MacRumors

Apple reportedly acquired mapping firm BroadMap and Evernote competitor Catch in 2013, reports 9to5Mac, citing data acquired from "evidence and chatter from sources," including LinkedIn profiles.

Several former BroadMap employees are now listed as working at Apple on LinkedIn, including the company's former Director of Program Management who now works in "Maps Data Validation" at Apple. BroadMap CEO Daniel Perrone's LinkedIn profile suggests the company was purchased by a "Fortune 5" company for "supporting their digital mapping efforts."

We have specifically heard from a source directly familiar with Apple's mergers and acquisitions process that Apple acquired BroadMap. The source says that the acquisition was mostly centered around talent, not solely BroadMap's technology. In addition to the information from our source, there is evidence online that Apple made the acquisition.

BroadMap is a company that provides Geographic Information Systems (GIS) services, designed to analyze and manage geographical data. The company provides GIS tools along with Digital Mapping Data Products, Location Intelligence, and Web and Mobile Application Development.

Catch, which suspended its service in August, was reportedly acquired in the same month according to the former LinkedIn profile of the company's Vice President of Business Development. While it remains uncertain whether Apple officially acquired the company, multiple former employees are now working at Apple, including the company's co-founder.

While Catch being acquired following promotion from Apple does not exactly indicate that Apple is the buyer, we have heard from multiple sources that the majority of Catch employees are now working for Apple. The sources say that the former list of Catch employees, which even includes co-founder Andreas Schobel, are working on iOS-related software.

Catch, a popular notetaking and archiving service, was behind the Catch Notes app, which originally launched in 2010. The app, designed to allow users to create text, photo, and voice notes, earned multiple awards and was previously featured on Apple's "New and Noteworthy" list of apps. It is unknown how Apple could utilize Catch's technology, but possible use cases include integration with Siri, Reminders, or Notes.

According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, the company made a total of 15 acquisitions during fiscal 2013, which has also included companies like AlgoTrim, Cue, Passif Semiconductor, and Matcha.tv. The company has also made several mapping-related acquisitions, including Embark, HopStop, WifiSLAM, and Locationary.

While eight of Apple's fiscal 2013 acquisitions have been confirmed, several others remain unknown.

Update: AllThingsD reports that both Catch and BroadMap were indeed acquired by Apple earlier in 2013. Apple confirmed the rumors with its standard acquisition statement: "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."

Update 2: Despite reports confirming the acquisition, BroadMap has stated on Twitter that the company was not purchased by Apple.

Update 3: According to series of Tweets from Spacially Adjusted's James Fee, BroadMap continues to exist as an independent company, but Apple acquired the majority of staff and intellectual property, licensing select assets back to BroadMap so that it could continue supporting its existing customers.

Apple has seeded a new build of iOS 7.1 to its "testing partners" or carriers, reports BGR, with a public release of the software set to come in March. A March launch of iOS 7.1 would mark more than four months of testing, as the first iOS 7.1 beta was seeded to developers in mid-November. iOS 7.1 beta 2, the version currently available to developers, was released in mid-December.

Lengthy development periods are not unheard of – before Mavericks, OS X 10.8.5 Mountain Lion was tested over a period of three months, from June to September.

The current version of iOS, iOS 7.0.4, was released on November 14. If an iOS 7.1 release is not planned until March, it is likely that Apple will release iOS 7.0.5 in the interim, though MacRumors has seen no sign of the software in recent logs. iOS updates frequently, though not always, show up in our site analytics.

As the first major update to iOS 7 since its launch, iOS 7.1 is expected to include multiple bug fixes along with new accessibility options in the form of "Button Shapes" and potential support for iOS in the Car. Given the minor updates bundled into iOS 7.1, it is unclear why such a lengthy testing period is necessary. Last year, Apple released its iOS 6.1 update in January, though its iOS 5.1 update also came in March in 2012.

Apple has begun seeding a new build of iOS 7.1 to testing partners, we have learned from a trusted source. iOS 7.1 beta 3 is said to bring several important bug fixes in addition to some new features, though our source was uncomfortable detailing these for us at this time.

While BGR has made accurate predictions on iOS 7 launch dates ahead of the software's final release, the site also made a few erroneous predictions.

Following a report last month stating that Apple supplier Quanta Computer had landed the contract to mass-produce a larger-sized iPad for late 2014, Digitimes is reporting that the 12.9-inch tablet will be released in October 2014 and will target North America's educational market. Apple is also said to be examining the possibility of replacing the 11-inch MacBook Air with the larger iPad.

