset tags and take advantage of new software features that can instantly identify books, wine, comics, DVDs, groceries and more. �

A built-in rechargeable battery lets users scan items wherever they may be in the home. �IntelliScanner suggests the Mini as a great way to track assets for insurance purposes, calculate wine maturity periods, and create grocery lists. �

An iPhone web app gives you access to your collection anywhere, with help from a free web service to publish collections online. �It's shipping worldwide now for $179 with media software only (books, CDs, DVDs and games). �For $249, the complete software bundle (for media, wine, comics, groceries and other assets) is available. �Order online directly from�IntelliScanner.

Shure�has unveiled what it calls the newest, most affordable, and most colorful member of their family of Sound Isolating Earphones, the SE115. �It comes in four colors - blue, pink, black, and red - and cost $99. �Shure promises superior sound quality, characterized by "detailed, warm sound with enhanced bass". �The phones isolate background noise and are designed for comfort and flexibility.

XtremeMac's Micromemo digital voice recorder attaches to the fourth generation iPod nano and features a flexible, detachable and omni-directional mic. �The black-colored unit ($49.95) is designed to hold the nano upright during recording. �More products for iPod, iPhone 3G, and MacBook will arrive throughout the year, and the Micromemo is slated to begin shipping this March.

Ecamm Network is announcing what it calls the world's first webcam with Bluetooth. �The BT-1 integrates advanced technologies to allow video and sound to be sent through the air to almost any Mac, streaming H.264 video and AAC audio and taking advantage of Mac OS X's "rich media capabilities to provide a truly seamless experience." �Since the iSight is fixed in place and no longer sold separately, the BT-1 allows maximum versatility. �Shipping worldwide beginning in March, the camera will be priced at $149.99. �More information from Ecamm available here.

Griffin Technology just keeps on churning out accessories. �A line of charging accessories can connect to either a wall outlet or your car's cigarette lighter to charge an iPod or iPhone. �A removable battery pack can be detached and used to power your device in case the battery dies. �The�PowerBlock Reserve�($40) is the home AC charger, while the�PowerJolt Reserve�(also $40) is made for the road. �Finally, the�SmartShare USB�is a flexible Y-shaped splitter that replaces bulky USB hubs. �Aimed at the MacBook Air's form factor, it costs $20 and is shipping now. �You'll have to wait until April to buy one (or both) of those chargers, though.

Palm surprises with Pre smartphone running new webOS

2009-05-15T09:47:00.019-07:00

Published: 12:00 PM EST

Palm, Inc. used this year's Consumer Electronics Show to unveil its iPhone challenger, the Palm Pre, which will run a brand-new operating system called Palm webOS.

With Palm's sales lagging against competition from the Apple iPhone and RIM's BlackBerry, the announcement comes at a critical time for the company.� Reaction so far has been positive, with�PC Magazine calling the Pre and its slide-out keyboard "CES 2009's Hottest Product",�USA Today�taking note of "lots of good buzz", and�Gizmodo�calling it "simply amazing", to name a few.

"Palm products have always been about simplifying lives and delivering great user experiences," said Palm president and chief executive Ed Colligan.� "webOS and Pre bring game-changing simplicity to an increasingly mobile world by dissolving the barriers that surround your information.� It's technology that seems like it's thinking ahead to bring you what you care about most - your people, your time, and your information - in the easiest and most seamless way."

The Pre will be available only from Sprint in the "first half of 2009", according to a press release.� It will be the first device to run the new mobile operating system.

webOS

According to Palm, webOS is a completely new mobile platform with web technologies CSS, XHTML, and JavaScript under the hood.� As a result, it offers a "rich open development environment that's familiar to tens of millions of web developers."

The operating system introduces Palm Synergy, which will collect information from several places into one view.� It will have linked contacts, with a smart recognition system that can pull from Outlook, Google, and Facebook accounts, recognizing the same contact across all three to present a single listing instead of three copies of each person.� Updating a contact on a webOS device will also update it across your various accounts.

Palm Synergy supports layered calendars and combined messaging.� Calendars can be layered in a single view, combining work, family, friends, sports teams, or other interests.� You can toggle individual calendars if you like.� Combined messaging will take advantage of linked contacts to consolidate all conversations with the same person into a chat-like view, even if it started in IM and you want to reply with a text message.

In a subtle jab at the iPhone, Palm's webOS can run multiple apps at the same time, each one "seamlessly connected to the web and always active."� According to Palm, you can instantly flip from one app to another like you would sift through playing cards on a table.

Palm claims an "instinctive" user interface on a multi-touch surface that will make it easy to "flip through a deck of cards and rearrange items simply by dragging them; when you are done with something, just throw it away."� The webOS platform has universal search that will narrow down what you're looking for as you type and deliver results from your device and the web.

Notifications and updates are delivered in an unobtrusive way "that's a radical departure from other mobile platforms".� Text messages and emails are announced with a scrolling bar at the bottom of the screen that will let you read it right away or later.

Pre

Palm claims the Pre to be the "most integrated and user-friendly phone for mobile users."� A large touchscreen is supplemented with a physical keyboard that slides out from the bottom only when needed for email and text messaging, and Palm says the phone has been designed to feel natural in hand and small in pocket.� Unlike the iPhone, it has an additional gesture area beneath the screen for navigation so you don't have to touch the screen or obstruct the content being displayed.

"As our lives revolve more and more around the web, devices like Palm Pre that transform how we interact with the web will lead the way," said Sprint chief executive Dan Hesse.� "We are focused on bringing our customers a superior experience that includes easy-to-use devices, simple pricing and value with Simply Everything all-inclusive offerings, plus Ready Now, our exclusive retail program that helps customers leave the store feeling comfortable and confident they know how to use their new device."

It will have support for Sprint TV (live and on-demand programming), Sprint Navigation (GPS-enabled audio and visual turn-by-turn directions with one-click traffic rerouting and more than 10 million local listings), and Sprint Radio, with more than 150 channels. �

Palm is anticipating a full set of accessories for the phone, including what it calls the first inductive charging solution.� If the Pre is set down on top of the Palm Touchstone charging dock, you don't need to connect it.� It will charge and remain active for access to the touch screen, watching movies or video, and using the speakerphone.

Several former Apple employees are playing major roles in the evolution of Palm. �Jon Rubinstein, who opened the announcement, is Palm's�executive chairman of the board. �Rubinstein was once a key engineer in the creation of the iPod and development of the iMac. �He also worked at NeXT. �Rubinstein's departure brought others over from Apple in his department, and some common ties exist between the two companies in Palm's PR department. �Palm Director of Software Chris McKillop worked on the iPod and iPhone teams as well.

Features

* High-speed connectivity (EVDO Rev. A or UMTS HSDPA)

* Wi-Fi 802.11b/g

* Integrated GPS

* 3.1-inch touch screen with 24-bit color 320x480 resolution HVGA display

* Gesture area beneath the screen, which enables simple gestures for navigation

* Slide-out QWERTY keyboard

* Email, including Outlook EAS (for access to corporate Microsoft Exchange servers), as well as personal email support (POP3, IMAP)

* Messaging support (IM, SMS, MMS)

* Desktop-class web browser

* 3-megapixel camera with LED flash and extended depth of field

* Standard 3.5mm headset jack

* Support for pictures, video playback, music

* Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR with A2DP stereo Bluetooth support

* 8GB of internal user storage

* USB mass storage mode

* MicroUSB connector with USB 2.0 Hi-Speed

* Proximity sensor, disables touch screen and display when near ear

* Light sensor, dims the display according to ambient light

* Accelerometer, orients web pages and photos to your perspective

* Ringer switch, silences device with one touch

* Removable, rechargeable battery

* Weight: 4.76 ounces (135 grams)

* Dimensions: 2.35 inches (w) x 3.96 inches (l, closed) x 0.67 inches (d) [59.57mm (w) x 100.53mm (l, closed) x 16.95mm (d)]

Availability and Pricing

It comes to the United States first from Sprint in the first half of 2009 with a world-ready UTMS version for other regions to follow.� Pricing has not been determined, although we do have some indication that Palm won't look to aggressively undercut the iPhone's pricing. �

All Things Digital's Peter Kafka�asked chief executive Ed Colligan if the Pre would be priced below $200:

"He looked at me like I'd peed on his rug.� 'Why would we do that when we have a significantly better product,' he asked, then walked away."

Analyst Reaction

Wall Street investment firm Needham's Charlie Wolf saw the webOS as a return to Palm's "software roots" and also praised the Pre, writing, "Give credit where credit is due.� With its new operating system and smartphone, Palm lives to fight another day."

Wolf sees Palm targeting the mobile phone customer who hasn't yet bought a smartphone but wants one.

"Palm is not going after RIM in email or the iPhone in multimedia," he wrote.

Predicting 1.25 million sales in FY2010, Wolf wrote, "The biggest initial negative is that the Palm Pre will only run on the fast fading Sprint network in the U.S."

He allowed the 1.25 million estimate could be "dramatically" low if other carriers end up selling the phone.

More information about webOS and the Pre is available from Palm.

Dell kind of, sort of unveils the Adamo ultra-thin notebook

2009-05-15T09:47:00.017-07:00

Published: 03:00 PM EST

After weeks of speculation surrounding Dell's rumored MacBook Air competitor, the PC maker finally gave a sneak peek to journalists of its new Adamo portable at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

But much to�the dismay of those attending, it was hard to get a clear look at the machine. A model carried the notebook around in front of the room in only one hand but in low light, then she was whisked away from the stage.

According to�Engadget, all they could get out of Dell execs was that "Alienware is [Dell's] top performance brand, Adamo is our top design brand."

Dell consumer sales and marketing vice president Michael Tatelman said the Adamo will represent Dell's "luxury franchise", and to expect a release in the first half of this year. �Tatelman declined to reveal any information about price, saying development is on schedule and this was only a "sneak peek".

Source: Apple plans to attend CES in 2010

2009-05-15T09:47:00.015-07:00

Published: 06:50 PM EST

On the heels of announcing its plans to bail on Macworld Expo next year, Apple will be instead attending the more generic Consumer Electronics Show in 2010, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The blogosphere has been passionately arguing both for and against an Apple appearance at CES, which is held in Las Vegas rather than Macworld Expo's San Francisco. Sources close to the company have indicated to AppleInsider that the move is a done deal, a remarkable turn of events given that CES has long been dominated by Microsoft's product announcements issued in keynotes delivered by Bill Gates and now by CEO Steve Ballmer.

Macworld vs CES

Over the last few years, Apple's announcements at Macworld Expo have overshadowed Microsoft's at CES, as the Cupertino powerhouse released blockbuster products such as the iPhone and climbed to dominate the digital media future of online music, video, and now mobile software sales in iTunes.

In contrast, Microsoft has announced a string of products that either never materialized, were grossly impractical, or have sold poorly and received bad reviews, from Spot watches to Mira terminals to Windows Vista to Windows Home Server to the Surface to Zune. The remainder of CES tends to be little more than electronics firms showing off slightly larger TVs.

Given that Apple has the capacity to blow out the lights at CES during Macworld Expo, why would it choose to abandon its own party and join one held in honor of Microsoft? It's certainly not the timing of the event, as CES is typically held at the same time or at least within a week or two of Macworld.

One of the key reasons Apple appeared ready to leave Macworld was because of the pressure to impress consumers and shareholders with sensational new product announcements just after it had sold through its blockbuster holiday sales. Microsoft has typically made announcements at CES for products that are slated to appear later in the year or perhaps years out into the future, while Apple's Macworld unveilings tend to be available immediately or within a month or two.

All things considered, it would appear that Apple's participation at CES would be no better than Macworld for Apple, and additionally involve greater traveling expenses and expose the company to greater competition for media attention.

Apple ready for a challenge

However, that challenge is apparently just what Apple is looking for as it branches out from its past as a computer hardware company into a full consumer electronics firm with significant software products, leadership in digital media sales, and even a toe in the water of mobile gaming with the iPod touch and iPhone.

Attendance at CES would directly contrast Apple's offerings with Microsoft's, the company most closely matched to Apple's future aspirations. Over the last three years of Macworld and CES, Apple's Mac OS X Tiger and then Leopard were pitted against Windows Vista; then the iPhone directly challenged Windows Mobile; Apple's iPod and iTunes empire roundly trounced efforts by Microsoft to spread Windows Media DRM, sell its Zune music player, and expand into the digital living room; and Apple has even started making inroads against Microsoft Office with its iWork suite and its new iWork.com cloud collaboration service.

Windows enthusiast pundits have recently grown unable to seriously belittle Apple in comparison to Microsoft, but a direct contrast of the two company's efforts at CES would make the differences even more impossible to ignore. Apple could also directly contrast its offerings against other competing CES exhibitors (such as Palm), as well as benefit from Mac, iPod, and iPhone ecosystem partners who would help tint the PC-centric event in Apple-savvy colors.

Not just speculation

New PowerVR chip may give Apple's future iPhone HD, OpenCL

2009-05-15T09:47:00.013-07:00

Published: 10:30 PM EST

Hidden among the many announcements at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is a new PowerVR mobile graphics chip that could power advanced 3D, HD video and even general computing on an eventual generation of iPhones.

Imagination Technologies has quietly slipped out word this week of a new mobile chip known as the PowerVR SGX543.

The silicon is the company's fifth generation of graphics accelerators for cellphones and other handhelds and contains a much more efficient instruction set with particular optimizations for rendering graphics shaders, or the visual effects that apply to pixels onscreen and geometry in 3D views. Imagination reckons that its new technology is about 40 percent faster for "shader-heavy" software and can push as many as 50 percent more triangles when handling 3D.

In practice, the technology is powerful enough to push 35 million polygons per second and 1 billion pixels per second and can thus easily drive HD resolution video output, including when 3D is involved.

Moreover, the new SGX chip is very efficient and very scalable, according to the company. That same performance is achievable at a clock speed of just 200MHz, making it relatively power-efficient, but can be improved further still with new multi-core support that would let a device maker join two or more cores together to ramp up the speed in the devices with the physical space and battery power to use the hardware.

But the most important aspect of the PowerVR chip may be the universal nature of its processor. The GPU is capable of handling Apple's now open and virtually finished OpenCL standard for speeding up general computing and letting it move to non-CPU technology such as graphics chips, even on mobile devices.

Imagination has lately been hiring OpenCL engineers to ensure its hardware supports the compute standard.

As of the present, it's unknown whether or not the OpenCL move is being made with Apple's iPhone and iPod touch in mind; the existing iPhone has used an older PowerVR MBX core for its graphics in two generations and isn't currently known to be making the leap to SGX. However, Apple is now a major PowerVR licensee and has boosted the number of shares it holds in Britain-based Imagination, all but committing iPhones to using future PowerVR advancements.

SGX543's inventor pledges to provide more information about the product at the Multicore Expo in March.

Apple shareholders to vote on four proposals

2009-05-15T09:47:00.011-07:00

Published: 03:00 PM EST

Apple investors are being asked to vote on a series of proposals related to political contributions, health care, sustainability, and compensation prior to the annual shareholder's meeting, which will be held at the Apple campus on February 25, 2009.

Apple's board of directors is recommending that its investors vote against all of the proposals filed by various shareholders. The only action they do recommend is a confirmation vote approving all of the current directors.

The company's eight member board includes Bill Campbell (CEO of software maker Intuit), Millard "Mickey" Drexler (CEO of retailer J. Crew), Al Gore Jr. (chair of Alliance for Climate Protection, Generation Investment Management, and Current TV), Steve Jobs (Apple's CEO), Andrea Jung (CEO of Avon), Arthur Levinson (CEO of Genentech), Eric Schmidt (CEO of Google), and Jerome York (CEO of Harwinton Capital).

As has occurred in previous years, several shareholder proposals have been drafted by groups seeking to advance their own causes (or simply draw attention to their issues) by purchasing enough shares in Apple to register a proposal they hope other investors will approve. Shareholder proposals that are not recommended by the board of directors rarely pass because Apple's large institutional investors typically vote according to the recommendations of the board, particularly when the company is doing well under the board's management.

The first proposal was advanced by the Teamsters union, which holds 2,569 shares of the company. It asks Apple to report all of the company's direct and indirect political contributions and expenditures, twice annually. Apple's directors say the proposal is "unnecessary and unproductive" and would reveal information on its private negotiations with trade associations to its competitors.

