MacRumors

According to a new report from Taiwan's Industrial and Commercial Times (Google Translate, via Mac Otakara), Apple supplier Pegatron has received 15% of the orders for Apple's upcoming 4.7-inch iPhone 6 ahead of the device's launch this September. The report also notes that Pegatron will produce a total of 50 million iPhones this year, which includes iPhone 6, iPhone 5c, and iPhone 4S units.

The report contrasts a story from Taiwan's Liberty Times in January, which stated that half of all iPhone 6 orders were expected to go to Pegatron. A report last month also noted that Foxconn was preparing for iPhone 6 production in the second quarter of this year at its new Kunshan, China plant, as the company has recruited new workers in China to meet the desired number of orders. In addition to Pegatron, fellow Apple supplier Foxconn is also likely to aide with production.

Last year, Apple shifted iPhone 5c production to Pegatron in order to improve supply chain risk management, allowing Apple to balance its supply chain and minimize the risk of potential supply chain disasters.

Apple is expected to launch the iPhone 6 in two different screen sizes of 4.7-inches and 5.5-inches. The 4.7-inch iPhone 6 will likely ship ahead of the 5.5-inch version, as Apple attempts to solve issues with the latter's display and battery. Aside from a larger screen, Apple's next-generation iPhone is expected to include a thinner profile, a faster A8 processor, and an improved camera.

For many years, Apple has used different suppliers for the solid-state drives (SSDs) in its MacBook Air models, with drive performance varying among manufacturer brands. A recent study by Macworld demonstrated rather dramatic differences in SSD read and write speeds between tested 2013 and 2014 models, but at the time it was unclear whether the poorer performance for the 2014 models was still simply due to drive brand variances or if there was something specific to the 2014 machines causing an overall degradation in performance.

Other World Computing (OWC) has now performed some apples-to-apples testing between 2013 and 2014 models with SanDisk SSDs, and has found that performance is nearly identical.

In OWC's testing using Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, the new MacBook Air model with a 128 GB SanDisk SSD reported read/write speeds of 705/315 MBps, while the 2013 version also with a 128 GB SanDisk drive scored similarly with read/write speeds of 711/316 MBps.

Macworld's testing of four machines (various combinations of 2013/2014 models at 11 and 13 inches) had included drives of two different capacities from three different manufacturers, making it difficult to determine the exact cause of the performance differences.

This variability in brand performance was noticed years ago, when Apple started using both Toshiba and Samsung SSDs in its MacBook Air models. Apple continues to use drives from different manufacturers in its 2014 models, including units from Samsung, Toshiba and SanDisk. How various batches of drives from the different manufacturers are assigned to various machines is unknown, and consumers are unable determine which brand of SSD is in their MacBook Air without opening the box and either booting the machine to examine system profile information or physically opening the machine.

Apple's new MacBook Airs are available from Apple's website beginning at $899, while the 2013 models are being sold at significant discounts through a number of retailers.

Samsung yesterday confirmed it will challenge the $119.6 million verdict in the second Apple versus Samsung patent infringement trial, claiming the decision was “unsupported by evidence." According to Bloomberg, Samsung will ask Judge Lucy Koh to reduce the damages to zero and will follow with an appeal if this initial request is denied.

After several days of deliberations and weeks of testimony, the jury found that Samsung willfully infringed on three of the five Apple patents involved in the lawsuit and ordered the company to pay $119.6 million, a figure well below Apple's requested $2 billion. Speaking after the verdict, jury foreman Thomas Dunham said the compensation was "fair and just" based on the evidence presented at the trial (via Re/code).

“The damages were based on the fact that both sides presented their view of what a reasonable amount of, I guess, compensation would be,” he said. “We didn’t really feel either one was what we felt was a fair and just compensation.”

Dunham, who is familiar with the patent system from his work at IBM, hinted that Apple should pursue Google because the Android operating system is the real target in this case, an argument that Samsung's lawyers used during the trial (via The Wall Street Journal).

