MacRumors

The U.S. National Security Agency specifically looks for data sent by mobile apps in order to capture personal data on targets, according to a new report from The New York Times and other news agencies.

Intelligence agencies can grab data as it travels across the Internet, looking specifically for data from smartphone apps including Google Maps -- searches within the app allow Governments to locate users to within a few yards -- and even Angry Birds. Much of the information being sent seems to be related to targeted advertising.

The secret report noted that the profiles vary depending on which of the ad companies — which include Burstly and Google’s ad services, two of the largest online advertising businesses — compiles them. Most profiles contain a string of characters that identifies the phone, along with basic data on the user like age, sex and location. One profile notes whether the user is currently listening to music or making a call, and another has an entry for household income.

In addition, apps like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter all support sending some amount of location data and other information, allowing intelligence agencies significant opportunities to capture personal data in real-time on targeted persons without ever having access to phones, something that was part of a different intelligence strategy revealed in previous leaked documents.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has been vocal in his disapproval of some of the NSA's methods, meeting with the President to discuss NSA surveillance and more recently saying the NSA "would have to cart us out in a box" to have access to Apple's servers.

For its part, the NSA says it only analyzes data on foreign intelligence targets and that significant protections exist for data collected on U.S. persons and "innocent foreign citizens". The NSA has said in the past that collection of this sort of smartphone traffic has been useful in cracking cases.

"N.S.A. does not profile everyday Americans as it carries out its foreign intelligence mission," the agency said in a written response to questions about the program. "Because some data of U.S. persons may at times be incidentally collected in N.S.A.'s lawful foreign intelligence mission, privacy protections for U.S. persons exist across the entire process." Similar protections, the agency said, are in place for "innocent foreign citizens."

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All 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.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts is implementing a new pilot program that will see two key hotel locations in Manhattan and Silicon Valley allowing guests to enter their rooms with their smartphones, reports The Wall Street Journal.

After installing the Starwood Preferred Guest (SGP) App, guests will receive a virtual key on their iPhone, which can then be used to unlock a door with a tap using Bluetooth 4.0. The newer Bluetooth specification, first introduced with the iPhone 4s, has been used in a similar way for many home locking products like the Lockitron and the August Smart Lock, but this is the first time it's being used on a larger scale.

"We believe this will become the new standard for how people will want to enter a hotel," says Frits van Paasschen, Starwood's CEO. "It may be a novelty at first, but we think it will become table stakes for managing a hotel."

Bluetooth 4.0 (or Bluetooth LE) is being utilized in a number of innovative ways. In addition to being installed in multiple different home locking products, it has also been used to replace traditional password logins on Macs through the Knock app and to deliver car diagnostics in the Automatic connected car device. Bluetooth 4.0 is also the driving technology behind Apple's iBeacons, which are rapidly being implemented in retail stores and other locations across the world to deliver location-based notifications.

Two Starwood Aloft hotels, in Harlem, New York and Cupertino, California, will be updated with the Bluetooth 4.0 technology during the first quarter of 2014. Starwood has plans to roll out the system at all of its locations by the end of 2015 should the pilot program be successful.

OS X 10.10, the next version of OS X which carries the code name of "Syrah", will take a few cues from iOS 7 with a somewhat flatter look compared to OS X Mavericks, but the changes will not result in as stark a look as seen on iOS 7, according to a new report from 9to5Mac. The report comes on the heels of comments from Apple executives reiterating that convergence of iOS and OS X is a "non-goal" for the company.

Instead [of a complete iOS 7-like overhaul], I am expecting OS X 10.10 to have user-interface tweaks that will make the interface “flatter,” but not as stark as iOS 7′s look. I’d also expect some blur and translucency effects in a few places, but not in anyway that is central to the experience like it is on iOS. There will be a little bit more white space, more defined menu bars, and squared-off window controls, but I would not expect a full color palette change and redesigns for every single application and icon.

The report indicates that internal build numbers for OS X 10.10 are currently around 14Z109 and that new features could include improved notifications, cross-platform AirDrop support to and from iOS 8, and possible Siri integration.

Analysts predict Apple will return to growth when the company announces its quarterly earnings later today, reports Philip Elmer-Dewitt of Fortune. Growth will be in the single digits and will be an improvement over the negative earnings growth the company reported for the previous three quarters. Apple is not, however, expected to return to the 50% growth it achieved between 2010 and 2012.

The consensus estimates among the 47 Apple analysts we've heard from so far -- 29 Wall Street professionals and 18 Internet amateurs -- are for earnings of $14.36 per share on sales of $58.1 billion. That represents year-over-year growth of 4.0% for earnings and 6.6% for revenue.

