MacRumors

Demand for the next generation iPhone remains strong in the months before its expected fall debut, claims a report from RBC Capital Markets analysts. According to a 4,000 person survey conducted by RBC, half of consumers who plan to upgrade their phone in the next three months intend to buy an iPhone and a quarter of those would be willing to pay $100 more for their iPhone to have a 5.5-inch screen over the other rumored size of 4.7 inches.

Customers know about and are interested in the next iPhone, with 74 percent of survey respondents stating they are aware of Apple's possible fall iPhone launch and fifty percent claiming they are interested in buying an iPhone for their next phone. Primarily, customers are looking for performance improvements and a large screen in their next iPhone handset.

While ~49% of smartphone purchasers are inclined to buy the next Apple product, we learned that the main driving factor for sales surround performance improvements (battery life 33%, processor 18%, camera 12%). In our view, these results are positive for AAPL, as we would not be surprised to see improvements to both battery life and processing speed with the iPhone 6. Finally, beyond performance improvements, we also learned that screen size could materially impact sales, as 23% of participants surveyed are inclined to purchase a larger screen iPhone.

These customers not only want a larger phone, they also are willing to pay for it, with more than one quarter of respondents willing to pay a $100 premium to buy a 5.5-inch iPhone for $299 instead of the current $199 for the 16GB iPhone 5s and presumably the 4.7-inch iPhone 6. This echoes an earlier report from Raymond James analyst Tavis McCourt, who also says consumers are showing an increasing willingness to pay a $100 price premium for a larger device.

Analysts expect the next iPhone to cause iPhone sales to surge as consumers upgrade to the large-screened handset. This demand could translate into a 15 to 20 percent jump in unit sales, year over year, claims RBC. Besides the iPhone 6, Apple also is expected to unveil the iWatch and refresh its iPad lineup later this year in what Eddy Cue says is "the best product pipeline that I've seen in my 25 years at Apple."

ABC News is launching a new Apple TV channel today, bringing access to live and on-demand content to Apple's set-top box. The channel offers a variety of news and entertainment offerings, including local news in select markets and access to five decades of historical footage from ABC's archives. As with many of the recent channel additions to the Apple TV, ABC News is only available to users in the United States for the time being, although ABC says availability will expand worldwide "in the coming weeks".

ABC News on Apple TV offers more choices for how, when and where to get the video content you want. Unlike other news offerings, ABC News provides a robust line-up of original and on-demand content and up to four live streaming events at once, allowing viewers to select and view the live news they care about most. From court trials and breaking news to the daily White House press briefing, live continuous coverage of the day’s top stories, videos and more are instantly accessible with ABC News on Apple TV.

Among the features on the new ABC News channel:

- 24/7 access to live and on-demand video with four separate live video streams to choose from.

- Video news updates on the hour and four to five live reports per day to cover breaking news.

- Local content from nine television stations around the United States: WABC (New York), KABC (Los Angeles), WLS (Chicago), WPVI (Philadelphia), KGO (San Francisco), KTRK (Houston), WTVD (Raleigh), KFSN (Fresno), and WISN (Milwaukee).

- Curated stories and videos highlighting the top news stories of the moment, updated throughout the day.

- 50 years of historical footage from ABC News' archives, including "This Week in History" and "The Day in Pictures" features.

The Disney/ABC/ESPN media conglomerate has had a close relationship with Apple for a number of years, driven in large part by Disney's acquisition of Pixar, which was owned by Steve Jobs. As a result of the transaction, Jobs became Disney's largest individual shareholder and retained a seat on Disney's board of directors.

The fruits of that relationship can be seen on Apple TV, which offers an existing Watch ABC channel, a trio of Disney television channels, a Watch ESPN channel, and three channels (A&E, Lifetime, History) from Disney/ABC's joint venture with Hearst Corporation. Disney is also a part owner of the Hulu subscription service that is available on Apple TV.

Update 7:08 AM: In addition to ABC News, several other new channels have appeared on Apple TV today, including PBS Kids, AOL On, and Willow, a sports channel dedicated to international cricket. The Flickr channel has also been redesigned.

Digitimes reports that Apple's new 12" MacBook Air will enter mass production in the 3rd quarter of 2014. Quanta Computer is reportedly responsible for the assembly of the new machine which falls in between the 11" and 13" MacBook Air lines. Their sources have not heard of any changes to the existing 11" and 13" MacBook Air models.