The second shareholder proposal was advanced by the AFL-CIO union, which holds 500 shares of Apple. It asks the board to adopt heath care reform principles outlined by the Institute of Medicine. Apple's directors say the measure will not benefit the company, its employees, or its shareholders, and that health care reform is a matter for the new US President and Congress to address.

A third proposal has been made by individual with less than 100 shares in Apple, but is cosponsored by the New York City Office of the Comptroller (with over two million shares) and Green Century Equity Fund (with another nearly 8,000 shares). It asks the company to deliver a report on sustainability including all corporate strategies related to climate change, the environmental impacts of toxics and recycling programs, and all employee and product safety issues. Apple's directors say the company already reports much of this information on social and environmental issues on its website, and that additional reporting obligations are unnecessary.

The last shareholder proposal is from the AFSCME Employees Pension Plan, a public health union which holds over 21,000 shares in Apple. It request the company issue a shareholders' advisory vote on executive compensation. Apple's directors say that setting executive compensation is the job of the board itself, and that limitations imposed by shareholder voting could have an adverse impact on the company's ability to recruit and retain top talent.

In previous years, Apple's shareholder meeting has drawn theatrical performances from impassioned attendees and staged protests from groups hoping to get extra airtime by attaching their causes to Apple's status as a media darling. The tech press has also frequently written up the event with additional exaggerations that turn the shareholder's meeting into what sounds like a clown court presided over by a tyrannical, fire breathing CEO.

The meeting also gives investors an opportunity to directly pose questions to some of Apple's directors and executives, a panel that has historically been led by Steve Jobs. By the end of February, doctors expect the CEO to be on the way to recovery from a nutrition issue Jobs has battled over the last year.

CES tempting Apple-related electronics makers from Macworld

2009-05-15T09:47:00.009-07:00

Published: 10:55 PM EST

No matter Apple's plans to attend CES on its own, those accessory builders who once only attended Macworld are being offered a chance to exhibit in a special section of the larger Las Vegas show.

Jason Oxman from the Consumer Electronics Association, which manages CES, told CNET this weekend that the organization has set aside a portion of the show floor for "Apple-related" electronics.

The official doesn't name any of the firms or clarify whether any of these are dropping one trade show for another. However, he explains that the decision to launch a unique section is the result of talks regarding "2010 show participation" and that many of the companies involved have been receptive.

"We are pleased with the feedback we've received regarding this [Apple-friendly] space," Oxman says.

The news follows a troublesome Macworld Expo for its host IDG, which saw Adobe, Belkin and others pull their booths from the show late into the run-up for the San Francisco gathering. In a number of these cases the reasons for withdrawing are known to be strategic decisions unrelated to the expenses of running the booths or to the poor economy.

It also potentially signals a broader shift away from an Apple-specific presentation by both third parties and Apple itself. The Mac maker is believed by sources of AppleInsider to be attending CES itself and so would create an incentive for related companies to attend the event themselves.

Oxman declines to comment on whether or not Apple will exhibit at CES, but does observe that Apple is already a CEA member and has a "longstanding relationship" with the technology promotion group.

Apple for its part has never hinted at making such a shift and publicly claims that its withdrawal from Macworld Expo is a lessened need for trade shows.

Apple inks 5-year, $500 million display deal with LG

2009-05-15T09:47:00.007-07:00

Published: 09:00 AM EST

Apple has entered into a strategic, long-term agreement with LG Display Co. for the supply of flat panel displays through the year 2013, according to regulatory filings made Monday with Securities and Exchange Commission.

The deal will see Apple prepay $500 million to the South Korea-based electronics manufacturer sometime this month in exchange for a guaranteed supply of LCD screens for Macs and/or handheld products over the next 5 years.

LG, which sits behind Samsung as the world's second-largest maker of flat panel displays, already supplies Apple with 70 percent of its LCD panels, HI Investment & Securities analyst Park Sang-hyun told Reuters. He expects prices for the parts, which have been falling rapidly during the recent global slowdown, to pick up in the near future.

The strategic agreement between Apple and LG is reminiscent of a similar deal forged between the iPhone maker and five memory suppliers back in 2005, which has afforded the Cupertino-based firm a competitive edge in the digital media player and cell phone markets.

Under the terms of that deal, Apple prepaid a total of $1.25 billion to Hynix, Intel, Micron, Samsung Electronics and Toshiba in order to secure an ample supply of NAND flash memory through 2010.

By padding its memory suppliers with funds up front, it's believed that Apple was also able to obtain more favorable pricing on the components, which has helped it apply margin pressure to rival media player and cell phone makers who've struggled to offer similar storage capacities in their competitively-priced offerings.

Google targets Chrome for mid-year showdown with Safari

2009-05-15T09:47:00.005-07:00

Published: 10:05 AM EST

Mac users will get their first taste of a Google-developed alternative to incumbent browsers such as Safari and Firefox when the search giant releases Chrome for Mac sometime during the "first half" of this year.

A recent report from�CNET News.com�includes a conversation with Chrome product manager Brian Radowski, who provided an update on the development of Chrome for Mac and Linux, which will soon join the already-operational Windows version.

"[The first half of 2009] is what we're hoping for," he said.� "Those two efforts proceeding in parallel.� They're at the same level of progress."

More specifically, the report notes that the Mac version has reached the "test shell" stage, able to display websites but not much else.

"[It can] render most Web pages pretty well," Rakowski said.� "But in terms of the user experience, it's very basic.� We have not spent any time building out features.� We're still iterating on making it stable and getting the architecture right."

Also coming soon to Chrome, which is based on Apple's WebKit open source rendering engine, is a framework to handle downloadable plug-in extensions, a feature long available in Mozilla's Firefox.

Readers interested in keeping tabs on the development of Chrome for Mac can head over to the project's detailed status page, or compile and run the latest version of the TestShell project, which lacks a traditional Mac interface.

Users can subscribe to three different Chrome channels: stable, beta, and developer preview.� Google expects to update the stable channel once per quarter.

For more on�Chrome, please see earlier coverage of the Google browser initiative.

Ballmer changes tune on iPhone, says no Zune phone

2009-05-15T09:47:00.003-07:00

Published: 12:00 PM EST

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer, who once laughed off the iPhone, has now conceded to Apple's edge in the market while hinting at a very different future for his company's Zune players.

Ballmer told the Financial Times (registration required) that the iPhone and BlackBerry have "clear market momentum" in the smartphone business.

Shortly after the iPhone was announced at Macworld 2007, Ballmer lambasted the Apple handset as the "most expensive phone in the world" while noting that Microsoft sells "millions and millions and millions of phones a year" while "Apple sells zero."

"I'd prefer to have our software in 60 percent or 70 percent or 80 percent of [mobile phones], than I would to have 2 percent or 3 percent, which is what Apple might get," he said. And just this past September, the Microsoft headman predicted that the iPhone's tight integration with all things Apple would cause it to "lose out" in the long run.

As for the Zune, Ballmer said this week that consumers "should not anticipate" a Zune phone. Instead of persisting as a Microsoft-built hardware product, the device's core could eventually be integrated into other Windows-powered mobile devices, he explained.

Ballmer reacts the to unveiling of iPhone in 2007.

Ballmer also said he believes the market for portable media players is in decline and will be replaced with general purpose devices like the iPhone and iPod touch.

Apple seeks HSUPA engineers; Intel preps budget ultraportable CPU

2009-05-15T09:47:00.001-07:00

Published: 07:20 PM EST

Apple is searching for lab engineers familiar with a more advanced version of 3G than in current iPhones. Also, Intel is reportedly crafting a processor that would straddle the line between netbooks and costly ultraportables, and Orange France is reporting gangbuster iPhone sales over the holidays.

Apple looking for HSUPA-aware engineers

With less than a year of iPhone 3G being on the market, Apple is hiring staff it hopes will have experience with more advanced standards.

The company is looking for performance engineers for both analysis and pure

Next-gen iMac to include new cooling module?

2008-12-30T20:34:00.019-08:00

Published: 09:00 AM EST

A new family of iMacs due early next year may include a more sophisticated cooling system, hints the latest reports from sources close to the company's Taiwanese manufacturing facilities.

Backtracking on its report from last week, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News now claims that it's Foxconn, not Quanta, who has secured a contract with the Mac maker to manufacturer its new all-in-one desktops.

Contract-free iPhones on sale in France for $1100

2008-12-30T20:34:00.017-08:00

Published: 01:00 PM EST

Following a recent ruling by local regulators, French consumers can now purchase an iPhone 3G without signing a service contract with Apple-sanctioned wireless carrier Orange, assuming they're willing to digest a considerable markup.

MacNN notes that French retailer FNAC is now selling a contract-free version of the black 8GB iPhone for �799 ($1,123), while black or white 16GB models are fetching �899 ($1,263).

That's more than five times the �149 in-contract cost for the 8GB model announced by Orange back in July, and considerably more than similar contract-free offerings in Belgium priced at �529 and �619.

The iPhones on sale at FNAC are believed to be the result of a ruling earlier this month by the French competition counsel, which ordered Apple to immediately cease its exclusive relationship with France Telecom's Orange and allow other local carriers to offer the iPhone to their subscribers.

The counsel's ruling came following a September complaint from France's third largest mobile operator, Bouygues Telecom, which alleged the deal between Apple and its larger rival violated local freedom of competition and pricing laws.

France Telecom has appealed the decision, which is said to be a temporary measure instated by the counsel while it continues to investigate the merits of Bouygues' claims.

Apple, Google, Microsoft sued over icon previews

2008-12-30T20:34:00.015-08:00

Published: 03:00 PM EST

Apple, along with fellow tech heavyweights Google and Microsoft, are accused in a new lawsuit of patent infringement for their use of icons that include a graphical representation of a file's contents.

The 4-page complaint filed this month by Arizon-based Cygnus Systems, Inc charges all three companies with infringing on its March 2008 US patent No. 7,346,850, titled "System and Method for Iconic Software Environment Management."

"The [patent] generally relates to methods of and systems for accessing one or more computer files via a graphical icon, wherein the graphical icon includes an image of a selected portion or portions of the one or more computer files," the suit says.

In particular, Cygnus takes issue with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard's use of icon previews in traditional Finder windows, as well as more detailed views presented by QuickLook icons that are accessible when viewing Finder windows in Cover Flow mode.

"Apple has further infringed one or more claims of [the patent] at least by making, using, selling, and offering for sale its iPhone and iPhone�s accompanying iconic file preview and access functionality, including but not limit to the iconic file preview and access functionality of iPhone�s main menu and Safari Internet browser applications," the complaint adds.

Similarly, Microsoft is charged for its use of iconic file previews in Vista and Internet Explorer, while Google is accused of treading on the patented concept via iconic file previews present in its relatively new Chrome web browser.

Cygnus, which bills itself as a provider of "unique computing, networking and application needs of small to midsized businesses" in the state of Michigan, is seeking a damages in addition to an injunction prohibiting the three companies from further infringement.

Quicken Financial Life for Mac due this summer

2008-12-30T20:34:00.013-08:00

Published: 05:00 PM EST

Financial software maker Intuit disclosed this week plans to release a long anticipated update to its Quicken application for Mac users sometime during the summer of 2009.

The software, which was first previewed at last January's Macworld Expo, is being re-written from the ground up as a Universal application that better utilizes modern-day Mac OS X technologies like CoreData and Cover Flow.

It's also adopting a more streamlined interface akin to an early version of iTunes, with a sidebar positioned to the left and a workspace to the right that will display registers, statements, and other reports in Cover Flow mode.

As such, Intuit plans celebrate its rise from Apple's era of Carbon-based applications by completely rebranding Quicken for Mac as "Quicken Financial Life for Mac" when the software hits the market next summer.

Although the software was initially scheduled for release this past fall, the company revealed on Monday that it will miss that target by at least 9 months. Word of the new release date came as the software maker urged users to join an expanded Quicken Financial Life for Mac beta program.

"Due to overwhelming interest in the beta, at this time we cannot accommodate your request to participate," Intuit said in an email to one AppleInsider reader whose application was rejected from the beta program. "We expect to release Quicken Financial Life for Mac in summer 2009."�

Several other readers reported being accepted into the program, however, and were immediately provided a link to download a 123MB image file containing the second beta of Quicken Financial Life for Mac. (Readers interested in joining the program can apply through this link. Edit: Intuit has asked that we remove the link.)

The distribution includes a read me file [PDF] highlighting some of the design changes from legacy versions of Quicken, namely a move towards organizing data through tags rather than categories and classes.

Intuit is expected to preview the latest beta of Quicken Financial Life for Mac at its newly-expanded booth at next week's Macworld Expo. Meanwhile, readers interested in additional details can check out AppleInsider's report from last Macworld.

Second case maker points to 'iPhone nano'

2008-12-30T20:34:00.011-08:00

Published: 09:00 PM EST

With just days to go before the annual Macworld trade show, a second case maker has added references to an iPhone nano to its website.

Well-known case designer Vaja has joined XSKN with an update to its web catalog implying that it plans to deliver protective garments for an Apple-developed iPhone nano in the near future.

The single reference to the product links customers to a web form where they can "sign up for the upcoming release" of its "iPhone nano cases."

As MacRumors points out, it's unlikely that case makers are privy to advanced information on future Apple products, and hence Vaja may simply be attempting to jump in on the recent hype surrounding the matter.

That said, case makers with contacts at Apple's off-shore manufacturing facilities may be able to obtain specifications for the company's future handheld products through unconventional means.

XSKN is one example of a case maker that was recognized earlier this year (1, 2) when it began selling protective holders for both the iPhone 3G and fourth-generation iPod nano before the specifications for those products were made public by Apple.

Piper sees dull Macworld, new form factor iPhone by spring

2008-12-30T20:34:00.009-08:00

Published: 09:15 AM EST

With Apple chief executive Steve Jobs skipping out on this year's Macworld Expo, investment bank Piper Jaffray isn't holding high hopes for new product announcements outside a pair of refreshed Macs, but said in a report Tuesday that a redesigned iPhone should surface in the months that follow.

"Predicting product announcements for this year's Macworld has been difficult with new iPods and Macs released in the fall and the relatively new iPhone 3G," analyst Gene Munster told his clients. "With [Apple marketing chief] Phil Schiller delivering the keynote, we believe it suggests there will not be any revolutionary products at this year's event."

Still, the analyst believes a couple of existing products could see a refresh at the annual conference, namely the iMac and Mac mini. Meanwhile, his hopes for a new iPhone -- at one time seen as having an outside chance of appearing at the show -- have been dashed with word that Jobs would not be delivering his traditional keynote presentation.

"While we believe it is unlikely that a new iPhone will be released at Macworld, we continue to expect a new model by the end of the March quarter," Munster wrote. "Specifically, we believe Apple could introduce a lower-end model that is slightly thicker due to the inclusion of a slider keyboard for students (texting) and business use (email) between $99 and $149."

Another alternative for a new iPhone could see Apple alter the value proposition of the $199 model by using a different material than plastic for the casing, or giving it a slightly thinner form factor, he added.

Munster, who maintains a Buy rating and $235 price target on shares of Apple, said his 45 million iPhone unit sales estimate for 2009 is largely predicated on his belief that the company will expand its iPhone lineup to include a lower-end model early in the year.

Apple's first D.C. store facing repeated opposition

2008-12-30T20:34:00.007-08:00

Published: 11:20 AM EST

The wait for Apple's first retail store in the nation's capital will reportedly drag on, as local preservationists have been unable to see eye-to-eye with the Mac maker on a design for the new shop.

The Cupertino-based company acquired a building in the historic Georgetown district more than a year ago with the intention of demolishing the structure and replacing it with a flashy high-profile Apple store.

Although it's since been cleared to raze the building at 1229 Wisconsin Ave., Apple has been unable to pass its design proposals for the new store through a review process governed by a pair of local preservationist bodies, according to the Georgetown Current [PDF].

The paper reported last week that the Georgetown advisory neighborhood commission rejected the third consecutive proposal from the electronics company at a December 2nd meeting, and that the Old Georgetown Board did the same at its own meeting two days later.

Concern that Apple's design may be too radical for the surrounding neighborhood appears to be the primary issue. Its most recent proposal calls for a glass first story "with a solid-stone upper facade punctuated by a large window shaped like Apple�s logo."

