MacRumors

Apple's newly refreshed Retina MacBook Pros, released this morning, have already begun showing up in Geekbench benchmarks, offering a look at the performance boost of the updated machines compared to their predecessors.

A GeekBench 3 result for the entry-level 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro indicates that the new machine is eight percent faster than the entry-level 2013 Retina MacBook Pro, and only two percent slower than the mid-level Retina MacBook Pro released in 2013.

Single-Core performance for the machine came in at 3050, up from 2811 for the similar 2013 model, while Multi-Core performance was also impressive, at 11586 vs. 10730.

The new Retina MacBook Pros feature upgraded Haswell processors in 2.6 and 2.8 GHz dual-core configurations for the 13-inch versions, and 2.2 and 2.5 GHz quad-core configurations for the 15-inch models, with build-to-order options featuring a 3.0 GHz dual-core processor available for the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro and a 2.8 GHz quad-core processor available for the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro.

All of Apple's 13-inch Retina MacBook Pros now come with 8 GB of RAM standard (upgradeable to 16 GB), while 15-inch models come with 16 GB standard. The high-end 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro has seen a $100 price cut, and buyers now have the option to upgrade to 1 TB of flash storage on both 13 and 15-inch models.

As noted by John Poole of Primate Labs, with the newly refreshed Haswell Retina MacBook Pros, customers are receiving mid-level performance at an entry-level price.

Though the update brings some decent gains to Apple's Retina MacBook Pro lineup, the new Haswell processors are largely a stopgap measure designed to hold customers over until Intel's more powerful and more efficient Broadwell chips are available next year.

Apple's refreshed Retina MacBook Pros are available today at Apple retail locations and its online store.

Apple's growth in the overall worldwide smartphone market continues to slow as it loses ground to smaller Chinese vendors releasing more affordable devices, even as the smartphone market itself grows substantially.

According to IDC's latest estimates, worldwide smartphone sales for the second quarter of 2014 grew 23.1 percent year-over year as smartphones continue to replace feature phones, with a record quarter of 295.3 million shipments.

Apple shipped 35.1 million iPhones during the quarter, up from 31.2 million during Q2 2013, for a share of 11.9 percent, a slight drop from its 13 percent share in the year-ago quarter. The company's growth was at just 12.4 percent.

Samsung, the vendor that has long held the top spot with the most smartphone shipments, fared even worse during the quarter, with estimated shipments of 74.3 million for a 25.2 percent share of the market, down from 32.3 percent in Q2 2013, and overall growth of -3.9 percent.

Smaller Chinese vendors like Huawei and Lenovo continue to see significant growth, with Huawei shipping 20.3 million smartphones during the quarter for a 6.9 percent share and growth of 95.1 percent, while Lenovo shipped 15.8 million smartphones for 5.4 percent market share and growth of 38.7 percent.

Despite a challenging quarter for Samsung, and to a lesser extent Apple, the strong market demand boosted results for most smartphone vendors. Emerging markets supported by local vendors are continuing to act as the main catalyst for smartphone growth. Among the top vendors in the market, a wide range of Chinese OEMs more than outpaced the market in 2Q14. By far the most impressive was Huawei, nearly doubling its shipments from a year ago, followed by another strong performance from Lenovo.

As noted by IDC, Apple's second quarter is typically its seasonal low of the year due to its release schedule. Apple may see significant growth later in 2014 as it gears up to release the iPhone 6, meeting consumer demand for a larger-screened device for the first time.

Apple has also made efforts towards releasing low-cost devices in BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) markets that are ripe for growth, but it is difficult for the company to keep up with the myriad low-cost devices coming from manufacturers like Lenovo and Huawei in those markets.

Ford Motor Company is planning to transition its corporate employees from BlackBerry to Apple, providing approximately 3,300 workers with iPhones by the end of the year, reports Bloomberg. According to Ford spokesperson Sara Tatchio, Ford is also aiming to get iPhones into the hands of an additional 6,000 corporate employees over the course of the next two years as they transition from flip phones.

To oversee the switch to iOS devices, Ford will hire a mobile technology analyst, with one facet of the job involving the "global deployment of corporate iPhones." In her statement to Bloomberg, Tatchio highlighted the iPhone's ability to meet both the personal and secure business needs of Ford's employees as a reason for the switch.

