MacRumors

With the recent addition of Hulu Plus to the Apple TV platform, analysts are thinking of other video content that could be making its way to the product. Over the years, Apple has updated the Apple TV's software several times, occasionally adding new video content. In 2011, Apple added support for Vimeo, streaming NHL games, and Wall Street Journal videos.

As noticed by All Things D, from a Seeking Alpha transcript, CBS CEO Les Moonves answered an analyst's question yesterday about offering CBS content on the Apple TV platform in the future:

Anthony J. DiClemente — Barclays Capital, Research Division

Okay. And then one for Les. You — I’m sure — you may have seen that Apple TV added Hulu onto its platform this week. I’m just wondering, when you think about Apple, are you in any way philosophically opposed to offering CBS on the Apple TV platform? And I know I — just from prior experience, I’m sure your answer will have something to do with getting paid for your content. But more specifically, is there anything you need to see or specifically anything you need to get in order to be convinced that that’s a smart strategy for CBS?

Leslie Moonves

Look, Anthony, you’ve — we’ve had this discussion many times before. You’re right, it depends what the terms are, it depends what we get paid for. It depends on what effect Apple TV would have on either our advertising, our syndication or our retrans, which are our 3 main buckets of revenue for our content. So if it sits in well, like Netflix did and Amazon did, we’re happy to discuss it. If it doesn’t and we’re — they’re using our content to build a business, we’re not quite as favorable to that. So the devil is in the details. I know it sounds like a pat answer, but it’s really true.

Perhaps the biggest competitor to the Apple TV's video streaming is from Microsoft's Xbox 360. The video gaming box has transitioned in recent years to much more of a content device, with Microsoft adding support for video content from Netflix, Hulu, ESPN, Comcast and Verizon FiOS. It is easy to see how adding those last three to the Apple TV could vastly expand the demand for Apple's set-top box, though the sticking point will be how to compensate both Apple and content providers.

Image from Sami

Phil Schiller is currently on the witness stand in the trial of Apple versus Samsung, and Apple's marketing chief is offering a bit of insight into the history of the iPhone, making the argument that Apple revolutionized the smartphone industry with its contributions. AllThingsD has a summary of Schiller's comments, which reveal Apple's wide-ranging thoughts on what project to pursue following the success of the iPod.

People suggested all kinds of things Apple could do, Schiller recalled: “Make a camera, make a car, crazy stuff.”

Schiller said the company had been working on the tablet computer that would later become the iPad, but decided to shift its attention to the phone.

“At the time, cellphones weren’t any good as entertainment devices,” Schiller said.

As part of his testimony, Schiller was led through a number of public reviews and comments about the iPhone and iPad, demonstrating how the devices were considered revolutionary but that many observers believed Apple would fail in its efforts.

Schiller also revealed a bit of information on iPhone marketing, noting how the company's U.S. iPhone advertising budget expanded from $97.5 million in fiscal 2008 to $173.3 million in fiscal 2010. As Apple has previously revealed in public filings, the company's overall advertising budget in fiscal 2010 came in at $691 million and grew substantially to $933 million in 2011. Still, Apple's booming sales have typically meant that the company's marketing expenditures have been shrinking as a percentage of revenues.

CNET also highlights Schiller's comments on how Apple uses targeted market research surveys, which have shown how important design is to Apple's customers.

Of note, Schiller also went into how the company performs market research, a controversial topic given the fact that late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs once pooh-poohed such studies, saying the company would design products people didn't even know they wanted yet. Apple brought up market research in this case to point out how important design is to consumers, 85 percent of whom, according to Apple's own 2011 study, said design and appearance were important.

Schiller did his best to finesse how these surveys came to be, saying they did not go out to random people but to customers who had already purchased one of the company's devices. Schiller also said that Apple purchases third-party reports of market trends and other data.

As CNET noted earlier today, Schiller will be followed on the witness stand by Scott Forstall, Apple's head of iOS software. Other Apple-called witnesses will include Samsung executive Justin Denison, Samsung engineer Wookyun Kho, Apple's early icon and interface designer Susan Kare, and a pair of independent expert witnesses.