Eighty percent of Fortune's surveyed analysts estimate Apple's revenue will fall within the company's guidance of $55 to $58 billion. Six analysts predict Apple will beat the street with revenue that tops $58 billion. Consensus estimates also predict Apple will sell a record 55 million iPhones and 25 million iPads in 1Q 2014.

Apple will report its quarterly earnings today after the close of trading, at approximately 4:30 PM Eastern / 1:30 PM Pacific. MacRumors will have full coverage of Apple's earnings release and the conference call taking place at 5:00 PM Eastern / 2:00 PM Pacific.

Research firm Kantar Worldpanel has released a new report (via The Next Web) highlighting global smartphone sales over the October-December period, finding that while Apple's market share dip slightly in key markets, Google's Android devices increased their lead over other platforms during the end of 2013, registering year-over-year growth in various major markets.

Dominic Sunnebo, strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, comments: “Android finished 2013 strongly, showing year-on-year share growth across 12 major global markets including Europe, USA, Latin America, China and Japan. Apple has lost share in most countries compared with this time last year, but importantly it has held strong shares in key markets including 43.9% in USA, 29.9% in Great Britain and 19.0% in China.

Apple's total market share in the U.S. hit 43.9% in December, and was overall lower in most countries compared to the same timeframe last year. However, Sunnebo stated himself in Kantar's prior report highlighting global smartphone sales over the August-October period that customers generally react more positively to "full" releases than incremental improvements such as the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c, which is the likely reason for the drop in market share.

Apple also continues to have strong presence in Japan, as the iPhone has held a steady market share in the months after the debut of the iPhone on the country's largest carrier, NTT DoCoMo:

In Japan, consumers’ desire for all things Apple continued into the final quarter of 2013, with iOS taking 68.7% share of smartphone sales. Apple’s deal to sell iPhones through Japan’s largest carrier, NTT DoCoMO, has proved an unarguable success with Apple’s share on the carrier reaching 58.1% in the fourth quarter compared with 91.7% on Softbank and 63.7% on AU KDDI.

Despite its strong market share in various countries, the iPhone continues to face challenges in mainland Europe and China, where Android's market share is around 70% or higher in many countries. Microsoft's Windows Phone also continues to show growth in many markets, as the platform's market share has even overtaken that of iOS in Italy.

Last night, over 100 members of the original Mac team gathered to celebrate the Mac's 30th anniversary in De Anza College's Flint Center, where Steve Jobs first introduced the Macintosh 30 years ago. The event was focused around three separate panels: the conception of the Mac, the building of the Mac and the third-party developers who built software for the Mac.

The evening began with video of both Jobs' introduction of the Macintosh in the Flint Center and a couple minutes of the 90-minute Macintosh presentation at the Boston Computer Society, which was made public for the first time last night. Master of Ceremonies and Apple employee #4 Bill Fernandez then introduced the first panel of the night: the conception of the Mac.

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On January 24, 1984, Steve Jobs famously demonstrated the Macintosh for the first time at Apple's shareholders meeting at the Flint Center in Cupertino.

Less than a week later, Jobs again showed off the Mac. But this time, instead of showing it to Apple's investors, he showed it to his potential user base at the monthly general meeting of the Boston Computer Society.

This lesser known introduction actually comes off more polished than the January 24 version, which is viewable on YouTube.

The Boston Computer Society introduction, which runs for 90 minutes, has gone virtually unseen since it took place. Time reporter Harry McCracken managed to track down the tape, locating a Boston-area videographer who had the original tapes in storage on a now-obsolete format called U-matic.

According to McCracken:

Fortunately for posterity, the production values on the video version of the meeting are quite good — far better than what Apple managed for the shareholder meeting. (In Cupertino, the lighting had been so murky at times that the only thing you can see clearly is Jobs’ white shirt gleaming from inside his jacket.) Apple sprung for multiple cameras, one of which was manned by the BCS’s [videographer Glenn] Koenig. Moments with subpar camera work in the Cupertino video, such as when Jobs pulls the Mac out of its bag and boots it up, are nicely shot in this one.

As presented here, the video — which is a rough cut of the version which the Computer History Museum will preserve — has a few moments which have been reconstructed. The slides which Jobs shows are the same ones he presented in Boston, but they’re borrowed from the video of the Cupertino event. And when Jobs shows a blurry slide of the IBM PC — provoking mirth from the audience and prompting him to say "Let’s be fair" — the blurring is a recreation of what really happened. (To this day, [BCS co-founder Jonathan] Rotenberg isn’t sure whether it was a prank on Apple’s part or a bona-fide technical glitch.)

"It’s so much more intimate," Rotenberg says of the Boston version of the presentation. "It’s about the users, which is what you don’t get at the shareholder meeting."

At the end, it includes a special Q&A session with Macintosh team members, along with a number of software demos -- McCracken calls the BCS demonstration "a prototype for the media extravaganzas which we citizens of the 21st century call Stevenotes."

