MacRumors

Along with his recent research note addressing Apple's notebook launch plans, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has also published a note examining Apple's iPad prospects.

In particular, Kuo looks to the iPad mini as the future of the company's iPad portfolio, but with Apple's efforts to bring a Retina display to the device said to be pushing a launch back to the fourth quarter of this year, he suggests that Apple may be looking at a lower-priced iPad mini.

Prior to iPad mini 2 launch, Apple might roll out a more affordable iPad mini to compete with Android products. To cut costs, Apple might push for lower component prices, use a more advanced process to produce the A5 processor, simplify metal casing production, remove the rear camera, cut storage to 8GB and find more component suppliers to lower costs. We think this cheaper iPad mini retail for US$199~249.

Kuo does not believe that such a device would offer a significant boost to Apple's overall iPad sales, but it could help stave off erosion at the low end of the market at the hands of cheaper Android-based tablets.

The $199-$249 price range is one that many potential customers had hoped Apple would be able to hit with the original iPad mini, but the company surprised many by introducing the iPad mini starting at $329. Even at that pricing, Apple has noted a number of times that the iPad mini's profit margins are below the company average.

Apple is said to be pursuing a similar strategy for the iPhone, working on a lower-cost iPhone with a polycarbonate shell rumored for launch later this year.

Overall, Kuo sees relatively small sales growth for the iPad in 2013, with the full-size iPad being cannibalized by the popular iPad mini and the upgraded iPad mini with Retina display not debuting until late in the year.

With Android tablets also beginning to gain footholds in some markets and driving Apple's estimated share of the tablet market below 50% in recent quarters, Kuo expects that Apple will remain competitive but see relatively slow growth until the launch of the Retina iPad mini.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has issued a new report forecasting that the product highlight of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), which kicks off on June 10, will be the introduction of new models of the company's MacBook Pro and MacBook Air lines based on Intel's latest Haswell processors. The projection is in line with previous reports from Kuo and other sources, as well as recent claims that Apple will begin ramping up production of the new models in mid-May.

On the MacBook Pro side, Kuo is reversing his earlier predictions suggesting that 2013 would see Apple discontinue the non-Retina MacBook Pro lineup and shift consumers to the slimmer and more expensive Retina line introduced at last year's WWDC. Kuo believes that continued strength of non-Retina MacBook Pro models, particularly the 13-inch line, have led Apple to continue producing the non-Retina lineup for the time being.

Contrary to our previous projection, we now think Apple will continue to make the MacBook Pro alongside the MacBook Air and Retina MacBook Pro because the 13” MacBook Pro remains the most popular product in the MacBook line. Also, there is still demand in emerging markets, where Internet penetration isn’t advanced, for optical disk drives.

Kuo believes that the updated versions of the non-Retina MacBook Pro could begin shipping very soon after WWDC, but that the new Retina MacBook Pro models will begin shipping somewhat later due to production bottlenecks on the displays.

For the MacBook Air, Kuo also believes that the new models will be introduced at WWDC and ship very soon after, but he indicates that Apple is unlikely to include Retina displays in the updated lineup. He believes that cost, thickness, and production concerns will continue to keep Retina displays out of Apple's lowest-cost and thinnest notebook line for the time being.

Apple today announced on its developer news website that it will be "hitting the road" with individual Tech Talk sessions for developers this fall (via The Next Web). The news comes a day after tickets for the company's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) sold out in two minutes.

Enthusiasm for WWDC 2013 has been incredible, with tickets selling out in record time. For those who can’t join us in San Francisco, you can still take advantage of great WWDC content, as we’ll be posting videos of all our sessions during the conference. We’ll also be hitting the road this fall with Tech Talks in a city near you. Hope to see you there.

With the quick sellout, even some developers who thought they were purchasing their tickets in time experienced difficulties with the checkout process, and Apple contacted some of those affected developers yesterday to offer them a second chance at purchasing tickets. For those who missed out on WWDC tickets but would still like to take advantage of some the excitement and opportunities surrounding the event, a free alternative to WWDC called AltWWDC has also been announced.

Still, demand for access to Apple engineers remains high, and the company has apparently seen fit to revive its Tech Talks tour in order to make contact with additional developers who are unable to attend WWDC.

Apple has not yet announced which cities the Tech Talks will take place in, but the company may share more details around WWDC, which takes place June 10-14 at the Moscone West convention center in San Francisco. Apple last held its Tech Talks tour to support the launch of iOS 5 in late 2011 and early 2012, taking its show to 9 cities around the world.