"If you really feel that Google is the cause behind this, as I think everybody has observed, then don't beat around the bush," said Mr. Dunham, whose job at IBM was to oversee developers expected to file patents. "Let the courts decide. But a more direct approach may be something to think about."

Though Samsung was the defendant, Google played a role in the case as it was part of a larger "holy war" against Android instigated by Steve Jobs following Android's debut Google also sent VP of engineering Hiroshi Lockheimer to testify on behalf of Samsung and agreed to offer partial legal protection to Samsung in case of an Apple win.

While Dunham suggests that Google should be Apple's real target in the ongoing litigation, jurors claim that Google’s part in the trial was not a factor when they were deciding on the merit of the infringement claims. It also did not influence the amount of damages ultimately awarded to Apple.

A new post on Weibo citing supply chain sources (Google Translate, via GforGames) claims Apple's 5.5-inch iPhone may see a limited production volume due to the use of high quality sapphire as a display material. According to the report, the high cost of producing the sapphire may hinder Apple's ability to include the scratch-resistant material in a large number of its smartphone models.

The report notes that Apple's sapphire display may cost 1743 yuan (or $280) in materials, which is a significant jump over the $44 estimated for the 4-inch Retina display used in the iPhone 5s. This extra expense could increase the retail price of the next generation iPhone by approximately 50 percent, which may price the smartphone beyond the affordability point for most consumers.

These latest reports suggest that the sapphire screen costs around 1743 yuan (or $280), which would raise the final cost of the device to about 8000 yuan (or $1285) – at least in China. At the moment, the 16 GB iPhone 5S costs 5288 yuan in China ($850), whereas the beefier 64 GB variant is retailed at the price of 6888 yuan (or $1106)

This rumor corresponds with an earlier report from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who suggested that supply constraints may force Apple to reserve the sapphire display for premium iPhone models such as the 64GB version of the 5.5-inch iPhone 6.

Though Apple still buys sapphire from third-party suppliers, the company is starting to produce the material in small quantities at its Arizona facility. The sapphire production plant, which is financed by Apple and operated by GT Advanced, is expected to produce between 100 and 200 million sapphire displays, enough for an entire line of devices when it reaches full operating capacity.

Apple is planning to hold an iPhone upgrade event at its stores this week in an effort to boost sales, a source told 9to5Mac. Starting this week, Apple will be emailing owners of older iPhone models who are upgrade eligible about the new event, and will apparently separate from Apple's current iPhone trade-in program.

This event will be held in multiple states across the United States, and Apple is said to be preparing for an influx of visitors to its stores on the levels of traffic driven to stores for new product debuts. Apple will brief Apple Retail management on the initiative tomorrow, according to the source.

Apple will be launching other new marketing and sales initiatives to help increase iPhone sales as well. There's no word on what types of marketing and initiatives Apple could use, but they will be tied to Apple's retail stores.

New Apple retail chief Angela Ahrendts, who officially joined the company on May 1 and began her first full week today, will oversee the program.

Apple once again noted that iPhone sales hit another record for Q2 2014, making up 57 percent of Apple's sales for the quarter for all products. CEO Tim Cook also noted in the conference call that Apple has started selling iPhone 4's in the "very, very low single digit percentage" and last year said he wanted to sell more iPhones in stores.

On the day that a San Jose jury submitted a final verdict on the damages that Samsung owes Apple in the second United States patent infringement lawsuit between the two companies, Vanity Fair has published a lengthy piece that takes a look at Samsung's long (and successful) history of using patent infringement as a business tactic.

Back in 2010, before Apple filed an initial lawsuit against Samsung, executives from Cupertino (including lawyers) met with Samsung executives in Seoul, where it was made clear by Samsung VP Seungho Ahn if Apple chose to pursue a lawsuit, Samsung would countersue with its own patents. "We've been building cell phones forever," Ahn told Chip Lutton, an Apple lawyer at the time. "We have our own patents, and Apple is probably violating some of those."

As it turns out, stealing key ideas from other companies and then using its own portfolio of patents to draw out lawsuits is a tactic that Samsung used long before Apple came into the picture.