Update: Samsung's lawyers asked Schiller whether the design of the iPhone would be changing with the next version of the device, but he declined to comment on future products and Samsung apparently declined to press the issue further.

iPhone parts company ETrade Supply posts a detailed comparison [via iPhoneinCanada.ca] of the front panels of the iPhone 4S and what has been claimed to be the next-generation "iPhone 5". As with numerous other leaks, the new front panel shows a taller display and the FaceTime camera being moved to above the earpiece.

The blog post contains a number of images and a nearly 7-minute video comparing the two parts, showing that not only is the new part taller than the corresponding iPhone 4S part but it is also 0.1 mm thinner and offers more light transmittance and more scratch resistance than its counterpart.

ETrade Supply has also taken a close look at the home button region of the front panel, showing that the hole for the home button is 0.3 mm smaller in diameter than the hole on the iPhone 4S, while the margin between the bottom of the panel and the bottom of the display area is 2.6 mm shorter, allowing Apple to significantly increase the size of the iPhone's display while only slightly increasing the overall device height.

This is not the first time the alleged next-generation iPhone front panel has been caught on video, but this new video and photo comparison does offer the most detailed comparison between the part and the corresponding iPhone 4S part we have seen yet.

With court documents in the ongoing legal dispute between Apple and Samsung having yielded a remarkable number of design concepts and prototypes from the development of the iPhone and iPad, Network World has taken a look at testimony that explains why Apple rejected some of the ideas. The testimony comes from Doug Satzger, who spent 12 years in industrial design at Apple before moving on to Palm in early 2009 and then joining Intel earlier this year.

Most notably, Satzger reveals that Apple very much wanted to use a curved glass design for the iPhone, but cost considerations and technical hurdles forced Apple to change directions.

The technology in shaping the glass, the cost relative to shaping the glass at the time, and some of the design features of this specific shape were not liked. [...]

The technology at the time had a lot to do with it. The qualities of the glass at the time had a lot to do with it. These are models -- I'm trying to remember a time frame -- that were before gorilla glass and before a lot of the other factors.

Satzger also addressed Apple's ideas for an extruded aluminum design similar to that of the iPod mini, noting that the design was rejected for both comfort and technical reasons.

My recollection of it was that to get the extruded aluminum design that was applied to the iPod to work for the iPhone, there were too many added features to allow it to be comfortable and to work properly. [...]

If you put an iPod up to your ear, the sharp edges, because of the processes, aren't comfortable, and you can't get antennas to work properly in a fully enclosed metal jacket. So each one of those things needed to apply other features that started.

The ongoing court case between Apple and Samsung over alleged patent and design infringement has continued to take strange and interesting turns, with Samsung having been chided earlier this week for publicly releasing evidence that it had already been barred from presenting in court. But in taking its case to the media, Samsung raised the ire of the judge overseeing the case and caused Apple to file a request for sanctions based on the claim that Samsung is trying to improperly influence the jury in the case.

The disputed evidence involves Sony-inspired iPhone prototypes as well as information on Samsung's F700 smartphone, which the company says carries a similar design to the iPhone but for which Samsung has internal documentation of the design dating back to mid-2006, before the iPhone's January 2007 unveiling.

AllThingsD reports that Apple has taken the rather bold position that sanctions against Samsung should result in a default ruling from the judge against Samsung.

Apple, in its motion for sanctions, argues that Samsung’s broadcast of excluded evidence is not only a clear attempt to prejudice the jury, but part of an emerging pattern of misconduct.

“Samsung already has been sanctioned four times in this case for discovery abuses. Most recently, Samsung was sanctioned for destroying evidence,” Apple’s legal team wrote. “Litigation misconduct is apparently a part of Samsung’s litigation strategy — and limited sanctions have not deterred Samsung from such misconduct. Now, with so much at stake, Samsung has taken the calculated risk that any sanctions arising from its attempt to influence the jury with its excluded arguments are a price it is willing to pay.”