"The board felt that the design turned the building into a billboard," said Tom Luebke, a spokesman for the Old Georgetown Board tasked with approving new building designs for the historic district.

Apple's first design proposal in September of 2007 included an a glass lower story and a second floor that featured punched windows. When that design was rejected, it returned this summer with an all-glass proposal, which was similarly shot down.

"That first time, like every time after, it was a question of scale,� said Luebke, who noted that the board was not keen on the sprawling glass facades. "The board wanted something less autonomous, something that supports the historic district."

Apple must now return to the drawing board and come up with yet another proposal should it wish to proceed with plans for the Wisconsin Ave. shop.

In its struggle to pass a proposal for the Georgetown store, it was recently reported that Apple has failed to pay the $70,162.17 in taxes it owes since purchasing the property. The more than year-long delay has led the city's government to issue two penalties that have now boosted the company's taxes owed to $84,545.42.

Outside chance of new consumer device at Macworld - analyst

2008-12-30T20:34:00.005-08:00

Published: 12:00 PM EST

While acknowledging that expectations for next week's Macworld Expo are running relatively low, one Wall Street analyst believes there's an outside chance Apple will surprise show-goers with a new consumer oriented device.

Speaking to clients in a research note, Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu said his latest round of supply chain checks lead him to believe Apple's announcements at the conference will center around new Macs and "potentially a sneak preview of Mac OS X 10.6 Leopard."

However, the analyst also cited "sources" as he echoed a pair of speculative reports (1, 2) from Apple bloggers this week, indicating the remote possibility that the Cupertino-based company may introduce a new "consumer device" that may be "an updated version of AppleTV and/or Time Capsule with enhanced capabilities including the ability to access personal content from anywhere on the Internet."

"Frankly, we would be a little surprised if there is a major announcement as we believe it would make better sense for Steve Jobs to do so himself at an Apple event," he said. "However, there is always the likelihood that Apple may surprise and send a message that Apple is a much broader and deeper company than one person, even if he/she is a living legend."

Wu continues to believe that Apple is also hard at work on new, lower-cost iPhones and other larger form factor touchscreen devices, but doesn't expect those products to see daylight until sometime in the future.

"Our sense is that investor expectations [for Macworld] are fairly modest since it was announced that CEO Steve Jobs wouldn't be the keynote speaker," he added. "Nonetheless, we view new Macs as a positive catalyst as Apple's desktop business (iMac, Mac mini, Mac Pro) needs a refresh to re-ignite sales."

Meanwhile, the Kaufman Bros. analyst said his sources indicate that the recently refreshed MacBooks and MacBook Pros continue to experience robust demand. That said, he still called upon Apple to loosen its grip on premium pricing and introduce lower price points on some of its products given the macroeconomic environment.

"We continue to believe Apple is one of the better names to own in this tough macroeconomic environment, given its strong fundamentals," he said.

Wu maintains a Buy rating and $120 price target on shares of Apple.

Gadget blog juices fears over Steve Jobs' health

2008-12-30T20:34:00.003-08:00

Published: 03:00 PM EST

Gadget blog Gizmodo is causing a stir this afternoon with a new report alleging that Apple has mislead the public about the reasons behind its exit from Macworld Expo, claiming Steve Jobs' deteriorating health is to blame for the matter.

The online publication cites a source which has reportedly been "100% correct" when providing information and photographs of unreleased Apple products in the past. This source is now said to have passed on information charging Apple with misrepresenting the reasons behind its pullout from future Macworlds and the cancelation of Jobs' keynote address at next week's show.

"The real cause is his rapidly declining health," the report claims. "In fact, it may be even worse than we ever imagined." An unedited citation from the publication's source reads as follows:

Steves health is rapidly declining. Apple is choosing to remove the hype factor strategically vs letting the hype destroy apple when the inevitable news comes later this spring.

This strategic loss will be less of a bang with investors. This is why MacWorld is a no-go anymore. No more Steve means no more hype. Saying they are no longer needing [MacWorld] is the cover designed by the worldwide "loyalty" department.

Apple declined to comment on the report, which Gizmodo is billing as a rumor that it hopes "is absolutely wrong." Nevertheless, the gadget publication places much of the blame for the reoccurring rumors on the company itself, citing its decision to hold back critical information about the welfare of its chief executive in the past.

A cancer surviver, Jobs underwent successful surgery in 2004 to remove a malignant tumor from his pancreas. Apple, however, remained secretive about the matter until the operation was complete and Jobs sent this email to employees from his hospital bed.

In the years that followed, little concern was expressed over the health of the company luminary given Apple's claims that he had recovered fully from his bout with the deadly disease. Fears were only rekindled with some emphasis early this year when Jobs took the stage at the company's annual developers conference looking uncomfortably frail.

Since then, its been revealed that he underwent a second surgery earlier this year to address a nutrition problem that was contributing to his weight loss. Investor jitters over the matter continued to weigh on Apple shares, however, prompting Jobs to contact the New York Times on his own accord and assure a reporter that the most recent issues were not life threatening and that he did not have a recurrence of cancer.

The subject of who should be privy to information on Jobs' health remains a much debated and dicey subject. While some industry watchers believe the company co-founder's health is a private matter and no one else's business but his own, some Apple investors don't necessarily agree. They say Jobs' sheer value, estimated to be worth more to Apple than any other chief executive in the world, should afford them the right to be informed about material changes to his health.

More corroboration of tablet device brewing at Apple

2008-12-30T20:34:00.001-08:00

Published: 09:00 PM EST

Apple is indeed working on tablet-like device that may finally surface sometime next year according to a trio of sources who've been in touch with high-tech blog TechCrunch.

The news should come as little surprise to avid followers of the Cupertino-based company. Back in September of 2007, AppleInsider exclusively reported on plans for the larger multi-touch device in its report titled "Up next for Apple: the return of the Newton."

Although it's been more than a year since that initial report with no sign of the product from Apple, AppleInsider has maintained confidence that the company is still actively developing the device and intends to bring it to market only when it meets the stringent demands of chief executive Steve Jobs.

In its own report Tuesday, TechCrunch cited three independent sources close to Apple who say to "expect a large screen iPod touch device to be released in the Fall of �09, with a 7 or 9 inch screen."

"Prototypes have been seen and handled by one of our sources, and Apple is talking to OEMs in Asia now about mass production," the publication said. It added that there were some early concerns amongst Apple managers over the potential market for such a device but that those fears have been quelled by the blistering success of the App Store:

"The difference now is the iTunes app store, which has thousands of games and other applications that are perfect for a touch screen device with an accelerometer."

AppleInsider will provide a brief update on the status of Newton tablet following next week's Macworld Expo.

Analyst says Steve Jobs' spirit has been institutionalized

2008-12-28T20:04:00.005-08:00

Published: 12:00 PM EST

Investment bank Kaufman Bros. on Tuesday downplayed renewed concerns over the health of Apple chief executive Steve Jobs, arguing that although the co-founder has been critical to the company's resurgence, his spirit and drive have since been instilled in thousands of other Apple employees.

After recovering to $100 per share earlier this month, Apple's stock again came under downward pressure last week when the company announced that next month's Macworld Expo would be its last and that Jobs would not delivering his traditional keynote presentation.

Apple attributed the decision to end its near 25-year commitment to the annual Mac conference to a move away from trade shows in general, saying the increasing popularity of its retail stores and website enable the company to "directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in innovative new ways."

Some industry watchers poked fun at the decision, mocking the company in a parody press release titled "Apple Announces Last Year of Christmas," joking that while the Cupertino-based firm has been honored to work with the North Pole for the last several years, it has decided "that this is the last year for Christmas."

"Apple has been steadily scaling back on holidays in recent years, including Valentine's Day, Columbus Day, President's Day and Grandparents Day in Japan," the mock release said.

Others didn't take the announcement so lightly, like those within the Apple community who feel an exit from Macworld serves as a slap in the face to an industry that has supported the Mac maker for more than two decades, arguing that the decision could ultimately prove detrimental to the Apple ecosystem going forward.

The biggest concerns came from Apple investors, however, some of which couldn't help but wonder if the move had anything to do with the health of Jobs, which has been a topic of public scrutiny ever since the cancer surviver appeared overly gaunt at this year's Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. They also question why the company waited until just three weeks before the conference to make its plans known.

In a note to clients, Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu offered his own thoughts and perspective on the situation, arguing against the notion that Apple is one man show but rather a vast family of enthusiastic professionals who share Jobs' leadership skills and penchant for innovation.

"While CEO Steve Jobs deserves a lot of credit for the revival and success of Apple and, as one of the founding fathers of technology, helping revolutionize the world with the Apple I, Apple II, Lisa, Macintosh, NeXT, Pixar, Mac OS X, the Apple Store, iTunes, iPod, and iPhone, we believe Apple today has a deep bench and its culture of innovation and execution or 'spirit' has more or less been institutionalized," he wrote.

Wu said that, in his view, Apple has an uncanny ability to attract and hire "fanatics" who are "entrepreneurial, work hard, and are looking to change the world." He believes that unlike years past, the Apple of today is not only innovative but a company with world-class operations and execution, driven by many people other than Jobs, from its senior management team down to its 32,000 individual employees.

"We believe Apple has always been an innovative company and we would like to note that most overlook that the company actually had some hit products while Mr. Jobs was not there that defined the computer industry, including the Macintosh Quadra, QuickTime, PowerMac and PowerBook, and Apple IIgs," the analyst added.

Wu maintained his Buy rating and $120 price target on shares of Apple, saying the most recent pull back in shares makes the risk-to-reward more favorable for long term investors.

iPhone app sales growing at twice the rate of iTunes music

2008-12-28T20:04:00.003-08:00

Published: 06:15 PM EST

The notion that Apple's iTunes revenues hinge on music may soon be called into question, as Apple's recent metrics reveal that the App Store may be quickly outpacing its musical counterpart with growth twice as quick.

Apple's boast that users have downloaded over 100 million apps for the iPhone and iPod touch in two months is more than just a good start among software -- it's a good start for a new iTunes feature in general, according to a new report.

If the iPhone maker sustains the download rate of 70 million apps per month achieved in August and the estimated $70 million in revenue that would accompany it from paid apps, the company would reach the one billion app mark and a corresponding $1 billion in sales sometime during 2009. By contrast, the iTunes Store's music section took over two years to reach one billion songs, cresting at the symbolic figure by early 2006.

This also assumes that Apple doesn't increase its download rate over time, which is seen as likely: the company's emphasis on the App Store as a vehicle for iPhone and iPod sales, rather than a profit engine of its own, may encourage more customers and developers to use the store. Sales of iPhone 3G also have yet to see the holiday shopping surge or deployments to other major countries, such as Russia.

For comparison, iTunes' music sales rate has also increased rapidly over time. After the first billion songs, it took just one year to double that figure.

Competitors may also face a struggle uphill to attract their own audiences, the report mentions. As neither Google's Android Market nor Microsoft's upcoming Skymarket for Windows Mobile will have the luxury of using self-made device sales to offset any costs, either of the phone operating system designers will have to dip into other resources. Those that do operate both the hardware and stores, such as Nokia and its Music Store, may also have to accept Apple's business model even if they would like their services to be independently profitable.

And while Nokia and a handful of other rivals either already run stores or expect to open them soon, Apple may create an advantage simply through being early. Google's store for Android apps isn't anticipated until the November launch of the first Android phone with T-Mobile, while Microsoft's Skymarket isn't due until the launch of Windows Mobile 7 sometime in 2009.

iPhone 2.1 jailbroken with end run around iTunes 8 defenses

2008-12-28T20:04:00.001-08:00

Published: 04:40 PM EST

The well-known iPhone Dev Team has already managed to jailbreak the 2.1 firmware for iPhones and iPod touch, all the while without requiring tricks to circumvent new anti-hacking provisions in iTunes 8.

New versions of PwnageTool and its accompanying QuickPwn app have arrived just days after the launch of Apple's 2.1 upgrade.

The combination will allow unsigned third-party code to run on iPhone and iPhone 3G as well as the first-generation iPod touch; the second-generation iPod touch isn't yet known to work, in part because none of the Dev Team has an example to verify the status of the jailbreak.

The solution comes in spite of new, significant measures reportedly discovered in iTunes 8 to thwart more direct attempts at loading modified firmware on to untouched devices. Just before the new jailbreak, the Dev Team said it had discovered apparent security measures in Apple's software that pops up an error as long as the rogue firmware is loaded into iTunes, refusing to sync with iPhones or iPods if the device is still running official code.

Members of the modding group initially thought they might need to patch iTunes 8 to allow the altered firmware and had even developed an early version of the patch before it became clear that one wasn't necessary.

While no one has yet claimed to successfully unlock an iPhone 3G purely through software, the current hack suggests Apple has yet to find a definitive trick to winning the "cat and mouse" game between itself and those groups bent on loosening the phone's limitations, many of which now have a long-established history of overturning any new controls Apple might put in place.

"We�re waiting to see what Apple tries next," the iPhone Dev Team says. "But we think they might want to rethink their priorities. �They probably won�t though."

Kevin Hoffman: 'iPhone Development from the .NET Perspective'

2008-08-20T19:16:00.011-07:00

Published: 09:00 AM EST At WWDC, noted author and cross platform development expert Kevin Hoffman presented a comparison of Apple's iPhone development tools with those available for Microsoft's
Windows Mobile. Until now, his comments remained unpublished, but an attendee's notes on the subject provide some interesting insider observations.

.NET Addict Hoffman has written a series of books on Microsoft's .NET development frameworks and maintains The .NET Addict's
Blog. He is relatively new to developing in Cocoa, but his understanding of both platforms gives him the unique ability to compare the two side by side. At last year's WWDC, Hoffman presented
a comparison of .NET vs. Cocoa. The session was so popular that he was invited back this
year to talk about the mobile versions of both: Microsoft's .NET Compact Framework and Apple's Cocoa Touch, used in the iPhone and iPod touch. Hoffman's presentation shed some light on the
productivity and market potential programmers can expect when targeting iPhone development, and subsequently the code quality and quantity users can expect from mobile developers. .NET CF vs
iPhone SDK For Windows Mobile development, Microsoft provides Visual Studio 2008 .NET CE 3.5 for development frameworks and SQLServer 2005 for database storage. Apple provides the UIKit for
building graphical applications and includes SQLite on the iPhone. Database Storage Hoffman noted that Microsoft's SQLServer "requires less hands on coding than SQLite," and that there's "more
going on behind the scenes." On the iPhone, SQLite uses SQL query syntax and leaves "object relational mapping up to you. There's no CoreData" on the iPhone as there is in the Mac desktop
environment. Development Frameworks On the other hand, Hoffman points out that while Cocoa Touch presents a consistent view-based controls hierarchy, the Compact Framework "steers you down the
wrong path." Its "double click and code" design results in spaghetti that's hard to reuse, because form and form code are merged together. Last year, Hoffman described the same principle with
regard to their desktop equivalents: Microsoft's Visual Studio does not encourage MVC (Model-view-controller). It's too easy to
stick code in views, for example, making development ï¿½spaghetti-friendly.ï¿½ In contrast, Apple's Xcode ï¿½bakes inï¿½ MVC principles. There is no real choice in doing things in sloppy ways, and
ï¿½that's a good thing.ï¿½ Graphics & Animation Compact Framework includes DirectX Mobile, a 2D programmable graphics engine that is not easily available to controls. The iPhone uses Quartz 2D,
which is available to controls. CF's Direct3D is extremely low level and not hardware accelerated. Developers must write their own game loop. There is "no compromise between static forms and
DirectX." In contrast, the iPhone uses OpenGL ES. As with Core Animation, everything is a view on OpenGL, and graphics are hardware accelerated on the iPhone. Different goals for WinCE and the
iPhone The differences between the two reflect different design goals at Apple and Microsoft, Hoffman pointed out. Compact Framework supports tall, wide, and small displays. Windows Mobile
devices typically use a stylus and hard buttons versus the iPhone's touch screen. CF controls don't even have a double-click handler, while the iPhone doesn't have or need menus. Layers of
abstraction Talking about hardware abstraction, Hoffman said, "people assume that low level is bad," but described that you "can be close to the metal and write little code." The iPhone presents
a choice of layers to develop at, based on developers' needs, while with Microsoft's Compact Framework, there's "often no choice in layer available." "If lower layers are bad, adding more layers
on top won't help," Hoffman said. "Compact Framework is built on Windows Mobile, and shares too much in common with Win32." He described the design as a "palace on a trash heap." Application
deployment Even once a project is finished, Hoffman pointed out that another big difference between the iPhone and Windows Mobile relates to how developers get their apps in the hands of users.
With Windows Mobile, you build an MSI (Microsoft Installer file) and distribute it to the customer yourself. They register the MSI with desktop ActiveSync, plug in the device and sync over the
app. In most cases, they also need to perform an SQL 2005 install, along with an Compact Framework 3.5 install, as that software may not be up to date on the device. Afterward, there are
additional steps on device itself required to install it. The scaled-down computer environment of Windows Mobile devices means users can easily delete components of your apps, breaking them, and
requiring extra support to figure out how to reinstall the missing components. On the iPhone, developers simply build their app and send it to Apple. The iPhone has "one source for deployment and
shopping," so users are far more likely to find your app. Apple handles the financials, presents users with automatic access to the App Store, provides piracy protection using FairPlay DRM, and
manages your marketing. "Best mobile development platform ever" Hoffman summed things up by contrasting Windows Mobile using a "crushed down version of Win32" with an "inconstant user
experience," while the "iPhone is the single best mobile development platform ever." He also noted that "writing Mac applications has made my Windows apps better."