The never-before seen video is an important piece of Apple history, and, fittingly, the Computer History Museum will be preserving it for posterity.

In October 2013, DisplaySearch analyst David Hsieh first revealed that Apple would be introducing a 12" Retina MacBook Air in 2014. The report was quickly corroborated by the reliable Ming-Chi Kuo.

It wasn't entirely clear at the time why Apple would choose to introduce a new 12" screen model, when their current lineup of MacBook Airs and Pros come in 11", 13", and 15" screen sizes.

Analyst Daniel Matte, however, lays out a convincing argument at his new blog on why Apple would choose that size. Matte believes that the new Retina MacBook Air will be exactly 11.88" in diagonal screen size, as that would allow Apple to offer a Retina Display (2732 x 1536, twice 1366x768) with the exact same PPI as the iPad Air (264 PPI). The full analysis is worth reading.

It would make sense for Apple to take advantage of the same display technology it has been utilizing for the 9.7” iPads by cutting their panels to this larger size.

Apple is quite deliberate in choosing screen sizes for their new products.

The earliest supply chain rumors of the iPad mini included the specific screen size of 7.9 inches. The reason for that particular size later became apparent as it similarly allowed Apple to use the exact same PPI displays that were used in original iPhone and iPod touch.

The main discrepancy in Matte's argument is that the original DisplaySearch report predicted a lower resolution (2304 x 1440). Also, in the past, we'd heard very specific display sizes from Apple's supply chain, such as the 7.9" iPad mini display rather than 8" iPad mini display. In this case, the early reports (so far) have been at 12-inches.

Still, the new Retina MacBook Air is not expected until mid-2014, so we should start hearing more as production starts ramping up.

Apple is looking to develop a new mobile payment service on the back of its hundreds of millions of iTunes Store accounts, most of which have credit cards already attached, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The report claims Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president in charge of Internet Software and Services -- including the iTunes Store -- has met with other companies to discuss the company's desire to handle payments in retail stores and elsewhere.

Eddy Cue, Apple's iTunes and App Store chief and a key lieutenant of Chief Executive Tim Cook, has met with technology industry executives to discuss Apple's interest in handling payments for physical goods and services on its devices, according to people familiar with the situation.

In another sign of the company's interest, Apple moved Jennifer Bailey, a longtime executive who was running its online stores, into a new role to build a payment business within the technology giant, three people with knowledge of the move said.

Apple has been driving new payment technologies in its own retail stores, including the use of Bluetooth-based iBeacons and the ability to pay for smaller purchases through its Apple Store iPhone app, without the need to interact with a salesperson.

At the moment, Apple only allows accountholders to use their stored credit card information for purchases on Apple's online and retail stores through its app as well as the iTunes and App Stores. The new Touch ID technology could speed up and authenticate purchases if Apple were to integrate that with its mobile payment service.

Tim Cook said last October that Apple would use its skills in building software, hardware, and services to create "great products" in categories that Apple does not participate in today. Passbook, the system that Apple released a few years ago to make it more convenient for customers using gift card or ticketing apps -- along with Touch ID, iBeacon, and its vast collection of saved credit card numbers -- could all be part of a larger mobile payments play by the company.

Mobile payments is a burgeoning industry, one that Tim Cook called "in its infancy" last year, with many players. Ebay's PayPal, Google, Square, Visa, Mastercard and American Express are all examining -- or have already developed -- mobile payment platforms.

Over the past several months, iTunes users in the U.K. and several other countries have noticed the availability of the welcome screen of iTunes Radio on their devices, hinting at an upcoming release.

As of today, MacRumors has had a few reports from U.K. and Australian users that have been able to access and listen to iTunes Radio on their iPhones. While some MacRumors forum members in the U.K. have been able to access the service, others say that it is not yet available for them. Similar reports are coming in on Reddit and Twitter.

It appears that most of the users that are able to access and use iTunes Radio had recently wiped and restored their devices, which suggests that iTunes Radio may be accessible after an iPhone reactivates. MacRumors is not, however, recommending that users restore their devices, and it's not clear if this is a temporary glitch as Apple prepares for the U.K. launch.

Image courtesy of @Marcus1090

In October, Bloomberg suggested Apple would expand the service to Canada, the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand by early 2014, but the service has remained limited to the U.S. throughout January. While some U.K. users receiving access after a restore could indicate an imminent release, a similar situation arose back in October with some users in Canada and the U.K. temporarily able to access the service.

According to Apple’s senior vice president of Internet software and services Eddy Cue, launching iTunes Radio worldwide is a top priority for the company, with Apple ultimately aiming to have the service "in more than 100 countries."

(Thanks, @Marcus1090!)