Apple's large-size tablet will be manufactured by Quanta Computer, and was originally expected to adopt either 12.9- or 13.3-inch panels, with recent rumors indicating that 12.9-inch has a better chance to be picked, the sources noted.

The report also states that Apple is planning to release a larger size iPhone in May 2014, using a 20nm processor manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). Reports of a next-generation iPhone featuring a larger screen have surfaced occasionally throughout the past year, while the claim of an A8 processor made by TSMC is follows a report in June stating that the company had struck a three-year deal with Apple to produce A-series chips starting in 2014.

However, a May 2014 release date for the next iPhone would be somewhat of a surprising move by Apple, considering that the most recent reports have stated that the larger-screened iPhone will debut in late 2014. A release then would be in line with the October 2011 launch of the iPhone 4s, the September 2012 launch of the iPhone 5, and the September 2013 launch of the iPhone 5s and 5c.

A report last month from The Korea Times indicated that production of a 12.9-inch Retina Display to be used in a next-generation iPad was already underway at an Apple supplier in Korea, with a target date of early 2014. The larger tablet is also said to carry an improved display nearing ultra high-definition (UHD) quality, which would be significantly bigger and contain more pixels than Apple's current 9.7-inch iPad Air.

In an email sent to employees today, Apple CEO Tim Cook reflected on the company's accomplishments throughout the past year, discussing a wide variety of subjects including product releases, humanitarian efforts, and corporate initiatives. Cook also made statements looking toward the next year, stating that Apple has “big plans“ for 2014. The full email has been posted by 9to5Mac.

Team,

This holiday season, tens of millions of people around the world, from all walks of life, are experiencing Apple products for the first time. Those moments of surprise and delight are magical, and they’re all made possible by your hard work. As many of us prepare to celebrate the holidays with our loved ones, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on what we’ve achieved together over the past year.

First and foremost, we introduced industry-leading products in each of our major categories in 2013, showing the breadth and depth of innovation at Apple. We extended our lead in the smartphone market with iPhone 5s; launched iOS 7, an extraordinarily ambitious project; released OS X Mavericks for free to our customers; introduced the iPad Air and the iPad mini with Retina display; and this week began shipping the Mac Pro from a manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas. We also marked our 50 billionth download on the App Store – a milestone no one could have predicted we would reach so quickly.

Together we’ve shown the world that innovation at Apple goes beyond our products to the way we do business and how we give back to our community. This year, Apple raised and donated tens of millions of dollars for important charities and relief efforts like Red Cross aid to typhoon victims in the Philippines, and we continue to be the largest contributor to (PRODUCT)RED, supporting the Global Fund in its fight against the spread of AIDS in Africa. Just a few weeks ago, Jony Ive led an unprecedented effort that brought money and awareness to eliminating the transmission of AIDS from mother to child.

And finally, Apple is standing up for what we believe is right. We know that equality and diversity make our company and our society stronger, so we’ve urged the U.S. Congress to support workplace protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. We are also laser focused on our contribution to several environmental initiatives and we will increase our efforts even more in this area in the future.

We have a lot to look forward to in 2014, including some big plans that we think customers are going to love. I am extremely proud to stand alongside you as we put innovation to work serving humankind’s deepest values and highest aspirations. I consider myself the luckiest person in the world for the opportunity to work at this amazing company with all of you.

Happy Holidays,

Tim

Apple is said to be working on a variety of new products for 2014, including both updates to existing products and new product categories. Most notably, the company is rumored to release an iPhone 6 with a larger display that is curved and a 12.9-inch iPad with an ultra high definition screen. Also rumored is an "iWatch" smart watch containing biometrics and iOS device integration, as well the release of a ultra-high definition television set. In terms of software, Apple is also expected to launch OS X 10.10 and iOS 8 in the fall, with updates to programs such as Aperture also possible.

After the Evasi0n untethered jailbreak was updated for newer iPhones, iPads, and iOS 7.x earlier today, Cydia administrator Jay Freeman noted on his Twitter that he was not informed about a new version of the jailbreak before its release. Beyond that, he also reported that the new jailbreak automatically installs a third party app store named Taig which distributes cracked apps in China.

Following Freeman's comments, two tweets by developer i0n1c claims that the Chinese company Taig paid the Evad3rs development team "a big pile of money" to release the jailbreak in order to bundle its app store onto devices.

Now, the Evad3rs development team behind the jailbreak has posted an open letter to the jailbreak community on its website, trying to address the various concerns surrounding the method and emphasizing the safety and security of its users.

