MacRumors

In a new legal resources page posted on its website Wednesday night (via 9to5Mac), Apple outlined its guidelines regarding requests for customer data from from U.S. law enforcement agencies, specifying what information the company can and can not retrieve from devices upon the receipt of a search warrant or legal notice.

Regarding the extraction of data from passcode locked iOS devices, Apple states that it may only retrieve information from its own first party apps, which includes SMS messages, photos, videos, contacts, audio recording, and call history. However, Apple can not provide access to email, calendar entries or third-party app data. The company says the data extraction process itself can only be performed on devices in "good working order" at its Cupertino, California headquarters.

Apple will also assist law enforcement in returning lost iPhones to their rightful owners, agreeing to contact the customer of record and have them contact law enforcement to get their property back pending available information.

The new page follows a report from The Washington Post last week which stated that the company would begin notifying its users of secret personal data requests from law enforcement. Apple has become increasingly concerned about privacy matters since the discovery of PRISM, a secret intelligence program ran by the NSA.

CEO Tim Cook was noted as saying that the NSA would have to "cart [Apple] out in a box" before it could access the company's servers, as Apple also hired certified privacy professional Sabrina Ross last month to oversee the protection of consumer data.

Over the past several weeks, a number of photos and videos have shown cases and even physical mockups of Apple's rumored iPhone 6. Most of the cases and mockups appear to have been based either on alleged design drawings published by Japanese magazine MacFan in late March or on essentially identical information leaking through other channels.

MacRumors has now obtained one of these iPhone 6 cases and separately 3D printed a very rough physical mockup based on the MacFan drawings for the 4.7-inch model. Together, the case and the mockup give a good idea of the feel of a larger iPhone.

The larger iPhone definitely makes one-handed operation more difficult, even for relatively large hands, but many users are already accustomed to using two hands much of the time. With the larger body, Apple appears to be shifting the sleep/wake button from the top edge of the device to the right side, and this new location feels very natural in our hands, with the index finger sitting right on the button in a left-handed grip.

Our physical mockup includes our mocked up home screen showing that a 4.7-inch screen at the same 326 pixels per inch as the iPhone 5s would yield a 1334x750 display that could display an additional row of icons. While the mockup is based on the design drawings posted by MacFan, we did elect to slightly depress the surface of the device in order to help its physical features stand out more.

With the case and mockup in hand, we encourage readers with questions to share them in the discussion thread associated with this story and we'll do our best to address them.

Katie Cotton is retiring from her position as VP of worldwide corporate communications at Apple, reports Recode. Cotton has worked in Apple's public relations department for almost twenty years, serving under both Steve Jobs and Tim Cook.

“Katie has given her all to this company for over 18 years,” Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said in a statement. “She has wanted to spend time with her children for some time now. We are really going to miss her.”

Cotton has confirmed her retirement, saying it was an extremely difficult decision to make as "Apple is a part of my heart."

Cotton is known for having been fiercely protective of Apple executives, particularly Steve Jobs, serving as gatekeeper for all media access and shepherding executives through their formal and informal meetings with the press. Given Apple's penchant for secrecy, Cotton has long been tasked with keeping a tight rein on the company's PR operations, managing Apple's image and contributing to the company's presentations.

Apple revolutionized aluminum manufacturing when it adopted the unibody design for its MacBook Pro line of notebooks, advancing the production process in a way that benefitted the industry as a whole. Now, the company is poised to change the nature of sapphire manufacturing in a similar way, but this time the sole beneficiary will be Apple, argues The Verge.

When Apple introduced the aluminum unibody MacBook Pros in 2008, the company was relying on third-party suppliers to provide the material needed for the notebook line. Backed by Apple's cash, manufacturers were able to streamline and scale up production to meet demand for the new unibody machines. Once rare, processes like aluminum extrusion and forging became commonplace, with Apple "reinventing a whole new supply chain around the material."

"Aluminum is now cheaper and easier to implement thanks to Apple itself," says noted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities. His assessment, shared by many others, is that Apple’s demand drove "related suppliers of aluminum casing to invest more on capacity and technology." They were all competing for the lucrative prize of satisfying the MacBook maker’s need to extrude, machine, anodize, and recycle vast quantities of the metal.

Apple may have kickstarted the aluminum revolution, but it did not control the production processes it advanced and the adoption of the metal spread across a variety of industries. With sapphire, Apple is taking a different approach. The company is again poised to overhaul a new manufacturing industry, but this time Apple is in a better position to keep most of the benefits to itself.

Apple partnered with materials manufacturer GT Advanced Technologies to build a sapphire production plant in Arizona and is working on mass producing the material for use in its iPhone lineup and possibly the iWatch. Any advancements the company makes in sapphire production to make it more affordable and to scale its manufacturing output to support hundreds of millions of devices per year will stay within the walls of Apple and GT.

Competitors will have to pursue their own sapphire manufacturing endeavors or concede sapphire to Apple and pursue different transparent cover materials to use in their devices. Most companies will be left behind as they do not have the financial reserves that allows a company like Apple to invest in a full-scale production facility dedicated to a single material used in their devices.

Apple and GT have already started producing small quantities of sapphire in their Arizona plant, with approximately 100 furnaces online producing 2,220 kg of sapphire in early production runs. GT is expected to install more than 1,000 additional furnaces as the company ramps up production for the end of 2014 ahead of the release of the iPhone 6 and iWatch.

Recent reports suggest Apple may incorporate sapphire into its upcoming wearable product and may outfit its high-end iPhone 6 models with a sapphire screen. The company currently uses sapphire as a covering for its iPhone rear camera lens and its Touch ID sensor.

Apple supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has reportedly provided the first batch of Touch ID fingerprint sensors to be used in the iPhone 6, iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3, according to a new report from component information website cecb2b.com citing supply chain sources (Google Translate, via GforGames).

In addition to production at TSMC, the report notes that the fingerprint sensors are being assembled by TSMC subsidiaries Xintec and Suzhou Crystal Semiconductor. A report in January noted that TSMC would begin production on the sensors sometime in the second quarter of this year with a new 12-inch fab processing method, however a report in February stated that TSMC would be using the same 8-inch fingerprint sensor processing method that was used for the iPhone 5s.

The inclusion of Touch ID on the next-generation iPad Air and Retina iPad Mini would also fall in line with predictions from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who noted that both devices would gain the feature alongside processor upgrades and various other improvements.

Apple's head start on Touch ID fingerprint sensor production will likely help the launch supplies of all three devices. The component was said to be a key factor contributing to the limited supplies of the iPhone 5s at its launch last September, with low yield rates at Xintec and iOS 7-sensor integration slowing production.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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