Briefly: shots of Nike+ touch app not the real deal

2008-08-20T19:16:00.009-07:00

Published: 11:00 AM EST

A series of images making the rounds on the Internet this week as 'leaked' screenshots of an upcoming Nike+ application for the iPhone and iPod touch are not authentic, AppleInsider has learned.

The application depicted in the shots, which shows off touch-based interface for managing runs and workouts tied to Nike's $30 Nike+iPod Sport Kit, is neither the work of Apple nor the athletic shoe maker, several people familiar with Nike+ initiative say.

Retail sources say its closing time for current iPod line

2008-08-20T19:16:00.007-07:00

Published: 04:00 PM EST

Resellers both near and afar are reporting signs that Apple's current line of iPod digital music players are on their way out the door, just as one prominent Wall Street analyst restates his claim that a $199 iPod touch is likely to be among the new models that will fill the void.

Stateside, people familiar with the inventory management systems of mass merchandizer Target say all current iPod models have recently seen their status shift from "Active" to "Discontinued" when scanned with handheld PDA scanners used by employees.

Those handhelds, however, aren't capable of displaying set dates for new planogram refreshes, as that information is said to be available only through the retailer's web-based intranet systems.

Separately, big-box retailer Argos in the UK is preparing to clear out its remaining iPod inventory in anticipation of new models in the coming weeks. A person familiar with the plans says the company recently took receipt of new point-of-sale displays promoting "price cuts" that should hit the retail floor during the last week of August or first week of September.

The displays include a "giant wall graphic" which is the "biggest poster" displayed by the retailer, that person said.

These initial signs of inventory ramp down come amid calls from some of the more prominent Wall Street analysts regarding the steps that will be necessary for Apple to maintain its current momentum in the digital media player business.

In a note to clients last week, Lehman Brothers analyst Ben Reitzes noted that availability of the 16GB iPod touch at speciality electronics retailer Best Buy has trailed all other members of the iPod family for several weeks.

"We continue to believe Apple will need to reposition the iPod touch line in conjunction with its anticipated new product announcement in early to mid-September now that the iPhone acquisition price is lower," he said.

On Tuesday, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster issued his own note to clients where he voiced a similar view to that of Reitzes, adding that he expects iPod refreshes across the board with a sub-$200 iPod touch to boot.

"Specifically, we believe Apple will increase the capacity of the iPod shuffles as well as the iPod nanos (but maintain current price points); redesigned form factors for the shuffles and nanos are unlikely," the analyst wrote. "We believe the iPod touch may be redesigned and may enter the $199 price point, in line with the iPhone."

Apple: iPhone 2.0.2 update targets 3G issues

2008-08-20T19:16:00.005-07:00

Published: 05:05 PM EST

Apple confirmed that the iPhone 2.0.2 update does indeed include changes to address issues related to 3G reception. USAToday cited company spokesperson Jennifer Bowcock as saying, "The software update improves communication with 3G networks."

The newspaper referenced reports of complaints from iPhone users and cited speculation about possible hardware issues with Infineon chips used in the iPhone, a possibility Infineon itself earlier discounted as unlikely, noting that other phone makers use the same components without any issues.

The report also cited Jupitermedia's vice president for mobile strategy Michael Gartenberg, who said the reports of iPhone 3G problems may be overblown. "We've seen these isolated reports about people having connectivity issues with 3G and Edge, and frankly I have those issues on a variety of phones. Cellphone coverage is tricky."

The 2.0.2 update apparently addresses complex issues that control how quickly the iPhone 3G will drop a weak 3G signal in order to use a stronger EDGE signal when it is available. In the US, much of AT&T's cellular network is built out using cell towers optimized to deliver "2.75 G" GSM/EDGE service. Sources familiar with the matter say 3G networks require closer tower spacing to provide the same level of coverage with the more modern 3G UMTS.

There is nothing Apple can do in software to fill in spotty coverage in AT&T's 3G network, but software updates can adjust how the phone hardware works to allow it find and maintain a link with a less than optimal 3G signal. Independent tests have suggested that at least some versions of the iPhone 3G are too quick to drop a marginal 3G signal that other UMTS phones can use without problems.

A CNet report on iPhone 3G issues cited Andrew Seybold, an independent industry analyst, as saying, "My belief is that because AT&T's network is not built out to every cell site, people are getting frustrated because they're finding places where the 3G signal isn't available or is weak."

The dizzying array of complexity exposed in the iPhone's Field Test mode (below), entered by dialing *3001#12345#* and exited by hitting the home key, illustrates that signal reception is not a simple matter.

Change you can retrieve 3G in

For some users, adjustments in how the iPhone 3G's low level radios are configured may provide a usable improvement in 3G reception, while for users in other areas with more signal problems, it may result in futile attempts to cling to a terrible 3G signal that reduces the overall call quality and may be more likely to result in a dropped call.

In Japan and parts of Europe, EDGE network upgrades were skipped entirely and providers simply jumped from 2G to full 3G networks. This may impact how much improvement iPhone 3G users see there, as the challenges of finding a strong 3G signal and the firmware's decisions on when to drop down to a 2G signal will simply be different. In the US, AT&T users' experiences with the update may also fluctuate due to the quality and coverage of the 3G network in their area.

Steve Jobs separately emailed one user with a tersely worded intent to fix unrelated problems in the iPhone's higher level software that concern instability and crashing in third party apps, writing, "This is a known iPhone bug that is being fixed in the next software update in September."

Class action suit claims Apple deceived over iPhone 3G speeds

2008-08-20T19:16:00.003-07:00

Published: 06:50 PM EST

A lawsuit filed on Tuesday by an Alabama woman alleges that Apple has touted doubled Internet speeds with iPhone 3G when a rash of connection problems have made those speeds seemingly impossible to reach.

In the 10-page complaint, Jessica Smith of Birmingham asserts that Apple's marketing campaign is a breach of express warranty as it promises Internet access "twice as fast" as with the original where the practical experience has fallen well short of the mark.

Always referring to the device as the "Defective iPhone 3G," Smith and her legal team assert that e-mail, text, and most other downloads were considerably slower than what Apple promised. This in no small part stemmed from the reliability of the connection: the device would connect to 3G less than a quarter of the time to 3G even in areas AT however, Apple has confirmed that its recent iPhone 2.0.2 update addresses some of the problems.

Inside MobileMe: Web 3 and Web client-server apps

2008-08-20T19:16:00.001-07:00

Published: 09:00 AM EST

MobileMe isn't just for iPhone users. It also expands upon the simple web apps delivered as part of .Mac using a cohesive Mac OS X inspired interface that behaves more like a desktop app than a web page, providing easy access to data from anywhere you have Internet access. Here's a look at how web apps have developed, how Apple's new online apps work, and the future potential of MobileMe's tightly integrated mobile, web, and desktop apps.

Inside MobileMe series segments

Inside MobileMe: Secrets of the Cloud and Mobile Push (Friday)
Inside MobileMe: Mac and PC cloud sync and mobile push (Saturday)
Inside MobileMe: Apple's Push vs Exchange, BlackBerry, Google (Monday)
Inside MobileMe: iPhone Mail (Tuesday)
Inside MobileMe: iPhone's Exchange alternative for contacts and calendar�(Wednesday)
Inside MobileMe: Web 3 and Web Client-Server Apps (Today)

Before Web Apps: The Document Driven Web

In the era before web apps, the web was a relatively simple system of hyperlinked documents written in HTML. Click a link on a page and your browser would load a new page based on the referenced URL address. The web was brilliantly simple.

However, that simplicity resulted in a number of problems if you wanted to do more than just look at a series of hyper-connected documents. In order to exchange sophisticated transactions with a simple 'fill in the blanks on a form page and submit it,' you'd end up having to reload virtual pages repeatedly.

This is particularly problematic for something like web mail, where the user waits for updates while interactively sending new messages. Just over a decade ago, the concept of web email was entirely new. Unlike an actual desktop email application, handling email over the web meant loading a new web page, entering your email content, and reloading the page every time you wanted to see updates.

Web 2.0: the arrival of Ajax

In the mid 90s, Microsoft helped to pioneer technologies to improve upon the tedious loading of a series of web pages to do transactional web applications. The company was particularly interested in enhancing web-based email, as it was working to develop both its new mail server (Exchange) and its web browser (Internet Explorer) as critical elements of its overall Internet strategy.

The company first developed IFrames for allowing one page to be embedded in another (like picture-in-picture on TV), so the IFrame region could be independently refreshed and redrawn without reloading the entire page.

It later developed XMLHttpRequest, a method for using a web browser scripting language (often JavaScript) to package up XML data to send to the remote web server. The server then responds with new data which the script can use to interactively update part of the page, rather than reloading and redrawing an entire new page from the server. Because the user does not have to wait for the server to respond before continuing to use the web page, this type of interactivity is referred to as Asynchronous JavaScript with XML, or AJAX.

Microsoft introduced this concept to support richer functionality in Outlook Web Access, a web app it first bundled with Exchange Server 2000. It delivered Ajax functionally via an ActiveX control in IE 5; since then, the mechanism has been copied by Mozilla, Safari, Opera, and most other web browsers, making it a de facto standard for adding richer desktop-like behavior to web apps.

Web 3: HTML5 and Web Client-Server

While Ajax's frequent server updates provide richer interactivity than static web pages, they are rarely capable of being used offline and have other limitations that marginalize them in the minds of many users, who commonly view web email as being a distant runner-up to using a desktop email client. To work around these limitations, Microsoft's own OWA makes heavy use of proprietary extensions to Internet Explorer; few of these have been cloned in Firefox or Safari, nor can they really be because they are not documented standards. That leaves many OWA features tied exclusively to the IE browser; in other browsers it presents a simpler interface.

To foster real interoperability among the next generation of rich web applications, Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Opera have been working on a new HTML5 standard that codifies how features should work so that all browsers can operate the same, and so web developers can make use of more sophisticated interactions on the web, knowing how their apps will behave across all browsers.

There are already web standards in place to define presentation, such as CSS; HTML5 focuses more on behavior, targeting features such as drag and drop, offline editing, local storage, and media playback. Just as Microsoft was motivated to rapidly develop Ajax in the 90s in order to enhance its email presentation on the web, Apple is leading the development of HTML5 to put its rich media client apps on the web, starting with the iLife-connected Web Gallery in .Mac, and broadening to the suite of apps in MobileMe, which will continue to develop in the coming months.

JSON Lives

Apple is building its MobileMe "Web Client-Server" apps using the SproutCore JavaScript application framework, which was designed around the concept of making web apps that are more than just a thin layer of Ajax lubricating interactivity on the web. A Web Client-Server app is loaded by the browser's JavaScript interpreter and runs as a self-contained application, making Ajax-like calls to the server while offering an even richer and deeper level of local user interaction, delivering a more immediate response to the user and offering the potential for client-side storage and offline operation.

Web Client-Server apps are entirely HTML pages driven by JavaScript code and presented via CSS. Rather than using the relatively heavyweight XML, they typically use JSON (JavaScript Object Notation), a lighter, simpler object representation that not only carries a data payload like XML, but is also executable by the JavaScript interpreter. This makes JSON faster in both data exchange with the server and in processing on the client side compared to XML.

With that power comes accountability. Being able to inject executable code into a system from malicious sources is a primary security problem. For that reason, web apps that transmit data using JSON have to authenticate with the server and regularly perform security handshakes to ensure that the data being sent back and forth is indeed coming from and going to a trusted source.

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First Google Android phone sighting reveals awkward iPhone rival

2008-08-20T19:15:00.019-07:00

Published: 12:00 PM EST

The first smartphone based on Google's Android mobile platform could hit the U.S. market as early as October, according to new reports, but a video of the handset leaked on the Internet reveals a device which lacks the elegance that's already drawn millions to Apple's iPhone.

People briefed on the search giant's plans tell the New York Times that the HTC-manufacturered handset, know amongst Internet circles as the "Dream," will go on sale by the holidays -- possibly even earlier depending on how long it takes the Federal Communications Commission to weigh in with approval.

It's expected to be the only Android phone available in the U.S. this year and will be sold exclusively through T-Mobile, the nation�s No. 4 wireless carrier. A video (below) of the supposed device making the rounds on the Internet is said to match the one seen by the Times' sources, confirming its authenticity.

Like the iPhone, the Dream has a full touch-screen and will be able to run a slew of applications written by third-party developers for the open-source Android operating system. Conversely, it will also feature a physical "full five-row keyboard" that's exposed by sliding the display component upwards, mimicking the functionality of T-Mobile's Sidekick handset.

While the Dream is "apparently a hot item to show off in Google's cafeterias these days," those familiar with the device describe it as "big and bulky," and nowhere near as sleek as iPhone that's forever altered the landscape of the mobile industry. The Android software itself is similarly not up to par with standards set by Apple, leaving it feeling "less-elegant, less-user-friendly" just months before its slated to be unleashed into the wild.

Still, the Dream is just one of "several devices" Google is testing with its new mobile software, offering hope that other smartphone makers will be able to compensate for the inadequacies of the initial HTC handset when they begin rolling out their Android phones sometime next year. The more pressing issue appears to be whether Google is adequately prepared to provide its ring of developers with the support and expertise they need to go head-to-head with an already thriving fleet of software makers that have hitched onto Apple's mobile platform.

Some early Android supporters have already expressed frustration with the company for favoring a small subset of developers with advance releases of Android's Software Developer Kit, exposing them to newer features and bug fixes ahead of the general community. Meanwhile, those carriers and hardware manufacturers that do have access to the latest Android codebase haven't experienced a clear path to success either.

Among their complaints have been language translation problems with software and an overall lack of support from Google, whose emphasis on the anticipated launch of the Dream through T-Mobile has crowded out other carrier's attempts to get help launching their own array of Android devices.

Apple already padding iPhone 3G supply for second-wave carriers

2008-08-20T19:15:00.017-07:00

Published: 07:45 PM EST

Although Apple is just coming to grips with iPhone 3G demand among the device's first batch of carriers, the next phase of new carriers should already have the stock it needs to handle its own introductions, AppleInsider has been told.

Those familiar with the launch plans cite Singapore as an example of Apple's likely ability to cope with the early sales rush when the next group of carriers begins offering iPhone 3G on August 22nd.

SingTel is now understood to have registered over 50,000 interested users ahead of its nationwide rollout for the handset, suggesting a high level of demand in a city state whose total population is just nearing 4.6 million. However, people aware of the plans say the telecom provider has already been taking shipments of the phones and has enough supply to match this number of potential customers when the doors open to iPhone sales in one week's time.

The large berth of iPhones reflects how well Apple will stock at least some carriers with its fast-selling device and is a stark contrast to the problems encountered with pre-order campaigns for the original July 11th launch. O2's advance ordering system, although biased towards existing customers, suffered a near-total shutdown within minutes and ultimately sold out within hours. Customers locked out of this system were asked to wait in line with others for retail iPhones.