Earlier this week, Apple filed another revised plan for its "Campus 2" project in Cupertino, a new headquarters for the company focused on a massive ring-shaped building and designed to house 13,000 employees.

In line with that revised plan, Apple has once again solicited residents of Cupertino for feedback on the project now that additional details on environmental sustainability and neighborhood enhancements have been fleshed out. Apple made a similar mailing last May when the project was in an earlier stage of conceptualization.

This week's mailing includes a new letter from Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer outlining some of the highlights of the project for neighbors:

At Apple, the environment is a top priority, and we've designed Apple Campus 2 with cutting-edge features to make it energy-efficient and environmentally sustainable. Several of these green technologies are highlighted in this update.

As at our existing campus on Infinite Loop, we are committed to 100% renewable energy to power Apple Campus 2. This will include onsite generation from photovoltaics and fuel cells. As part of this effort, approximately 8 megawatts of photovoltaics will be installed, creating one the largest installations of its kind on a corporate campus anywhere in the world.

Apple started in Cupertino, and we are excited to continue to grow here. As we build the new campus, we also plan to invest in new roadways and intersection improvements, add new sidewalks and better bike lanes, and plant new trees in newly created medians in the surrounding neighborhood.

As with the previous mailing, Apple includes a postage-paid response card allowing neighbors to provide feedback on the project and invites neighbors to view additional project details on the City of Cupertino's website.

(Thanks, Ian!)

Former Xerox CFO Luca Maestri officially joined Apple as Corporate Controller in late February and a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission published earlier today reveals that he received 38,091 restricted stock units (RSUs) in March of this year.

As with most RSUs handed out by Apple, these carry staggered vesting dates with 1/8 of the total number of units converting to actual shares every six months over a four year period.

Apple's restricted stock grants are often issued as incentives to stay with the company because the shares vest over time and require employees to remain employed through each vesting date.

At Apple's current stock price, Maestri's RSUs are worth approximately $15 million, but that total will shift depending on the stock price at the time that the shares vest.

In his role as Corporate Controller, Maestri works directly under Apple senior vice president and Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer. Before serving as CFO at Xerox, Maestri formerly worked at Nokia Siemens Networks and GM.

As noted by The Verge, a strange iMessage bug is causing the final word of certain phrases sent via Messages to an iPhone to be invisible to both the message sender and the recipient.

When the following two phrases are sent using iMessage, the last word is not displayed on the iPhone:

- I could be the next Obama (with a space after Obama)
- The best prize is a surprise

Both messages look complete when they are being composed, and the full text shows up in notifications, but within the Messages app itself, the words Obama and surprise are both invisible. Copying and pasting the message displays the original text.

Many Twitter users have been able to confirm the problem, which only appears to affect the iPhone.

The bug was first noticed back in December and posted on the Apple Support forums. It appears that additional phrases trigger the truncation as well, though it is unclear what is causing the issue.

Update: As noted on the MacRumors forums, the issue appears to be related to character width. From Arian19:

You can test it out, and even if you change “I could be the next Odama ” as the phrase it still gets deleted.

The problem is that the message app, thinks the phrase will fit in a one line bubble, but it actually puts the last word on a hidden second line.

It works with these two phrases because they are the exact width needed, and it is not based on character count, but character width. For example, "l" is skinner than a "w".

Apple's market share of the worldwide smartphone market may have slipped, but a new Yankee Group survey (via AllThingsD) shows some promising data points for the company.

In a survey of 16,000 U.S. smartphone users, the company found 91 percent of iPhone owners plan to purchase another iPhone when it's time to upgrade, while for Android the number is just 76 percent. And, three quarters of those looking to switch from Android plan to buy an iPhone.

Yankee Group believes the incredible customer loyalty that Apple holds will drive market share gains well into the future. The firm predicts that, if these loyalty numbers hold, Apple will surpass Android in U.S. market share by 2015.

Think of the Apple and Android ecosystems as two buckets of water. New smartphone buyers — mostly upgrading feature phone owners — fall like rain into the two big buckets about equally, with a smaller number falling into Windows Phone and BlackBerry buckets. However, the Android bucket leaks badly, losing about one in five of all the owners put into it. The Apple bucket leaks only about 7 percent of its contents, so it retains more of the customers that fall into it. The Apple bucket will fill up faster and higher than the Android one, regardless of the fact that the Apple bucket may have had fewer owners in it to begin with.

