One day before the launch of the iPad mini and fourth-generation iPad, Apple has just released iOS 6.0.1. The update had been reported to be in carrier testing two weeks ago.
This update contains improvements and bug fixes, including:
- Fixes a bug that prevents iPhone 5 from installing software updates wirelessly over the air - Fixes a bug where horizontal lines may be displayed across the keyboard - Fixes an issue that could cause camera flash to not go off - Improves reliability of iPhone 5 and iPod touch (5th generation) when connected to encrypted WPA2 Wi-Fi networks - Resolves an issue that prevents iPhone from using the cellular network in some instances - Consolidated the Use Cellular Data switch for iTunes Match - Fixes a Passcode Lock bug which sometimes allowed access to Passbook pass details from lock screen - Fixes a bug affecting Exchange meetings
iPhone 5 users updating from their devices are required to first install an "updater" application to fix a bug that would otherwise prevent over-the-air updates. Once the updater has been applied users can download iOS 6.0.1 from their devices.
AllThingsD offers a look at the back-and-forth situation with Apple executive Bob Mansfield, who announced his retirement as hardware chief in late June only to rescind the move two months later in order to work on special projects under CEO Tim Cook. With this week's management changes, Mansfield is now heading up a new "Technologies" division and has committed to remaining at the company for at least two more years.
AllThingsD notes that Mansfield was indeed serious about retiring earlier this year and was enticed to stay on in an advisory capacity to ease the transition. But his all-in commitment to head the new Technologies division was reportedly influenced in no small part by the impending departure of iOS chief Scott Forstall.
As one source close to the company told AllThingsD, “The timing of Bob’s return is not coincidental.”
To begin, Mansfield was not a fan of Forstall’s confrontational management style, and sources said he generally tried to avoid the iOS exec. Indeed, Bloomberg last year reported that Mansfield would meet with Forstall only if Cook was present to mediate. I’ve heard many similar stories.
“It wasn’t a him-or-me situation,” one source said of Mansfield’s return and Forstall’s ouster. “But, put it this way, I think Bob was much more willing to commit to two more years once he knew Scott was on his way out.”
Mansfield is just one of several senior Apple executives taking on new roles in the restructuring, with design guru Jony Ive adding software design to his existing hardware design responsibilities, Eddy Cue picking up Siri and Maps, and Craig Federighi adding iOS to his OS X responsibilities.
iFixit is currently working on a teardown of the iPad mini, revealing the internal components of the device for the first time.
One interesting development is the discovery of a Samsung display driver chip. It is unclear, however, whether this means that Samsung is also responsible for the display itself, as the codes found on the back of the display do not provide immediate evidence of its manufacturer. Display production had been reported to be split between AU Optronics and LG, with Samsung being left out on the iPad mini.
iPad mini's A5 chip
The teardown has also reached the logic board, revealing the A5 chip powering the device. The A5 chip found in iFixit's model carries date codes indicating that the package was put together in the 31st week of 2012, which would correspond to the end of July or the beginning of August.
iPad mini's stereo speakers
iFixit has also confirmed that the iPad mini contains stereo speakers, although the relatively small spacing between the two speakers means that the benefit of stereo sound will be marginal under most scenarios.
iFixit's teardown is still underway, and we will update this post with any additional observations of interest that may surface.
Last week, Apple posted a statement on its UK website acknowledging that Samsung had not infringed upon the protected design of the iPad, in line with a court order following the trial. But Apple took the opportunity to playfully quote statements from the judge's ruling saying that the Samsung Galaxy Tab was "not as cool" as the iPad and note that it had won cases against Samsung in other jurisdictions.
Bloomberg now reports, however, that Apple's version of the statement is not in line with the intent of the order, which was to present a simple reference to the court decision ruling against Apple. The court has requested that Apple alter its website statement within two days, but Apple claims that alterations could take up to two weeks.
“I’m at a loss that a company such as Apple would do this,” Judge Robin Jacob said today. “That is a plain breach of the order.” [...]
The court’s initial order to post a notice was designed to correct the impression that the South Korean company was copying Apple’s product. Apple’s post, criticized by judges today, inserted four paragraphs including excerpts of the original “cool” ruling and details of similar German lawsuits that the court today said weren’t true.