These and many other retailers worldwide quickly sold out and ultimately forced Apple to devise solutions at its own stores to cope with demand, going so far as to extend store hours on a semi-permanent basis and issue rainchecks to prevent day-long queues.

Whether or not this future round of carriers will truly match demand more easily than O2, AT&T, and others is unknown and may be affected by the prices themselves. Many of these remain unpublished and, in some cases, won't be available until just before the official debut in a respective time zone. Singapore and others are expected to give the iPhone away for free for customers of certain plans, according to AppleInsider's sources.

Apple, however, has expressed little concern over its long-term supply and told investors in July that it was "very confident" that it was ramping up production quickly enough to handle additional countries' iPhone 3G demand without a significant impact on those already cleared to sell the touchscreen device.

Fourth iPhone 2.1 beta takes out push notification feature

2008-08-20T19:15:00.015-07:00

Published: 04:20 AM EST

A new test version of Apple's next iPhone firmware update has disabled a key service that will allow background data for native apps, with no clear sign of when it will return.

While beta 4 of the iPhone 2.1 update comes with Apple's typically unspecific references to bug fixes, it explicitly withdraws support for the push notification service that will send Internet data to third-party apps even while they are shut down.

The feature has been present from beta 1 onwards and is still poised to supply directional GPS data as part of its upgrades.

Apple provides little explanation for the removal and says only that the notification code has been pulled for "further development" inside the company -- with no mention of whether it will reappear in a future beta.

Taking the service out of the beta version puts non-Apple developers at a temporary loss, making it impractical for them to further development of new apps and updates that will depend on live, always-on data until the feature is returned to these handsets.

The final version of iPhone 2.1 is nonetheless planned for an appearance sometime in September.

Inside the iPhone 3G dropped call complaints

2008-08-20T19:15:00.013-07:00

Published: 09:45 AM EST

Experts and analysts of all stripes are trying to explain what's wrong with the iPhone 3G, but their answers are frequently supported by bad science, outlandish claims, and pure speculation. Here's what's wrong in the reports, and why a simple firmware update is likely to solve the current issues.

What's the problem?

While nobody has formally studied the problem, lots of iPhone 3G users are complaining that they can't find 3G service, can't maintain 3G service in areas where other 3G phones can, witness wildly fluctuating signal strength bars on the phone, or conversely can't use 3G because it consumes battery life too rapidly.

Many articles on the subject are referencing Apple's support forums, where some discussions have gotten so long that forum moderators have had to lock the original thread and create a new overflow discussion.

Clearly, there are real problems. How widespread and common those problems are is more difficult to pinpoint. Apple said it sold a million iPhone 3G units on its opening weekend, and Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster reported that each of the company's US retail stores are now selling an average of 95 iPhone 3G sales per day. He expects the company to sell 4.47 million this quarter. That indicates that well over two million iPhone 3G units have already been sold to users.

Even if the 3G issues were only affecting one percent of the phones sold, that would leave twenty thousand users with problems. If only a tenth of those users posted comments online, that would easily account for the two thousand messages on Apple's discussion boards.

Blame the provider?

In the US, AT&T has been fingered in the iPhone 3G's reception problems due to the telco's relatively new and limited service coverage of its 3G network. Even in urban areas where AT&T's service maps indicate there should be 3G service, the iPhone 3G frequently fails to find it or maintain a strong enough signal to complete a call.

Compared to Sprint and Verizon Wireless, which both have wider 3G service coverage in their more mature 3G EVDO networks, AT&T is building out its 3G network using UMTS, a worldwide standard. AT&T is also forced to use different radio frequencies than other UMTS providers, which results in less technical maturity for AT&T's 3G network than those overseas.

AT&T primarily uses the 1900MHz band in the US, but is working to expand its use of its 850MHz band, a lower frequency that allows radio signals to spread farther and penetrate walls easier. Europe uses the even higher 2100MHz band for 3G, but there is also more dense network coverage there.

While AT&T's network is still experiencing some growing pains, the iPhone 3G's reception issues are also being reported in other countries too, even in Europe where 3G UMTS networks have been built out for some time. In those locations, the iPhone's dual band 3G radio uses the standard UMTS frequencies, making it hard to blame AT&T for more than just its limited coverage.

Dropped calls by provider

An article on the iPhone 3G by BusinessWeek cited unnamed sources to report, "the problem is affecting 2% to 3% of iPhone traffic, the people say. That compares with a dropped-call rate of around 1% for all traffic for AT&T." A source for the dropped call rate at AT&T wasn't given.

Studies on dropped calls are difficult because users don't report their dropped calls, and providers would be challenged to know whether phones on their networks ended a call on purpose or not. Further, calls may be dropped for a number of reasons, from poor service coverage or intermittent signal interference to phone set problems to users walking into a elevator or bank vault.

Apple Enterprise sending thousands of Macs into hotels, cruise ships

2008-08-20T19:15:00.011-07:00

Published: 11:00 AM EST

Apple's Enterprise Sales Group has been quietly installing thousands of iMacs, Mac minis, Mac Pros, and Xserves in hotels and cruise ships in a new push to bring the media rich experience of Apple's retail stores to the hospitality industry, where hoteliers are seeking to deliver personalized, unique experiences that will impress guests and bring them back for more.

Ten thousand Macs in front of luxury customers

In June, Fontainebleau Resorts announced plans to install 24" iMacs in all 1,400 rooms of its Miami Beach property now undergoing a $500 million renovation, as well as the 3,889 rooms of its new $2.9 billion, 63-story luxury resort in Las Vegas opening next year. The UK City Inn Group unveiled similar services for its hotels in Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Manchester, and London, noting on its website, "you get what you should always expect: iMac computers, free wi-fi and Sky in every bedroom."

Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines began installing Mac minis in its floating hotels three years ago, starting with two of its 3,600 passenger "Freedom Class" ships. That includes the "Freedom of the Seas," the world's largest passenger ship ever built. Royal Caribbean is also building an IT infrastructure from Apple's hardware on its Solstice Class ships for Celebrity Cruises, as well as two of its own new $1.24 billion Oasis Class ships, which will accommodate at least 5,400 passengers each and assume the title of the world's largest passenger ships when completed a year from now.

Those massive infrastructure deployments, involving up to 16,150 Ethernet drops per ship, a 10 gigabit network backbone, thousands of client Macs and racks of Xserves, are adopting Apple's hardware for the same reasons the luxury hotels on land are: Mac hardware and software offers a differentiating end user polish while being easy to manage.

Not a hard sell

Hotels have actually asked for Apple's help in bringing iTunes-style simplicity to their luxury accommodations. Many hoteliers are "struggling to reach the digital demographic" and "to differentiate themselves," explained Bradley Walker of Nanonation in a seminar on Macs in the hospitality industry. "You've been to the Apple Store," Walker said. "If you could recreate that in a hotel, that would be a very attractive place to stay."

Nanonation is working with Apple to bring its technology to cruise ships, casinos, convention centers, and both large and boutique hotels. The initial applications have involved digital signage and display walls, which typically provide large format, one-to-many information services. Nanonation has also begun leveraging the unique software features of Mac OS X to build interactive solutions for lobby or pool side concierge service as well.

Installations in public locations can remind a guest of a spa appointment, allow them to order drinks, or make a service or restaurant reservation. Personalized services for the iPod touch and iPhone are also in development. "We're really excited about what Apple's done with the enterprise SDK," Walker added.

Scratching the Surface

Last summer, Microsoft floated its Surface product concept as a way to deliver attention-grabbing interactive kiosk services in hotels and retail stores. Some appeared in AT&T retail stores this spring, and earlier this week, Surface installations were announced for five Sheraton hotels in the US.

However, the 30" Surface form factor (a YouTube parody of the Surface advertisement called it the "big ass table") uses an expensive combination of video projectors and scanners to deliver its kiosk services, making it too expensive (around $10,000) to install outside of a few public areas.

Apple is working to install its computers everywhere in the hospitality industry. In addition to freestanding iMacs in rooms, the smaller Mac mini is being promoted for installation in public kiosks and for use with standard flat screen televisions as a sophisticated set top box. The Mac Pro is used to drive larger display walls and digital signage, using Quartz Compositor to create programatically designed visuals that interact with feeds from external data sources and respond to input devices or music. The iPhone and iPod touch are also being used to deliver personalized customer-facing services.

Differentiated by Apple

In addition to public kiosk information services, Nanonation has also worked with Apple to develop its customizable Nanopoint software to enable hotel properties to tailor in-room virtual concierge services built around an iMac in every room. For example, the systems can provide walking directions to attractions, details on local nightlife, weather reports based on updated feeds, and offer local services such as spa appointments.

While most competing systems are based around a web browser, Nanopoint on the Mac moves away from the browser to deliver a richer media experience. Leveraging Mac OS X's graphics compositing tools, the software can present video with interactive controls and animated elements to deliver an impressive experience. Hotels typically just provide guests with a remote control to flick through cable channels and sometimes a custom video on demand service, but digital and HD TV tuners frequently take a moment to present each channel.

Apple's server technologies can support HD content with fast channel changing and an elegant presentation with video previews (below top), integrating episodic TV with video on demand as well as customized music services that remember guests' preferences and present player controls right on the screen, composited over full motion video with drop shadows and reflections. Nanonation also demonstrated Chat services between hotel guests (below bottom), such as those traveling together or attending the same convention or other event.

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Apple launches iPhone 2.0.2 update

2008-08-20T19:15:00.009-07:00

Published: 05:15 PM EST

In a quick turnaround from 2.0.1, Apple on Monday evening released version 2.0.2 firmware for iPhone and iPod touch.

The 248.7MB update is available only through iTunes and comes just two weeks after version 2.0.1.

In traditional Apple form, no specific issues are identified in the current release notes, which only indicate "bug fixes" for the mobile operating system.

Past claims by alleged insiders and users have suggested that the update may fix connectivity problems causing dropped calls and unintended switches from 3G to the 2G EDGE network. AppleInsider will update if this or other new features are confirmed with the release.

Notes on the release follow:

* No new settings appear to have been included.

* Some users report faster browsing, though this may be due to cleared cache.

* Typing lag may be reduced.

* Apps don't require updates; NetShare still works.

* Transition from music list to Coverflow has changed.

Second iPhone 3G carrier reaches Turkey as Russia nears deal

2008-08-20T19:15:00.007-07:00

Published: 07:30 PM EST

Those looking to buy an iPhone in Turkey will have a second choice besides Vodafone. Simultaneously, two Russian carriers have allegedly been tapped to carry the device.

Turkcell to carry iPhone 3G

Turkey's largest locally-owned carrier, Turkcell, announced on Monday that it would carry iPhone 3G for its subscribers and has posted a registration page for customers that want more information regarding the device.

In characteristic fashion for advance iPhone announcements, Turkcell hasn't disclosed its phone plans or launch date, and says only that it will release the iPhone "later this year." Turkey isn't part of the 21 countries so far selected as part of iPhone 3G's second wave on August 22nd.

Earlier this year, Turkey was already highlighted as a future recipient as part of a multi-nation Vodafone deal.

Russian carriers nearing iPhone deal?

Apple may soon end the absence of iPhones in one of its largest unserved countries, according to one claim.

Russian business paper Vedomosti on Monday cited unnamed sources asserting that the country's second- and third-largest carriers, VimpelCom and MegaFon, were in talks with Apple to offer the iPhone.

Bulk ordering requirements from the American carrier, however, are said to be complicating the matter. Carriers are allegedly being asked to purchase between 1 million and 1.5 million iPhones each -- enough that the top three carriers would have to sell as many as 4.5 million devices over the life of the contract. That's as much as 12 percent of all Russian phone sales and nearly one third of the money involved, according to one local analyst.

By contrast, no one phone owns more than 2 percent of the market in Russia.

Apple hasn't commented on the claim, though company chief Steve Jobs in June said he hoped to have iPhone agreements in place for both China and Russia by the end of 2008.

Apple gives another 60-day free extension for MobileMe

2008-08-20T19:15:00.005-07:00

Published: 09:45 PM EST

Apple has offered an additional two month free extension for all MobileMe subscribers with active accounts as of August 19, 2008, on top of the original 30-day extension granted a month ago, shortly after the MobileMe launch.

In an email to subscribers, Apple said "We have already made many improvements to MobileMe, but we still have many more to make. We are working very hard to make MobileMe a great service we can all be proud of. We know that MobileMe's launch has not been our finest hour, and we truly appreciate your patience as we turn this around."

"The transition from .Mac to MobileMe was rockier than we had hoped." Apple notes on its MobileMe website. "While we are making a lot of improvements, the MobileMe service is still not up to our standards. We are extending subscriptions 60-days free of charge to express appreciation for our members� patience as we continue to improve the service."

The 60-day extension also applies to any purchased upgrades, such as additional storage or a Family Pack upgrade.

Mac OS X 10.5.5 build 9F17 now in developers' hands

2008-08-20T19:15:00.003-07:00

Published: 09:00 AM EST

Alongside the public release of iPhone Software v2.0.2 on Monday, Apple also provided its Mac OS X developers with a new private build of the upcoming Mac OS X 10.5.5 Update, AppleInsider has been told.

Those familiar with the software say the new seed, labeled Mac OS X 10.5.5 build 9F17, introduces five new fixes, bringing the total number of code corrections expected as part of the release to 120.

Specifically, Apple is said to have addressed issues with iCal Invitations and read-only local calendars, Back to My Mac, Mail syncing, and CoreAnimation.

As was the case with build 9F13, released last Wednesday, the new pre-release seed is reported to contain no known issues. Apple also made no changes to a list of two dozen core focus areas, which continue to include components such as AirPort, graphics drivers, iCal, iChat, networking, screen sharing, and Time Machine.

Mac OS X 10.5.5 is expected for release sometime in the coming weeks.

Apple's secret "Back to My Mac" push behind IPv6

2008-08-20T19:15:00.001-07:00

Published: 10:00 AM EST

The Internet is running out of addresses. To get around this problem and a host of others not addressed in the existing Internet Protocol (IPv4), a new revision has been in development for years, called IPv6. Uptake has been slow; it requires upgrading all the routers and devices that make up the Internet. Apple has a few tricks up its sleeve for pushing IPv6 adoption, and many Mac users are already chin deep in the technology without even knowing it. Here's why, and what it means for users on every platform.

Not Enough Numbers

The primary problem with today's IPv4 is that its 32-bit addressing scheme (those IP numbers that look like 192.168.0.1) can only accommodate four billion (4,294,967,296) uniquely addressed devices, minus all the specially reserved numbers. IP addresses aren't handed out per device as needed; they're allocated in sequential blocks to companies.

For example, Apple owns the entire 17.x.x.x "Class A" subnet, which gives the company 16 million addresses to use. HP owns two: 15.x.x.x and 16.x.x.x., while Xerox owns 13.x.x.x; AT and IBM 9.x.x.x; Many blocks are reserved for special purposes, including 10.x.x.x. By the time Microsoft got in line for IP addresses, it only got a class B subnet of 65,536 addresses from 207.46.0.0 - 207.46.255.255.

The world's IPv4 numbers run out at 255.255.255.255. The only two options: create a new addressing scheme with more numbers (which IPv6 does, using ten billion billion billion times as many possible numbers as IPv4), or simply hide most devices from public addressing on the Internet, which is what today's NAT (Network Address Translation) does.

The problem with NAT

NAT allows a router to set up a dummy network of addresses, usually using the reserved 10.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x subnets. These reserved numbers aren't valid on the wide open Internet. In consumer settings, the router typically uses one public outside address and then does address translation for all outside traffic between that public IP number and all of the devices inside. The 192.168.x.x subnet allows for over 65,000 devices to be hidden in your home behind a single address assigned to you by your ISP.

NAT dramatically limits the number of public addresses each site needs, but it creates its own problems. The point of an addressing system is to allow devices to find each other. With NAT, and particularly with multiple layers of NAT, it becomes difficult for one device to find another and start a conversation, say to initiate a web conference, trade files, or stream music. The inside address is no good for outside hosts, and the public IP address is often subject to change.

Additionally, each hidden system on the inside needs some way to map the ports it uses to the ports of the outside, public address. If the NAT forwards public port 80 web traffic to one internal machine acting as a web server, it can't also forward traffic on port 80 to another machine. This causes problems for any service that wants to use specific ports, including video conferencing, torrent downloads, media streaming, file transfers, screen sharing, and so on, blocking multiple machines hidden behind NAT from being accessible at once over the same customary port.

