MacRumors

Earlier this week, an Apple patent application highlighted Apple's interest in potentially using sapphire as a display glass cover on future iPhones, and according to a new report [Google Translate] from Taiwan's Apple Daily, the company's assembly partner Foxconn has begun trial production on just such a device with an initial run of 100 units.

The report notes that while it is a small number of devices, the production does mark a significant step in experimentation with the material on a broader scale for Apple. The report also claims that Apple's sapphire suppliers Synopsys and Bern Optics have made significant investments in cutting machines and other equipment recently, fueling speculation that Apple is ramping up its sapphire usage. MacRumors has also heard unconfirmed word that Apple has been working with Swiss company Meyer Burger Technologies to obtain new sapphire cutting machines. Sapphire is currently used to protect the cameras on recent iPhones and the Touch ID fingerprint sensor on the iPhone 5s, but expanding its use to include display cover glass would necessitate a massive increase in sapphire production.

Last November, it was revealed that Apple had struck a deal with GT Advanced Technologies to build a sapphire production facility in Mesa, Arizona. That facility is not yet operational, however, with Apple still hiring its own staff and GT Advanced Technologies recruiting employees to perform the bulk of the work at the facility.

Sapphire has been seen as a potential successor to high-strength glass for display covers, although Corning claims that its Gorilla Glass 3 outperforms sapphire at lower cost. Apple has reportedly experimented with sapphire display covers at one point and found them infeasible, but improvements in the material and production technologies since that time may have convinced the company to revisit the possibility.

In honor of today's thirtieth anniversary of the introduction of the Macintosh, Apple CEO Tim Cook and executives Craig Federighi and Bud Tribble recently sat down for an interview with ABC News. ABC's David Muir was a guest on Good Morning America this morning, where he introduced a short preview of the interview, which airs in full tonight.

In the clip, Muir talked candidly to the trio of executives about Apple's culture of secrecy, the company's plans for its Arizona sapphire manufacturing plant and the iWatch. Cook was forthcoming in the interview about his work habits and Apple's rumored black curtains, but as usual he adeptly deflected questions about Apple's future product roadmap.

The full interview will air tonight at 6:30 PM on World News with Diane Sawyer.

To celebrate the debut of the original Macintosh 30 years ago today, Apple has posted a tribute on the homepage of its website, and has also created a special "Thirty Years of Mac" section accompanied by a new "Mac 30" video looking at the past and present of its signature desktop computer.

Happy Birthday, Mac.

In 1984, Apple introduced the world to Macintosh.

It was designed to be so easy to use that people could actually use it.

And it came with a promise -- that the power of technology taken from a few and put in the hands of everyone, could change the world.

That promise has been kept.

Today, we create, connect, share, and share, and learn in ways that were unimaginable 30 years ago.

Imagine what we can accomplish in the next 30 years.

The special "30 Years" section of Apple's website allows users to scroll through a visual timeline of the Macintosh's history, beginning with the first Mac in 1984 all the way to the recently released Mac Pro. Each page in the timeline is introduced by a passage on the Mac's impact on an individual or entity, such as the Macintosh II's role in the creation of computational program Mathematica by Theodore Gray or the role the MacBook Pro played in helping create online coding tutorial platform Codecademy.

Pages in the visual timeline also include retrospective information on every Macintosh with photos, and are also followed by research about the most popular uses for a particular Mac. Apple also includes a page for users to input data about their first Mac, which asks questions about location and ownership. The data given by users can be found on another section that gives a visual look at what models were chosen by people as their first Mac, with live updating information.

Meanwhile, the Mac 30 video on the website includes remarks about the Macintosh by notable individuals such as music composer Hans Zimmer and designer Iris van Herpen, and also features a visual look of the computer's impact in various industries.

In addition to the festivities on Apple's website, three Apple executives spoke to MacWorld about the Macintosh's illustrious history, which will be followed by ABC News airing an interview tonight with Apple CEO Tim Cook about the computer's thirtieth anniversary. Jonathan Zufi, author of the coffee table book "Iconic: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation," also created a new website that includes photos of macintosh computers and portables from Apple's early years.

Samsung's corporate earnings missed expectations and its mobile division saw flat growth year-over-year due to pressure from inexpensive rivals and Apple's new lineup of iPhones, according to an analysis of its fourth-quarter earnings by Bloomberg.

The Korean conglomerate reported net income of 7.22 trillion won ($6.7 billion), well short of the 8.2 trillion won that analysts were expecting. Operating income at the company's mobile unit, its biggest profit maker, was 5.47 trillion won, down from a record 6.7 trillion in the prior quarter, and roughly flat year-over-year.