The iPhone has traditionally demonstrated strong platform loyalty, and Tim Cook has played up both Apple's ecosystem of interconnected devices and apps, and the iPhone's "halo effect" as significant strengths for the company in recent earnings calls.

Research firm IDC yesterday released its estimates on worldwide mobile phone sales for the first quarter of 2013, showing Apple losing some ground in the smartphone market with only 6.6% year-over-year growth compared to 41.6% growth for the entire market. Still, Apple maintained a firm grasp on the number two spot behind Samsung, as challengers LG, Huawei, and ZTE were unable to reach the 5% mark during the quarter.

Apple's smartphone shipment volume hit a new first-quarter high thanks in part to the iPhone 5, with volume growing 6.6% year over year. However, the last time the iPhone maker posted a single-digit year-over-year growth rate was 3Q09. The iPhone maker has held the second spot in the smartphone rankings for the past five quarters. Apple's mix of models shipped to market is increasingly diversified as it tries to reach new buyers.

Apple does, however, continue to ride the wave of popularity for smartphones, with IDC noting that smartphones outsold feature phones for the first time during the quarter. As a result, Apple's 6.6% year-over-growth outpaced the 4.0% growth rate of the mobile phone market as a whole, allowing Apple to creep up to an 8.9% share.

With a flurry of activity today, bidding on the charity auction for a coffee meeting with Tim Cook at Apple's headquarters has passed $500,000, nearly doubling the previous record for a CharityBuzz "experience" auction set last year when a bidder paid $255,000 to spend a day with Bill Clinton.

The bid list seems to be a combination of serious bidders and those likely simply seeking visibility for their names or brands and relying on the fact that there are 18 days left to bid to hope that they won't actually win the auction. CharityBuzz notes in its FAQ that all bids are legally binding and can not be retracted.

Can I retract a bid?

No, and we’re pretty strict about this. Here’s the legalese: All bids placed on the Charitybuzz website are legally binding. If you are the successful bidder, you will enter into a legal contract to purchase the item and will be considered the buyer of the lot. Please consider your bids carefully before placing them.

The auction for coffee with Cook, which is part of a group of roughly 100 celebrity auctions supporting the RFK Center for Justice & Human Rights, will see the winner and a guest travel at their own expense to Apple headquarters to meet with Cook for 30-60 minutes over coffee on a mutually agreed upon date.

As noted by AppAdvice, Apple yesterday added a new "Learn More About In-App Purchases" feature to the iPad version of the App Store, marking yet another step in the company's efforts to make users aware that some free and paid apps may offer the ability to purchase additional content from within the apps.

The document includes four sections, addressing what In-App Purchases are, types of In-App Purchases, how they work, and how Parental Controls in iOS can be used to turn the feature off entirely.

On devices running iOS 4.3 or later, you must enter your password to make an In-App Purchase. Once you enter your password to make that purchase, additional In-App Purchases can be made without reentering your password for 15 minutes. To change your settings to require a password entry with every purchase, open Settings, tap General, then tap Restrictions, and change Require Password.

The new addition comes roughly a month after Apple added prominent "Offers In-App Purchases" labels on App Store pages for apps supporting the feature. The company also recently settled a lawsuit related to children having been able to make In-App Purchases, occasionally for as much as thousands of dollars, without authorization.

The new informational feature is currently visible only in the iPad version of the App Store, and it is unclear if and when it will make its way to the App Store on the iPhone and in iTunes.

Earlier this month, we reported that Apple had announced upcoming changes to the behavior of VPN On Demand for devices running iOS 6.1 or later. The changes, which were planned to be deployed in a software update later this month, were necessitated by a $368 million judgment against Apple in a patent lawsuit brought by VirnetX.

Virtual private networking (VPN), which is most commonly used by corporate users to access company networks, allows a user to securely connect to a private network via public networks as if his or her device were directly on the private network.

Apple's changes to the feature were to see the removal of the "Always" configuration option for VPN On Demand, with the behavior defaulting back to an "Establish if needed" option. That option does not, however, perform ideally under certain circumstances, leading Apple to suggest that users may need to resort to turning VPN On Demand on and off manually, a potentially significant inconvenience.

The patent judgment covered previous infringement by Apple but did not address future use of VirnetX's intellectual property, and it seems that Apple had decided to simply remove the "Always" feature from iOS rather than agree to an additional licensing deal with VirnetX.

But it now appears that the two sides may have reached an agreement, as Apple on Wednesday updated its support document on the issue to note that it no longer plans to make the previously announced change.