Outlining its belief that Samsung's escalation of misconduct in the case can only be properly addressed by a judge-ordered decision against the company, Apple notes that "serious misconduct can only be cured through a serious sanction".

As highlighted by FOSS Patents, Apple's request for sanctions would cover only the four design infringement claims against Samsung, with the remaining software patent claims and trade dress issues still being subject to a decision by the jury.

In that case, Samsung would potentially face a billion-dollar damages bill, most of which would be a disgorgement of infringer's profits. The jury would still have to establish liability with respect to Apple's three software patents-in-suit and its two trade dresses, but liability with respect to the four design patents-in-suit would be determined by the court.

As an alternative to the proposed court-issued decision in Apple's favor, Apple proposes a somewhat lesser sanction that would see the jury informed of Samsung's misconduct and instructed that the court believes Samsung to have infringed Apple's designs, with Samsung also being barred from any further discussion of the disputed evidence.

Several weeks ago, we noted that Apple was already undertaking a minor expansion of its massive data center in Maiden, North Carolina, having received permits for a roughly 20,000 square-foot "tactical data center" located adjacent to the existing 500,000 square-foot facility.

Wired has now obtained aerial photos of the site taken earlier this week, showing not only the new tactical data center but also ongoing installation of solar panels at the 100-acre solar farm across the street from the data center and what appears to be the 4.8-megawatt fuel cell facility behind the data center.

Nobody knows exactly what an Apple tactical data center is supposed to be, but according to Rackspace Chief Technology Officer John Engates, who has spent his fair share of time in windowless buildings racked with servers, it may be a neutral spot where Apple partners can come and plug their gear into Apple’s grid without getting any exposure to the fantastic secrets housed in the larger 500,000-square-foot facility.

Apple's North Carolina data center is just one of a series of planned major data centers designed to support the company's iCloud services and other offerings. The company already operates a smaller data center in Newark, California near its corporate headquarters in Cupertino and has revealed plans for major new data centers in Oregon and Nevada.

Last week, we pointed to tablet estimates for the second quarter of 2012 from research firm Strategy Analytics, results that shows Apple continuing to dominate the tablet market with 68% of shipments during the quarter. Google's Android platform accounted for most of the remaining shipments, taking 29% of the market.

IDC has now released its own estimates of tablet shipments for the quarter, and while the overall picture is very similar to Strategy Analytics' numbers with estimates of 25 million tablets shipped and a 68% share for Apple's iPad, IDC offers an interesting look at the competition by breaking things down by manufacturer instead of by platform. According to IDC, Samsung remains the number two tablet manufacturer behind Apple, but despite strong 117.6% year-over-year shipment growth still saw its tablets outsold by the iPad by a margin of 7-to-1.

"Apple built upon its strong March iPad launch and ended the quarter with its best-ever shipment total for the iPad, outrunning even the impressive shipment record it set in the fourth quarter of last year," said Tom Mainelli, research director, Mobile Connected Devices. "The vast majority of consumers continue to favor the iPad over competitors, and Apple is seeing increasingly strong interest in the device from vertical markets—especially education. While iPad shipment totals are beginning to slow a bit in mature markets where the device saw early traction, growth in other regions is clearly more than making up the difference."

Growth in tablets is clearly occurring at the top of the market, with Apple, Samsung, and ASUS experiencing strong year-over-year growth and Amazon having a strong entry into the market with its Kindle Fire. Smaller players are seeing their shares of the market shrink, with Acer's shipments dropping nearly 40% and the collective "other" smaller manufacturers seeing their sales slide by 16%.

Apple's 17 million iPad shipments were a new record for the company as it rides the momentum of the new third-generation iPad and its lowest entry-level pricing ever with the Wi-Fi iPad 2 continuing to be available at a lower price of just $399. With competitors launching smaller tablets that have enabled them to push tablet pricing down toward $199, Apple is reportedly looking to launch its own "iPad mini" later this year with an eye toward capturing that portion of the market as well.

