Apple and THX will attempt to solve their speaker patent dispute out of court, reports Bloomberg, after lawyers for the two companies filed a request with the San Francisco federal court to ask for a postponement of a case-management conference scheduled to take place on June 14.
THX, the sound engineering company that was founded by George Lucas, originally sued Apple in March over patented speaker technology that is used in the iMac, iPhone, and iPad product lines. The patent, titled "Narrow profile speaker configurations and systems," pertains to technology most recently used in the new iMac, which features long channels that allow audio to be projected from the bottom edge of the machine.
THX holds a 2008 patent for a speaker unit that can boost sound output and attach to computers or flat-screen televisions, according to a complaint filed in March. Apple products that incorporate the speaker units infringe the patent, causing "monetary damage and irreparable harm," according to San Rafael, California-based THX.
In the lawsuit, THX asks for a court order to halt the alleged infringement along with a reasonable royalty or damages to compensate for lost profit. The two companies have asked for the case management conference to be postponed until July 26.
With the theft of Apple products on the rise, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has called for a summit with representatives from the four major smartphone manufacturers, reports the Huffington Post.
Next week, Schneiderman plans to meet with officials from Apple, Google, Samsung, and Microsoft, where he will present questions on the actions that the companies plan to take to combat device theft.
Schneiderman, along with San Francisco district attorney George Gascón, will question Apple, Google, Samsung and Microsoft officials in New York about why they have not yet developed technology that renders stolen mobile devices inoperable, eliminating the incentive for theft.
"The theft of handheld devices is the fastest-growing street crime, and increasingly, incidents are turning violent," Schneiderman said in a statement Wednesday. "It's time for manufacturers to be as innovative in solving this problem as they have been in designing devices that have reshaped how we live."
Both Schneiderman and San Francisco DA George Gascón have spearheaded efforts to cut down on device crime. Gascón has promoted the idea of a "kill switch" in Apple devices that could be used to permanently disable them in the event of a theft and Schneiderman has followed in his footsteps, sending out inquiry letters on device theft to smartphone manufacturers last month.
While all four major U.S. carriers implemented a shared database to track stolen mobile phones last year, it has proven to be largely ineffective at cutting down on device thefts.
Plex, the advanced server-client media player, has released a new client for the Apple TV -- however, unlike the existing ATV client, this one does not require the device to be jailbroken.
Plex allows users to store movie and TV show files on a server and then view those files on a wide variety of client devices including Macs, PCs, a number of smart televisions, the Roku box and the Apple TV. The server also connects to Internet databases to pull IMDB-type metadata on media.
The client, called PlexConnect, uses a hack to get video from the Plex Media Server onto the Apple TV. A small Python program on the Mac intercepts DNS requests from the Movie Trailers app on the Apple TV and instead returns a custom XML feed that delivers a list of media and movie streams to the device.
Enter PlexConnect. The brainchild of Baa, roidy and f00b4r, it’s a super clever little hack which allows a rich, fully-functional Plex client on un-jailbroken ATV2 and ATV3 (1080p!) devices. Essentially, you run a program on your computer which masquerades as the Trailer app. Next, change one setting on the ATV, and you’re up and running. It took me less than 2 minutes to install and get it running. It already uses the new transcoder (which means great support for subtitles), and I suspect it’ll support myPlex soon as well. In the PlexPass preview release of the media server, it also supports AC3 5.1 (remuxing and transcoding from DTS). Another cool thing: it supports iTunes DRM’ed video files.
Unlike the other Plex client for ATV2, this one uses XML and Javascript, which means it’s super easy to develop for. We can only hope that Apple opens up their App Store to these ATV “widgets” at some point. Another cool thing: it supports iTunes DRM’ed video files.
Currently, PlexConnect runs within a terminal window on the Mac, making it tricky for novice users to set up. The team is working on making it easier to install for future releases.
There is a PlexConnect wiki with installation guides and more information, and the Plex website has more information about the program as a whole.
With Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) kicking off next Monday, June 10 at 10:00 AM Pacific Time with a keynote address, it's time for a roundup of rumors about what we might see at the event.