NAT as a refuge for the insecure

NAT has also become an important part of the external security diapers that are used to protect Microsoft's Windows. Without a layer of NAT in the router's firewall, a Windows PC would expose all number of unsecured ports to public tampering. A remotely addressable Windows PC on the Internet will almost instantly become infected by malicious probes looking for its wide-open back doors.

Neither NAT nor an external firewall is really required when a computing system is property secured. The security crisis resulting from putting Microsoft's software, which was only ever originally designed to operate within an "assumed to be secure" LAN environment, on the open Internet has resulted in people thinking that PCs shouldn't be publicly addressable for their own good.

This is unfortunate, because there are a lot of good reasons for wanting to be able to talk to your own devices over the Internet. Finding and setting up connections with other devices hiding behind the existing layers of NAT can require some tricky technology. That's the task of Apple's Back To My Mac: allowing mobile systems anywhere on the Internet to talk to home systems to handle file sharing, screen sharing, or other tasks.

The promise of IPv6

IPv6's 128-bit addressing not only brings a virtually unlimited number of available IP addresses for everyone to use (billions of numbers for each person on Earth), but also introduces solutions that solve many of the other problems in today's Internet Protocol, including the barriers erected by layers of NAT.

One big feature is security: all IPv6 traffic can be encrypted via a built-in component of the protocol. There's no need to wrap the old FTP protocol with a layer of encryption or use SSH, no need to turn on SSL to secure the web, no need to encrypt each email or each IM conversation and each video conference. Everything can be encrypted at the network layer in IPv6 using IPSec. This can be automatic and invisible to applications; existing, higher level security protocols such as SSL or TLS require applications to be specifically designed to support them. With IPv6, apps get network encryption "for free."

Rather than relying on Windows' NAT diapers for "security through obscurity," IPv6 makes every device on the Internet routable and securely contactable. If IPv6 is beginning to sound a lot like Back to My Mac, Bonjour, and related technologies Apple is already using, then it might be interesting to note that Apple is already using IPv6.

While most vendors have released IPv6 support for their operating systems, having that support doesn't make it useful without a killer application that demonstrates its usefulness. Microsoft delivered a technology preview of IPv6 support in Windows 2000. In 2002 Windows XP SP1 got official, optional support for it. Apple enabled IPv6 by default in Mac OS X 10.3 Panther in 2003, and it is now enabled by default in Windows Vista, too.

However, a real barrier to wide adoption of IPv6 lies with the routers everyone uses; if they are unable to accommodate IPv6 traffic, they will prevent users inside from accessing IPv6 traffic outside, even if their OS supports it. Many commercial routers are just now adding support for IPv6, and many consumer routers don't support it at all.

A killer app for IPv6

The advantages of IPv6 are both obvious and largely invisible. Most users won't even notice the move to IPv6, as DNS handles the IP addressing details in the background. The paradox is that while the Internet desperately needs IPv6, few see any reason to rush toward it. There's no obvious killer application of IPv6 to offset the considerable expense of upgrading all of the critical routers and other equipment that makes up the Internet.

Routers typically run BSD or Linux; Microsoft's software dominance on the desktop isn't even relevant in the world of routers. However, Apple's AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule devices are in widespread use among consumers. Earlier this year, NPD reported that Apple now has greater than ten percent market share among retail sales of WiFi N routers.

Apple's WiFi N routers support acting as an IPv6 node or tunneling through the IPv4 Internet to access IPv6 services (below). They also include an IPv6 firewall supporting incoming IPSec authentication and Teredo tunnels (used to get through NAT on the other end). Apple's nearly silent support for IPv6 is interesting in itself, but what's more interesting is that Apple also has two killer apps in hand for promoting IPv6, the market power to engage uptake, and a strong business model for benefitting from IPv6 adoption.

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Apple sets new standard in customer satisfaction

2008-08-20T19:14:00.007-07:00

Published: 12:00 PM EST

Customer satisfaction in the personal computer industry suffered another series of declines last quarter, though one standout was Apple, Inc., which defied the trend by recording its largest gain ever, according to a new consumer satisfaction survey.

The American Customer Satisfaction Index second quarter report, released Tuesday from the University of Michigan�s National Quality Research Center, said Apple's score of 85 was not only a company best, but also "a new all-time high for the industry."

By comparison, the Mac maker's rivals combined for the second consecutive drop in overall customer satisfaction with the PC industry, which saw scores fall a full percentage point to a rating of 74, surrendering all gains made since 2005.

Apple's 8 percent leap puts 10 points between the company and its nearest rival, one of the largest gaps between first and second in any industry measured by ACSI.

"It�s hard not to be impressed with Apple," said Professor Claes Fornell, head of the ACSI. "This is product extension at its best where the new products, iPod and iPhone, are helping bring new customers to existing computer products. The fact that Apple is not dependent on the Windows Vista operating system hasn�t hurt either."

The industry aggregate decline was largely a result of customer dissatisfaction with Windows-based machines, namely those from Hewlett-Packard, Gateway, and Compaq, Fornell added. Each saw a 4 percent falloff in satisfaction, dropping their respective scores to 73, 72, and 70. One exception was Dell, which saw its score inch up a point to 75.

Meanwhile, customer satisfaction with the e-business category of websites surged 6 percent to an all-time high of 79.3, largely a result of achievements on the part of Google.

After slipping behind Yahoo! for the first time last year, the search giant surged an unparalleled 10 percent to leave all rivals in its wake, according to the ACSI. Google's score 86 also set a new standard for e-businesses and opened a formidable nine-point gap between its nearest competitor, Yahoo!, which fell 3 percent to score a 77.

Rising iPhone browser share points to sales of 5 million 3G units

2008-08-20T19:14:00.005-07:00

Published: 04:00 PM EST

The iPhone's share of the worldwide browser market has increased nearly twofold following the release of the iPhone 3G last month, leading researchers at PacificCrest to suggest that September quarter sales of the device may be tracking 1.5 million units ahead of expectations.

In a report to clients Tuesday, analyst Andy Hargreaves cited data from Net Applications that shows the iPhone's share of the global browser market to have accelerated to 0.31 percent from 0.16 percent since the July 11th launch of the iPhone 3G.

Should the trend continue through the remainder of the quarter (ending September 30th), it would suggest upside of approximately 1.5 million units to his previous estimate of 3.5 million iPhone sales.

"iPhone�s share of Internet browsing is now four times that of Windows Mobile and nearly 40 percent of Linux�s share," Hargreaves wrote. "Over the long term, we expect iPhone�s advantages to drive strong hardware revenue growth, while providing new opportunities to monetize the user base through value-added services."

More specifically, the analyst said the iPhone's share of the browser market has grown nearly 100 percent in the four countries that had access to the original iPhone. Meanwhile, the 17 countries that did not have the original iPhone have seen browser share increases range from 50 percent to 1,100 percent.

"iPhone 3G has generated its most impressive increase in browsing in Japan, where its share has grown to 0.12 percent from 0.01 percent over the past six weeks," he wrote.

In support of his latest estimates, Hargreaves noted a strong correlation between growth in iPhone browser share and unit sales over the past year. For instance, Apple sold 2.3 million iPhones in the previous December quarter and saw its browser share increase by 0.05 percent.

With the iPhone's share having risen another 0.15 percent in just six weeks following the release of the 3G model, current estimates of 3.5 million unit sales therefore seem overly conservative, or about 1.5 million units shy.

"Notably, Apple will be launching iPhone in 20 new countries on Aug. 22 and will be distributing through Best Buy starting on Sept. 7, which could drive further upside to our [September] quarter estimate," the analyst added.

Hargreaves, who maintains an Outperform rating and $235 price target on shares of Apple, estimates that each incremental 1 million iPhone units will generate and additional $0.28 in free cash flow per share.

Apple will replace 'exploding' first-run iPod nanos

2008-08-20T19:14:00.003-07:00

Published: 06:10 PM EST

After instances where first-generation iPod nanos' power has triggered minor but device-killing fires, Apple has agreed to replace for free any more of the music players that suffer the same problem.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based electronics maker has released a statement to the press confirming the issue and solution while also attempting to minimize the scope of the problem.

"Apple has determined that in very rare cases, batteries in first-generation iPod nanos sold between Sept. 2005 and Dec. 2006 can overheat, causing failure and deformation of the iPod nano," the company explains. "Apple has received very few reports of such incidents (less than 0.001 percent of first-generation iPod nano units), which have been traced back to a single battery supplier. There have been no reports of serious injuries or property damage, and no reports of incidents for any other iPod nano model.

"Any first-generation iPod nano customers who have experienced their battery overheating should contact AppleCare for a replacement. Any other customers who have concerns about their first-generation iPod nano battery should also contact AppleCare."

The release comes at the end of a Japanese government investigation into reports of some original iPod nanos melting and even popping open due to excess heat, particularly when the device is plugged into a computer for recharging.

Customers from other nations also say they have witnessed their iPods' self-destruction.

An American's iPod nano after a fire. | Image credits: The Consumerist.

While unlikely to be directly connected, the problem is reminiscent of a similar issue with Sony notebook batteries that prompted a worldwide battery recall after it was determined that a manufacturing flaw made them overly susceptible to fires; since then, Sony has toughened up its designs to prevent such incidents in the future.

It's not known if the issue extends to additional iPod nanos or other portable media players.

Steve Jobs vows iPhone app crash fix for September

2008-08-20T19:14:00.001-07:00

Published: 06:10 PM EST

iPhone owners suddenly locked out of their third-party apps by a crash bug on startup will have a solution next month, Apple chief Steve Jobs has revealed.

An AppleInsider reader has received one of Steve Jobs' characteristically brief and rare personal responses, assuring them that his company is aware of the problem and has a solution.

"This is a known iPhone bug that is being fixed in the next software update in September," reads the one-line message from the Apple co-founder.

The email provides an end date to problems that have become increasingly apparent in Apple's support forums and elsewhere. Many report the iPhone 2.0 firmware suddenly

iTunes movies now available for Australia & New Zealand

2008-08-15T01:15:00.011-07:00

Published: 08:00 AM EST

Apple on Thursday announced that movies from several major film studios are now available on the iTunes Store in Australia and in New Zealand.

In total, more than 700 films are available for rent or purchase from studios that include 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., Sony Pictures Television International and Lionsgate.

Among the titles are several new releases that can be purchase on the same day as their DVD release, including favorites such as "National Treasure 2," "Jumper," "27 Dresses," "Cloverfield," "Vantage Point" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World�s End."

"Movie fans in Australia and New Zealand can choose from a great selection of over 700 films for purchase and rent on the iTunes Store," said Eddy Cue, Apple�s vice president of Internet Services. "iTunes provides an incredibly easy and fun way for people to discover and enjoy movies, and has quickly become the world�s most popular online movie store with customers renting and purchasing over 50,000 movies everyday."

With iTunes Movie Rentals, once a movie is rented, it starts downloading from the iTunes Store directly to iTunes or Apple TV, and users with a fast Internet connection can start viewing the movie in seconds.

Customers have up to 30 days to start watching it, and once a movie has been started customers have 48 hours to finish it�or watch it multiple times. iTunes Movie Rentals also feature over 100 titles available in high definition.

Pricing in Australia starts at A$9.99 for catalog title purchases, A$17.99 for recent releases and A$24.99 for new releases. iTunes Movie Rentals are A$3.99 for library title rentals and A$5.99 for new releases, and high definition versions are priced at just one dollar more.

iTunes movies in New Zealand start at NZ$9.99 for catalog title purchases, NZ$17.99 for recent releases and NZ$24.99 for new releases. iTunes Movie Rentals are NZ$4.99 for library title rentals and NZ$6.99 for new releases, and high definition versions are priced at just one dollar more.

Mac OS X 10.5.5 bug fix list grows with build 9F13 seed

2008-08-15T01:15:00.009-07:00

Published: 09:00 AM EST

Apple last night pushed out another pre-release build of its upcoming Mac OS X 10.5.5 Update for the Leopard operating system, tacking on several more bug fixes to a list that swelled into triple digits a week earlier.

The new build, 9F13, arrives less than a week after Mac maker equipped developers with build 9F9 and warned of a problem with some images that could cause its Aperture photography post production software to unexpectedly quit.

Wednesday's release, however, is the first since the company launched the Mac OS X 10.5.5 Update beta program three weeks ago to arrive without the presence of known issues, people familiar with the software say.

Apple is reported to have made no changes to a list of two dozen core system components where developers have been asked to center the majority of their evaluation efforts.

Instead, the focus of build 9F13 gears towards maintenance and stability, harnessing ten more bug fixes aimed at strengthening the Leopard experience, bringing the total number of code corrections expected as part of Mac OS X 10.5.5 to an eye-catching 115.

Among the more notable tweaks are improvements to Power Management and Energy Saver settings for Mac notebooks, as well as a fix for MobileMe's DMNotification that has been causing the MobileMe preference pane to crash for some subscribers.

Also addressed in the latest build were problems with Mail Sync and Preferences syncing, multiple TCP connections and Application Firewall, and the BSD Kernel and HFS+ file system.

When Mac OS X 10.5.5 makes its debut in the coming weeks, Leopard users can also look forward to improvements to Safari's handling of PDF documents, fixes to Address Book's syncing of newly created contacts, improved Mail message storage, and tweaks to iCal Invitations and email invitations.

In its raw form, Mac OS X 10.5.5 Update currently weighs in at around 330MB.

Ex-Apple general counsel settles backdating suit for 2.2 million

2008-08-15T01:15:00.007-07:00

Published: 12:00 PM EST

Former Apple general counsel Nancy Heinen has accepted a series of sanctions and agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle backdating charges filed against her, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday.

Heinen, who was charged at the federal level by the Commission last year, also agreed to be barred from serving as an officer or director of any public company for five years, and be suspended from appearing or practicing as an attorney before the Commission for three years.

In its April 2007 complaint, the Commission charged the former top Apple legal aid with fraudulently backdating two large options grants to senior company executives and altering records to conceal the fraud. As a result, the complaint alleged that Apple was forced to underreport its expenses by nearly $40 million.

In the first instance, Apple granted 4.8 million options to six members of its Executive Team (including Heinen) in February 2001. Because the options were in-the-money when granted (i.e. could be exercised to purchase Apple shares at a below market price), Apple was required to report a compensation charge in its publicly-filed financial statements.

The Commission alleges that, in order to avoid reporting this expense, Heinen caused Apple to backdate options to January 17, 2001, when Apple's share price was substantially lower. It also charged the former executive with having directed her staff to prepare documents falsely indicating that Apple's Board had approved the Executive Team grant on January 17.

"As a result, Apple failed to record approximately $18.9 million in compensation expenses associated with the option grant," the Commission said.

Separately, the Commission also alleged improprieties in connection with a December 2001 grant of 7.5 million options to chief executive Steve Jobs. Although the options were in-the-money at that time, Heinen � as with the Executive Team grant � caused Apple to backdate the grant to October 19, 2001, when Apple's share price was lower, according to court documents.

As a result, the Commission said Heinen's actions caused Apple to improperly fail to record $20.3 million in compensation expense associated with the in-the-money options grant. The Commission further alleges that Heinen then signed fictitious Board minutes stating that Apple's Board had approved the grant to Jobs on October 19 at a "Special Meeting of the Board of Directors" � a meeting that, in fact, never occurred.

Heinen consented to settlement offered by the SEC without admitting or denying the allegations, however. Of the 2.2 million she agreed to pay, $1,575,000 was a direct disgorgement representing the in-the-money portion of the proceeds she received from exercising backdated options, and $400,219.78 was the interest on that sum to date.

The court order she agreed to also imposed a civil penalty of $200,000.

Apple's former General Counsel, Nancy Heinen, and former Chief Financial Officer, Fred Anderson.

Last April, former Apple chief financial officer Fred Anderson settled a similar case with the SEC by agreeing to a fine of $150,000 and the repayment of about $3.5 million in illegal options gains.

Like Heinen, Anderson agreed to the deal without admitting any wrongdoing. In a statement that followed the settlement, he largely shifted the blame for his involvement in the backdating scandal back to Jobs.

iPhone 3G reception issues to be relieved by software update - report

2008-08-15T01:15:00.005-07:00

Published: 01:00 PM EST

A small percentage of iPhone 3G users who say their phones are plagued by poor 3G network reception may soon see their connectivity problems rectified by a software update, a new report claims.