The team admitted that it was indeed approached by a company with an offer to include Taig with the jailbreak in China, feeling that it was "well-suited to meet the needs of users for the Chinese market." The team also notes that users are not locked into Taig, with the program giving users given the ability to uninstall the Chinese app store and install Cydia.

Also addressed was the speculation concerning the possible disclosure of exploits and methods to Taig:

Taig has never asked us to disclose our exploits to them, let alone sell them. We were simply asked to bundle their third-party app store in China in a similar way we bundle and distribute Cydia around the world as an additional App Store, and in a similar way to how previous jailbreaks like blackra1n have bundled non-Cydia stores.

Furthermore, the developers also claim that they were unaware that Taig contained pirated apps upon access, and say they are removing instances of piracy and that Taig had contractually agreed not to serve pirated apps. They say they "will continue to monitor this issue and work to resolve it completely" and that Taig will be removed if it can't be resolved.

Currently, Evasi0n is available for OS X and Windows as an untethered jailbreak.

Apple and China Mobile have officially announced today that the iPhone 5s and 5c will be available at the carrier's stores as well as Apple retail stores across mainland China beginning January 17, 2014, with pre-registration for both devices beginning on December 25, 2013.

“Apple’s iPhone is very much loved by millions of customers around the world. We know there are many China Mobile customers and potential new customers who are anxiously awaiting the incredible combination of iPhone on China Mobile’s leading network. We are delighted that iPhone on China Mobile will support our 4G/TD-LTE and 3G/TD-SCDMA networks, providing customers with high-speed mobile service,” said Xi Guohua, China Mobile Chairman.

“Apple has enormous respect for China Mobile and we are excited to begin working together. China is an extremely important market for Apple and our partnership with China Mobile presents us the opportunity to bring iPhone to the customers of the world's largest network,” said Tim Cook, Apple CEO. “iPhone customers in China are an enthusiastic and rapidly growing group, and we can’t think of a better way to welcome in the Chinese New Year than getting an iPhone into the hands of every China Mobile customer who wants one.”

China Mobile is currently the world's largest carrier with over 760 million subscribers and is expected to bring many new customers to Apple, significantly increasing the company's presence in China. Multiple signs of an approaching deal between the two companies have popped up during the final months of 2013, with Apple receiving licensing needed to operate on China Mobile’s TD-LTE standard in September and releasing the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c with TD-LTE support.

The popular Evasi0n jailbreak has been today updated for iOS 7.x., marking the first time users have been able to deploy an untethered jailbreak on any device running iOS 7.0 to iOS 7.0.4, including newer devices such as the iPhone 5c, iPhone 5c, iPad mini with Retina Display, and iPad Air. The method allows for users to jailbreak their devices to make use of unauthorized content like themes, tweaks, and apps from sources other than the App Store.

However, Cydia administrator Jay Freeman noted on his Twitter that he was not informed about a new version of Evasi0n before its release, also indicating that the build of Cydia installed with the new jailbreak is not official and may lead to some compatibility issues with existing downloads on the service. However, users on our forums are actively pointing out which Cydia apps are compatible with the new jailbreak, and it is recommended you look there for specific information.

Evasi0n is available now for OS X and Windows as an untethered jailbreak, with users only having to apply the method once. Tethered jailbreaks requires users to have their devices connected to a computer each time they restart.

Update: Cydia administrator Jay Freeman has also revealed on his Twitter that Evasi0n installs a third party "app store" named Taig for cracked apps in China. Furthermore, two tweets by developer i0n1c (via Y Combinator) state that a Chinese company paid the Evad3rs development team a rumored $1 million dollars to release the jailbreak in order to force the Taig app store onto devices.

With the new Mac Pro in the hands of reviewers for more than a day now, the first impressions focused on performance are being published and they are impressive.

FCP.co posted a 24-hour hands on with the new Mac Pro. They found read speeds of 880MB/s from the Mac Pro's solid state storage, with impressive write numbers of 985.5MB/s. Further, the team discovered that new machine could post full 4K video with multiple color corrections, effects and transitions playing back all in real time.

Macworld saw even more impressive SSD performance, with Black Magic reporting 952.8MB/s writes and 920.5MB/s reads. Black Magic's speed test app reports that the new Mac Pro can easily handle all video formats it currently tracks, with FCP.co adding that its Mac Pro was able to play back 16 simultaneous streams of 4K video.