"We are going to get everyone on iPhones," Tatchio said. "It meets the overall needs of the employees because it is able to serve both our business needs in a secure way and the needs we have in our personal lives with a single device."

Having all employees on the same smartphone will improve security and simplify information technology management, Tatchio said. Ford is making "no extra investment" to convert to iPhones, other than the cost of replacing the devices, she said.

While the iPhone and the iPad are already used by more than 98 percent of Fortune 500 companies, Apple is aiming to make significant strides in the enterprise market in the coming months to bolster its penetration numbers, and Ford is likely to be just one of many companies transitioning to Apple devices in the near future.

The Cupertino company has recently formed a partnership with IBM to "transform enterprise mobility" through a series of new business apps and services for iOS devices, and the deal will also see IBM selling Apple devices to its corporate customers, which is bad news for BlackBerry.

During Apple's most recent earnings call, CEO Tim Cook suggested the company was aiming to get iPhones, iPads, and Macs into the hands of more people, with enterprise marking a "huge opportunity" for growth.

Details discussed during a recent earnings conference call by Apple supplier TPK Holdings suggest the production of the iWatch is behind schedule, reports UDN via GforGames. According to earlier rumors, the iWatch may debut in late 2014 with the latest report claiming it will launch alongside the 5.5-inch iPhone 6.

Based on reports from Asian sources, TPK executives spent a portion of the company's Q3 2014 earning conference call explaining why it sees poorer than expected financial projections for the current quarter. TPK is allegedly supplying Apple with flexible displays that use silver nanowire touch screen technology for inclusion in the iWatch wearable.

Though the iWatch was not mentioned in the call, pundits believe TPK's shortfall is the result of a slip in the production schedule for the iWatch, which had been expected to be in production and contributing to TPK's bottom line during the third quarter. Now, the company is projecting an increase in profits during Q4 2014, suggesting the iWatch rollout may be slated for closer to the end of this year.

Shares of TPK stock dropped significantly late last week on the outlook.

At an investor conference Thursday, TPK forecast flat quarterly growth, or at best a 5 percent sequential increase, of its consolidated sales for the third quarter, citing decisions by its customers to postpone the launch of their new products. [...]

Sales growth, however, could pick up in September, TPK said, forecasting a break-even operating margin in the third quarter on higher operating costs.

This late start in production may result in Apple shipping fewer iWatch units than expected in 2014, claims analysts at CSLA, a leading Asian investment banking and asset management firm. Instead of shipping 20 million iWatch units by the end of the year, Apple may only be able to deliver a significantly smaller 6 million units. It is unknown if this lowered estimate will translate into a shortage of the device at launch.

Apple today added two more channels to the Apple TV, delivering financial news channel CNBC and network FOX NOW to the platform.

CNBC offers access to a live stream of the financial channel, as well as on-demand clips from news segments and full episodes of the channels "Prime" content original series. Viewing requires authentication with one of a number of cable and Internet providers. Notable cable companies not available for authentication include Time Warner and Charter.

FOX NOW includes on-demand access to a number of shows from the network, including 24: Live Another Day, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, Glee, and more. Authentication through a cable provider is required for full access to content.

Update 7:40 AM: Apple has also added TV2 Sumo [Google Translate], the online version of popular channel TV2, in Norway.

Update 8:48 AM: As noted by The Loop, Brazilian sports subscription channel Esporte Interativo has also been added in that country.

As indicated over the weekend and yesterday, Apple today launched refreshed 13-inch and 15-inch Retina MacBook Pros.The new notebooks feature faster versions of Intel's Haswell processors, as all 13-inch models now come with 8GB of RAM standard while all 15-inch models now feature 16GB of RAM. The high end 15-inch model also received a $100 price cut, going from $2599 to $2499.

New models include:

13-inch:
- $1299: 2.6 GHz dual-core i5 processor, 8 GB RAM, 128 GB flash storage
- $1499: 2.6 GHz dual-core i5 processor, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB flash storage
- $1799: 2.8 GHz dual-core i5 processor, 8 GB RAM, 512 GB flash storage

15-inch:
- $1999: 2.2 GHz quad-core i7 processor, 16 GB RAM, 256 GB flash storage
- $2499: 2.5 GHz quad-core i7 processor, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB flash storage

Build-to-order options now include a 3.0 GHz dual-core i7 processor on the 13-inch model and a 2.8 GHz quad-core i7 processor on the 15-inch model. Users can also now add up to 1 TB of flash storage for both the 13-inch and 15-inch models.