In announcing the conference back in late April, Apple unsurprisingly revealed that it will be delivering "new versions of iOS and OS X" to developers, undoubtedly referring to iOS 7 and OS X 10.9. And as has become tradition since Apple moved its iPhone launches later in the year starting in 2011, WWDC 2013 is indeed expected to live up to its developer focus with an emphasis on software.
iOS 7
iOS 7 will almost certainly make its consumer debut alongside updated iPhone hardware later this year, but WWDC will offer the first glimpse of the upcoming software and Apple should spend a fair amount of the keynote walking through the changes. Apple will also begin seeding versions of iOS 7 to developers at WWDC, giving them time to help test the operating system itself and to build and update their own apps to take advantage of new features coming in iOS 7.
The big discussion surrounding iOS 7 has been regarding a new "flat design" driven by Jony Ive, who took over control of Apple's software-focused Human Interface team late last year in addition to his longtime role as head of Industrial Design. Prominent rumors for iOS 7 include:
Claimed early alpha version of iOS 7 with flatter look
OS X 10.9
For this year's OS X 10.9, many had been expecting Apple to mirror its 2012 OS X Mountain Lion schedule with developer previews beginning around February ahead of a late summer public launch, but despite a evidence of the next version of its Mac operating system showing up in web blogs late last year, the company has yet to make any public announcements about the update.
Back in April, Daring Fireball's John Gruber reported that with iOS 7 having been running behind schedule, Apple had been pulling engineers from OS X 10.9 in order to assist with the iOS work. The report was later confirmed by AllThingsD and The Loop, although it seems unclear whether the shift had any effect on Apple's internal timeline for OS X 10.9. Details on what to expect in OS X 10.9 have been relatively scarce, but rumors have included:
Apple has been rumored to be working on a Pandora-like streaming radio service for quite some time, but difficult negotiations have reportedly slowed the effort considerably. Just weeks ago, it was reported that continued difficulties with record label and publisher negotiations might result in Apple being unable to unveil the service at WWDC, but just this past weekend Apple signed Warner Music in what appears to be a last-minute push to secure deals in time for a WWDC announcement. The service would not, however, launch until later this year alongside iOS 7.
The service, informally dubbed "iRadio", is said to be free to users, relying on advertising support through Apple's iAd team to generate revenue. Apple is reportedly seeking to deploy a service similar to that offered by Pandora but with additional flexibility for users.
Notebook Updates
With Intel having announced a series of new Haswell chips yesterday, Apple's Mac lineups may be ready for updates. Apple's notebook lineup appears to be the primary target for updates at WWDC, with reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo calling the notebook refresh the hardware highlight of WWDC. Leaked model numbers have hinted at notebook updates for WWDC, although the identities of the products associated with those numbers have not yet been confirmed.
Upgrades will primarily be internal with the shift to Haswell, although Kuo believes that the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro may see a slimmer design. Other rumored upgrades include a shift to full HD (2.0-megapixel) FaceTime cameras on the Retina MacBook Pro models and adoption of a dual-microphone system on the MacBook Air to improve sound quality. Kuo believes that Apple will continue to offer the non-Retina MacBook Pro, but handicap the line by continuing to offer Intel's older Ivy Bridge chips in a bid to push consumers to the thinner and more expensive Retina MacBook Pro models. Apple may also be upgrading to faster 802.11ac Wi-Fi in its next-generation machines.
Mac Pro?
Following a disappointing update for the Mac Pro last year, coming approximately two years after the previous update, Apple took the unusual step of confirming that the company would have a redesigned Mac Pro for "later" in 2013. Some rumors had suggested that Apple might launch the new Mac Pro this spring, but the update failed to come to fruition. Apple has even been forced to halt sales of the current Mac Pro in Europe over non-compliance with certain safety requirements.
WWDC represents a reasonable opportunity for Apple to update the Mac Pro given the developer and professional focus for the conference, and stocks of the workstation are said to be running low. Timing may not, however, be in Apple's favor, as at this point the Mac Pro would be expected to adopt Intel's Ivy Bridge E processors, the full line of which is not expected until around September of this year. Still, it is possible that Apple could announce a new Mac Pro at WWDC with availability scheduled for the future.
Live Keynote Coverage
The WWDC 2013 keynote kicks off at 10:00 AM Pacific Time on Monday, June 10, and we will be providing live updates here. We will also be issuing Twitter updates through our @MacRumorsLive account. Separate news stories regarding the event announcements will go out through our @MacRumors account.