On overall performance, FCP.co writes:

I can quite honestly say that, despite working with these huge file sizes and frame sizes, the editing experience has been silky smooth. Skimming, playback, shuttling, jogging and trimming are all responsive. In fact, editing 4K on the Mac Pro feels like editing HD on my current MacBook Pro - except I can see large numbers for the frame sizes where normally I’d expect to see the reassuringly familiar "1920x1080".

They went on to push the machine by adding real-time effects to a 4K stream to see the breaking point.

I started slowly, adding a simple Dry Heat look. That played back in real time, no dropped frames. How about a Gaussian Blur? That’s usually a bit more intensive, especially with the huge numbers of pixels we're dealing with here. No dropped frames. Nice. How about a Gaussian blur with a Bleach Bypass look? Still in real time… ok, let’s get serious…

And so it went on… Multiple colour corrections, effects, transitions. This thing keeps playing back! In fact at one point I took a RED RAW 4K clip into a 4K project and just started working through the list of video effects (many of which are 4K ready). Watch the result for yourself.

Back in September, GeekBench scores for the new 8-core 3.0Ghz Mac Pro appeared, giving the unit a single- and multi-core scores of 3349 and 24429. Now, on production hardware, Macworld got scores of 3599 and 25997, a modest improvement.

Both Macworld and FCP.co mentioned a gentle but notable current of warm air rising from the machine, but that the Mac Pro's fan was barely noticeable. If something is placed on top of the machine's vent hole, like a book, the Mac Pro will shut itself off before any damage can occur.

The new Mac Pro is available for order now, but shipments are not expected until well into the new year. An Apple spokesperson said yesterday that "demand for the all new Mac Pro is great and it will take time before supply catches up with demand".

Each year during the holidays, app developers offer deals on a wide variety of apps and games, giving customers a chance to purchase popular content at a significant discount. This year is no exception, with a slew of fantastic apps and games available at low prices.

Our sister site AppShopper tracks prices in real-time and is a great resource to use to keep an eye on app sales during the holiday. We've also listed some of the best deals on apps below:

- Fantastical 2 for iPhone ($1.99, down from $3.99): Popular calendar app, at its lowest price ever [Direct Link]
- Fantastical for Mac ($9.99, down from $19.99): Popular Mac calendar app that syncs with Fantastical 2 for iPhone [Direct Link]
- djay 2 ($4.99, down from $9.99): Popular DJ iPad app [Direct Link]
- vjay (Free, down from $9.99): Video and music remixing app [Direct Link]

- Inspire Pro (Free, down from $4.99): App for drawing and sketching [Direct Link]
- ArtRage ($2.99, down from $4.99): Popular iPad painting app [Direct Link]
- ReadKit ($2.99, down from $6.99): Read-it-later/RSS app for the Mac [Direct Link]

Along with the apps listed above, several developers have teamed up to offer an App Santa promotion, offering discounts of up to 60 percent off apps like Twitter client Tweetbot, scanning app Scanner Pro, package tracking app Delivery Status Touch, password management app 1Password, and note taking app Vesper.

A forum member on our sister site TouchArcade has aggregated an extensive list of all the games on sale. Multiple studios, including Electronic Arts, Taito, CAPCOM, Square Enix, and Warner Bros. are offering deep discounts on their entire game catalogs. We've listed some of the more notable sales below:

- Angry Birds Star Wars II (Free, down from $0.99) [Direct Link]
- LostWinds (Free, down from $3.99) [Direct Link]
- Infinity Blade III ($2.99, down from $6.99) [Direct Link]
- XCOM: Enemy Unknown ($9.99, down from $19.99) [Direct Link]
- Final Fantasy V ($7.99, down from $15.99) [Direct Link]
- Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 ($0.99, down from $4.99) [Direct Link]
- Bastion ($0.99, down from $4.99) [Direct Link]
- Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga ($9.99 Full Unlock, down from $14.99) [Direct Link]
- Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic ($4.99, down from $9.99) [Direct Link]
- The World Ends With You: Solo Remix HD ($8.99/9.99, down from $17.99/$19.99) [Direct Link: iPhone/iPad]

Discount pricing on many of these apps will be in place for at least a week, as Apple will shut down iTunes Connect from December 21 to December 27, preventing developers from implementing app changes. For more sales, check out AppShopper's price drop section.

Last month, longtime technology journalist Fred Vogelstein released his new book Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution, offering an inside look at the development of both the iPhone and Android ecosystems. An excerpt from the book sharing a behind-the-scenes look at the original iPhone introduction had been published in October, and a newly released excerpt from The Atlantic is now gaining attention for its description of Google's reaction to the iPhone unveiling in January 2007.

