MacRumors

In a media event today, Facebook announced significant changes to the way its signature News Feed is displayed to users on desktop, smartphones and tablets. The company has increased the size of shared images and video content, while also introducing several different sub feeds to allow readers to focus on certain content like photos, music, or pages you like. In addition, the newsfeed will have the same look and feel where its accessed, whether across the desktop, smartphone or tablet. Devices 1

Today we're announcing a new version of Facebook designed to reduce clutter and focus more on stories from the people you care about. You see all the stories you saw in your News Feed before, but with a fresh new look. We've completely rebuilt each story to be much more vibrant and colorful and highlight the content that your friends are sharing. Photos, news articles, maps and events all look brighter and more beautiful.


Facebook is aiming to "give everyone in the world the best personalized newspaper we can," according to founder Mark Zuckerberg. Users can sign up for a waiting list (scroll to the bottom) to get early access to the improved News Feed on the desktop, while smartphone and tablet versions will be rolling out over the next several weeks. Note: MacRumors readers can "Like" MacRumors on Facebook to get our news updates in your Facebook feed.

Google today released its location discovery app Field Trip for the iPhone. Previously an Android app released in the fall, Field Trip is designed to direct users to local points of interest.

The app runs in the background and uses Bluetooth or a popup notification to alert users when there are "cool, hidden, and unique things" nearby. Field Trip offers information on landmarks and historical facts along with recommendations on the best places to eat and shop.

fieldtrip

Discover thousands of interesting places/experiences that fall under the following categories: Architecture, Historic Places & Events, Lifestyle, Offers & Deals, Food Drinks & Fun, Movie Locations, Outdoor Art and Obscure Places of Interest around you.

Choose from three different modes to set frequency of Field Trip notifications. See "Field Trip" worthy places around you on a map, by tapping on cards in map view to pull up enthralling points of interest around you

Go on a Field Trip while you drive. Field Trip can detect when you're driving and automatically "talk" about interesting places and experience around you.

Came across an amazing story or restaurant? Mark it as a favorite to easily come back to it at any point.

Capture the memory of a special place, by sharing a wondrous discovery through email and social networks such as Google+, Twitter and Facebook.

Wondering where the gem that you recently discovered is? Find your discovered field trip cards in the "recent" section.

Field Trip utilizes information from partnerships with Thrillist, the Food Network, Zagat, Arcadia, Atlas Obscura, Daily Secret and pulls in information from sites like Cool Hunting WeHeart and Remodelista to offer a wide range of recommendations and suggestions.

Field Trip for the iPhone can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Robocat, the Danish software studio behind apps like Haze and Thermo, has launched a new Kickstarter project for a small thermometer that can be plugged into the headphone jack of a smartphone or tablet to measure indoor and outdoor temperatures.

You can measure the temperature indoors as well as outdoors. Track the temperature and see how it rises after you turned on the radiator or check how the temperature drops during a summer night. No network connection required. Thermodo comes with a neat little keyring so you'll always have it with you.

thermodoThermodo, which comes with a cap and a keyring, functions with a custom companion app in addition to Robocat's already existing weather apps. The studio will also release an SDK, allowing other developers to create apps that work with the device.

The miniature thermometer comes in black, white, and a premium anodized aluminum version available through Kickstarter. It measures temperatures in the range of –20 °C to +50 °C (–5 ºF to 120 ºF).

Backers can get a Thermodo device for a $25 pledge, or the premium version for $39. The company has already met its Kickstarter goal of $35,000 and plans to begin full production in July, with an estimated shipping date of August.

Skype
Skype has updated its iPhone and iPad apps with a "new, beautiful calling experience" and a number of bug fixes and improvements.

What's new

✓ Beautiful new calling experience
✓ Mark all your recent chats as read with just a few taps.
✓ General fixes and improvements
- One-to-one chats now appear in the correct order.

Skype is available for iPhone or iPad on the App Store. [Direct Links: iPhone, iPad]

The New York Post reports that Apple has been seeking to undercut its potential competitors with regard to royalty rates for its rumored streaming music service, currently offering a rate that is just half that paid by Pandora despite rumors that Apple is looking for more flexibility than allowed under the license used by Pandora.