According to various court records and people who have worked with Samsung, ignoring competitors' patents is not uncommon for the Korean company. And once it's caught it launches into the same sort of tactics used in the Apple case: countersue, delay, lose, delay, appeal, and then, when defeat is approaching, settle.

In 2007, Sharp filed a lawsuit against Samsung, alleging that the South Korean company had violated its patents. Samsung countersued, drawing out the lawsuit as it continued to produce TV sets using the stolen technology, building up its TV business. Samsung was found guilty of patent infringement years later in 2009, at which point it settled with Sharp to avoid an import ban.

There's a similar story with Pioneer, who filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung over plasma television technology in 2006. Samsung countersued, dragging on litigation and appeals until a 2009 settlement. The long and expensive legal battle caused Pioneer to shut down its television business while Samsung thrived. Samsung has pulled the same stunt with Kodak, Apple, and several other technology companies.

Samsung hit Apple with the same tactic following the release of the iPhone. As has been documented during the ongoing global lawsuits between the two companies, Samsung evaluated the iPhone feature-by-feature and came up with 126 instances where Apple's iPhone was better than its own offerings, which led to the development of the Galaxy S.

Bit by bit, the new model for a Samsung smartphone began to look--and function--just like the iPhone. Icons on the home screen had similarly rounded corners, size, and false depth created by a reflective shine across the image. The icon for the phone function went from being a drawing of a keypad to a virtually identical reproduction of the iPhone's image of a handset. The bezel with the rounded corners, the glass spreading out across the entire face of the phone, the home button at the bottom--all of it almost the same.

Following the release of the Galaxy S and Samsung's refusal to sign licensing agreements with Apple due to its former history of successfully avoiding significant penalties for copying intellectual property, Apple filed its first lawsuit against Samsung. Samsung, of course, followed, leading to where we are today -- Samsung has thus far been ordered to pay Apple just over a billion dollars in the United States after two lawsuits, but appeals are far from over. Samsung has continued to develop its Galaxy line of devices and has cemented itself as Apple's biggest competitor.

Meanwhile, as has happened with other cases where Samsung violated a company's patents, it has continued to develop new and better phones throughout the litigation to the point where even some people who have worked with Apple say the Korean company is now a strong competitor on the technology and not just a copycat anymore.

The full story, which covers Samsung's history, its past patent lawsuits and other legal woes, Apple's creation of the original iPhone, and the dispute between the two companies, can be read over at Vanity Fair.

Apple's share price has closed above the $600 mark for the first time since October 2012, some 18 months ago. It illustrate a significant recovery for Apple's stock, which hit a low of $388/share in late June 2013.

The price is mostly psychological, made even more so by the fact that Apple will split its stock by a 7/1 ratio next month, dropping the price down to roughly $85 per share at current prices. The stock split is meant to allow more investors the opportunity to invest in the company.

Apple's market capitalization is roughly $518 billion, well ahead of Exxon Mobil's $444 billion. Apple is the most valuable publicly traded company in the world. The company's all time high share price is $702.10, originally hit in September 2012.

Apple states that it uses data encryption to protect email message attachments, but a report from security researcher Andreas Kurtz, via ZDNet, claims iOS 7.0.4 and later does not include this security feature.

Kurtz detected this flaw in iOS by accessing the file system on an iPhone 4 running iOS 7.1 and 7.1.1. Browsing through the email folder for an IMAP account, Kurtz discovered that the email attachments were stored in an unencrypted state. Besides the iPhone 4, Kurtz also was able to reproduce this vulnerability on an iPhone 5s and an iPad 2 running iOS 7.0.4.

