MacRumors

Microsoft and Nokia today announced that Microsoft will acquire Nokia's Devices and Services unit, allowing Microsoft to unite its Windows Phone software efforts with its primary hardware partner in Nokia. The deal also includes a licensing agreement to provide Microsoft with access to Nokia's mapping services and patents.

Building on the partnership with Nokia announced in February 2011 and the increasing success of Nokia’s Lumia smartphones, Microsoft aims to accelerate the growth of its share and profit in mobile devices through faster innovation, increased synergies, and unified branding and marketing. For Nokia, this transaction is expected to be significantly accretive to earnings, strengthen its financial position, and provide a solid basis for future investment in its continuing businesses.

“It’s a bold step into the future – a win-win for employees, shareholders and consumers of both companies. Bringing these great teams together will accelerate Microsoft’s share and profits in phones, and strengthen the overall opportunities for both Microsoft and our partners across our entire family of devices and services,” said Steve Ballmer, Microsoft chief executive officer. “In addition to their innovation and strength in phones at all price points, Nokia brings proven capability and talent in critical areas such as hardware design and engineering, supply chain and manufacturing management, and hardware sales, marketing and distribution.”

The deal will see 32,000 Nokia employees transfer to Microsoft, with Microsoft also acquiring the Lumia and Asha brands while licensing the Nokia brand for continuity with current Nokia-branded hardware. Microsoft will also acquire Nokia's long-term license with Qualcomm for chip technology.

Microsoft and Nokia have seen some success with Lumia phones running Windows Phone, but the platform remains well short of becoming a third major player in the smartphone market alongside Google's Android and Apple's iOS. By uniting the hardware and software, Microsoft seems intent upon offering a more complete and end-to-end user experience, similar in some ways to Apple's work integration of iOS and iPhone.

Following recent photos of Apple's alleged iPhone 5C shown in its packaging, as well as the quick-start guide, SIM eject tool and other paperwork to be included in the packaging, several more photos and a video have surfaced showing similar devices and packages.

First, Chinese site iApps.im has shared two new photos, one showing a blue iPhone 5C partially unpackaged and a second showing yellow, blue and white iPhone 5C units in their packages.

The first video of an alleged fully assembled, powered on iPhone 5C has also surfaced on Chinese technology blog C Technology [Google Translate] (via Sim Only Radar). The 50-second video shows a red, plastic device running what appears to be Safari on iOS 7, with pinch-to-zoom capabilities as well as responsive scrolling. The shape and two-tone color of the phone are consistent with previous leaks, although the low-resolution video and lack of any views other than from the front make it difficult to assess whether it is indeed a legitimate iPhone 5C or another device wrapped in a colored bumper or shell.

Finally, C Technology has also posted a solo photo showing a green iPhone 5C in its packaging, in line with other photos from the past few days although without a sticker illustrating the iOS 7 home screen on a color-matched background.

Apple's iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S are both expected to be revealed at a media event on September 10, with the two new devices expected to be released in the first wave of markets on September 20.

(Thanks, Benjamin and David!)

New photos of Apple’s alleged low-cost iPhone 5C have surfaced this weekend, with one photo coming from website iApps.im showing many devices in a red plastic shell, with the other two photos coming from Chinese site Weibo depicting a phone diagram, instruction manuals, legal information and SIM card ejection tools. The three photos were noted by 9to5Mac.

The packaging in question appears to be consistent with an image that surfaced in July that first displayed the “iPhone 5C” name, with the paper included in the packaging also appearing to match the shape of the plastic shell. The shape of the device also pictured appears to match a photo last month of various iPhone 5C devices being tested at a Pegatron factory, a notable supplier to Apple.

As stated in our iPhone 5C roundup, the low-cost phone is expected to arrive with a plastic rear shell available in multiple colors such as yellow, blue, red, green, and white to be offered. The phone’s internals are expected to be similar to that of the iPhone 5, with the device expected to carry an A6 chip, 4-inch Retina display, 8-megapixel rear camera, and 1.2-megapixel front camera. The device is also estimated to be $400-$500 without a service contract based on analysis over the past few months.

Apple’s iPhone 5C and flagship iPhone 5S are both expected to be unveiled at a September 10th media event, and will likely launch in the first wave of markets on September 20th.