Digitimes' sources were able to confirm some small internal changes to the machine, but the new MacBook Air is said to look similar to the existing models:

The 12-inch MacBook Air features some design changes such as the battery and the internal layout, while its industrial design will be similar to its existing counterparts using an unibody aluminum chassis, the sources detailed. Some market watchers expect the machine to feature a Retina display.

First word of a 12" MacBook Air came from NPD DisplaySearch and analyst Ming Kuo in October, 2013. Kuo described the new machine as thinner than the existing MacBook Air and that it would incorporate a Retina Display. A Chinese forum post from a user who had previously leaked accurate information added that the 12" MacBook Air would feature a "new trackpad design" without a mechanical button and that the machine would have no fan.

Previous rumors have predicted that the 12" MacBook Air will be announced between Q3 and Q4 2014, so approximately September/October of this year.

Both the 4.7 and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 models are set to go into production next month, according to Bloomberg, and Apple may launch both sizes of the new device at the same time.

Apple is ramping up on two bigger-screen iPhones, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private. One model will have a 4.7-inch screen that may be available to ship to retailers around September, said two of the people. A larger 5.5-inch version is also being prepared for manufacturing and may be available at the same time, the people said.

Previously, reports indicated that issues with battery life and display technology for the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 may have caused Apple to delay the release of the larger version of the phone a couple months after the release of the 4.7-inch model. However, a report earlier this month said that Apple had solved the battery issues, though it wasn't apparent whether the 5.5-inch model would launch at the same time as the 4.7-inch model.

Apple and its manufacturing partners have been ramping up for the launch of new iOS devices later this year, with Foxconn hiring a record new 100,000 employees to help assemble iPhone 6. Pegatron is also set to assist in the production of the new iPhones, with reports claiming Pegatron's production share could be as little as 15% to as large as 50%.

Stock of the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 is likely to be lower than the 4.7-inch model, mostly due to the more complex manufacturing of the phone and the need for an increase in production efficiency for the device before the manufacturing volume for it can be increased.

Ahead of iOS 8 and the release of several new products later this year that will likely take advantage of Siri, Apple may be planning to bolster the virtual assistant with a range of new and improved languages.

Apple has posted several different job listings for Siri Language Engineers that are "highly motivated and an "expert in foreign languages with strong software development skills." According to the listings, posted largely between June 10 and June 19, Apple is seeking engineers fluent in Japanese, Norwegian, Turkish, Danish, Australian English, Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Swedish, Dutch, Thai, Russian, British English, and Cantonese. Emphasized languages above are not currently supported by Siri.

Come and join the team that teaches Siri how to understand and speak new languages. We are an extremely diverse and passionate group dedicated to bringing the future of intelligent assistants to the world.

Each position's responsibilities include tasks like developing natural language processing code specific to each language, providing suggestions towards new product features tailored to home markets, and daily interactions with other teams at Apple. Along with fluency in the target language, applicants are expected to have a proven track record delivering product-quality code as well as iOS or OS X development skills and proficiency with Java, perl, and shell scripting.

Apple has previously made several language related hires for its Siri team, recruiting a number of Cloud Services Engineering Interns fluent in a range of languages back in 2012 to work on support for additional languages for the service.

At the current time, Siri understands and speaks English (US, UK, Australia, Canada), Spanish (US, Spain, Mexico), Chinese (China-Mandarin, Hong Kong-Cantonese, Taiwan-Mandarin), French (France, Canada, Switzerland), German (Germany, Switzerland), Japanese (Japan), Italian (Italy, Switzerland), and Korean (Korea).

While the current version of iOS 8 available to developers does not add any additional language capabilities to Siri, it is possible that a Siri expansion is on the horizon for a later version of iOS 8, perhaps iOS 8.1, or iOS 9.

iOS 8, to be released to the public in the fall, does, however, feature a number of other Siri improvements including hands-free "Hey Siri" voice activation, Shazam integration, streaming voice recognition, and the ability to open the App Store.

Over the weekend, Apple's chief designer Jony Ive and musician Bono attended the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, where Bono was honored with the LionHeart Award for his work with the (Product) RED campaign to raise money for the fight against AIDS.

