MacRumors

Microsoft is planning to drop the prices of its Surface RT tablets by $150, reports The Verge. The lower prices, which will go into effect on Sunday July 14, are likely the result of lackluster sales.

Bloomberg reported in March that Microsoft had sold just 1.5 million Surface RT and Surface Pro tablets since they debuted in October of 2012 and February of 2013, respectively, with 400,000 of those sales attributed to the Pro. HP experienced similarly poor sales with its TouchPad, which was heavily discounted and then discontinued.

The Surface pricing change comes just after Microsoft announced a restructuring of the company, aiming to enhance collaboration and unify its product lineup. Microsoft has heavily marketed Windows 8 tablets in recent weeks, pitting several different tablets against Apple's iPad in a series of ads that highlight the iPad’s inability to multitask and its lack of built-in productivity software.

With the discount, Microsoft's pricing will be as follows:

- Surface RT 32GB: $349.99
- Surface RT 64GB: $449.99
- Surface RT 32GB with Touch Cover: $449.99
- Surface RT 64GB with Touch Cover: $549.99

Staples has confirmed the pricing cut in a weekly promotional ad that says the new pricing will be available as of Sunday. Despite the pricing cuts, Microsoft has suggested that new versions of both the Surface Pro and the Surface RT are in the works, along with a number of new accessories.

Apple has updated the Supplier Responsibility page on its website addressing concerns over the illegal mining of tin in Indonesia.

The company is initiating a new task group with the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC) to determine if its suppliers are getting tin from illegal mining operations.

Bangka Island, Indonesia, is one of the world’s principal tin-producing regions. Recent concerns about the illegal mining of tin from this region prompted Apple to lead a fact-finding visit to learn more. Using the information we’ve gathered, Apple initiated an EICC working group focused on this issue, and we are helping to fund a new study on mining in the region so we can better understand the situation.

The Verge, which first noticed the change, noted that 249 of Apple's suppliers use tin in the production of its products. In an article last year, Bloomberg Businessweek looked at the collapse of a tin-mining pit on Bangka island that killed a number of miners in a landslide --one-third of the world's tin production comes from the area.

In recent years, Apple has stepped up its examinations of suppliers, issuing yearly Supplier Responsibility Reports and in 2013 fired one of its Chinese suppliers for child labor violations.

Sprint today announced new two new mobile plans, both of which come with a new Unlimited Guarantee, ensuring unlimited talk, text, and data on the Sprint Network for the life of the cellular line.

Sprint's guarantee applies to new and existing customers who choose to sign up for the "Unlimited, My Way" plan or the "My All-in" plan. The Unlimited, My Way plan offers customers unlimited usage for $80 per month for a single line, though additional lines (up to 10) can be added with a tiered fee that decreases based on how many lines are added. For example, a single phone with unlimited everything costs $80 under the new plan, but four phones will cost $260, or $65 each.

- Customers first select the number of lines; all lines come with unlimited talk to any wireline or mobile phone and text.

- Customers then choose their data for each line: $30/month for unlimited data on smartphones or $10/month for unlimited data on basic phones. Additional options include $20 for 1GB of data on smartphones or basic phone users can choose not to add data to their account.

- Customers also have the choice to activate mobile hotspot functionality on their smartphone for $10 per month for 1GB of data on the Sprint network.

Sprint's My All-in plan offers unlimited talk, text, and data plus 5GB of mobile hotspot usage for $110. With both plans, customers are guaranteed to have access to unlimited talk, text, and data for the lifetime of the line.

Previously, Sprint's individual unlimited talk, text, and data plan was priced at $109.99, so the change marks a significant discount. The pricing shift comes just a day after T-Mobile announced its new "Jump" phone upgrade program, which allows T-Mobile customers to upgrade their phones as often as twice per year.

According to Sprint, its customers save $240 per year over Verizon customers, and $120 per year over AT&T and T-Mobile customers. Sprint's new plans will be available beginning on July 12, and its new guarantee will go into effect on the same day.

Gamers with jailbroken iOS devices who have purchased or otherwise acquired the new game Deus Ex: The Fall are running into a problem when they attempt to play: they can't fire any guns, a key part of the game.

Reports Kotaku:

Encountered by Redditor KipEnyan and verified by several user reviews in the app store, jailbroken players starting up the first mobile installment of the Deus Ex series are treated to a few cutscenes and a movement tutorial before running into the message above. It comes up during the game's shooting tutorial, and while one would assume players could still stealth through the game, I'm not sure they can progress beyond that point without tranquilizing those guards.

Eidos and N-Fusion, the development firms behind Deus Ex: The Fall likely implemented the measure to deter piracy, as jailbreaking is a requirement to pirate software, though not all users who jailbreak choose to pirate software.

As a result, users who choose to jailbreak for other reasons but pay for their software get caught in the same net as the pirates. It's not the first time that developers have resorted to similar tactics to stop pirates, although it is unusual for such a high-profile developer to target not just pirates but all jailbroken users.

