MacRumors

Nokia has taken a page from Microsoft's advertising book, today launching (via UKMR) a new advertisement comparing the company's Lumia 925 to the iPhone 5.

The ad focuses on the phone's photographic capabilities and is based on Apple's well known "Photos Every Day" commercial, which began running back in April. It uses a similar voice over and style, focusing on Lumia users taking photographs with their devices.

"Every day, more photos are taken on the iPhone than any other phone. But at Nokia, we prefer to build for quality, not just quantity."

The ad goes on to feature the Lumia 925's various photo modes, offering demonstrations of the camera's action shots, motion blur, and best shot feature that captures a series of photos and allows users to choose the most appealing.

Nokia’s Lumia 925 offers an 8.7-megapixel camera that comes equipped with a Carl Zeiss Tessar lens and an f/2.0 aperture. In comparison, the iPhone 5 has an 8-megapixel camera with a five-element lens and an f/2.4 aperture. Nokia has included a dual-LED flash on the Lumia 925, which, along with a lower aperture, allows for superior performance in suboptimal lighting conditions.

Nokia highlights the Lumia's flash and low light capabilities towards the end of the commercial, providing side-by-side comparison photos taken with each camera. "Every day, better photos are taken with Nokia Lumias then with any other mobile," reads the final line.

In recent years, Nokia has focused heavily on the photographic capabilities of its devices, most recently debuting the Lumia 1020, which offers an impressive 41-megapixel camera with a six component Zeiss lens.

Apple is expected to greatly improve the iPhone's camera with the release of the iPhone 5S later this year, offering a 12-megapixel camera, several new photographic modes, and a dual-LED flash.

Just over a week after Apple began bringing its Developer Center back online after being down for eight days, the company has emailed developers with an update on its progress. Apple has brought a majority of its developer services back online and plans to reinstate most of the remaining services by the end of this week.

Still down are Xcode automatic configuration as well as access to license agreements, Technical Support Incidents, program enrollments, and renewals in Member Center.

The company notes that if membership were set to expire during the downtime, it has been automatically extended and no App Store sales have been affected.

Apple Developer Update: Aug 5, 2013

We sincerely appreciate your patience as we work to bring our developer program services back online, and we want to give you an update on our progress. The majority of our developer services are currently online, including Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles, Dev Centers, software downloads, Videos, Apple Developer Forums, iTunes Connect, Bug Reporter, App Store Resource Center, and access to pre-release documentation.

We plan to reinstate most of the remaining services this week: Xcode automatic configuration as well as access to license agreements, TSIs, program enrollments, and renewals in Member Center. You can check the availability of these systems on our status page.

As a reminder, if your membership was set to expire during this downtime, it has been extended and your apps will remain on the App Store and Mac App Store.

We apologize for the significant inconvenience that our downtime has caused and encourage you to reach out to our support team if you need any assistance.

Apple's new Developer Center System Status page should be updated as the remaining services come back online.

Research firm IDC today announced its preliminary estimates of worldwide tablet shipments for the second quarter of 2013, finding that Apple's share of the market has fallen to under a third. According to IDC's numbers, Apple held a 32.4% share of the market for quarter, compared to 39.6% in the previous quarter and a 60.3% share in the year-ago quarter.

While other top tablet manufacturers saw their shipments rise by 100-300% over the second quarter of 2012, the lack of a new iPad launch from Apple in the March-April timeframe resulted in a 14% drop in Apple's numbers. Still, other top vendors saw their shipments drop sequentially, with IDC attributing those drops to a lack of a general boost in tablet interest that accompanies iPad launches.

In years past, Apple has launched a new tablet heading into the second quarter, which resulted in strong quarter-over-quarter growth. Now, Apple is expected to launch new tablet products in the second half of the year, a move that better positions it to compete during the holiday season. Meanwhile, the other two vendors in the top 3 also saw a decline in their unit shipments during the quarter. Second-place Samsung shipped 8.1 million units, down from 8.6 million in the first quarter of 2013, although up significantly from the 2.1 million units shipped in 2Q12. And third-place ASUS shipped a total of 2.0 million units in 2Q13, down from 2.6 million in 1Q13.

"A new iPad launch always piques consumer interest in the tablet category and traditionally that has helped both Apple and its competitors," said Tom Mainelli, Research Director, Tablets at IDC. "With no new iPads, the market slowed for many vendors, and that's likely to continue into the third quarter. However, by the fourth quarter we expect new products from Apple, Amazon, and others to drive impressive growth in the market."

Second-place Samsung continues to close on Apple in the tablet market, garnering 18% of the market as all of the other major tablet makers continue struggling to hit the 5% mark.

As always, it is important to note that IDC's numbers track shipments instead of sales, and thus how many shipped devices are making their way into consumers' hands remains unclear. IDC's figures are also estimates, as most companies do not release their exact tablet shipment data and thus research firms must rely on supply chain data and calculations from information that is made public by manufacturers to build their estimates.