I verified this issue by restoring an iPhone 4 (GSM) device to the most recent iOS versions (7.1 and 7.1.1) and setting up an IMAP email account1, which provided me with some test emails and attachments. Afterwards, I shut down the device and accessed the file system using well-known techniques (DFU mode, custom ramdisk, SSH over usbmux). Finally, I mounted the iOS data partition and navigated to the actual email folder. Within this folder, I found all attachments accessible without any encryption/restriction

Kurtz reported this issue to Apple, which acknowledged the flaw, but provided no timetable for patching it. This isn't the first security issue Apple has faced this year. The company recently patched a serious SSL connection verification flaw in both iOS and OS X that allowed an attacker with a "privileged network position" to capture data protected by SSL/TLS.

Update 3:11 PM PT: In a statement given to iMore, an Apple spokesperson said the company is working on a fix for the issue.

"We're aware of the issue," an Apple spokeswoman told iMore, "and are working on a fix which we will deliver in a future software update."

Apple allegedly is looking beyond the iWatch wearable device and may be creating a new health and fitness ecosystem modeled on its successful iOS App Store, claims a mobile health executive who recently spoke to Reuters. Similar to the iOS App Store, this new platform may allow companies to develop their own mobile medical applications that could tie into Apple's iWatch wearable device.

One mobile health executive, who asked not to be named, told Reuters he recently sat down with an Apple executive from the iWatch team. He said the company has aspirations beyond wearable devices, and is considering a full health and fitness services platform modeled on its apps store.

As part of iOS 8 later this year, Apple is rumored to be launching a new Healthbook app, which is expected to serve as a repository for health-related data acquired from a variety of sources. Based on the breadth of data the app appears to be able to track, it is unsurprising that Apple will be looking to open up the ecosystem to third parties to help users fill out all of the various content areas.

One company that could benefit from an Apple health and fitness ecosystem is Nike, which has scaled back its work on its Fuelband hardware to focus on expanding its software-based NikeFuel platform. Though Nike CEO Mark Parker would not directly comment on specific plans with Apple, Parker did note in a recent CNBC appearance that Apple is a longtime partner and that he is "excited about where that relationship will go forward."

Much of today's report focuses on Apple's health- and sensor-related hires over the past several years, most of which have previously been detailed and which have been focused around non-invasive monitoring of vital health parameters such as sleep, oxygen saturation and blood glucose levels. Apple has hired talent from notable companies such as pulse oximetry company Masimo, medical sensor company Vital Connect and Philips Sleep Research.

Apple's latest reported hire is MIT researcher Eric Winokur, who worked on ear-worn devices for monitoring blood pressure and heart rate. Information about Winokur's hiring surfaced alongside a sketchy rumor claiming Apple is planning to launch an EarPods model with integrated heart rate and blood pressure sensors. While a new Tumblr blog post reveals that the claim was indeed fabricated, Apple patent applications suggest the company has indeed considered the integration of biometric sensors into its headphone line in the past.

Apple's sensor-laden iWatch has been rumored for several years, with most recent rumors suggesting that it may debut late this year. It is not expected to be unveiled at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference set for early June.

After three days of deliberations and several weeks of testimony, the jury reached a unanimous verdict in the second Apple vs. Samsung trial (via CNET). The jury found that Samsung willfully infringed on three of the five patents involved in the lawsuit, ordering the South Korean company to pay $119.6 million, far from the $2 billion total Apple was hoping for.

All of Samsung's devices were found to have infringed on the '647 data syncing patent, while some were found to have infringed on '721, slide-to-unlock. Samsung was not found to have infringed on '959, universal search, or on '414, background syncing. Judge Koh had also previously ruled that Samsung had infringed on Apple's '172 autocomplete patent.

As for Samsung's claims against Apple, Apple was found guilty of violating the company's '449 patent related to an "Apparatus for recording and reproducing digital image and speech", and was ordered to pay Samsung $158,400.

In this second lawsuit, which began on March 31, Apple argued that Samsung owed it $2.2 billion in damages for infringing on five separate iPhone patents. Samsung argued that Apple had infringed on two of its own patents, asking for $6.2 million in damages.

Over the course of the trial, Apple called in numerous experts to argue why it was owed $2 billion, chalking the total up to lost profits and reasonable royalty estimates. Samsung argued that Apple's $2 billion request was ludicrous, insisting it should owe only $40 million, or $1.75 per device.