The Russian trademark filing, made on June 3 through law firm Baker & McKenzie, claims a priority registration date of December 3, 2012 in Jamaica. Apple and other companies frequently file first in Caribbean countries such as Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago where records are not easily searchable online, using those priority dates to help secure protection in other countries at later dates.
According to the filing, Apple has applied for protection on the "iWatch" name in two trademark classes: Class 9, which includes computers and peripherals; and Class 14, which includes various types of jewelry such as watches.
Drawing from Apple patent application for a "slap bracelet" video accessory resembling a smart watch
Izvestia reports that Apple faces a bit of competition for the iWatch name in markets around the world, including in the United States where multiple companies have received trademarks on variations of the term in Class 9. Even in Russia, another company's 2011 application for the iWatch trademark in Class 14 was denied due to similarities to an existing "iSwatch" trademark held by Swiss watchmaker Swatch.
While efforts by Apple to protect the "iWatch" name are suggestive of plans to launch such a product, they are by no means definitive. In the lead-up to the iPad launch, we discovered that Apple had been seeking to secure rights to iSlate trademarks and domain names, only to later discover evidence that it was also protecting the iPad name. Both of those efforts were performed with the use of dummy corporations designed to hide Apple's role in securing the names, but it appears that Apple is not resorting to such measures with the iWatch name.
(Thanks to Anastasia Spilnick of PATENTUS for directing us to the actual filing.)
Intel announced the next generation of Thunderbolt, codenamed "Falcon Ridge," back in April, but today the company shared some a few additional details about the upcoming release.
As previously announced, Falcon Ridge, now officially dubbed Thunderbolt 2, supports up to 20Gbps bi-directionally, doubling the bandwidth of the original Thunderbolt. The new version of Thunderbolt will support both DisplayPort 1.2 and 4K video.
Named "Thunderbolt™ 2", this next generation of the technology enables 4K video file transfer and display simultaneously – that's a lot of eye-popping video and data capability. It is achieved by combining the two previously independent 10Gbs channels into one 20Gbs bi-directional channel that supports data and/or display.
Current versions of Thunderbolt, although faster than other PC I/O technologies on the market today, are limited to an individual 10Gbs channel each for both data and display, less than the required bandwidth for 4K video transfer. Also, the addition of DisplayPort 1.2 support in Thunderbolt 2 enables video streaming to a single 4K video monitor or dual QHD monitors.
Thunderbolt 2 is backwards compatible with current generation cables and connectors, so existing hardware will continue to function with the updated controller. Intel expects Thunderbolt 2 to begin production before the end of the year, ramping up into 2014.
As noted by Macworld, Pioneer has lowered the prices on several of its AirPlay speakers, which have, historically, been offered at a much higher pricing tier than Bluetooth speakers.
The company recently dropped the price of its XW-SMA1 speaker from $299 to $149, while the prices of the XW-SMA3 and XW-SMA4 have similarly been cut in half from $399 to $199. (These changes aren't yet reflected on Pioneer's website, where the latter two speakers are still listed at $399.)
Macworld spoke to a Pioneer representative, who said that the company is aiming to make its AirPlay speakers price competitive with its Bluetooth models, with the hope that lower prices will help consumers to appreciate AirPlay's advantages.
While Bluetooth has been a more affordable option for consumers, AirPlay has a distinct edge, offering a much longer range with the option of utilizing multiple speakers for a complete home audio experience.
Traditionally, AirPlay speakers have been priced higher than Bluetooth speakers due to the cost of licensing the technology from Apple. It is unclear if Pioneer is eating the additional cost or if Apple has made AirPlay licensing more affordable, but with Pioneer lowering the price of its AirPlay speakers, it is likely that other manufacturers may have to follow suit in order to continue to offer competitive pricing.
Apple has begun decorating the Moscone Center ahead of its Worldwide Developers Conference next week. 9to5Mac has posted one image of a banner inside the building featuring the tagline 'Where a whole new world's developing'.
The banner use the same color scheme as the WWDC invitations sent out in April.
MacStories has also shared a picture of workers installing WWDC graphics on the outside of Moscone.