The tech titan, the most valuable company in the world, made an initial offer to the label of about 6 cents per 100 songs streamed, sources said.

That’s about half of the 12 cents per 100 songs paid by Pandora, the leading online radio service that Apple is taking aim at, sources said. [...]

By comparison, terrestrial radio-backed online services — such as iHeart — pay about 22 cents per 100 songs streamed.

Subscription service Spotify pays the highest rate for its service, 35 cents per 100 songs streamed, sources said.

The report claims that Apple had hoped to have its so-called "iRadio" service ready for the iPhone 5 launch, but was forced to slow down its timetable due to the difficult content negotiations. Sources indicate that Apple would like to bundle iRadio with the existing iTunes Match service, although iRadio would also be ad-supported.

nypost_streaming_royalties
Pandora has been seeking to lower its royalty payments, arguing that the current structure does not allow it to earn a profit on its service. The company has noted that it pays out a much higher percentage of its revenue in royalties than satellite service SiriusXM does, leaving essentially no room for profit once its other costs are accounted for.

Pandora currently takes advantage of a compulsory licensing option that permits it to broadcast any music it wishes without having to strike individual deals with record labels, but license places significant restrictions on content, preventing users from requesting specific songs, rewinding, or skipping more than a handful of songs per hour. Apple is reportedly seeking a much more flexible arrangement for its users, but labels are reluctant to sign on at the rates currently being offered by the company.

Update 10:14 AM: The New York Times reports that Apple's plans are indeed still being delayed due to the ongoing negotiations.

Apple had hoped to introduce the service early this year, but now it is not likely to reach the market until the summer, if not later, according to these people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were confidential.

Update 1:59 PM: Bloomberg corroborates word of the delay, noting that Apple still intends to launch the service later this year.

Apple Inc. delayed the start of an online radio service to compete with Pandora Media Inc. after talks with music labels stalled, according to four people with knowledge of the situation.

The company still seeks to start the advertising-supported radio service by the end of the year, said the people, who asked for anonymity because the plans haven’t been made public.

Phil Schiller, Apple's Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, doesn't post to his Twitter account very often. Mostly he has written innocuous messages wishing followers "Happy Christmas" or cheering on the world champion San Francisco Giants.

Today, Phil tweeted a link to a 'Mobile Threat Report' from research company F-Secure. Most of the report highlights security and malware vulnerabilities in the Android operating system, while mentioning only a couple of iOS issues. He warns followers to "be safe out there".

Among other things, the report [PDF] shows the growth in mobile threats, particularly on the Android operating system. Android accounted for 79 percent of the 301 mobile threats in 2012, while just 0.7 percent of threats attacked iOS.

Fsecure
The tweet is a bit out of character for Apple, which usually prefers a quiet public face on issues like this. This could be part of a push by Apple Public Relations to share more favorable third-party reports about the company in an effort to drive the conversation in a favorable direction.

The original iPhone and iPad versions of Rovio's hugely popular Angry Birds game are currently free for the first time on the App Store. TechCrunch says that the move is part of Apple's "App of the Week" promotion, although Apple has yet to update its App Store pages with new banners.

angry_birds_app_of_week_levels
Angry Birds launched on the iPhone in December 2009, with the "HD" version for the iPad following in April 2010. Since January 2011, Rovio has offered free sampler versions of the apps with unique levels, but this is the first time the full versions of the game have been free on iOS. The Android version of the app has long been free, but that version is ad-supported while the free iOS version does not currently contain in-app ads.

In addition to the price drops, Rovio has also added 15 new levels to the "Bad Piggies" episode in the games. Angry Birds Space and Angry Birds Space HD have also been updated with a new theme song from legendary Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash, who has also received his own honorary Angry Bird image.

- Angry Birds [Direct Link]
- Angry Birds HD [Direct Link]

Marvel Comics has launched a new subscription-based comic service on iOS called Marvel Unlimited. The service delivers 13,000 back issues of a wide variety of Marvel comic books, with more to come over the next six months. Subscriptions are $10 per month, or a "limited time" 12-month subscription for $60.

All of the comics in Marvel Unlimited are at least six months old, to avoid competing with the day-and-date sales of new comics as they get released. Those are available through the Marvel Comics app.