After the Obama administration vetoed a partial ban on the import and sale of some Apple products, Samsung announced that it has been granted a hearing in a US appeals court next year against the original ruling, as reported by the Financial Times. Concurrently, The Wall Street Journal reports that Samsung has lost $1 billion in market value after the weekend veto. The South Korean government has also criticized the decision, saying it had "concern over the possible negative impacts that this kind of decision could have on Samsung Electronics' patent rights".

Samsung revealed on Monday that it had filed a court appeal on July 18 against the original ITC finding, because the ITC ruled that Apple had infringed only one patent, rather than finding in favour of Samsung on all four patents it had claimed were violated.

The appeal was filed at the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, a Samsung spokesman said, adding that an oral hearing was scheduled for the first quarter of next year.

Originally, the ban of Apple products was granted back in June in response to a ruling made by the USITC (United States International Trade Commission) and applied to AT&T models of the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS, as well as the 3G models of the iPad and iPad 2. The USITC ruled that all four products infringed on a Samsung patent, specifically Patent No. 7,706,348, titled "Apparatus and method for encoding/decoding transport format combination indicator in CDMA mobile communication system."

Apple and Samsung have been in a long, ongoing legal battle that started in 2011, with the first U.S. trial awarding $1 billion to Apple in 2012. However, a judge voided nearly half of that amount in March, and a new trial between the two companies is set for November of this year.

The Obama administration has vetoed a partial ban on the import and sale of some Apple products which was granted back in June in response to a ruling made by the USITC (United States International Trade Commission). The ban, which applied to AT&T models of the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS, and the 3G models of the iPad and the iPad 2, was granted after the USITC found that the aforementioned products infringed on a Samsung patent, specifically Patent No. 7,706,348, titled "Apparatus and method for encoding/decoding transport format combination indicator in CDMA mobile communication system."

Today, in a letter to Irving A. Williamson, the Chairman of the USITC, the United States Trade Representative Michael B. G. Froman declared the following:

After extensive consultations with the agencies of the Trade Policy Staff Committee and the Trade Policy Review Group [...] I have decided to disapprove the USITC’s determination to issue an exclusion order and cease and desist order in this investigation.

The letter further went on to note that the Obama administration was "committed to promoting innovation and economic progress, including through providing adequate and effective protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights".

The Verge has noted that this is the first time since 1987 that the President of the United States has interfered with a decision from the ITC. This comes after the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) recently criticised this sort of use of sales bans (rather than monetary compensation) as a means of executing patent infringement – as it in effect harms rival products and companies and does not promote a competitive trading environment. CNet had previously cited experts who believed it was unlikely for the administration to step in on this case.

Just last week, Verizon attorney Randal Milch published an open letter calling for presidential intervention in this case to veto the ban. The ban would have otherwise gone into effect on August 5th, 2013.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the comment thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All MacRumors forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Following a report from earlier this week that appeared to show photos of the iPad 5's silver rear shell, Mac Otakara (via Sonny Dickson) has released a brief video that allegedly shows the front panel and back shell of the iPad 5 assembled together for the first time.

Unlike the rear shell shown in photos earlier this week, which was reported to have a silver Apple logo, this part appears to have a transparent or translucent logo. Apple's fifth-generation iPad is expected to launch as soon as next month, with a new iPad mini with Retina display perhaps following soon after.

A second video from Mac Otakara shows alleged rear shell and front bezel parts from Apple's lower-cost iPhone, which has been rumored to be called the iPhone 5C. A similar pairing surfaced in high-quality photos from Techdy last month with a full display assembly rather than just the bezel, although it is unclear if those parts were indeed genuine.

Apple on Thursday altered its iTunes Terms and Conditions to permit children under the age of 13 to operate individual iTunes accounts created at the request of an "approved educational institution," reports Macworld.

Previously, Apple restricted iTunes accounts to children aged 13 or older, but the company announced it would be changing its policy with the release of iOS 7.

These App and Book Services are only available for individuals aged 13 years or older, unless you are under 13 years old and your Apple ID was provided to you as a result of a request by an approved educational institution. If you are 13 or older but under the age of 18, you should review this Agreement with your parent or guardian to make sure that you and your parent or guardian understand it.

With Apple's new educational policies, schools will have a program to facilitate Apple obtaining "verifiable parental consent for personal Apple IDs for students under age 13." In addition, Apple also plans to introduce better tools for teachers.

iOS 7, which is expected to be released to the public in the fall, offers new Mobile Device Management options allowing teachers to set up managed apps, configure accessibility options, and restrict changes to accounts. Teachers will be able to lock student iPads to a particular app as well, to ensure that students are "on the same activity at the same time."

The new operating system will also bring an App Store Volume Purchase Program designed to allow educational institutions to assign apps to users while maintaining ownership and control over app licenses.

Apple's policy shift comes as the company continues its push for iPads in educational institutions. Apple has been involved in several large deals in recent months and won a $30 million contract from the L.A. Unified School District in June that will see the district purchasing iPads for every student in its 47 schools. Apple also met with the Turkish President earlier this year about a potential $4.5 billion deal that would provide Turkish schoolchildren with as many as 15 million tablets.