Alongside the refreshed line of Retina MacBook Pros, Apple's 13-inch non-Retina MacBook Pro received a price cut, going from $1199 to $1099. However, the machine has not been updated with faster internals and remains the same model introduced in June 2012.

Today's minor refresh is primarily a stopgap measure until Apple can launch a more significant update to its Retina MacBook Pro line once Intel's next-generation Broadwell processors hit the market. Broadwell chips appropriate for the MacBook Pro may, however, not arrive until mid-2015. Apple is also rumored to be working on a 12-inch Retina MacBook for 2015 which is said to feature an ultrathin chassis, a fan-less cooling system and a revamped trackpad.

Apple's refreshed Retina MacBook Pros are available today through the company's various retail locations and online store, with all standard configurations showing a shipping avaliability of "within 24 hours." The new notebooks will also be a part of Apple's back-to-school program, which gives qualified educational purchasers an Apple Store gift card of $100 with the purchase of a new Mac.

Update: Apple has issued a press release announcing the update.

“People love their MacBook Pro because of the thin and light, aluminum unibody design, beautiful Retina display, all day battery life and deep integration with OS X,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “The MacBook Pro with Retina display gets even better with faster processors, more memory, more affordable configurations and a free upgrade to OS X Yosemite this fall.”

Apple also highlights the price drop on the non-Retina model, noting the machine is popular with Windows switchers.

Hilton Worldwide, a company that operates thousands of hotels around the globe, today announced plans to roll out new mobile-based check-in and room selection tools, as well as digital smartphone-based room keys.

Hilton guests will be able to select their rooms online using their smartphones, which will be able to display floor plans for each available room. Guests will also be able to check-in/check-out using their smartphones, as well as purchase upgrades and make special requests for item deliveries.

Room selection: At 6 a.m. the day before a booked stay, Hilton HHonors members can sign into their account via their mobile device, tablet or computer to check-in and choose their preferred room through floor plan maps or lists populated from the hotel's available inventory. Photos of rooms are also available to help with their selection. Hilton's digital lobby function is updated in real-time, so guests no longer have to wait until they are physically in the hotel lobby to be assigned a room.

While Hilton's new service is limited to check-ins and room selection at the current time, next year the hotel chain plans to allow guests to unlock their hotel rooms with their smartphones.

Hilton is planning to roll out its digital enhancements to select hotels during the summer and the fall, and by the end of 2014, smartphone-based check-ins and room selection will be available for more than 650,000 rooms across 4,000 hotels. The technology that allows smartphones to be used as room keys will begin rolling out in 2015, with wide availability in 2016.

Hilton is not the first hotel chain to begin allowing guests to enter their hotel rooms with their smartphones, as Starwood Hotels & Resorts implemented a pilot program to test the technology earlier this year. Hilton's eventual rollout will be much larger, however, and it also includes the aforementioned tools for personalized room selections and easy check-ins.

Following the publication of several photos over the weekend showing what was claimed to be the bare logic board for the upcoming 4.7-inch iPhone 6, Nowherelse.fr now shares [Google Translate] a new set of photos showing the same part reportedly from the even larger 5.5-inch iPhone 6 model.

The photos include side-by-side comparisons of the part from both iPhone 6 models and the iPhone 5s, and while it does not appear to be confirmed which iPhone 6 logic board is for which device size, there are now clearly two distinct parts larger than the current iPhone 5s logic board.

The component layout of the logic boards from the two iPhone 6 models appear very similar, but the board design and screw hole layout are somewhat different, particularly on the upper portion of the board including the arm extending across the top of the device above the battery. As with the first logic board, this part allegedly includes support for near field communications (NFC).

While the legitimacy of the parts can not be confirmed, they do appear very similar to existing parts and exhibit complexity that would be expensive to fake. They also contain part numbers (820-3675-04 and 820-2486-09) in the pattern followed by Apple. Finally, the two logic boards measure 57.1 mm and 61.5 mm wide, meaning that certainly the larger one and probably the smaller one must be for larger devices considering the iPhone 5s has an overall width of 58.6 mm.

The iPhone 6 is expected to debut around the September timeframe, although it is unclear whether that launch will include both versions or only the 4.7-inch model. Rumors have been split on whether the 5.5-inch model will launch simultaneously or up to several months later due to production challenges.