Workers will continue installing graphics throughout the day and readers are encouraged to send their photographs to tips@macrumors.com.
The U.S. International Trade Commission today reached a decision [PDF] in the ongoing Apple vs. Samsung case, ruling that Apple infringed on Samsung Patent No. 7,706,348, titled "Apparatus and method for encoding/decoding transport format combination indicator in CDMA mobile communication system."
The ITC has issued a cease and desist order that prohibits the sale and distribution in the U.S. of older Apple products that infringe on specific claims (75–76 and 82–84) of the '348 patent, which includes AT&T models of the iPhone 4 and 3GS, the iPad 3G and the iPad 2 3G.
Under the modified constructions, the Commission has determined that Samsung has proven that the accused iPhone 4 (AT&T models); iPhone 3GS (AT&T models); iPhone 3 (AT&T models); iPad 3G (AT&T models); and iPad 2 3G (AT&T models) infringe the asserted claims of the '348 patent. The win is the first in the United States for Samsung, after losing a major jury trial in 2012.
During the dispute, Apple unsuccessfully argued that as the '348 patent relates to standard technology that Samsung helped to establish, Samsung has a fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) obligation that requires the company to license the patent on fair terms and prevents it from using the patent for an exclusion order.
The ITC did not agree, however, stating that Samsung's FRAND declarations "do not preclude issuance of the limited exclusion order and cease and desist order." Samsung reportedly demanded a licensing fee of 2.4% per device sold, which Apple found to be unreasonable.
The Commission has further determined that the properly construed claims have not been proven by Apple to be invalid and that Samsung has proven that a domestic industry exists in the United States with respect to the '348 patent.
The ITC's decision is a final ruling, but the ban will not go into effect immediately and could be overridden by the White House in the next 60 days. If the decision is not vetoed, Apple will be able to file an appeal.
Newer versions of Apple's iPad and iPhone, including the fourth generation iPad, the iPad mini, the iPhone 4S and the iPhone 5, use different technology that does not infringe on Samsung's patent and these later devices will not be subject to the cease and desist order.
Update: Apple spokesperson Kristen Huguet issued the following statement to AllThingsD.
We are disappointed that the Commission has overturned an earlier ruling and we plan to appeal. Today's decision has no impact on the availability of Apple products in the United States. Samsung is using a strategy which has been rejected by courts and regulators around the world. They’ve admitted that it’s against the interests of consumers in Europe and elsewhere, yet here in the United States Samsung continues to try to block the sale of Apple products by using patents they agreed to license to anyone for a reasonable fee.
AllThingsD has has also posted the full ITC order banning some of Apple's devices.
After a beta period spanning several weeks, Apple today released the final version of OS X 10.8.4. The update, which can be accessed via the Mac App Store, includes several notable bug fixes including a fix for an issue that caused iMessages to display out of order along with Microsoft Exchange and Calendar compatibility improvements.
- Compatibility improvements when connecting to certain enterprise Wi-Fi networks - Microsoft Exchange compatibility improvements in Calendar - A fix for an issue that prevented FaceTime calls to non-U.S. phone numbers - A fix for an issue that may prevent scheduled sleep after using Boot Camp - Improves VoiceOver compatibility with text in PDF documents - Includes Safari 6.0.5, which improves stability for some websites with chat features and games - A fix for an issue that may cause iMessages to display out of order in Messages - Resolves an issue in which Calendars Birthdays may appear incorrectly in certain time zones - A fix for an issue that may prevent the desktop background picture from being preserved after restart - A fix for an issue that may prevent documents from being saved to a server using SMB - Addresses an issue that may prevent certain files from opening after copied to a volume named “Home" - A fix for an issue that may prevent changes to files made over NFS from displaying - Resolves an issue saving files to an Xsan volume from certain applications - Improves Active Directory log-in performance, especially for cached accounts or when using a .local domain - Improves OpenDirectory data replication - Improves 802.1X compatibility with ActiveDirectory networks - Improves compatibility when using mobile accounts
The update also includes Safari 6.0.5, which improves stability for websites with chat features and games.
After eight different beta builds, Apple closed its 10.8.4 Beta Testing Program last Friday. During the beta, Apple had asked users to focus on Wi-Fi, Graphics Drivers, and Safari. The public version of OS X 10.8.4 is the same 12E55 build that was seeded to developers on May 24.