The original court ruling required that Apple keep the acknowledgement linked on its website for one month and to purchase advertisements in a number of newspapers and magazines to publicly make the same admission. Those advertisements have, however, yet to appear.
Apple has launched a new page on its iTunes Store allowing users to easily donate money to the American Red Cross toward Superstorm Sandy relief efforts. The donation page, which is accessible through the desktop iTunes Store as well as the iTunes and App Store apps on iOS, permits donations at the $5, $10, $25, $50, $100, and $200 levels.
Apple will transfer 100% of each donation directly to the American Red Cross, allowing users to have their donations seamlessly billed to their existing iTunes Store accounts. With Apple currently holding over 400 million iTunes Store accounts with credit cards attached, the company has a very significant customer base that can take advantage of the donation program.
Apple has conducted several similar campaigns in the past, most recently in March 2011 following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami and in January 2010 following the Haitian earthquakes.
Update: Apple has now added a link to the iTunes Store donation page on the main apple.com page.
Apple today filed its 2012 annual report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the document reveals a few interesting tidbits of information:
- Apple now has 72,800 "full-time equivalent" employees, up from 60,400 last year. The company also went from employing 2,900 "full-time equivalent" temporary employees and contractors to 3,300. 42,400 "full-time equivalent" employees are in the retail division, up from 36,000 last year.
- Apple went from 357 stores at the end of fiscal 2011 to 390 stores at the end of fiscal 2012, up 33 from the year prior. Apple earned an average of $51.5 million per store, up from $43.3 million last year. The average number of "full-time equivalent" employees per store grew from 100.8 to 108.7. Apple expects to open 30-35 new stores in 2013, with 75% of those located outside the US.
The Company’s headquarters are located in Cupertino, California. As of September 29, 2012, the Company owned or leased approximately 17.3 million square feet of building space, primarily in the U.S., and to a lesser extent, in Europe, Japan, Canada, and the Asia-Pacific regions. Of that amount approximately 10.9 million square feet was leased building space, which includes approximately 4.1 million square feet related to retail store space. Of the Company’s owned building space, approximately 2.6 million square feet that is located in Cupertino, California will be demolished to build a second corporate campus. Additionally, the Company owns a total of 1,077 acres of land in various locations.
As of September 29, 2012, the Company owned a manufacturing facility in Cork, Ireland that also housed a customer support call center and facilities in Elk Grove, California that included warehousing and distribution operations and a customer support call center. The Company also owned land in Austin, Texas where it will build office space and a customer support call center. In addition, the Company owned facilities for research and development and corporate functions in Cupertino, California, including land for the future development of the Company’s second corporate campus. The Company also owned data centers in Newark, California; Maiden, North Carolina; and Prineville, Oregon. Outside the U.S., the Company owned additional facilities for various purposes.
- As this document is designed mainly for prospective and current investors in the company, Apple also lists a number of risk factors that could affect investments in the company. These include "[Apple] could be found to have infringed on intellectual property rights", the ability to "successfully manage frequent product introductions and transitions", "the Company’s ability to obtain components in sufficient quantities", and numerous more.
- Unlike last year, when Apple said it had no plans to pay a dividend, the company now "expects to pay quarterly dividends in the future."
The document is thick with financial information, including breakdowns of all sorts related to how the company makes money, invests its money, and pays taxes, among other things.
According to Apple's iCloud System Status page, 8% of iCloud users cannot currently use any iCloud service except mail or iChat. The site gives no suggestion of a cause for the outage, nor a timetable for fixing it -- other than to say services will be restored as soon as possible. On Tuesday, iCloud experienced a widespread FaceTime, iMessage and Game Center outage that lasted nearly two hours.
Update: It appears the outage is now limited to Documents in the Cloud only.
In something of a surprise, Friday's launch of the iPad mini will apparently mark the first time an iOS device carries stereo speakers. It appears that Apple's move to the smaller Lightning dock connector has left enough space for an additional speaker along the bottom edge of the device, although the company has elected not to make a similar addition to the fourth-generation iPad.
There has been speculation about the iPad mini's speaker setup ever since early case designs leaked showing two sets of small holes, one on each side of the Lightning port. Similar setups have been seen on iPhone models with one side housing a speaker and the other side a microphone for phone conversations. iPad models have, however, until now only contained a single off-center speaker grille.