Marvelunlimited
Gizmodo tested Marvel Unlimited out, and had positive things to say:

Having played with it a bit, the HTML5 reader isn't the fastest or most responsive, especially on pinch-to-zoom (which you can see in the video), but it's mostly acceptable. Still, it's a long way from the smoothness of native apps like the Comixology Marvel app, Kindle or iBooks. Marvel said it's a "trade off for having the same reader and experience in the app as you have on the web." It displays in very high res (via progressive download), even when you haven't downloaded the full book for offline reading. Marvel couldn't confirm if the resolution is the same as the retina-level Comixology books, but they looked tack-sharp as a full page.

The comics available through MU are all at least six months old, and while Marvel wouldn't commit to every title making it into the service, SVP of Marvel Digital Peter Phillips told us most major titles "should be in there at six months; we're pretty timely with that."

One of Gizmodo's biggest complaints was that users can only download six issues for offline reading, not nearly enough to read on a plane flight, for example. A Marvel spokesperson said the company was "listening" to reader feedback on the subject. He also noted that this is "phase 1" of Marvel Unlimited, and more would be coming later this year.

Marvel Unlimited is a free download for iPhone and iPad from the App Store. [Direct Link]

A set of patent applications discovered by AppleInsider today suggests that Apple may be considering allowing customers to resell or lend iTunes Store content to other users in the same way they might sell a physical book, music CD or movie DVD.

itunes-resale
Apple's system is similar to one outlined in a separate patent already granted to Amazon, although Amazon's approach requires transactions to be made via a central marketplace while Apple's proposed approach would also allow direct user-to-user transfers.

Techniques are provided for managing access to a digital content item (such as an ebook, music, movie, software application) to be transferred from one user to another. The transferor is prevented from accessing the digital content item after the transfer occurs. The entity that sold the digital content item to the transferor enforces the access rights to the digital content item by storing data that establishes which user currently has access to the digital content item. After the change in access rights, only the transferee is allowed access to the digital content item. As part of the change in access rights, the transferee may pay to obtain access to the digital content item. A portion of the proceeds of the "resale" may be paid to the creator or publisher of the digital content item and/or the entity that originally sold the digital content item to the original owner.

Restrictions are outlined to prevent abuse of the facility, such as allowing publishers to limit transfers to certain timescales (for example, requiring the user to have owned the product for a certain length of time before selling it), frequency (limiting how often someone could sell their content), price (enforcing a minimum price) and buyer (perhaps limiting sales to within the country of origin).

The patent covers gifting and loan as well as resale, and outlines an option for the content publisher to receive a cut in return for granting rights to transfer the content.

It should of course be noted that Apple files a huge number of patent applications, only a tiny minority of which ever see the light of day in an Apple product or service, but it is interesting to see Apple at least exploring the idea.

Tag: Patent

The Verge reports that the iPhone version of the popular Fantastical calendar app has been updated to version 1.1, adding a range of user-requested features. Flexibits has also put Fantastical on sale for $3.99, a savings of $1 over the usual price.

fantastical
Flexibits co-founder Michael Simmons says that all of the new features are ones that have been requested by users of the app.

The last two months have been insane, having all these users and passionate complaints. We wanted to have an update that said 'we're listening'.

The new features include:

- Multiple alerts when creating events
- Time zone support
- Duplicate or move events (tap and hold an event in the event list)
- Go to a specific date (tap and hold the red title bar)
- Event list is now scrollable when using the calendar
- Today's timed events dim after the event has ended
- Copied text containing event info can automatically be made into an event
- Added setting to highlight weekends
- Added setting to show empty days on the DayTicker
- Added setting to display the number of today's remaining events or date on the app icon badge
- State restoration (iOS 6 only)
- A staggering number of other improvements, parser enhancements, and bug fixes

Fantastical is available in the App Store at a sale price of $3.99 for a limited time. [Direct Link]

a6xReuters reports that Intel's move into contract manufacturing of chips for other companies suggests that Apple could become a future customer with its A-series chips for the iPhone and iPad, potentially reducing its reliance on arch-rival Samsung as a supplier.

A source close to one of the companies says Intel and Apple executives have discussed the issue in the past year but no agreement has been reached.