According to Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt, who spoke to investors at the Bank of America Merill Lynch Global Telecom and Media Conference today (via FierceCable), Time Warner is in talks with Apple, Microsoft, and Samsung over potential streaming video deals that are similar to its existing partnership with Roku.
Time Warner Cable brought its authenticated cable service, TWC TV, to Roku in March. With the app, Time Warner Cable subscribers are able to watch up to 300 live TV channels with any TV connected to a Roku device, without the need for a cable box. Time Warner has a similar deal with Samsung to deliver cable programming to its connected TVs.
"You should assume we're talking to everyone who makes devices like this, whether it's Samsung smart TVs, Apple, Microsoft," Britt said at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Telecom and Media conference. Britt's remarks suggest Time Warner Cable may eventually offer the TWC TV app through the Apple TV set-top and Microsoft's new Xbox One gaming console, which will debut later this year.
Apple recently struck a deal with the CW network to bring content to the Apple TV through a dedicated CW app, and it appears that Apple is open to other deals that could potentially bring the TWC TV to the Apple TV. Presumably, such an app would function similarly to the version offered via Roku, allowing Time Warner Cable subscribers to use the Apple TV to stream live television channels.
Britt's comments confirm a Wall Street Journalreport from last year, which suggested that Apple was working on deals to create a set-top box that would allow user to view live cable channels.
Such deals with cable companies are necessary if Apple wants to expand its product lineup with additional TV-centric products like the "iTV," which has been rumored to be in the works since 2011. At the D11 conference last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook reiterated that television continues to be an "area of great interest" for the company.
Last year, social game-maker Zynga acquired OMGPOP for roughly $200 million. OMGPOP is the development house behind the once-incredibly popular Draw Something.
Today, Zynga is shutting OMGPOP down as part of another round of layoffs at the company. Zynga has laid off 18 percent of its staff -- 520 employees -- reports AllThingsD.
The move today will affect every part of the San Francisco social gaming company and cut $80 million in staff costs. Zynga currently has about 2,900 workers.
But the action will also include the closing of its offices in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas, as well as the slashing of other major infrastructure costs, adding to a total expense reduction that is likely to be much larger.
Zynga has killed some 18 games in recent months and has been spending more resources on a transition to mobile games.
Apple is planning on opening three new retail locations in the near future, reportsifoAppleStore. Job listings posted last month reveal that the stores will be located at the Station Park shopping mall near Salt Lake City, Utah; the Stonebridge at Potomac Town Center Mall in Woodbridge, Virginia; and the Quaker Bridge Mall, located near the Princeton University Campus in New Jersey.
Stonebridge at Potomac Town Center
Based on when the jobs were posted, ifoAppleStore predicts that the three stores will open before November, just in time for the holiday season. There is no information on exactly where the stores will be located in their respective malls, but additional details will likely become available as they near completion.
During its second quarter earnings call Apple announced plans to introduce 30 new retail locations during fiscal 2013. The majority of those stores will be located outside of the United States, with the three upcoming stores numbering among the 10 or fewer retail locations that will open in the U.S. this year.
Apple is, however, planning to remodel an additional 20 stores, including the redesign and relocation of its flagship San Francisco Apple Store.
President Obama has today announced a set of executive actions directed at cracking down on patent-holding firms that interfere with competition and abuse the patent system, reportsThe Wall Street Journal. Many technology companies, such as Apple, have dealt with multiple lawsuits from so-called "patent trolls," which aim to make money through licensing fees.
Mr. Obama's actions, which include measures he wants Congress to consider, are intended to target firms that have forced technology companies, financial institutions and others into costly litigation to protect their products. These patent-holding firms amass portfolios of patents more to pursue licensing fees than to build new products.
The firms say they are doing nothing wrong, just using patents that were legally granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. They say they promote a fair market by protecting smaller inventors.
Obama has constructed a five-step plan with a total of seven legislative changes, which will be released as part of a White House report on patent trolls. The plan includes a recommendation that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office create rules that require patent owners to be identified and a request for Congress to pass legislation that puts sanctions on questionable lawsuits filed by patent-holding firms.