Earlier this year the publisher of Game Dev Tycoon encoded features into the game that would bankrupt players who didn't pay for their copies, while DirecTV prevents users with jailbroken devices from using its app at all.

Deus Ex: The Fall is available on iPhone and iPad for $6.99 from the App Store. [Direct Link]

Update: An unconfirmed source has indicated that the anti-jailbreak code was included in Deus Ex: The Fall at the request of publisher Square Enix and that an update is in the works to remove it.

This morning, Microsoft announced a restructuring of the company that will see it split into two divisions dedicated to services and devices. A number of executives have seen role shifts as part of the change, with Julie Larson-Green heading up the hardware division and Terry Myerson taking charge of Windows.

Microsoft aims to enhance collaboration within its walls with the change, focusing the company on "a single strategy" while working together and improving "capability in all disciplines."

We are rallying behind a single strategy as one company — not a collection of divisional strategies. Although we will deliver multiple devices and services to execute and monetize the strategy, the single core strategy will drive us to set shared goals for everything we do. We will see our product line holistically, not as a set of islands.

A similar strategy was employed by Apple last year, with a significant management restructuring that saw Jony Ive take over leadership of the Human Interface teams and Eddy Cue take over Maps and Siri, two products that Apple had been highly criticized for. With the new management system, Apple has previewed iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks and is said to have a number of products in the works, including the iPhone 5S, a low-cost iPhone, a 5th generation iPad, and an iWatch.

While Microsoft's Xbox 360 console has historically fared well in the market, its Surface Tablets have not been as well received. The company sold just over a million Surface RT tablets in the December quarter, while Apple sold over 22 million tablets. Lately, Microsoft has taken to pitting Windows 8 tablets against Apple's iPad in a series of advertisements.

Microsoft has seen more success with its Windows Phone, which now represents 3.2 percent of the smartphone OS market, coming in third after Android and iOS. There are a number of impressive Windows phones on the market as companies continue to embrace the platform.

Nokia today unveiled its newest flagship Windows phone, the Lumia 1020, which sports an impressive 41-megapixel camera, much like the PureView 808 first revealed last year. With the Lumia, Nokia aims to compete with other popular camera smartphones like Samsung's Galaxy S4 and the iPhone 5, both of which have come to largely replace traditional point-and-shoot cameras.

The Lumia 1020 comes equipped with optical image stabilization, a six component Zeiss lens and a xenon flash. Nokia plans to release an app that will allow users to manually adjust several aspects of the camera. With oversampling, 41-megapixels allows the Lumia 1020 to take crisp, noiseless photos.

Apple is said to be including several new camera enhancements in its own next generation iPhone, like a 12-megapixel sensor, improved flash capabilities with a dual LED flash, improved low light shooting, and a possible slow motion video mode.

Microsoft hopes that its new focus on unity may help both its Surface tablets and Windows phones like the Lumia 1020 draw some market share away from Apple and Android as the company works to build a single integrated experience much like Apple has done.

Bloomberg yesterday reported on a research note from analyst Craig Moffett pointing out that Verizon could potentially face a massive bill from Apple of up to $14 billion this year based on current iPhone sales rates and the carrier's commitment to purchase a minimum number of iPhones from Apple.

Under a multiyear deal signed with Apple in 2010, Verizon Wireless is obligated to buy $23.5 billion worth of iPhones in 2013 alone, according to Craig Moffett, a telecommunications analyst who left Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. earlier this year to start his own research firm. Since the purchase commitment is more than twice what Verizon Wireless sold in 2012, the company may have a shortfall of $12 billion to $14 billion, worth $4 to $5 per share, Moffett said in the report.

Apple routinely requires new iPhone carriers to commit to purchasing a certain number of iPhones over a period of years, a requirement that has led some carriers to balk at offering the device.

As Moffett points out, Apple's contract with Verizon requires the carrier to purchase more than twice as many iPhone this year as it did last year. During the first quarter of 2013, Verizon activated four million iPhones on its network, a figure representing roughly $2.5 billion in hardware value at Apple's average selling price of about $613 per unit.

While the first quarter may have been a somewhat slower one for the iPhone at Verizon following the iPhone 5 launch in September 2012, it only represented a 25% increase in units over the first quarter of 2012, indicating that the carrier is indeed well behind pace for meeting its purchase requirements for 2013.

Apple is expected to introduce an upgraded iPhone 5S later this year, with a lower-cost plastic iPhone also apparently in the works, but it seems unlikely that those launches will be able to generate the massive increase in sales volume needed at Verizon to meet the carrier's contract requirements.

Moffett notes that it is unlikely Apple will require Verizon to pay the full amount of any shortfall this year, particularly if it reaches the $12-14 billion amount estimated by Moffett, but that any renegotiations will likely see Apple extracting some concessions from Verizon as the iPhone maker seeks to hold other carriers to their commitments.

Update: Nomura analyst Stuart Jeffrey has released his own note examining the situation and concurs with Moffett that Apple and Verizon are in a difficult spot. Verizon disclosed at the end of its 2012 financial statements that it holds $23.5 billion in purchase commitments for 2013, with Moffett and Jeffrey both believing that the iPhone accounts for the vast majority of that amount.