Engadget points to a newly-filed patent application from Apple showing ideas for a significantly enhanced iPad Smart Cover that could contain such features as a secondary display, a keyboard, and power collectors in the form of solar cells or RF energy antennas.

An accessory device that is arranged to communicate with a host device by way of a communication channel is claimed. The host device includes a host device display arranged to present visual information. The accessory device includes the following: a flexible flap having a size and shape in accordance with the host device display, where at least a portion of the flexible flap is covered by a flap display configured to present visual information; and a connecting portion, the connecting portion arranged to provide at least a communication channel arranged to convey information between the host device and the accessory device where at least some of the information is presented visually on the flap display.

In one example, Apple shows how secondary displays integrated into the Smart Cover could offer a mini home screen alongside the primary screen or be used to display information to others while folded into its stand configuration. The displays could draw power and transmit data from a connector alongside the Smart Cover hinge or rely on embedded solar cells or RF energy antennas for power needs.

Apple also proposes to use the Smart Cover's surface as a keyboard with a touch section for customizable virtual keys. The keyboard is in some ways similar to the cover keyboard Microsoft has demonstrated for its upcoming Surface tablet.

Finally, Apple shows how embedded e-paper displays on the exterior of the Smart Cover could offer information such as notifications and reminders without requiring the user to open the cover and turn on the device. Apple could also integrate a section that would allow users to quickly scribble their own notes on the cover.

The patent application was filed in August 2011 and is credited to Apple design engineer Fletcher Rothkopf, who now serves as a manager in the company's product design division.

Just a day after Apple added new build-to-order configuration options to the low-end Retina MacBook Pro, shipping estimates have improved from 1-2 weeks to 5-7 business days in the company's online stores. The faster turnaround time is showing up in the company's online stores in the Americas, and should spread to its Asia-Pacific and European distribution channels shortly.

Shipping estimates for the Retina MacBook Pro quickly ballooned to 3-4 weeks within 36 hours of the machine's introduction in June, holding at that level until mid-July before beginning to come down. The most recent improvement before today came nearly two weeks ago when estimates moved from 2-3 weeks to 1-2 weeks.

Reuters reports that Sharp president Takashi Okuda today made a rare public reference to an unreleased Apple device, acknowledging that his company will begin shipping displays for the next-generation iPhone this month.

Japan's Sharp Corp. said it will start shipping screens destined for a new Apple iPhone that is widely expected to be released in October ahead of the pre-Christmas shopping season.

"Shipments will start in August," Sharp's new president, Takashi Okuda, said at a press briefing in Tokyo on Thursday after the company released its latest quarterly earnings.

He declined to give a more specific date for shipments beyond this month.

The report also reiterates circulating rumors that the next iPhone will carry a larger 4-inch display that makes use of in-cell touch technology to reduce thickness.

Numerous sources have all but confirmed that Apple's media event to introduce the next iPhone will take place on Wednesday, September 12, with several indicating that availability of the device will follow on Friday, September 21. Reuters' report mentions expectations for October availability, but that would mark an unusually long gap between introduction and availability given that Reuters was one of the sources to report the September 12 media event date earlier this week.

Late last week, The New York Times reported that Apple and Twitter had had discussions "in recent months" about Apple making a significant investment of several hundred million dollars in Twitter, but The Wall Street Journal and other sources moved quickly to downplay the rumor with claims that the talks had taken place over a year ago and did not lead to any serious consideration of an investment.

The Wall Street Journal now follows up with more details on the discussions between the two companies, noting that they were primarily focused on product integration such as appeared in iOS 5 last year and OS X Mountain Lion just last week.

Apple Inc. floated the idea of investing in Twitter Inc. as the companies discussed integrating the social service into Apple’s mobile operating system last year, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Apple floated the idea at the time and it didn’t progress into serious discussions or negotiations, this person and other people familiar with the matter said.