Additionally, Obama hopes to cut down on the International Trade Commission's involvement in patent disputes. Claims filed with the ITC are often resolved more quickly than standard federal lawsuits.
The Obama administration would like Congress to change certain ITC legal standards and ensure that the agency has flexibility in hiring its judges. The president will order a review of existing procedures at the ITC, officials said.
Reliance on the ITC has not been limited to patent trolls, as a number technology companies like Apple, Samsung, and Google have increasingly used the International Trade Commission to settle a number of patent disputes.
According to President Obama, patent-holding firms are a drain on progress. The firms, he says, "don't actually produce anything themselves. They’re just trying to essentially leverage and hijack someone else’s idea to see if they can extort some money out of them."
Over the years, Apple has faced litigation from a number of patent-holding companies like Lodsys, which has targeted app developers over in-app purchases, and VirnetX, a company that was awarded $368.2 million over VPN connectivity in Facebook in 2012.
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the comment thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All MacRumors 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.
Last week Google announced an inbox redesign for both the mobile and desktop versions of Gmail, which was implemented on iOS today via an update to the Gmail app. The new design offers a tabbed layout that supports up to five different organizational tabs to allow users to organize mail into specific categories.
In addition to adding support for the new inbox, the update also brings enhanced notification options, allowing users to select the type of notifications that they want to receive.
New notifications options: Get notified for all messages, only important messages, or none at all, on a per account basis. Customize these settings from the in-app settings page.
Meet the new inbox: If you've enabled the new inbox, your mail is now grouped into categories so that you can see what's new at a glance and decide which emails you want to read when. Primary mail is shown first and it's easy to access and keep track of email in other categories by opening the menu. Configure this feature by going to Gmail.com on your computer.
Apple today released a 30+ page report [PDF] from real estate consultancy Keyser Marston Associates examining the direct and indirect financial impact of Apple on the City of Cupertino and Santa Clara County. The document is part of the building process for the company's new 'Apple Campus 2' -- the Spaceship -- planned for opening in 2016.
As the document is aimed at the municipal governments in the area, it is heavy on tax revenue and job numbers, but there are a few bits of information that are interesting to Apple watchers.
- Phase 1 of the the Apple Campus 2 building will accommodate some 13,000 employees across 2.8 million square feet of space in the main building. Other buildings on site will include an auditorium, fitness center, parking structures, buildings to house research and development and a central plant, for a total of 3.42 million square feet of new building space.
Phase 2 will add 300,000 more square feet of space, adding room for 1,200 more employees -- however this phase has been delayed indefinitely for cost-saving reasons.
- The analysis uses a conservative hiring growth rate of 10% per year, estimating that 7,400 employees will be hired at Apple's Cupertino headquarters between June 2013 and the opening of the new campus in 2016. This would tally a total employee count at 23,400, though over the past 5 years, Apple has seen an annual hiring growth rate of 18%.
- Apple's 16,000 current Cupertino employees account for 40 percent of the city's job base, making Apple Cupertino's largest single employer.
- Apple will pay $9.2 million in tax revenue directly to Cupertino in 2013, approximately 18% of the city's annual general fund budget. The consultants estimate that Apple will generate a net fiscal surplus of $8 million to the city this year, with that expected to grow to $11 million when the new campus is finished. This means Apple will pay millions of dollars more to the city than it uses in services.
- The construction of the new campus will generate 9,200 full-time jobs in the county over the three-year construction period, and will generate one-time revenues to the City of Cupertino in the form of construction taxes and fees totaling more than $38 million. The company has agreed to direct its contractors to purchase all construction materials from within the city, ensuring that Cupertino collects millions of dollars in sales taxes as a result.
- The report touts $66 million in public improvements to be built around the campus, including bicycle and pedestrian facilities, park land, and a voluntary $2.5 million contribution to Cupertino's affordable housing fund.
Intel today officially announced the launch of its latest family of Core processors, formerly known as "Haswell". The new processors are making their way into a number of new computers, and are expected to be included in Apple's next-generation Macs, some of which are likely to make their debuts at next week's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).
The new chips offer significant improvements in integrated graphics performance, as well as modest CPU performance improvements and a major effort toward increasing battery life in notebooks.