Among the most quotable bits comes from former Google engineer Chris DeSalvo, who related his reaction to seeing the iPhone shown for the first time. At the time, Google had been working on its "Sooner" reference device for Android, and it was clear that the iPhone represented a significant departure from that concept.

Chris DeSalvo’s reaction to the iPhone was immediate and visceral. “As a consumer I was blown away. I wanted one immediately. But as a Google engineer, I thought ‘We’re going to have to start over.’” [...]

“What we had suddenly looked just so . . . nineties,” DeSalvo said. “It’s just one of those things that are obvious when you see it.”

Android chief Andy Rubin reportedly had a similar reaction:

On the day Jobs announced the iPhone, the director of the Android team, Andy Rubin, was six hundred miles away in Las Vegas, on his way to a meeting with one of the myriad handset makers and carriers that descend on the city for the Consumer Electronics Show. He reacted exactly as DeSalvo predicted. Rubin was so astonished by what Jobs was unveiling that, on his way to a meeting, he had his driver pull over so that he could finish watching the webcast.

“Holy crap,” he said to one of his colleagues in the car. “I guess we’re not going to ship that phone.”

Not all of those close to the Android development process remember the history in that same way, as OS News points back to a 2012 comment from longtime Android engineer Dianne Hackborn claiming that the "Sooner" concept had already been dropped prior to the iPhone introduction. According to Hackborn, Sooner did, however, continue to be used for software development purposes for its stability relative to the "Dream" touchscreen concept that was also under development.

From a software perspective, Sooner and Dream were basically the same -- different form-factors, one without a touch screen -- but they were not so different as this article indicates and the switch between them was not such a huge upheaval. [...]

I don't recall the exact dates, but I believe the decision to drop Sooner was well before the iPhone announcement... though we continued to use it for quite a while internally for development, since it was the only semi-stable hardware platform we had. If nothing else, it helped remove significant risk from the schedule since software development could be done on a relatively stable device while the systems team brought up the new hardware in parallel.

The differences in recollections may hinge to some degree on whether the subjects related more to the hardware or software aspects of the iPhone and Android. As Vogelstein notes, Android itself remained an ambitious attempt to bring multi-tasking access to Google's services and other apps to any device, as opposed to Apple's locked-down iPhone hardware-software combination. So while those comparing the iPhone's hardware to Google's Sooner work immediately saw that Apple was changing the game, those focused more on the platform still saw that Android had the flexibility to adapt to the future of hardware.

The OS X 10.9.2 beta first distributed to developers this afternoon includes Apple's FaceTime audio, a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) feature that was originally introduced to the iPhone with iOS 7. With FaceTime audio on both iOS and OS X, Apple users will be able to seamlessly call one another from any device.

FaceTime audio is designed to allow users to initiate voice-only calls with other FaceTime users without turning on the accompanying video feed. Currently, Macs running Mavericks only have access to the standard FaceTime app, which bundles both video and audio.

Users who are interested in voice-only communications on Macs have to resort to using third-party apps like Skype or switching to Messages, both of which allow for video chats and voice-only chats.

According to 9to5Mac, the FaceTime audio feature is "integrated deeply" into both the Messages and FaceTime apps, making voice communication between Apple users on any device easier than ever. With Messages, FaceTime, and FaceTime audio on iOS and OS X, Apple will have a complete communication system in place.

With a simple way to answer telephone calls and chat requests from all devices, those in Apple's ecosystem will have little reason to resort to alternative VoIP apps when communicating with other Apple users. FaceTime audio is also a high-quality VoIP choice, as it uses the AAC-ELD codec for Full-HD Voice. AAC-ELD is designed to provide CD-like audio quality for voice calls, delivering high speech and audio quality at a low coding delay.

It is unknown when OS X 10.9.2 will be released to the general public, but OS X 10.9.1 was in development for just over a month before it was distributed earlier this week. While Apple has been known to remove beta features ahead of release, it is likely FaceTime audio will make it to end users as it is already available on iOS.

Apple today seeded the first test build of OS X 10.9.2 to registered Mac developers, just three days after the public release of OS X 10.9.1. The build, termed 13C32, is available to registered developers through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store as well as through the Mac Dev Center.

Apple cites no known issues with the build and asks that developers focus their testing on the following areas: Mail, Messages, VPN, Graphics Drivers, and VoiceOver.

There is no word yet on specific fixes and changes included in the update, and a public release target remains unknown.

Update: OS X 10.9.2 adds FaceTime Audio to the Mac for the first time. FaceTime Audio was originally introduced to the iPhone in iOS 7.