Jeffrey notes that Verizon could still satisfy its obligation by making a massive advance purchase of iPhones for 2014 at the end of 2013, although such a purchase would obviously have an effect on any purchase requirements to be built into a renewal contract with Apple. Alternatively, Apple could simply allow Verizon to roll over its commitment into 2014 in order to prevent Verizon having to make a massive expenditure at the of the 2013, although such an allowance would undermine Apple's minimum purchase agreements with other carriers.

Late last month, some Adobe Photoshop users reported that the new 2013-edition MacBook Air was exhibiting severe flickering when using some brush tools in Photoshop.

It didn't happen with all units, but an Adobe representative said he believed it was a driver or GPU issue, and said Apple would need to fix the issue.

Today, a MacRumors tipster tells us the flickering issue has been fixed in the OS X 10.8.5 beta released to developers today. The bug made Photoshop nearly unusable for a number of MacBook Air users.

Some users have previously suggested that upgrading to the developer release of OS X Mavericks solved the problem, so the fix may be a matter of Apple pushing upgraded code sooner than it planned.

(Thanks, Todd!)

Research firm Gartner today released its preliminary calculations of PC shipments for the second quarter of 2013, finding that worldwide shipments fell by 11% over the year-ago quarter, the fifth straight quarter of year-over-year declines. According to Gartner's numbers, the U.S. market held up significantly better than the global market, but still declined by 1.4%. Gartner continues to attribute the declines in the PC market to strong growth in tablets.

“We are seeing the PC market reduction directly tied to the shrinking installed base of PCs, as inexpensive tablets displace the low-end machines used primarily for consumption in mature and developed markets,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. “In emerging markets, inexpensive tablets have become the first computing device for many people, who at best are deferring the purchase of a PC. This is also accounting for the collapse of the mini notebook market.”

Gartner's number show Apple underperforming the overall industry in the United States, with the Mac maker posting a 4.3% decline in shipments compared to the 1.4% decline in the overall market. Apple was able to hold on to its third-place ranking in the U.S. market behind HP and Dell, although fourth-place Lenovo is closing quickly on Apple, driven by nearly 20% year-over-year growth in the U.S.

Apple does not rank on Gartner's list of top five vendors on a worldwide basis, with Asus holding down the bottom spot at 6.0% of the market. All of the top five worldwide vendors saw year-over-year shipment declines, although Lenovo's minimal 0.6% drop allowed it to take the worldwide crown from HP, which experienced a 4.8% decline.

At an event in Manhattan today, T-Mobile USA announced a new phone upgrade program called "Jump," which is designed to allow subscribers to upgrade their phones at regular intervals.

With Jump, customers will pay the same subsidized amount that a new customer pays, without the need to wait to qualify for an upgrade. Jump requires T-Mobile customers to pay a $10 monthly fee for the service and trade-in old devices, but it offers up to two phone upgrades per year after a six month waiting period. T-Mobile CEO John Legere spoke to AllThingsD about the new program:

"This is one of those things that annoys customers so much," CEO John Legere said in an interview ahead of a New York press event. Legere said that the company wanted to address this issue when it first did away with two-year contracts back in March, but needed a little more time to work out the details.

This is a significant policy change that sets T-Mobile apart from other carriers, which often require contracts to expire before upgrade pricing on a new device is available. Both Verizon and AT&T, for example, have recently implemented policies that only allow customers to upgrade after 24 months have passed.

T-Mobile's policy change comes three months after it announced both the iPhone 5 and its "Uncarrier" policies, which allow customers to purchase a phone without a monthly contract. Instead, T-Mobile requires a down payment of $150 along with a $20 monthly device fee for the iPhone 5.

At today's event, T-Mobile also announced that it plans to create a new family plan for customers without enough credit to quality for traditional phone contracts and plans to expand its LTE network in the near future.

T-Mobile has published a series of ads on the new Jump feature, with the slogan "Upgrade when you want, not when you're told."

Apple is planning to expand its adoption of IGZO (indium gallium zinc oxide) displays to reduce the energy consumption of its mobile devices, reports etnews.com (via Patently Apple).

According to industry insiders, having decided to apply the IGZO method to displays for MacBook, Apple is talking with LCD panel manufacturers, such as Sharp and LG Display.

IGZO is a semiconducting material that has forty times more electron mobility than the standard amorphous silicon that is used as the active layer of an LCD screen, allowing for higher resolution displays, better reaction times, and less power consumption.

The report suggests that in addition to expanding to IGZO displays for the MacBook, Apple is also planning to use them in the iPad. Apple is said to be relying on Sharp for the displays, and last year news surfaced that Sharp had already begun mass production of IGZO displays that could be used in future Apple products.

The site expects IGZO MacBooks to appear in the first half of 2014, but does not note when an IGZO iPad might make an appearance. Apple is expected to release a new, thinner fifth generation iPad later this year.

(Thanks, MobilesPie!)