Last fall, we launched a series of roundups to help visitors more easily stay on top of the latest rumors for several of Apple's product lines, condensing months' worth of news and rumors into a single frequently-updated page for each product. For various reasons, those roundups fell out of date.

After taking some time to completely rework both the look and functionality, we are relaunching our Roundups feature today with coverage of the iPhone 5S, iPhone 5C, and iWatch. More roundups are coming soon to expand our coverage of Apple's products as the company heads into to a busy season of iPhone, iPad, Mac, and software updates.

The goal of each roundup is to simply answer the question of "What are you expecting" for any given product. That opinion is certain to change over time as new rumors are revealed, and the roundups will be updated regularly to reflect that.

Our roundup index page includes a full list of our available roundups ordered by most recently updated. Roundups are also accessible directly through the "Roundups" tab in the navigation bar on all MacRumors pages.

- iPhone 5S
- iPhone 5C
- iWatch

Apple appears to be cutting down on available vacation time for its AppleCare employees between September 15 and 28, a two week period encompassing the prospective September 20 release date for the iPhone 5S and 5C that was first leaked earlier this month. iOS 7 is also expected to be released that week.

An internal document shared by AppleInsider reportedly shows the amount of time off available for AppleCare employees during the month of September, which appears to drop beginning on September 15.

An internal company document shared with AppleInsider purportedly shows time off available for AppleCare employees for the latter half of September. As can be seen in the calendar, available time off drops off significantly starting Sunday, Sept. 15, and continues through Saturday, Sept. 28.

The image provided shows the calendar being accessed via virtual private network from an internal Apple employee domain. Potentially identifying portions of the picture have been cropped out.

Multiple carriers have also initiated similar vacation blackout dates on some of the same days, with T-Mobile employees reporting a September 20 to 22 blackout and Verizon employees reporting September 18 to September 22 blackout dates.

Apple likely has a longer blackout period for its AppleCare employees in order to offer extended support to both iOS 7 users and new iPhone owners. AppleCare employees began training on support issues related to iOS 7 yesterday and that training is likely to continue up until the OS is distributed to the public.

While Apple has been found guilty of conspiring to fix e-book prices as it sought to launch its iBookstore alongside the iPad in early 2010, five publishers involved in the case have already agreed to settle the cases brought against them by state attorneys general and other class-action plaintiffs.

Among the publishers, Hachette, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster had previously received court approval for their settlement agreements, and Macmillan and Penguin settlements are now proceeding through the approval phase. Customers who purchased Macmillan or Penguin e-books are now receiving emails informing them about the proposed settlement and their rights and responsibilities with respect to the agreement.

Under the proposal, the Macmillan and Penguin settlement funds would be combined with previous amounts committed by the other publishers, yielding a total fund of $162.25 million to be paid out to consumers who purchased e-books between the iBookstore's April 1, 2010 launch and May 21, 2012.

While the exact amount of reimbursement customers will receive depends on how many end up being included in the program, current estimates suggest that customers could be reimbursed $3.06 for each purchase of an e-book that appeared on the New York Times bestseller list at any point, and $0.73 per non-bestseller book.

The amount of your credit or check will be affected by how many qualifying E-books you purchased. There will be two levels of payments, based on categories of E-books. While the exact amount to be paid per E-book in each category is not yet finalized, the best estimates of payments for each E-book you purchased, based on the Plaintiffs proposed plan for a combined fund, are as follows:

- New York Times bestsellers: $3.06 per E-book. These include titles that were New York Times bestsellers at any time, irrespective of when you purchased the E-book.

- Non-New York Times bestsellers: $.73 per E-book. These E-books include any titles that were not New York Times bestsellers.

Residents of Minnesota will receive a different, higher amount per book because they were not included in the first round of settlements.

Reimbursement methods will also vary based on where e-books were purchased, with Amazon customers receiving automatic account credit while Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo users will have to activate their account credits, or they may request reimbursement by check. Consumers have until October 21 to object to or exclude themselves from the proposed settlement, and a hearing will be held on December 6 to consider approval.

While penalties in the case against Apple have yet to be assessed and Apple has vowed to appeal the verdict, estimates have suggested that Apple could owe as much as $500 million for its role in pushing book publishers to move to an agency model that resulted in higher prices for consumers.