Apple did little to clear up the speculation at the iPad mini introduction last week, making no mention of stereo speakers and using the singular "speaker" on its tech specs page addressing the device's input/output capabilities. Amazon seized upon the assumption that the iPad mini did not contain stereo speakers, using it as part of a checklist comparison touting the Kindle Fire HD on its front page.
But when the first wave of advance reviews of the iPad mini were released last night, The Verge's Joshua Topolsky mentioned that the device does indeed contain stereo speakers. Topolsky later highlighted the feature in a Tweet, noting that it had been confirmed by Apple.
Dual speaker grilles on iPad mini (Source: The Verge)
Seeking further confirmation, a 9to5Mac reader emailed Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller to ask about the situation, and Schiller responded to simply state "It is stereo." Notably, Amazon has since removed the comparison checklist between the Kindle Fire HD and the iPad mini from its main page.
Six weeks after the release of OS X 10.8.2, Apple is preparing to begin testing on the next maintenance update to OS X Mountain Lion. AppleInsider notes that Apple has sent out invitations to select users asking them to participate in the testing process.
The first build of a new OS X version typically appears a few days after such invitations are sent out, suggesting that we may see the first beta of OS X 10.8.3 appearing late this week or early next week.
There is no word yet on what changes and improvements will be included in the update, and the amount of time each release spends in testing can vary significantly, so there is no estimate yet on when OS X 10.8.3 can be expected to make its way to a public release.
With two weeks to go until the one-year anniversary of the public launch of iTunes Match in the United States, Apple is sending out emails reminding user who have opted for auto-renewal that their credit cards will be charged the next $24.99 annual fee on November 14.
Continue to enjoy your entire music collection in iCloud on your iOS devices, iTunes, and Apple TV. iTunes Match stores not only your songs purchased on the iTunes Store, but all of the other great music you have acquired over the years, including music from CDs.
This is just a reminder that your subscription for iTunes Match will automatically renew on 11/14/12 and you will be charged $24.99 at that time. To view your subscription or change your auto-renewal settings, sign in to iTunes on your computer and go to your Account Information page.
Additional information on subscribing to iTunes Match or turning off auto-renewal is available in an Apple support document.
With Apple's management changes announced earlier this week, several current executives have seen expansions of their responsibilities. Among those is Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president for Internet Software and Services, who is seeing Siri and Maps added to his portfolio.
Cue's responsibilities have grown substantially throughout during his 23 years at Apple, from the company's online store to the iTunes Store to the App Store. More recently, Cue has added the iBookstore, iCloud, and iAd to his responsibilities, and just over a year ago he was promoted to the senior executive team.
CNET today published a profile of Cue, offering an interesting glimpse of the executive who has reportedly played a crucial role in holding Apple's content services together in a landscape that involves frequently contentious negotiations with third parties.
The 48-year-old Cuban-American played a major role in the creation of Apple's Web store, iTunes, and iPods. And as Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, he's kept the peace with key partners and helped fix product messes. Few people know that five years ago, he helped prevent the relationship between Apple and the large record companies from collapsing when the sides almost "went nuclear." When MobileMe, the division that oversaw Apple's Web services and software, appeared to run hopelessly off track, it was Cue who salvaged the operation and transformed it into iCloud.
The entire lengthy profile is a solid background on the challenges faced by Cue and how his calm temperament served as a bridge between Steve Jobs and media executives involved in negotiations.
"If you were going to be successful with Steve you couldn't compete for oxygen," [former Warner Music executive Paul] Vidich said. "You had to allow him to be him and shine in the greater glory that Steve sought for himself, and Eddy had this calm demeanor. He never said: 'Hey look at me,' to anyone. He just did a great job."
"Eddy doesn't care about those other guys, the flashy executives who want the spotlight," said an executive who has negotiated with Cue. "He's the kind of person who is happy to be in the engine room making sure that everything is clicking along."
Cue certainly remains busy, not only maintaining the ever-increasing stable of licensing agreements with content providers across music, movies, books, and more, but also taking on the more recent challenges of building out iCloud and now fixing Siri and Maps.