While Samsung focused on proving that Apple was actually targeting Android in its suit, calling multiple Google witnesses like former Android chief Andy Rubin, Apple presented the jury with testimony from its own employees on the design, development, and marketing of the original iPhone.

During the trial, news broke that Google agreed to cover lawyer fees and potential damage awards related to some of the patents in the lawsuit. Four of the five patents Apple has accused Samsung of infringing on are part of the Android operating system, but the two Google had agreed to help with were not the same patents Samsung was found guilty of infringing.

This damages award adds to the recalculated damages from the original Apple vs. Samsung trial, in which Samsung was ordered to pay Apple a total of approximately $890 million. This suit focused on newer devices, including the Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note II, Galaxy Tab 10.1, the iPhone 4/4s/5, the iPad 2/3/4, the iPad mini, and fourth and fifth generation iPod touch.

Update 5:50 PM PT: Apple issued the following statement to Re/code following the verdict:

"We are grateful to the jury and the court for their service," Apple told Re/code. "Today's ruling reinforces what courts around the world have already found: that Samsung willfully stole our ideas and copied our products. We are fighting to defend the hard work that goes into beloved products like the iPhone, which our employees devote their lives to designing and delivering for our customers."

Update 6:05 PM PT: Apple's lawyers claim to have identified an error, suggesting one product (the Galaxy S2) found to infringe on the '172 patent received no damages award. The jury will need to return on Monday to finalize the damages award.

Update 5/4 11:40 AM PT: After calculating damages for the missing Galaxy S2, the jury has awarded Apple an additional $4 million and adjusted the damages for some other products, keeping the overall amount that Samsung owes at the original $119.6 million.

Earlier this week Italian site Macitynet shared images of a high-quality physical mockup of the iPhone 6, based on earlier design drawings and renderings. The site has now shared [Google Translation] a new series photos comparing that mockup to a Samsung Galaxy S5 display model, showing how Apple's larger iPhone might stack up to Samsung's flagship offering.

Samsung's Galaxy S5, released in April, has a display size of 5.1 inches, along with a thickness of 8.1mm. That makes it both larger and thicker than the iPhone 6 mockup, which appears to have a display size of 4.7-inches. While the thickness of the mockup cannot be determined, rumors have suggested the iPhone 6 will be thinner than the existing 7.6mm iPhone 5s, possibly between 6.5 and 7mm.

The mockup in the photos was reportedly created by a case manufacturer and is said to be a "final" version used to make sure cases and accessories will fit Apple's iPhone 6, which means that it could be a solid representation of what we can expect from Apple's larger phone.

Several design elements that have been seen in other case models and mockups are present in this high-quality mockup, including rounded edges, rectangular volume buttons, a rounded rear flash, a protruding camera, and a power button located on the right hand side of the device for easier one-handed use. ConceptsiPhone (via BGR) has compiled many of Macitynet's photos into a video, showing the mockup next to an iPhone 5s and an iPhone 4s.

Apple's 4.7-inch iPhone is expected to launch in the fall months, possibly as early as September. Along with a thinner frame and a larger display, it is also expected to include an A8 processor and camera improvements. A second 5.5-inch iPhone is also rumored to be arriving several months later due to production delays.

Apple has purchased LuxVue Technology, a company that develops low-power microLED-based displays, reports TechCrunch, citing sources with knowledge of the acquisition. Micro-LEDs have the potential to improve battery life while offering brighter screens than competing technologies.

Little is known about LuxVue, which appears to operate largely under the radar. The company appears to create LED displays that use little energy for use in various consumer electronic products. Back in December of 2013, LuxVue raised $25.2 million in funding for to pursue its micro-LED technology. The company has also filed several patents on micro-LEDs, and one of LuxVue's investors said the company had "a technical breakthrough in displays."

LuxVue's VP of technology, Kapil Sakariya, has ties to Apple, having previously worked as a Display Architect and iPhone Operations and Procurement Manager at Apple. Sakariya was employed at Apple from July of 2006 until November of 2011, when he joined LuxVue.