Apple no longer plans to change the behavior of the VPN On Demand feature of iOS 6.1 for devices that have already been shipped. The "Always" option will continue to work as it currently does on these devices.

It is, however, currently unclear why Apple specifically mentions that it will not be changing the VPN ON Demand feature on "devices that have already been shipped", leaving open the possibility that it may make changes to devices that have yet to ship.

Apple's proposed changes had brought significant scrutiny from the enterprise-focused security community, with security firm Mobile Active Defense having released a detailed whitepaper (PDF) highlighting numerous issues with Apple's proposed changes.

(Thanks, Jorge!)

Update: Computerworld notes that in its 10-Q regulatory filing earlier this week, Apple reported that it is continuing to challenge the $368 million judgment in VirnetX's favor. The move suggests that Apple may simply be delaying making any changes to VPN On Demand until the case has run its course rather than the two companies having reached a licensing agreement.

Apple started running a new iPhone ad this evening called "Photos Every Day". The ad is a departure from recent iPhone advertising, focusing on people actually using the phone, rather than just the phone itself.

In a series of colorful shots, the iPhone is used to take photos and videos on a hike, a run, at the beach, on a walk, and more. The spot shows users editing their photos and using the iPhone's panorama feature, as well as its LED flash.

Every day, more photos are taken with the iPhone than any other camera.

The ad finishes with the above quote, likely referring to statistics from Flickr that show the iPhone as the most popular camera on the service. Three of the top four most popular cameras on Flickr are iPhones and Apple has put a lot of effort into improving the camera in the iPhone over its past few iterations.

Apple's most recent iPhone ad campaign used a series of words flashing across the screen to showcase a number of different iOS apps.

Tickets for Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference sold out this morning in less than two minutes, leaving a number of developers with error messages stating that their purchase requests were unable to be processed.

According to a tweet from Red Sweater Software founder Daniel Jalkut, Apple contacted some registered members of its developer program to offer them a second chance to purchase a WWDC ticket. Eric Doleki detailed his phone call from Apple in a blog post.

I pick up and a nice guy tells me he's from Apple Developer Support and that they noticed that I tried to purchase a ticket today and that the transaction didn't go through. I told him that was true. I thought the next thing out of his mouth would be an apology or something – just to be nice.

He then proceeds to tell me that he's got good news – a ticket has been reserved for me in my name and that I'll be receiving an email from Developer Support within 12 hours with instructions on how to purchase the pass. He thanked me for supporting the platform, etc.

Dolecki's story has been confirmed by several other developers on Twitter who have also received phone calls from Apple. The company appears to be offering tickets to developers who experienced a failed purchase after placing a WWDC ticket in their shopping carts.

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference will take place June 10-14 at the Moscone West convention center in San Francisco. Tickets are priced at $1599.

Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson has ordered T-Mobile to alter its new "Uncarrier" advertising strategy, calling its contract free claims "deceptive."

Alongside the launch of the iPhone 5 earlier this month, T-Mobile rolled out new rate plans, which are designed to separate device costs from service costs. To purchase a device like the iPhone 5, T-Mobile customers make a small downpayment and pay off the rest of the cost over a two-year period, while also paying for a separate service plan.

According to Ferguson, T-Mobile has failed to clearly state that while there is no annual contract for T-Mobile subscribers, customers who cease using T-Mobile's service must pay off the remaining cost of the device.

"As Attorney General, my job is to defend consumers, ensure truth in advertising, and make sure all businesses are playing by the rules," Ferguson said. "My office identified that T-Mobile was failing to adequately disclose a critical component of their new plan to consumers, and we acted quickly to stop this practice and protect consumers across the country from harm."

As a result, Ferguson entered into a court ordered agreement with T-Mobile that will require the carrier to explicitly disclose the details of its contract free plans both through its advertisements and with employee training.

T-Mobile cooperated with the Attorney General's Office in signing an Assurance of Discontinuance (AOD) filed in King County Superior Court today. Under the AOD, the company agrees not to:

-Misrepresent consumers' obligations under its contracts, including those contracts that have not restrictions or limitations; and
-Fail to adequately disclose that customers who terminate their T-Mobile wireless service before their device is paid off will have to pay the balance due on the phone at the time of cancellation.

The agreement also requires T-Mobile to offer full refunds to customers who purchased T-Mobile service and equipment between the dates of March 26 and April 25, 2013. Subscribers who purchased phones during this time period can cancel their service plans and receive device refunds without the need to pay the remaining balance on the device.