Although there has been no admission by Apple or its broadband chip suppliers that any such issues exist with the 3G technology included in the new iPhone, a report by Nomura analyst Richard Windsor earlier this week set off a chain reaction of media reports filled with speculation on the matter.

For instance, a report by Sweden's engineering magazine Ny Teknik, covered by the Associated Press last night, cited 'unnamed experts' as saying the 'most likely cause' was a defective adjustments between the iPhone 3G's antenna and an amplifier that captures very weak signals from the antenna.

For his part, Windsor speculated that an "immature" chipset solution from Infineon could be to blame for the sporadic issues experienced by users across multiple continents. Yet another theory from iSuppli analyst Francis Sideco fingered any of a number of parts, "from the phone's antenna and amplifier and the radio frequency transceiver to the baseband that processes the digital signal and sends it to the speaker or screen."

The most recent report on the problem arrived Thursday courtesy of BusinessWeek's Peter Burrows, who cited "two well-placed sources" as saying the reception issues are tied to the iPhone's Infineon chip and will be addressed via an upcoming software update -- likely iPhone Software v2.1 -- rather than through a more disruptive step, such as a product recall.

The problem is said to to be affecting between 2 percent to 3 percent of iPhone traffic, which compares with a dropped-call rate of around 1 percent for all traffic on AT&T's U.S. network. "This is a problem, but it's not a catastrophe," one of Burrows' sources is quoted as saying.

Another source said: "Apple programmed the Infineon chip to demand a more powerful 3G signal than the iPhone really requires. So if too many people try to make a call or go on the Internet in a given area, some of the devices will decide there's insufficient power and switch to the slower network�even if there is enough 3G bandwidth available."

BusinessWeek added that the problems have been isolated to high density areas such as Boston, the San Francisco Bay area, and several locales overseas. The reason the problems are just now manifesting is due to the increasing number of activations with each additional day the iPhone 3G is on the market, the report claims.

"Two sources say Apple will likely issue a software update by the end of September�if not by the end of this month�to resolve the issues," Burrows wrote. "Apple and Infineon are currently testing the fix, which will be included in a broader update of the iPhone's software."

Intel's processor future through 2012 spotted online

2008-08-15T01:15:00.003-07:00

Published: 06:55 PM EST

With Intel's Developer Forum just days away, an apparently leaked presentation for the event indicates where the chipmaker's processors are headed over the course of the next four years.

The slides obtained by French tech site CanardPlus start off by recapping the imminent launch of Nehalem, which is now officially labeled Core i7 and is the first big break from Intel's traditional architecture. As is increasingly well-known in tech circles, i7 will switch to a new point-to-point bus architecture and return the Pentium 4's Hyperthreading feature, which can sometimes mimic a second core by running more than one code thread at the same time. The technology is already set to be discussed in-depth at the Developer Forum and will launch in the fall with new Core and Xeon desktop processors.

It's here, however, that the presentation veers into largely unfamiliar territory. Apart from planning a chip die shrink to 32 nanometers for i7 due later in 2009, known as Westmere, Intel's next big change in architecture is now set to take place in 2010 with a technology known as Sandy Bridge.

While lightly discussed in the past, Sandy Bridge is now said to focus heavily on vector math -- an important component to certain 3D and movie operations and once the strongest selling point of PowerPC-based Macs. The processor design will introduce support for new programming features known as Advanced Vector Extensions, or AVX, which will not only be much more complex with 256 bits of data versus 128 for today's SSE equivalents but will support as many as three or four calculations in one instruction depending on the task at hand.

The overhaul of Intel's chip design will also be built with the capability to handle at least eight cores on a single chip and will have much less Level 2 memory cache than today, at just 512KB per core, in return for 16MB of Level 3 to be distributed among all the cores. This architecture will be shrunk sometime in 2011 when it's known as Ivy Bridge, according to Intel.

For future processors, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has less detail but vows a breakthrough at least as significant as Sandy Bridge. Nicknamed Haswell, it will have "revolutionary" power management, an all-new approach to caching, and the option of dedicated vector coprocessors in a package separate from the main processor. It will also be the first Intel chip to support Fused Multiply-Add instructions that, as the name suggests, include math with both additions and multiplications in a lone instruction.

Intel isn't expected to confirm at least some of these details for either Sandy Bridge or Haswell ahead of the Developer Forum, which starts August 19th in San Francisco. With both processor generations not due for at least another two years, though, the presentations made at the event will, for now, be the best look at where mainstream computers will be in the future.

New iPhone app streams iTunes collections anywhere

2008-08-15T01:15:00.001-07:00

Published: 07:45 PM EST

The developer of desktop software that lets users listen to their iTunes libraries from any broadband Internet connection now has a similar tool for the iPhone and iPod touch that eliminates storage limits.

Called SimplifyMedia (

Google Android flaws pushing software firms towards iPhone

2008-08-14T00:34:00.011-07:00

Published: 07:45 AM EST

Although Google is positioning its new Android platform as freeing cellphone software developers, the search engine giant's attempt to favor certain developers, technical issues, and shaky commercial appeal are reportedly driving would-be partners to iPhone.

Google has been accused by at least some developers of making assumptions about the appeal of Android to programming teams, who with the open-source platform can write virtually any app for Android-based devices by getting direct access to code that governs even basic hardware functions.

The issue is largely known to have come to a head in mid-July, when Google unintentionally revealed that it has been favoring the winners of a developers' contest with advance releases of Android's Software Developer Kit, exposing them to newer features and bug fixes ahead of the general community. Those outside the privileged circle, both then and now, have expressed frustration that the company is in effect cherry-picking the teams it wants to succeed on launch day.

Without this equal treatment, Google is not only perceived as driving developers away but of violating the open-source mantra it took on by creating a mobile operating system, shutting out many who could contribute to the development process. Some of these have since switched or expressed a desire to switch to iPhone development in retaliation for the seeming bias on Google's part.

"The idea with open source software is to allow early adopters access to the buggier pieces of code so they can help fix them or let people who want to wait for a solid release the ability to do that," says developer Casey Borders. "The key is choice, and Google has taken away that choice and is developing Android like every other piece of closed software."

Even carriers and hardware manufacturers are believed to be encountering technical problems regardless of their access to code. Cellular provider China Mobile, which hopes to have Android devices in its home country, was recently described as having language translation problems with software, while Google's emphasis on an anticipated T-Mobile USA debut may have crowded out Sprint's attempts to get help for its own launch.

For those without the early access, the most recent software kit for Android was last released in early March, or over five months before press time.

In stark contrast is Apple, which has imposed tighter restrictions on what apps can be developed but has given third-parties frequent, equal access to updated versions of its own iPhone SDK -- in some cases, seeding new releases just days apart and opening up new features at the same time.

And for some developers, the incentive to write iPhone software may simply be material: Apple, even in its relative inexperience with phones, is seen as more of a veteran in the mobile space than Google. The latter has yet to see Android on a shipping product and doesn't have the practical experience of producing devices like the iPod to develop a strong user base and sell more third-party apps.

"At the end of the day, developers want to make money," says analyst Rob Enderle, who himself was recently hired by Dell to ease its return into portable devices. "So they're going to develop on a platform and put resources on a platform that will make them money."

Recognizing this, Google has been showcasing Android builds with an integrated software store, much like Apple's App Store, which would centralize downloads and give developers more publicity than if they offered software by themselves.

Apple's insistence on control at most stages of development has kept many Android developers onboard and in some cases may goad developers to write apps for both Android and iPhone handsets, freeing them to experiment with the new platform while clinging to the one that promises them financial success. Without catering to those most eager to write for Android, however, Google is thought by at least one developer as potentially sabotaging its carefully-managed launch by alienating those outside a special group.

"Developers are the driving force behind Android applications, so without them it would be very hard for Android to have a stance in the market," says developer Mike Nowak.

Three-alarm fire scorches key building on Apple campus

2008-08-14T00:34:00.009-07:00

Published: 08:00 AM EST

A three-alarm fire burned for more than three hours late Tuesday night at Apple's Cupertino headquarters before firefighters were able to fully extinguish the blaze.

The Santa Clara County Fire Department said it received reports of smoke billowing out of 20605 Valley Green Drive at around 10:00 p.m. More than 60 firefighters arrived on the scene (video), including those from neighboring San Jose Fire Department.

The building, also known as Valley Green Six, was at one time believed to house a number of hardware-based research and development projects. However, it's now said that the building is used strictly as an IT data center.

Hal Rooney, deputy chief for Santa Clara County Fire, said the fire may have started under an air conditioning unit on the second floor. Local television station KNTV reported that maintenance crews had been working on the air conditioning systems in the building earlier in the day.

The fire is believed to have scorched the roof and parts of the second floor before it was fully contained and extinguished at around 12:30 a.m. early Wednesday moring. A Santa Clara County Fire Department dispatcher later told the AP that although the fire was not very big, "there is going to be a lot of smoke damage."

No one was injured during the incident.

Firefighters arrive on the scene at Apple's Cupertino campus | Photo credit: Jessica Spacekat

Inside MobileMe: iPhone's Exchange alternative for contacts and calendar

2008-08-14T00:34:00.007-07:00

Published: 09:00 AM EST

MobileMe's Exchange Server-style push updates for contacts and calendar events on the iPhone is entirely new from the previous .Mac. Here's how MobileMe relates to Exchange, how contacts and calendars work, and what's still missing in Apple's service related to calendar and contact management.

Inside MobileMe series segments

Inside MobileMe: Secrets of the Cloud and Mobile Push (Friday)
Inside MobileMe: Mac and PC cloud sync and mobile push (Saturday)
Inside MobileMe: Apple's Push vs Exchange, BlackBerry, Google (Monday)
Inside MobileMe: iPhone Mail (Tuesday)
Inside MobileMe: iPhone's Exchange alternative for contacts and calendar�(Today)

Exchange for the rest of us

Shortly after the launch of MobileMe, Apple admitted that it may have oversold its new service as being an alternative to Exchange. After all, there is no mechanism for instant push from desktop apps to the cloud; Exchange is an always-on groupware server. Apple even pulled its "Exchange for the rest of us" line from its MobileMe marketing. However, the iPhone's calendar and contacts do currently perform push updates in both directions. Make a change on your iPhone, and you should see the update immediately on your Mac desktop and from the MobileMe web apps.�

For iPhone and iPod touch users, that means MobileMe remains an "Exchange for the rest of us." As we noted in the segment on pricing comparisons, MobileMe offers a ground breaking level of service at a very competitive price, significantly lower than hosted Exchange Server plans that deliver far less storage space and don't provide WebDAV file and web hosting at all, nor MobileMe's other data synchronization features between linked computers. �

In terms of reliability, while MobileMe is still less than a month old the new service now seems responsive and usable, although we'd warn users not to expect more from the service than they would from other consumer-oriented online services such as those from Google, Yahoo, or Hotmail. There's still additional features we'd like to see implemented, and Apple intends to invest in regular updates to ensure that the program is "a service we are all proud of by the end of this year." If Apple is able to reach that goal over the next five months, it will certainly accomplish more than just delivering "an Exchange for the rest of us."�

The long road to Exchange

In comparison, Microsoft's Exchange Server began limited internal testing in 1993, and was only launched publicly in the middle of 1996. It would have been a real stretch to describe it as a reliable product anyone could be proud of until at least four and a half years later with the year end release of Exchange Server 2000.�

In the last eight years since, Exchange has seen two major updates, and has now achieved a reputation of being difficult to match in features and broad support. It typically competes against IBM's Lotus (Notes) Domino Server on the high end and Kerio MailServer among smaller businesses looking for a more affordable solution with similar features.�

Where there are many other mail-only servers, the options for comprehensive messaging servers that supply calendaring and contact updates (particularly those that push to mobile devices) are harder to find. That makes Apple's consumer-oriented MobileMe a pioneering new service for the industry, not just Apple. The company still has "a lot to learn" as Steve Jobs recently admitted in response to the high-profile launch problems that dogged its release, but it is well ahead of the game in delivering a service that works for consumers, is easy to setup and use, and is priced affordably.

Contacts and calendar events are specialized emails

Exchange Server pioneered the market for standardized corporate groupware alongside Lotus Notes, which was acquired by IBM in 1995. Exchange intended to adopt the ISO's ITU X-400 standard specification for email messaging servers, but just as Microsoft was bringing it to market, the ISO's IT-related standards bureaucracy was broadsided by rapid new innovation among Internet Engineering Task Force groups.�

The practical IETF working group protocols beat the grandiose technology definitions outlined by ISO committees, leaving Exchange built around a dead-end architecture. Microsoft was forced to tack on an Internet Mail Connector to provide messaging interoperability with other standard mail transport servers on the Internet. While Internet standards quickly emerged on how to pass email between internet servers and to simple email client programs (including POP and IMAP), there were no functional standards that developed around how to pass around calendar and contact information.�

Microsoft invented its own Messaging API, which treated contacts and calendar events as specialized email messages. The contacts and calendar folders in Exchange are simply mailboxes of emails that contain data that are interpreted by Outlook and represented as address book or calendar items. As with most other internal standards originated by Microsoft, the implementation was not intended to be widely interoperable. Instead, the MAPI specification rapidly changed in concert with every new release of Exchange and Outlook, making it difficult for third parties to offer fully compatible replacements to either Exchange or Outlook.�

Microsoft began taking steps away from MAPI when it released Entourage for the Mac as a non-MAPI client to Exchange. It uses standard IMAP to talk to Exchange, which allowed Microsoft to retain the same model of contacts and calendar items as specialized emails while abandoning its oddball message passing system. To talk to mobile devices, Exchange similarly communicates by using semi-standard web updates through Exchange's Outlook Web Access web app rather than trying to spray MAPI commands over the open Internet. This type of connection is referred to as Exchange ActiveSync or EAS.�

Apple and Exchange Server support

In order to make Macs more friendly with enterprise environments using Exchange, Apple has been adding Exchange support features to its desktop Mac OS X apps. Mail has long been able to automate the configuration of an IMAP connection to Exchange (provided the administrators enable IMAP on the server), and Address Book gained the ability to sync local contacts with Exchange via Outlook Web Access (below). Apple has not released support for iCal to directly sync with Exchange, but third party utilities do support bidirectional calendar sync for iCal. Mac OS X Snow Leopard is expected to provide complete, native support for syncing desktop data with Exchange using the same EAS technology Apple licensed for use with the iPhone.

Apple had been leaving Mac desktop Exchange support up to Microsoft with Entourage, but that product is regarded as a poor substitute to Outlook and has not made satisfactory progress in catching up over the last several years. Handling the Mac's Exchange support itself mirror's Apples strategy of supporting Microsoft's Office filetypes in iWork. Rather than being left at the mercy of third party developers, Apple now owns its own implementation of EAS sync with Exchange.

MobileMe uses its own sync technology between Mac OS X desktop apps and the cloud, and uses a unique mechanism for pushing updates down to client computers. The mobile push messaging system for the iPhone is also custom to Apple, although it results in similar functionality to EAS.

On

Apple averaging 95 iPhone 3G sales per store, per day

2008-08-14T00:34:00.005-07:00

Published: 10:00 AM EST

After spending 25 hours observing sales of iPhones at Apple's national retail chain, investment bank Piper Jaffray now estimates the company is on track to announce a more than fourfold increase in sales of the handset during its fiscal fourth quarter.

"Our 25 hours of counting iPhone sales in Apple retail stores throughout the country lead us to believe Apple is on pace to beat our previous estimate of 4.1 million iPhones for the September quarter," analyst Gene Munster advised clients in a report Wednesday.

He now estimates that the electronics maker will sell at least 4.47 million iPhones in the quarter, compared to 1.12 million during the same three-month period last year. More specifically, he estimates that Apple sells an average of 95 iPhone 3Gs per day at each of its 188 U.S. retail stores, up from 21 phones per day during a similar check in August of 2007.

"We believe Apple will sell 1.78 million units at its U.S. retail stores, and 0.90 million phones at U.S. AT&T locations," Munster wrote. "Our estimate assumes each of the 2,200 AT&T stores will sell an average of 5 phones per day from the July 11th launch through the end of the September quarter."