Apple has started selling the Nike+ FuelBand (in two new colors) in Apple Retail Stores and the Online Store in the US, Canada and the UK. In some ways it's surprising that it took this long for Apple to begin carrying the wristband which launched early this year; we noted Monday that Apple likes to carry app-enabled accessories.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is a Nike board member and noted fitness enthusiast and has disclosed in the past that he wears a FuelBand.
The Nike+ FuelBand is an innovative wrist-based device that tracks and measures the user's activity during any given day and designates a score for the activity in the form of NikeFuel. NikeFuel is a normalized score that awards all users of the Nike+ FuelBand equal scoring for the same activity regardless of their physical make up. The Nike+ FuelBand also captures and displays time, calories and steps. An intuitive mobile application allows the user to review all the activity captured by the product.
The Nike+ FuelBand is available for $149 in a number of sizes, both in Apple Retail Stores and online.
iPad sketchbook app Paper, an Apple Design Award winner, has been updated with a clever new color picker that lets users "mix" colors like they would mix different color paint together.
The app also adds support for the Pogo Connect stylus, an $80 drawing tool that uses Bluetooth 4.0 to determine how hard an artist is drawing and Paper adjusts accordingly.
The Vergehas more on how the new color mixer works:
Paper now includes a circular color mixer that lets you tap to pick a color (using RGB sliders, if you'd like), then swipe in a circle clockwise to mix colors and counter-clockwise to unmix. A long press lets you save the color you've made to one of the many black color slots the app now provides. Color is a $1.99 in-app purchase, like many of the app's add-on brushes. If you don't choose to buy it, you still have access to the palette of colors that shipped with the free app.
Paper for iPad is a free download from the App Store, with additional drawing brushes and the color picker available as in-app purchases. [Direct Link]
One of the interesting additions to Apple's iMac and Mac mini lines announced last week is Fusion Drive, a hybrid storage system that combines a 128 GB solid-state drive (SSD) with a 1 TB or 3 TB traditional hard drive into a single volume to offer the best of both worlds in terms of performance and storage space. Apple's software automatically manages the combined volume, placing the core system and other frequently used applications and files on the solid-state drive for faster access while keeping lower-priority applications and data on the traditional hard drive.
Mac developer Patrick Stein has been toying with his own Mac Pro setup and has managed to build his own Fusion Drive using command line tools. Stein configured an internal solid-state drive and a USB-attached traditional hard drive on his system and was able to combine them into a single logical volume as used for Fusion Drive.
Attached are a 120GB SSD (disk1) and a 750GB HDD (disk7) to my Mac. I attached the SSD via SATA to be sure that the system could figure out that it’s a SSD via SMART. The HDD is attached via USB. USB I chose to clearly see a difference in speed.
Stein then proceeded to test the setup, writing data first to the SSD and then to the traditional hard drive once the SSD had filled up. By preferentially accessing data that had initially been written to the traditional hard drive, Stein was able to watch as the data was automatically transferred to the SSD for faster access. Upon stopping the process, the system automatically pushed the data back to the traditional hard drive, and in one final step Stein began accessing the data once more and after about an hour was able to see it pulled back onto the SSD.
In several follow-up Tumblr posts, Stein details further explorations into how Fusion Drive works, noting that he was able to use not only the default HFS+ file system for OS X with it, but also ZFS. All of Stein's work was performed with a standard installation of OS X 10.8.2.
Popular iOS to-do app Clear is coming to the Mac complete with iCloud cross-platform syncing. Clear launched earlier this year to strong reviews of its minimalist interface. The app is designed to be extremely quick and easy to use, with lists automatically color coded in order of priority. The Mac app is expected to be released next week on November 8th. Realmac, the creator of Clear, plans to price the Mac version at $15. It will require OS X Mountain Lion.
With Clear for Mac, we wanted to spearhead a new design direction for Mac UI that focuses on simplicity. Featuring nearly all the gesturally-driven interactions from Clear for iPhone as well as a complete set of keyboard shortcuts, Clear will revolutionise the way you interact with your Mac.
Clear for iPhone will be getting a free update next week as well, adding support for iCloud backup and syncing, as well as a few other nice features. The new version of Clear requires iOS 6. It's available on the App Store for $1.99. [Direct Link]
Thanks for your feedback, guys. It's interesting to hear your thoughts on the app and pricing. Pricing it is always tricky, and whilst some folks may think that pricing is something that is simply determined at the last moment, that's not the case with us. We gave the Clear pricing a **lot** of thought (and continue to do so). We think great apps are worth paying for, and we want to ensure that we can always continue to build apps that people want to use.