Delivering Intel's largest generation-over-generation gain in battery life enablement in company history, 4th generation Intel Core processors can bring an 50 percent improvement in battery life over the previous generation in active workloads when watching movies or surfing the Internet, and two to three times improvement in standby battery life. For some systems coming to market this year, over 9 hours of active use battery life or 10 to 13 days of standby with fresh data on a single charge is expected.
Ars Technica has been providing overviews of the new chips, beginning with the quad-core desktop and notebook chips that were unveiled over the weekend. That group included six Core i7 and six Core i5 chips for desktop machines, as well as ten varieties of Core i7 notebook chips.
All of the mobile parts being announced today belong to the i7 family and, like their desktop counterparts, they're all quad-core chips with Hyperthreading enabled. The differences here come in the suffixes: the MX and MQ parts (reversed from Ivy Bridge's QM and QX suffixes) come with the Intel HD 4600 GPU, while most of the HQ parts come with the faster Iris Pro 5200 GPU.
With today's announcement of dual-core Haswell chips highlighted by AnandTech, the picture for Apple's notebook lineup comes into more focus. Intel has emphasized mobile chips for this round of dual-core launches, a move that will likely see the chips showing in updated MacBook Airs and 13-inch MacBook Pros as soon as next week.
A notebook refresh is expected to be the hardware highlight of WWDC alongside previews of OS X 10.9 and iOS 7. The latest rumors suggest that Apple may even be able to slim down the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, which is currently slightly thicker than its 15-inch sibling. Less substantial tweaks are expected for the MacBook Air, although the move to Haswell should offer significant performance improvements in certain areas.
Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty released an extensive new report today offering a look at how Apple's base of 500 million iTunes/App Store customers fits in with other services and how Apple can leverage that user base to drive future sales and revenue growth.
Huberty notes that Apple's account base is second only to Facebook's one billion accounts among technology companies seeking to build out e-commerce or subscription services, easily topping third-place Amazon's 200 million accounts. Apple's 55% growth in 2012 also led the field by a comfortable margin, while its users also generate the most revenue per account. With Apple also scoring well in iCloud/iTunes Match adoption and user loyalty, the company is primed to take further advantage of its massive ecosystem with new services. Huberty outlines three possibilities for these new services:
1. Mobile payments. With hundreds of millions of credit card numbers on file, Apple could easily turn iTunes/App Store accounts into a payment service. With rumors of fingerprint recognition and perhaps near-field communication (NFC) coming to future Apple hardware, the company already has a number of pieces nearly in place for such a service.
2. Streaming music. Apple is rumored to be introducing its "iRadio" streaming service next week at its Worldwide Developers Conference, and Huberty suggests that Apple could generate $1 billion per year in revenue from such a service. Huberty's numbers do, however, include both subscription and display ad revenue, while recent rumors have indicated that Apple's service would be free to users with no mention of paid tiers.
3. Ad exchange. Earlier this week, it was reported by a source in the ad industry that Apple is looking to launch its own ad exchange, leveraging its existing iAd business and its massive ecosystem of users and devices to provide targeted advertising.
Developers could potentially charge higher rates than ad impressions on other devices, as Apple could offer better targeting given its insight into the user from information gathered from the hardware (GPS, accelerometer, gyroscope and digital compass), the software (operating system and some applications), iTunes and app stores, user profiles and cloud storage. Of course, some of the data will be stored anonymously and Apple will need to clearly disclose what data is gathered and how it is used.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has been playing up the potential of services, repeatedly referring to the "magic" happening at the interaction of hardware, software, and services. At his D11 interview last week, Cook touted iMessage, the iTunes Store, and FaceTime as examples of how Apple's services are tying Apple's ecosystem together, and acknowledged that the company is working hard on improvements to its services.
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With Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) kicking off next Monday, June 10 at 10:00 AM Pacific Time with a keynote address, it's time for a roundup of rumors about what we might see at the event.
Apple has been rumored to be working on a Pandora-like streaming radio service for quite some time, but difficult negotiations have reportedly slowed the effort considerably. Just weeks ago, it was reported that 
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Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty released an extensive new report today offering a look at how Apple's base of 500 million iTunes/App Store customers fits in with other services and how Apple can leverage that user base to drive future sales and revenue growth.