Intel has in the past always designed its own computer CPUs, which PC manufacturers like Apple then buy. Intel had previously expressed interest into moving toward some contract or "foundry" manufacturing of chips, although had indicated that it would be most interested in projects based on its existing technology.

But the growing trend away from PC and towards mobile devices continues to threaten Intel's core business, apparently prompting the company to more heavily consider acting as a foundry for distinct chip designs from third-party companies.

Sunit Rikhi, vice president and general manager of Intel custom foundry, told Reuters last week his group is ready to take on a potential large, unidentified mobile customer, although he declined to discuss Apple specifically.

Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said the chipmaker is in constant discussions with Apple, which buys its PC chips, but he would not comment on negotiations about a potential foundry relationship. An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

Pat Becker Jr, of Becker Capital Management, believes the move would make sense for both Intel and Apple. "If you can have a strategic relationship where you're making chips for one of the largest mobile players, you should definitely consider that. And for Apple, that gets them a big advantage."

pathapplogoPath, the "personal social network," announced on its blog today that its iOS app has been updated to version 3.0.1, adding private messaging, "stickers" and a curated store for photo filters called The Shop.

Within the new private messaging, users can send each other "stickers," text, voice notes, locations and more. Path detailed the new feature on its blog:

One-to-one and group messaging is made for the smaller, more personal conversations that you want to have on Path. It includes text, voice, location, stickers, songs, books, movies, photos, and videos. There’s utility and context. For example, if you’re running late, you can tap the location button to let a friend know where you are. Or if you don’t have free hands to type, you can record a voice message.

pathapp

"Stickers" are pieces of art created by Path's in-house artists as well as artists like David Lanham and Hugh MacLeod that work in a similar way to emojis.

Path for iOS is a universal app that's available in the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

CAFCAs noted by Reuters, Nokia this week filed a brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in support of Apple's bid to block the sale of certain Samsung products previously ruled to have infringed on Apple's patents.

The brief, which is currently sealed but explained in a summary (via AppleInsider) by Nokia attorney Keith Broyles, argues that Judge Lucy Koh was wrong when she ruled that Apple must establish a "causal nexus" between the patented feature and demand for a product before a permanent injunction request is granted.

The filing comes several months after Judge Koh had denied Apple's injunction request.

Nokia's brief wasn't filed specifically to support Apple, but because Nokia feels that Judge Koh's ruling "could cause wide-ranging damage to the United States patent protection landscape." Broyles goes on to argue that Nokia is advocating for patent rights to foster innovation.

"Nokia has recently been involved in numerous U.S. patent lawsuits, as both a plaintiff and defendant. Nokia is thus both a significant patent owner that might seek an injunction to protect its patent rights, and a manufacturer in an industry in which patent owners routinely issue threats of injunctions for patent infringement."

Back in 2009, Apple and Nokia were embroiled in a patent dispute but that ended in 2011 when the two settled and entered into a patent license agreement.

Nokia is the only company to file in support of Apple, and will have an opportunity for companies and advocacy groups to support its position when it files its own brief later this year.

twitter.pngTwitter today updated its iOS app, adding search improvements that include additional topic and user suggestions when searching and Top Tweets from important events.

The update also removes support for video services from Mobypicture, Vodpod, and Posterous, leaving Twitpic and yFrog as the last remaining video uploading services for the iOS app.

This update includes enhancements to search and other improvements.

-As you search you'll see more topic and user suggestions for your query, based on what's happening in real time. You'll also see these suggestions when adding a hashtag or username as you compose a new Tweet.

-Top Tweets from big moments in the past pop out when you search for a given term. For example, searching for “election” might highlight Tweets from several months ago.

-When you open a web page you can now see the related Tweet for more context. Just pull the tray icon up or down to see or hide the Tweet.

-It's easier to see long conversations in the Tweet details view, which now shows all of the replies to any Tweet

-When you block a user in the app, their Tweets will instantly disappear from the Connect tab in the app

-Pull-to-refresh in Discover shows a new, smoother animation

-Support for traditional Chinese

-Logout support (iOS 6 only)

-Uploading videos vie Mobypicture, Vodpod and Posterous is no longer supported

-Additional bug fixes and improvements

Twitter for iOS is a universal app that can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

comScore today released the results of its monthly rolling survey of U.S. mobile phone users for the November-January period, finding that Apple's smartphone marketshare rose 3.5 percentage points between October and January, up to 37.8% of both U.S. smartphone platform and hardware sales.