Thanks again, I hope you enjoy using Clear for Mac and iPhone w/iCloud when it launches next week.
Yesterday, we noted that early iPad mini pre-orders were en route to customers and that resellers were receiving shipments ahead of Friday's official launch for the Wi-Fi models.
The unboxing photos do not reveal any significant surprises, with Apple opting to maintain its usual box layout for the new device in placing the iPad mini on top of a support surface containing the documentation and accessories. The iPad mini comes with a Lightning to USB cable and a power adapter, although the adapter is not visible in these photos.
Wi-Fi models of the iPad mini and fourth-generation iPad will officially debut this Friday, November 2 in 34 countries, with Apple's own retail stores opening at 8:00 AM to begin sales. Cellular-capable models will follow several weeks later.
Besides the iPad mini, Apple is launching another new iPad on Friday -- the 4th Generation iPad. The embargo has been lifted on those reviews as well, though they contain no real surprises. The 4th Generation iPad came out only seven months after the 3rd Generation model.
The changes include a faster A6X processor running at 1.4GHz allowing the device to run twice as fast as its predecessor. The new processor doesn't worsen battery life. Engadget's testing even showed it to be slightly improved. The front facing camera has been upgraded to take HD video, and the only other external change is the replacement of the 30 pin dock connector with the new smaller Lightning connector. CNet sums it up:
The latest iPad adds several tweaks and improvements to secure its position at the top of the tablet heap. It's better all around, but third-gen owners need not apply.
The other interesting effect the new iPad has on Apple's product line is that it increases the gap between the iPad 2 and the "new iPad". Apple has chosen to keep the iPad 2 at the $399 starting price point and simply retired the 3rd Generation model, replacing it with the new one. That $100 difference between the two models now represent a larger feature gap than before.
The embargo has just lifted on the first iPad Mini reviews. Apple has provided some publications with an early review unit of the iPad Mini. We are collecting some of the more interesting points from each review, but you can click each title to read the full writeup. The iPad Mini will officially launch on November 2nd and will likely be available in retail stores beginning at 8am.
- "What's unique about the Mini? Without a doubt, it's the design. It's cute, it's discreet, and it's very, very light." - "If you're an obsessive over crisp text, you'll notice the fuzziness. If you're comparing the Mini to a laptop, you won't." - "A Retina Display and a lower price would have made the iPad Mini perfect." - "it's really shockingly nice to hold." - Regrading smaller bezel: "All I know is that when reading books on the Kindle app or iBooks, holding on the side wasn't a problem."
- "I actually had a little trouble holding onto the device when I wasn't using the Smart Cover due to the back being as smooth as it is, and the frame being so thin." - "There's something endearing about the mini that makes you want to keep it on-hand and use it often." - "I don't think the lower resolution is a deal-breaker in this product, but it is a compromise you have to be aware of." - "Battery life was — not surprisingly — everything Apple claimed it would be." - "The iPad mini hasn't wrapped up the "cheapest tablet" market by any stretch of the imagination. But the "best small tablet" market? Consider it captured."
- "Overall, the tablet is very comfortable to hold; its thinness and lightness are both attributes that must be perceived first-hand." - "Colors are very pleasing to the eye and viewing angles, as ever with an Apple display, do not disappoint." - "In our standard battery run-down test, which entails looping a video with WiFi enabled and a fixed display brightness, the iPad mini managed an astounding 12 hours and 43 minutes." - "This is, in many ways, Apple's best tablet yet, an incredibly thin, remarkably light, obviously well-constructed device that offers phenomenal battery life. " - "To consider it just a cheap, tiny iPad is a disservice. This is, simply, a great tablet."
- "Lining those pluses and minuses up against those for the Nexus 7 – which garnered four stars – there's no doubt that this is indeed a five-star device. The 20% difference in comparative price is more than made up by the difference in build quality and software selection."
- "What I found was surprising to me. I actually used the iPad mini more than my iPad." - "If you want to save $50 and buy a cheap-ass tablet, go ahead. If you want quality the iPad mini will be waiting for you when you come to your senses." - "Everything just works on the mini — all of your old apps, iCloud, everything."
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