During their appearance, Ive and Bono sat down for a 45 minute interview. While the entirety of the interview has not yet been shared, Cannes has posted a short highlights reel, with the first two minutes of the video featuring Bono. In the spot, Bono describes working with Steve Jobs on (Product) RED, recounting a particular conversation with Jobs over the parentheses that are part of the (Product) RED name logo.

Jobs initially wanted to forgo the parentheses to keep anything from "interfering with the logo", but after a disagreement with Bono and some time to sleep on it, he conceded to the parentheses but never in Apple Stores.

As described by Adweek, though Ive and Bono are old friends and Apple has worked with (RED) for many years, Bono went on to complain on stage about Apple's quiet involvement in the project and the company's reluctance to put (RED) branding on products.

Bono went so far as to stand up, pull out an official (Red) iPad cover and remove the device, illustrating to the audience that the only actual nod to the nonprofit was inside the cover and therefore always obscured by the tablet.

"Where's the (Red) branding?" he asked Ive. "Nobody can see that. This is modesty run amok. This is the Apple way. They're like a religious cult."

Ive seemed unfazed by Bono's slights, noting that Apple and Product (RED) have a strong alliance. "We started in 2006 with one (RED) product, a nano, and now we've got well over half a dozen. It's been really, really special for us."

Over the course of Apple's partnership with (RED), the company has released (RED) iPod nanos and shuffles, iPad Smart Covers, iPhone Bumpers, and iPhone 5s cases, with a portion of each sale going directly to the charity.

Last year, Ive even teamed up with designed Marc Newson to create multiple one-of-a-kind products that were auctioned off by Sotheby's, with proceeds going to (RED). A range of items including solid gold EarPods and a red Mac Pro were auctioned, bringing in nearly $13 million.

To date, Apple has raised approximately $70 million for (Product) RED, with 100 percent of that money going towards HIV/AIDS programs in Africa. The full interview may be shared by Cannes in the future, but in the meantime, a slideshow created on Storify gives the highlights of the event.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Microsoft today announced several changes to its OneDrive cloud storage services, starting with a massive increase to 1 TB of storage for all Office 365 subscription plans. This expanded storage will be will be automatically added to existing Home, Personal, University or Business subscribers starting in July. While the 1TB feature is new for Home, Personal, and University users, this upgrade previously was announced for Office 365 Business subscribers.

Today, OneDrive and Office are announcing a BIG change to that benefit for consumers, to the tune of 1 TB per user. That’s right–we’re increasing the OneDrive storage allotment included with Office 365 Home, Office 365 Personal, and Office 365 University from 20 GB to 1 TB. That’s a whopping 50 times, or 5,000 percent increase in storage–and it’s going to be here before classes are in session!

For OneDrive users who are not Office 365 subscribers, Microsoft has also sweetened the deal by boosting the free storage allotment from 7 GB to 15 GB. Prices for additional storage plans also are being slashed by 70 percent, with new monthly prices starting at $1.99 for 100 GB (previously $7.49) and $3.99 for 200 GB (previously $11.49).

This Cloud storage expansion is one of several recent initiatives that encourage consumers to use Microsoft's Office platform. Earlier this year, Microsoft brought its Office suite to the iPad with tablet-friendly versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The Redmond company also introduced a new Personal Office 365 subscription plan for individuals and a Home plan for families that complement its multi-user business subscriptions.

Apple is of course also expanding its cloud storage services alongside iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite with the launch of iCloud Drive. Apple has yet to announce full details on iCloud Drive pricing, but at a minimum it includes options at 5 GB for free, 20 GB for $0.99/month, and 200 GB for $3.99/month, with higher tiers also available.

A report from China Times (via GforGames) claims Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is expanding its 8-inch chip plant in order to produce Touch ID sensors for the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3. TSMC is planning to produce 120 million Touch ID units in 2014, a 233 percent year over year increase as the sensor expands beyond the flagship iPhone to other iOS devices.

In line with a previous report from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, today's report claims Apple and TSMC are using tin to increase the durability of the sensor compared to the current version found in the iPhone 5s.

Supply chain sources say TSMC is scaling its mass production of new Touch ID units to begin delivery to Apple by early July, with third quarter production more than doubling over the previous quarter. A previous report had indicated that the first shipments of new Touch ID sensors began by early May, but these may still have been early batches for testing.