The company also said it planned to cut its mobile marketing budget after heavy spending also impacted its fourth-quarter profits, reported Reuters. It will also look to make its marketing spending more efficient.

Analysts interviewed by Bloomberg blamed growth in Apple's iPhone line, which saw the iPhone 5s and 5c launch early in the quarter. Apple is scheduled to announce its earnings on Monday.

"Samsung’s two major challenges for 2014 are to maintain its mobile-phone leadership in China and the U.S., while simultaneously growing its tablet business quickly enough to knock Apple iPad from its perch," [Neil Mawston, an executive director at researcher Strategy Analytics,] said.

The company shipped 9 million units of the S4 in the fourth quarter, according to a Jan. 8 report from Daewoo Securities Co., lower than its earlier estimate of 13 million units, released on Dec. 23. In the third quarter, Samsung sold 17 million units, Daewoo said.

Apple is rumored to have sold more than fifty million iPhones in the fourth calendar quarter. Apple is not expected to update its iPhone line until next fall.

Samsung announced that it would launch a new version of its flagship Galaxy smartphone by April, alongside the second version of its Gear smart watch.

(Image courtesy Business Insider)

ABC News will air an interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook on World News with Diane Sawyer tomorrow evening to coincide with the thirtieth anniversary of the introduction of the Macintosh (via 9to5Mac).

The interview, between ABC's David Muir and Cook, will air tomorrow at 6:30PM Eastern, though a small portion of the interview will preview on Good Morning America.

ABC has not shared many details about the interview, but based on the image shown above, the Mac Pro will be a point of discussion. "ABC News Anchor David Muir exclusively interviews Apple CEO Tim Cook on the 30th anniversary of the Macintosh and what is next for the company," ABC says.

In 2012, Tim Cook sat down with Brian Williams for a wide ranging interview that covered Apple's poor mapping debut, Apple's future in television and more. The interview is part of a larger media campaign by the company to promote the thirtieth anniversary of the Macintosh's debut.

Along with an update for its iWork for iCloud apps that brought an iOS 7-style redesign, Apple today released updates for its iWork apps for both Mac and iOS, as well as minor updates for both iMovie for Mac and Podcasts for iOS.

All of Apple's iWork apps, including its iWork for iCloud apps, now have support for more secure document viewing with password-protected sharing capabilities.

In addition to password-protected documents, Keynote for iOS has also gained new transitions and a built-in remote function, which will likely replace the standalone Keynote Remote app, while Numbers for iOS now offers landscape viewing and the ability to edit spreadsheets.

Keynote for Mac has gained new transitions, improved display options, the ability to share password-protected presentations via iCloud, and charts with time, date, and duration values. The update also includes improved compatibility with Microsoft PowerPoint 2013 presentations and support for custom number charts on imported Keynote '09 and PowerPoint presentations.

Pages for Mac has a new vertical ruler, keyboard shortcuts, and alignment guides while Numbers for Mac now offers tools for sorting multiple columns or rows and autocomplete when editing cells. The updates for all of the apps should be available later today, with Slashgear and TechCrunch providing some additional information on the new features.

Apple's iWork update will be a welcome change for Mac users who were disappointed with the upgraded iWork apps that were released in October, as the new apps were missing several features available in older versions of the software. In November, Apple pledged to re-introduce several lost features over the course of the next six months and today's update is the first step in that direction.

The iWork suite of apps for iOS and Mac are available to users who owned previous versions of iWork and to users who have purchased new Mac and iOS devices. Customers who do not fit those criteria can purchase the iWork apps for Mac for $19.99 and the iWork apps for iOS for $9.99.

Pages for Mac - [Mac App Store]
Numbers for Mac - [Mac App Store]
Keynote for Mac [Mac App Store]

Pages for iOS - [App Store]
Numbers for iOS - [App Store]
Keynote for iOS - [App Store]

Update: The updates for iWork for Mac and iOS are all available for download from their respective App Stores.

Update 2: The Keynote Remote app, which was never updated for iOS 7 or even the iPhone 5, has been removed from the App Store and Apple is now recommending that users upgrade to the new Keynote 2.1 for iOS to replace the functionality.

To celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the unveiling of the original Macintosh -- tomorrow, January 24, 2014 -- Macworld has published a lengthy interview with three Apple executives to discuss where the Mac has been, and where it is going. Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi, and Vice President of Software Technology Bud Tribble -- who was a member of the original Mac development team -- all shared their thoughts and the full article is well worth a read.