According to TechCrunch, Apple has made the acquisition to add to its hardware innovations area, which the company has been aiming to bolster in recent years to bring more of its production in-house. Last year, Apple acquired low-power wireless chip provider Passif Semiconductor and is said to be in talks to acquire Renesas SP Drivers, a division of Renesas Electronics that develops chips for smartphone displays.

Update: Apple has seemingly confirmed the purchase to TechCrunch, issuing its usual statement for such circumstances: "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."

The newly released 2014 MacBook Airs are seeing improved processor performance thanks to updated Haswell chips, but storage performance appears to have declined.

In a series of performance benchmark tests performed by Macworld, tests of the flash storage suggested the new MacBook Airs are performing slower than the 2013 MacBook Airs. The comparison, which included a 2013 11-inch MacBook Air with a 256GB SSD and a 2013 13-inch MacBook Air with a 128GB SSD vs. a 2014 11-inch model with a 128GB SSD and a 13-inch model with a 256GB SSD, found that the 2014 models were twice as slow as the 2013 models at some tasks.

Copying 6GB of files and folders took 28 seconds on last year's 11-inch MacBook Air, but took nearly twice as long (54 seconds) on this year's 11-inch model. With solid-state storage, lower capacity drives are often slower performers, and last year's 11-inch had the higher capacity 256GB of flash. However, the new 11-inch model was also slower than last year's 13-inch model with 128GB of flash storage.

Compressing 6GB of files also took longer on the 2014 MacBook Air, and Macworld described unzipping as "just plain slow" with the new 11-inch version taking three times as long to unzip files as the 2013 model.

Using fewer but larger files, the performance difference narrowed between the two models, but the 2014 11-inch MacBook Air still performed 35 percent slower copying files than the mid–2013 13-inch MacBook Air with the same storage capacity and 53 percent slower when uncompressing files.

The Blackmagic Disk Speed Test also showed the new models running slower than the older models, with write/read speeds as follows (in MBps):

- 2013 13-inch with 128GB SSD: 445/725
- 2013 11-inch with 256GB SSD: 687/725
- 2014 13-inch with 256GB SSD: 520/676
- 2014 11-inch with 128GB SSD: 306/620

All four of the drives in the MacBook Airs tested came from different manufacturers, with two from Samsung, one from Toshiba, and one from SanDisk, which accounts for the performance discrepancies. Speed differences between SSDs used within Apple's MacBook Air computers have been highlighted before in previous models and as suggested in the past, while the speed variations may be noticeable in some high-intensity tasks, they are unlikely to be noticed during day-to-day usage.

Released earlier this week, the new MacBook Airs are available from Apple's website beginning at $899.

Apple does not have plans to use the company's upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference to debut new Apple TV hardware, its related software, or the iWatch, reports John Paczkowski of Re/code.

Citing sources familiar with Apple's plans, Paczkowski confirms that Apple's big announcements will focus on OS X 10.10, iOS 8, and possibly Healthbook, an app Apple is said to be developing to aggregate fitness and health information.

Sources familiar with Apple's plans tell Code/red that Tim Cook will not use WWDC to unveil Apple's mythical wearable device. Nor will he use it to show off a new Apple TV, or even preview the new software the company is developing for it. Which makes perfect sense, really. There's little point in Apple unveiling a new OS in advance of a significant hardware update.

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, which starts on June 2, has historically been used as a platform for unveiling new operating system software. Apple has, however, occasionally debuted new hardware at the event, including new MacBook Airs in 2013 and the Retina Macbook Pro in 2012.

Though the company does not have plans to unveil an updated Apple TV set-top box at WWDC, the product is said to be in the works. The revamped box is rumored to include an App Store, gaming support, iOS 7 controller integration, and possibly new content deals.

Apple may have had plans to debut the box earlier in 2014, but according to a recent product roadmap from often reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, we may not see an updated Apple TV until the third quarter of 2014.

As for the iWatch, which also remains in development, a late 2014 release date is expected.