Similar to the iPhone's Touch ID, the iPad version will support the expanded functionality made possible by iOS 8's new SDK that allows third-party apps to access the fingerprint scanner for verification purposes. Touch ID also is rumored to be part of a mobile payment system under development by Apple.

Recent leaks hint at how the next-generation iPad Air and iPad Mini may appear with a Touch ID module and other design refinements such as a changed speaker grille and recessed volume buttons.

Apple's manufacturing partners are gearing up for the launch of new iOS devices later this year, with primary partner Foxconn bringing on 100,000 new workers to help assemble the iPhone 6, reports Taiwan's Economic Daily News [Google Translate] as picked up by Reuters.

Hon Hai Precision Industry will recruit over 100,000 people in mainland China to produce the newest iPhone from Apple Inc, Taiwan's Economic Daily News said, in what the report called the firm's largest single hiring spree in China.

Pegatron is reportedly also involved in iPhone 6 production, with early reports on Pegatron's production share ranging from 15% to 50%, but today's report and other recent ones have put Pegatron's share at closer to 30%. According to today's report, Pegatron is boosting its workforce by 30% to support production of the next iPhone. The company made a similar hiring surge last year in support of its role as the primary assembler for the iPhone 5c.

The timing of these hiring surges is about right for the rumored iPhone 6 schedule, with production reportedly set to ramp up next month ahead of a launch around the usual September timeframe. Most of the iPhone 6 attention has focused on a rumored 4.7-inch model that is expected to represent the bulk of sale, but Apple is said to also be working on an even larger 5.5-inch model that may launch alongside or in the months following the debut of the 4.7-inch model.

Apple's Maps has been the subject of a significant amount of criticism since its launch with iOS 6. Apple had replaced Google Maps data with their own map data which had comparably worse coverage, especially in international markets. There had been enough outcry that Apple CEO Tim Cook posted an open letter apologizing for Apple Maps. There had been hopes that the Apple Maps application would be improved with iOS 8 but internal politics were said to have delayed those plans.

Still, Apple does seem to making efforts to improve their mapping data. In April, they started deploying notifications to let users know when problems had been fixed.

Meanwhile, some users have recently noticed a significant improvement in POI (points of interest) data in their local Apple Maps. A discussion thread in MacRumors forums reports one user's experience. heyyoudvd writes:

Over the past month, I've noticed a TON of changes. POI markers are being moved to their correct locations, names and information for POIs are being corrected, and tons of places are being added that simply weren't there before. I don't know if it's merely coincidence, but A LOT of these changes are the exact ones that I've been reporting to Apple.

And I've noticed this happening on a weekly cycle. It seems like every Friday, a whole bunch of new changes are implemented in my neighborhood. All week, nothing happens, but then when I check on Friday/Saturday, I see that many of the suggestions that I had made during the week were suddenly implemented into the map, and its POIs suddenly look a whole lot better.

The same user also posted to Reddit, where several others have confirmed the same improvements in data and quick turnaround time with corrections.

Apple has made number of mapping-related company acquisitions in the past year, including Broadmap, Hopstop, Locationary, and Embark, and it's likely those acquisitions will be bundled into a future Maps update.

The first alleged parts from the larger 5.5" iPhone 6 have been shared by 9to5Mac. The image shows the front and back of an LCD backlight panel that measures ~14 centimeters or ~5.5 inches diagonally.

The site claims this represents a part for the 5.5" iPhone 6 which has been rumored to be launching later this year. Apple is also expected to produce a 4.7" model as well.

We've already seen some possible part leaks for the 4.7" model, but this is the first part leak for the 5.5" model. Reports had originally suggested the 5.5" model would be released after the initial 4.7" iPhone launch. More recently, however, we've heard that Apple may have solved whatever production challenges they ran into with the 5.5" model.

Possible parts for the 4.7" iPhone 6 model that have leaked include the front panel, batteries, rear shell and chassis molds. Meanwhile, the same LCD backlight for the 4.7" model was photographed in May. For comparison:

The 4.7" and 5.5" backlights share a similar design with each other and with the iPhone 5S LCD backlight. The data connector between the 4.7" and 5.5" models do seem different, however.