The analyst had noted in a previous report that he believes the U.S. sales will account for only 53 percent of iPhones sold worldwide, leaving international sales of the handset to account for the remaining 1.79 million units that make up his fourth quarter estimate.

While demand for the iPhone 3G remains undoubtedly high, Munster's model factors in the likelihood that demand will decrease slightly in the weeks ahead. His firm's 25 hours of checks spanned two weeks, and he noted sales volume decreased about 10 percent during the second week.

Taking this into account, the analyst said his fourth quarter estimate assumes Apple retail stores will average 31 iPhone sales per day for the remaining 51 days in the quarter.

"We believe that our revision may be conservative and that Apple will meet our estimates," he wrote. "The August 22nd launch in additional countries should provide another catalyst to sales."

Munster's model assumed an average of 12 hours of sales per day based on 8 percent of the stores being high-traffic "flagship" locations and remaining 92 percent regular-sized outlets.

HSBC bank may ditch BlackBerry for 200,000 iPhones - report

2008-08-14T00:34:00.003-07:00

Published: 12:00 PM EST

In what would surely be a blow Research in Motion, HSBC is considering a move that would strip its employees of their BlackBerry handsets and equip them with some 200,000 Apple iPhones instead.

"We are actually reviewing iPhones from a HSBC Group perspective ... and when I say that, I mean globally," HSBC's Australia and New Zealand chief information officer Brenton Hush told ZDNet.com.au on Tuesday.

HSBC is both world's largest company and banking group, with an estimated 330,000 employees globally. As such, a deployment of iPhones to just 200,000 staffers would be figuring 'conservatively,' Hush added.

"You know, it's a big decision, especially when you have an existing fleet out there," he said. "But it's definitely something we are considering from a HSBC Group perspective."

Other banks have been skeptical about unleashing the Apple handset onto their networks due to perceived inadequacies in email and security when compared to BlackBerry devices. Hush, who was recently promoted to chief information officer of the local arm of HSBC, doesn't share those same views however.

"I think [the iPhone] would change some underlying infrastructure considerations from an enterprise perspective," he said ."But [Apple] have been pretty smart with the design."

ZDNet notes that HSBC's global operations has a $6 billion annual technology budget and a technology team of 30,000 supporting 330,000 employees. Research in Motion's BlackBerry is currently the firm's standard issue handset.

HSBC is just one of over 165 Fortune 500 companies that have expressed interest in the iPhone by applying for developer status to Apple's iPhone software developer program.

Apple's Best Buy play makes 12m iPhones "very conservative"

2008-08-14T00:34:00.001-07:00

Published: 07:10 PM EST

An agreement for Best Buy to start selling iPhones will help make already strong estimates for Apple's device sales seem all too modest, according to an investment note from Lehman Brothers.

Analyst Ben Reitzes determines that the large increase in the number of American distribution points that comes with the Best Buy initiative, combined with more than one million iPhones sold on the launch weekend alone, should result in Apple blowing past earlier predictions for the rest of calendar 2008.

"We believe our estimate of 3.8 million iPhones sold in Apple�s [September quarter] is very conservative," Reitzes says. "Furthermore, we believe that initial demand overseas is very strong and will get much stronger; we estimate at least 8.3 million iPhones could be sold in [the December quarter]," equating to 12.1 million of the new devices trading hands during the summer and fall combined.

The analyst notes that Apple has enjoyed the results of its rapidly expanding Best Buy presence with Macs and may be poised to expand the "halo" effect with iPhones on sale at the third-party chain, as customers buying iPhones come back to buy other Apple products.

The timing of Apple's retail expansion is also seen as fortunate given a much healthier iPhone supply starting from late July, though the researchers at Lehman don't anticipate the Cupertino, Calif.-based company's supply levels to keep up with demand before September. International demand may exacerbate the problem with over 20 countries set to offer the device on August 22nd.

These factors could also be enough to skew estimates for future years, Reitzes adds. Lehman now believes its prediction of 24.2 million iPhones sold in Apple's fiscal 2009 is just as conservative as for the next few months and could be similarly pessimistic through fiscal 2010.

Not every analyst shares this point of view. Although Reitzes believes iPhone sales at Best Buy and elsewhere should have a significant effect on Apple's cash flow, UBS Investment Research analyst Maynard Um notes that each Best Buy store would have to sell about 200 iPhones to move Apple's earnings per share by one cent. That's performance unlikely to occur so early into the retail expansion, he argues.

Even if true, the Lehman expert views the move as a "tipping point" that will get iPhones into more places and boost sales, and that it won't be alone: in addition to redesigned MacBook lines which match information provided to AppleInsider, he also expects multiple MacBook Air variants, new iPods, and the possibility of an ultraportable media and messaging device appearing in the next six months.

Apple accused of dodging fair pay in class action lawsuit

2008-08-12T20:55:00.025-07:00

Published: 08:00 AM EST

Often said to work its employees to the bone, Apple is now the subject of a class action lawsuit that claims it deliberately misclassified technicians to avoid paying for overtime and supplying fair working hours.

Filed early this week by former Apple network engineer David Walsh in a San Diego court, the 40-page suit claims that Apple knowingly violated California's Labor Code and Industrial Welfare Commission requirements by "systematically" misclassifying Walsh and fellow technicians as management.

The simple creation of a management-like title for workers such as Walsh lets Apple call on them as much as it likes without having to pay overtime rates, according to the complaint, even though the actual roles consist of nothing more than installing and maintaining networks. Walsh during his 12-year tenure not only had no authority over where he could go but explicitly had to receive permission from the true executives and site staff.

Apple has allegedly created hundreds of seemingly unique positions that are actually subtle variants on the same role, making it difficult for employees to take action and demand better pay or working conditions. Those with purportedly advanced titles have ultimately done the same work as those with more ordinary positions.

"One such example is placing the descriptor 'Senior' before the title 'Network Engineer,' when in fact all such Network Engineers perform the same work," Walsh's attorneys at Blumenthal & Nordrehaug claim.

The conditions themselves were especially rough, the complaint notes. While officially scheduled for eight hours of work per day, he would often be told to maintain the network "well into the night" and was on call at all times of the day, with many calls arriving after 11PM or on weekends. In many cases, Walsh not only had to avoid leisure that couldn't usually afford interruption, such as watching a movie, but in many cases had to put off essential tasks such as seeing a doctor or even having a meal.

Walsh, who is seeking class action status through his suit, wants Apple not only to properly classify network engineers but to pay compensation to those who missed out on overtime pay -- including the equivalent of two hours' pay for each full day of work where a technician wasn't given time for a meal.

Apple seldom comments on lawsuits in progress and has remained silent on Walsh's dispute.

Inside MobileMe: Secrets of the Cloud and Mobile Push

2008-08-12T20:55:00.023-07:00

Published: 09:00 AM EST

While Apple's previous .Mac service left many unclear as to what it offered beyond email and web hosting, its value under the new identity of MobileMe is far easier to communicate. MobileMe is all about push messaging, delivering immediate updates to mobile iPhone users over the air for their mailbox, calendars, and contacts as well as web bookmarks. This segment in the Inside MobileMe series looks at how the various components of the MobileMe service work together.�

Inside MobileMe: Secrets of the Cloud and Mobile Push
Inside MobileMe: Mac and PC cloud sync and mobile push

What it is

While the launch of MobileMe didn't go smoothly as planned, the service itself is brilliantly well designed, both usable and attractive (despite some remaining flaws), and demonstrates the real potential of the future of web apps and web services. The pioneering service is also the first consumer-oriented, low-priced push mail, contacts, calendar, and bookmarks solution for any platform. MobileMe is actually a collection of three layers of components: Apple's hosted web apps, its cloud of online services, and its client-side push and sync applications on the iPhone and for the Mac and Windows PC desktop.�

The web apps: the online side of MobileMe is composed of five apps (Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Gallery, and iDisk) and an admin page, all developed using the SproutCore JavaScript framework. That makes them accessible from any modern, standards-based web browser without the need to download some kind of extra middleware. Apple does warn Internet Explorer 7 users that Microsoft's browser "has known compatibility issues with modern web standards which affect Web 2.0 applications such as MobileMe," and recommends users try Firefox 3 or Safari 3 instead.

Internet Explorer does seem to work with MobileMe web apps for the most part however. Apple's warning does a good job of explaining to customers why they are better served by using a modern, standards-compliant browser. In contrast, iPhone users trying to navigate AT 64bit)" for its SMTP email servers.�

For web services, Netcraft reports that Apple uses a mix of Mac OS X, Solaris, and Linux servers across its various sites, but identifies the www.me.com domain as running on Linux. However, it also identifies the www.me.com web server as being "Apache/1.3.33 Darwin," indicating that Apple either has its own Mac OS X Server machines in the mix, that it uses a hybrid system of multiple server types, or that Netcraft is not able to correctly determine what Apple is actually using on the back end. For me.com, Netcraft reports an "unknown" operating system running Apache/1.3.26 Darwin. �

Apple has only controlled the me.com for the last few months. If we look at mac.com and its subdomains, which Netcraft has monitored for years (and which are still in use under MobileMe), we find a mix of Apache/1.3.33 Darwin (Mac OS X Server), NS_6.1 and NS8.0.49.2 (which appear to be Citrix Netscalers, a web application accelerator appliance that performs load balancing and protects against DoS attacks; these are also used by everyone from Amazon to YouTube. The real web servers hide behind these), NetCache appliance NetApp/6.0.5 (which may be hardware in use by Akamai, a company Apple uses to mirror website content for optimized download;�Akamai's mirrors may also account for why www.mac.com appears to be hosted on Linux), as well as something that identifies itself as AppleIDiskServer, which also runs on that "unknown" server OS, and often behind NetCache appliances.�

AppleIDiskServer is what Apple used and continues to use to serve up iDisk shares via WebDAV at idisk.mac.com. It also serves up web.mac.com and homepage.mac.com, highlighting the fact that WebDAV is really just a bidirectional webserver that can both serve up data and allow updates. HomePage was (and is) a WebObjects application, no doubt running on Mac OS X Server (aka the "unknown" OS).�

HomePage is still live under MobileMe, and even still sports the old .Mac branding and the brushed metal appearance from the branding era it was released in half a decade ago (below). The .Mac Groups is also still live (although Apple isn't taking any new applications for Groups from MobileMe subscribers), but iCards and the .Mac Bookmarks page are now dead, and the Mail and Address Book links now direct users to the new MobileMe web apps.

It appears Apple also uses its own custom software for its MobileMe sync services. The company considers the exact nature of its MobileMe servers to be a proprietary secret, and would not reveal any details on what it actually uses on the backend, even to developers under non-disclosure agreements at WWDC.�

While the launch of MobileMe ran into problems and suffered outages, its cloud infrastructure is not the amateur befuddlement that some pundits like to make it out to be. Apple uses the same enterprise class hardware and deployment partners as other major Internet sites, and can be expected to occasionally run into the same kinds of problems that caused Amazon's entire US retail store to fall offline for hours back in June, or that just dumped Google's apps and its Gmail service (even for paid premier users) offline and unavailable for 15 hours earlier this week, neither of which was associated with a major update or new service transition.�

Steve Jobs' recent appointment of Eddy Cue to serve as Apple's vice president of Internet services is noteworthy, as Cue has previously managed to success the highly regarded iTunes Store. He will now also be overseeing both MobileMe and the mobile Apps Store. In his email to Apple employees, Jobs wrote, "the MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about Internet services [...] we will press on to make it a service we are all proud of by the end of this year."

The client apps: MobileMe's launch problems were mostly related to the new web apps and related backend changes to accommodate them. On the client side, things went more smoothly because there wasn't as much change to manage in the migration from .Mac to MobileMe. For standard POP or IMAP email, any email program can still access MobileMe in the same way they'd connect to Gmail or any other standard mail account.�

Similarly, any standard client app that can access WebDAV file shares should also be able to connect to MobileMe's iDisk, just as before. Mac OS X can connect to and mirror the MobileMe iDisk to appear as a local drive, and Windows can attach to iDisk shares natively in the Windows Explorer or via the web interface. None of this has really changed from .Mac.

MobileMe's push messaging is new; support for it is integrated into the new iPhone 2.0 software, which despite being entirely new worked pretty well, as long as the cloud was puffing along appropriately. There's still no way to access some MobileMe features on the iPhone, including iDisk files or Back To My Mac file shares. It's also currently impossible to access any of the MobileMe web apps themselves. If you try to pull up me.com in Safari on the iPhone, it simply directs you to use the standard apps on the phone instead (below). So much for Steve Jobs' real Internet.

Of course, given the iPhone's intentional inability to actually download or upload files from the browser, and the duplication between its native apps and the web apps, the lack of to access MobileMe web apps within mobile Safari is mainly an annoyance only because the web apps offer a handy way to troubleshoot problems. Apple should at a minimum publish its system status information on the me.com redirect page it serves up to its mobile users, so when the service does run into problems, users can have some idea of what's going on.

The next Inside MobileMe segment will look at MobileMe on the Mac and PC desktop, and how mobile push differs from desktop sync, followed by a comparison of how the service stacks up in features and price against other competing offerings.

MobileMe now in good hands with Eddy at the helm, insider says

2008-08-12T20:55:00.021-07:00

Published: 01:00 PM EST

A management shakeup at Apple sparked by the poorly executed launch of MobileMe has landed the internet service in the trusted hands of vice president Eddy Cue -- a man with a work ethic as grueling and demanding as Steve Jobs, says one insider.

When tossing around the names of Apple's top brass, Cue's name rarely pops up, but it should, argues Apple veteran Chuq von Rospach, because he's "as important to Apple's success as [industrial design chief] Jonathan Ive." His forte: mapping out the back-end infrastructures that make the company's "online universe tick."

Those who are familiar with Cue know him for managing the iTunes Store to resounding global success, but he was also a force behind .Mac and the ever popular Apple Online Store. "It's the not-sexy part of the company, but it's the guts that make all of the sexy front ends actually work," says von Rospach, who crossed paths with Cue during his years of managing Apple's email lists.

Cue's teams have long been self-contained, von Rospach adds, spending most of their time in "uncharted territory," implementing technology that never existed before on large scales "under really scary conditions." Over the years, he's earned the respect of Steve Jobs by delivering projects on time, to specification, all while keeping "the darn thing(s) a secret" in the process.

Cue is one of few who've proven up to the task of meeting the stringent demands of Jobs, which isn't easy, von Rospach explains. That's landed him the opportunity to work under the command of one of the most methodical minds in the industry while testing his hand at some "really great stuff," which can quickly become "addictive."

His secret is to surround himself with equals who are "just as maniacal" about their work, and who accept the absence of middle ground and the constant aura of "burnout."

"Eddy's no easier to work with than Steve is, for obvious reasons," says von Rospach. "I invariably warned people not to hire into his groups unless they wanted to donate their life to the cause."

Cue's latest challenge, as revealed in an email from Jobs to Apple employees earlier this week, is to rescue MobileMe from the mistakes that plagued its launch, repair its tarnished reputation, and steer it down a path that the company can be "proud of by the end of this year."

Like Jobs, von Rospach expresses confidence in the Cue's ability to succeed. He argues that, contrary to popular opinion, it's not that Apple lacks the expertise to run an internet service on the scale of MobileMe -- it already runs the largest global single-instance SAP environment for iTunes -- it's more about "the MobileMe people blowing it."

Of course, some of the responsibility for MobileMe's failure also lies with Jobs, who has the final say on which products his company launches and which it does not.

"He's never been afraid to say 'this ain't ready' and pull something from release," von Rospach notes. "His rehearsals for MacWorld Keynotes are legendary (and sometimes brutal), and stuff literally has disappeared in the last 24 hours, if he wasn't satisfied with it."

There is one caveat, however: Jobs was trusting and depending on someone to offer up the truth about MobileMe, and whether it was truly ready for prime time. And the person who told him it was ready to roll was obviously dead wrong, which caused considerable embarrassment for both Jobs and the company as a whole.

"Steve and Apple aren't terribly tolerant of that kind of major screwup," says von Rospach. "Just imagine Steve Jobs wandering the hall with a flame thrower in hand, asking random people 'do you work on MobileMe?'"

"The thing wasn't ready and the release got botched," he says. "And now Eddy has been brought in to fix it, which means it's going to get fixed."