Among the more interesting tidbits from the interviews is one particular statement from Federighi, where he notes that while iOS and OS X do share some cross-pollination of features and design, they will not become one operating platform without good reason. He says that the Mac has "been honed for over 30 years to be optimal" for keyboards and mice, while attaching a touchscreen to a PC -- or a keyboard to a tablet -- without a good reason to do so makes for a bad experience.

"We don’t waste time thinking, 'But it should be one [interface!]' 'How do you make these [operating systems] merge together?' What a waste of energy that would be," Schiller said. But he added that the company definitely tries to smooth out bumps in the road that make it difficult for its customers to switch between a Mac and an iOS device. For example, making sure its messaging and calendaring apps have the same name on both OS X and iOS.

"To say [OS X and iOS] should be the same, independent of their purpose? Let’s just converge, for the sake of convergence? [It’s] absolutely a non-goal," Federighi said. "You don’t want to say the Mac became less good at being a Mac because someone tried to turn it into iOS. At the same time, you don’t want to feel like iOS was designed by [one] company and Mac was designed by [a different] company, and they’re different for reasons of lack of common vision. We have a common sense of aesthetics, a common set of principles that drive us, and we’re building the best products we can for their unique purposes. So you’ll see them be the same where that makes sense, and you’ll see them be different in those things that are critical to their essence."

Macworld editor Jason Snell mentions that though he brought an iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air to the interview at Apple's Cupertino campus, he ultimately chose to take notes on the MacBook -- something not lost on the Apple execs.

"You had a bunch of tools," Federighi said, pointing at my bag. And you pulled out the one that felt right for the job that you were doing. It wasn’t because it had more computing power … you pulled it out because it was the most natural device to accomplish a task."

Schiller said Apple believed that the Mac "keeps going forever" because its differences make it really valuable. The current Mac lineup looks very different from what Steve Jobs introduced thirty years ago, but Apple clearly considers it crucial to the future of the company.

Images courtesy Shrine of Apple

While Apple's upcoming iOS in the Car functionality has been gaining significant attention, some automakers have been developing their own systems to allow for greater integration between iPhones and vehicles.

Back in December, Honda announced new HondaLink apps and functionality to allow iOS devices to integrate with the new 2014 Civic and upcoming 2015 Fit, and MacRumors recently sat down with a Honda representative to walk through the system that offers solid integration for several features but unsurprisingly does not yet achieve the vision of iOS in the Car.

The HondaLink experience for iOS arrives in the form of four App Store apps: a Connect app that serves as the hub for passing information such as weather, location searches, and Honda service information from the iPhone to the car, an Aha app that offers an interface to the streaming music service, a Launcher app that will allow approved third-party apps to interface with HondaLink, and a $59.99 Navigation app that offers turn-by-turn GPS navigation powered by Nokia's HERE services.

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Several weeks ago, Apple filed a statement with the SEC advising shareholders to vote against activist investor Carl Icahn's non-binding "advisory" share buyback proposal from early December.

The proposal will be voted on by shareholders at Apple's stockholder's meeting, to be held at Apple's headquarters at some point in the next couple of months. Today, Icahn published a seven-page letter to shareholders advocating for a yes vote on its proposal.

He also announced that he purchased another $500 million in Apple stock today, bringing his cumulative total to $3.6 billion. Just yesterday, Icahn revealed that he had surpassed $3 billion in AAPL ownership. He also stated on CNBC that his criticism was reserved for Apple's board of directors, not its management.

In the letter, Icahn explains his belief that Apple's stock is a "no brainer" to purchase, and that Apple's board should be supportive of a significant increase in Apple's share repurchase program. He argues that Apple's stock -- currently priced at $555 -- would be priced at $840 if its price to earnings ratio was the same as the average P/E across the S&P 500.

We believe, however, that this share repurchase authorization can and should be even larger, and effectuating that for the benefit of all of the company’s shareholders is the sole intention of our proposal. The company has recommended voting against our proposal for various reasons. It seems to us that the basis of its argument against our proposal is that the company believes, because of the “dynamic competitive landscape” and because its “rapid pace of innovation require[s] unprecedented investment, flexibility and access to resources”, it does not currently have enough excess liquidity to increase the size of its repurchase program. Assuming this indeed is the basis for the company’s argument, we find its position overly conservative (almost to the point of being irrational), when we consider that the company had $130 billion of net cash as of September 28, 2013 and that consensus earnings are expected to be almost $40 billion next year. Given this massive net cash position and robust earnings generation, Apple is perhaps the most overcapitalized company in corporate history, from our perspective.

The full letter is available from the SEC and comes ahead of Apple's first quarter earnings report, scheduled for Monday afternoon. The company is expected to report the strongest results for any quarter in its history.