The report notes that Apple and Twitter continue to work closely together as they explore additional ways in which their products can be integrated, with iTunes being one of the areas where the two companies believe Twitter can have a larger presence as Apple moves to phase out its own Ping social network for music.

Apple and Twitter remain tight and continue to talk about future product integrations. They include more deeply melding Twitter and iTunes, according to two people briefed on the matter.

While Apple and Twitter were able to move forward relatively quickly on product integration, negotiations between Apple and Facebook have proceeded somewhat more slowly. Those two companies do, however, appear to have ironed out their differences, with Facebook integration set to come to iOS 6 and OS X Mountain Lion later this year.

Yesterday, we noted that Apple was preparing to close the door completely on its MobileMe service, bringing to an end the grace period that had allowed users to retrieve their Gallery photos and iDisk files and to transition their accounts to iCloud following the June 30 shutdown of the service.

As of today, visitors to MobileMe.com are no longer given the option to convert their accounts to iCloud or to retrieve old photos and files, with Apple now simply pointing users to iCloud.

Also in line with previous announcements, Apple has officially discontinued its iWork.com service, automatically redirecting visitors to the main Apple home page. While the service was to officially shut down as of the end of the day yesterday, it did continue to function until just a short time ago.

We noted yesterday that Apple was unlikely to provide a grace period to allow users to retrieve iWork.com documents after the official discontinuation date, and that does indeed appear to be the case.

Amazon has released an iPad app for its Instant Video renting and buying service and its streaming Netflix competitor, Amazon Prime Instant Video.

The app allows users to download purchased and rented movies and TV shows for offline viewing, as well as stream Prime Instant Video titles when connected to the Internet. Amazon also keeps track of the user's place in a video, allowing it to be resumed at the same point on other supported devices like a TV, Mac or Kindle Fire.

With Amazon Instant Video, you can:

- Stream thousands of titles available from Prime Instant Video at no additional cost with a Prime membership, or watch over 120,000 videos available from the Amazon Instant Video store
- Download purchased and rented videos from Your Video Library
- Shop over 120,000 videos available from the Amazon Instant Video store by visiting Amazon
- Add videos to your Watchlist from a PC, Mac, or Kindle Fire for later viewing on your iPad
- Subscribe to a TV Season Pass by visiting Amazon and episodes will automatically be available on your iPad the day after they air
- Start watching on your iPad, and resume watching right where you left off on a Kindle Fire, PS3, PC, Mac, or hundreds of models of connected TVs and Blu-ray players with Amazon Whispersync.

Engadget says in a mini-review that "Amazon is really coming after Netflix with this one" and that the app is polished and runs smoothly.

Amazon Prime is available for $79/year and offers discounted overnight shipping and free two-day shipping on nearly every item that Amazon sells, as well as thousands of on-demand streaming movies and TV shows and Kindle Books.

Yesterday, Amazon also updated its Cloud Player service with an iTunes Match-like matching feature. This is a significant upgrade, as Amazon's cloud music offering previously required users to upload all their music which could take hours or days depending on the size of the user's music library.

Amazon Instant Video is available free on the iPad via the App Store. [Direct Link]

Alongside the introduction of the Retina MacBook Pro last month, Apple also announced two adapters to allow users to add Ethernet and FireWire 800 capabilities to the machine through its Thunderbolt ports. But while the Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter was available immediately, Apple's tech specs page for the Retina MacBook Pro has listed the FireWire adapter as launching in July.

Just as the calendar rolls over into August, Apple now appears to be making the Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter available in its online store with a $29 price tag and a shipping estimate of 1-3 business days.

As with the new Retina MacBook Pro configuration options, users are experiencing intermittent success in viewing the new adapter in the store, with some users able to view the adapter while others simply see a "page not found" error. The issue is almost certainly related to caching, and all users should hopefully be able to see the adapter shortly.

Dutch site One More Thing reported earlier this week [Google translation] that one of its readers had sent an email to Apple CEO Tim Cook asking about the status of the adapter, with Cook simply replying "Tomorrow", suggesting that Apple would just barely make its July shipping estimate.