Samsung was second in hardware makers with 21.4%, up from 19.5% three months earlier. HTC and Motorola both experienced significant drops in market share, while LG gained slightly.

ComScore Reports January 2013 U S Smartphone Subscriber Market Share  comScore Inc
Google's Android was the largest smartphone platform with 52.3% of smartphone platform share, down from 53.6% three months ago. Android, BlackBerry, Microsoft and Symbian all lost share, to the benefit of Apple. As a result, Apple and Google control more than 87 percent of the smartphone market.

ComScore Reports January 2013 U S Smartphone Subscriber Market Share  comScore Inc 1
Notably, comScore's data tracks installed user base rather than new handset sales, making it more reflective of real-world usage but slower to respond to shifting market trends than some other studies.

As noted in our forums, Apple's latest OS X 10.8.3 beta seeded to developers as build 12D76 yesterday contains new drivers for NVIDIA's high-end Quadro K5000 graphics card. NVIDIA announced the Quadro K5000 for the Mac Pro last September, but has yet to actually release the product.

k5000_drivers_10_8_3
The first developer build of OS X 10.8.3 seeded last November added AMD Radeon 7000-series drivers, so it appears that the public release of the operating system update will include support for several high-end graphics options. Just yesterday, we noted that Sapphire was previewing its Radeon HD 7950 Mac Edition graphics card at CeBIT.

Apple has not yet revealed when it will be releasing OS X 10.8.3 to the public, but we've heard that the latest build was distributed to company employees as a pre-release version, so it seems that its debut may be very close after over three months of developer testing.

Apple is expected to release a revamped Mac Pro sometime this year, although it is unclear exactly when the company is planning for the workstation to make its debut.

Related Roundup: Mac Pro
Buyer's Guide: Mac Pro (Neutral)
Related Forum: Mac Pro

Tmonews reports that T-Mobile is prepping an anti-AT&T ad campaign in retaliation against the full page anti-T-Mobile ads that AT&T released last week.

AT&T's ads, which were posted in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, criticized T-Mobile for dropped calls and slow download speeds.

T-Mobile's retaliatory ads question why AT&T attempted to buy the carrier if T-Mobile's network is so unsatisfactory.

tmobileads
The war between AT&T and T-Mobile began in January, when T-Mobile CEO John Legere called the AT&T network "crap," though the relationship between the two carriers soured after AT&T failed to purchase T-Mobile following objections from the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice.

T-Mobile is currently in the process of restructuring, with a plan to eliminate device subsidies and initiate lower monthly plan costs. The company plans to offer Apple products at some point in 2013.

According to Tmonews, the ads are proof prints that have been sent to T-Mobile for final approval, which means they could hit newspapers at any time.

Early last year, Apple launched a new initiative to more openly share information on worker rights and safety throughout its supply chain with working hours and mandatory overtime being a major focus of the effort. Apple's code of conduct specifies that workers may generally work no more than 60 hours per week, although the company does permit limited exceptions during periods of high demand.

That pattern was observed over the course of 2012, with Apple's efforts to track over one million employees showing peak compliance with the standard at 97% in July and August before dropping in the September-Novemeber timeframe as Apple launched a number of new products including the iPhone 5 and iPad mini. Compliance rebounded in December, and Apple today updated its supplier responsibility pages to note that its supply chain achieved record 99% compliance in the month of January.

The number of workers we track has increased from over 500,000 in January 2012 to over 1 million in January 2013. In January 2013, we achieved 99% compliance to the 60-hour workweek across all employees we track.

working_hours_compliance_jan13
The improvement in compliance comes as Apple appears to be reaching supply-demand balance for a number of its latest products, including the iPad mini and iMac.

Reports have indicated that Apple's major assembly partner Foxconn has reduced its hiring due to a higher-than-usual number of employees returning to the company after the recent Chinese New Year break. Some have suggested that changes to working conditions spurred by Apple may be at least partly responsible for increased worker satisfaction and thus higher retention, although in some cases workers seeking to maximize their income have expressed concern over limits on their working hours.