MacRumors

Over the past several weeks, an increasing number of photo leaks of what has been claimed to be the rear shell of Apple's rumored upcoming lower-cost plastic iPhone have surfaced, showing a device just slightly larger than the iPhone 5 and carrying the same layout of physical features, albeit with simplified microphone and speaker grille designs along the bottom edge.

Japanese magazine Weekly ASCII now shares some new closeup photos [Google translation, via Mac Otakara] of a yellow version of this plastic rear shell, showing it in good detail while also placing it alongside an iPhone 5 for comparison. The design continues to show a screw hole layout consistent with leaked iPhone 5S logic boards, suggesting that both the iPhone 5S and the lower-cost iPhone may share very similar logic board designs, at least at a broad level.

There is no confirmation that this rear shell is a genuine one leaked from Apple's supply chain, and the sheer number of photo leaks from various sources suggests that some of these parts may simply be unauthorized replacement parts. Still, these parts are appearing in significant quantities standardized around a common design that is also consistent with long-running rumors of Apple's plans for the device. At a minimum, there is a good chance that these parts offer a good representation of what Apple's lower-cost iPhone will look like.

AllThingsD reports that Apple has acquired Locationary, a Canadian company focused on crowdsourcing location and other data on local businesses for improved accuracy.

Apple has acquired the Toronto-based Locationary, a small Canadian startup, backed by Extreme Venture Partners and Plazacorp Ventures. Multiple sources familiar with the deal tell AllThingsD it closed recently and includes Locationary’s technology and team, both. The price of the acquisition couldn’t immediately be learned.

Referred to as a "Wikipedia for local business listings" by AllThingsD, Locationary uses crowdsourcing and other means to improve local search results for mapping purposes by verifying such data as location and whether or not the business is still in operation.

Apple is obviously interested in Locationary for its potential to improve Apple's mapping services, which have received significant criticism since their launch in iOS 6 last year. Locationary's platform will help Apple to offer accurate data on various points of interest, enhancing the local business search integration that is a key part of mapping and navigation services.

Over the past couple of months, there have been multiple reports indicating that Apple may be delaying its rumored Retina iPad mini until early 2014, with Taiwan's Economic Daily News citing Retina panel shortages as the primary reason.

DigiTimes now reports that LG Display has made some progress with its production of iPad mini Retina panels and is expected to ship them later this year.

The sources also added that LG is reportedly making new headway in producing Retina panel technology for use in the next-generation iPad mini, and expects to ship about 2-3 million units a month in preparation for Apple's expected October release date

The new claims are in stark contrast to a DigiTimes' report from earlier this week, which stated that an upgraded Mini would ship in late 2013, while the Retina iPad mini would not ship until 2014. NPD DisplaySearch analysts have also published similar reports suggesting two separate Mini refreshes, but have flip-flopped multiple times over the tablet's release date. While it's unclear which reports are true, it's clear that Apple will ship a Retina iPad mini at some point in the future.

Apple's next generation iPad mini is expected to feature an "almost bezel-free" design, along with processor upgrades and a lighter, thinner design.

Digitimes' report also reiterates that the upcoming fifth generation iPad will be lighter, smaller and more powerful. Previous reports have claimed that the tablet, which is expected to be released sometime in the fall, will have a more iPad mini-like design.

Ma Ailun, the 23-year-old Chinese woman who was killed via electric shock when answering a call on her iPhone last week, was most likely using an unauthorized third party charger, reports the South China Morning Post.

Knockoff chargers often use low cost supplies and fail to meet standards for the adequate isolation of electrical input and output, making them more dangerous than brand name chargers that are subject to safety regulations.

According to Xiang Ligang, a telecommunications expert interviewed by CCTV, the charger Ma had been using may have been a "knockoff" - a fake.

"Knockoff chargers sometimes cut corners," Xiang said. "The quality of the capacitor and circuit protector may not be good, and this may lead to the capacitor breaking down and sending 220 volts of electricity directly into the cell phone battery."

The woman was also reportedly using an iPhone 4 at the time of the incident, rather than an iPhone 5 as was originally stated. The iPhone 4 contains stainless steel, while the iPhone 5 is primarily aluminum. It is still unclear what caused the malfunction, as the iPhone 4 apparently remained functional after the incident.

Xiang said that normally, the electric current from an overloaded charger would overheat the phone’s casing, damaging the circuits inside and rendering the device unusable. In the case of Ma’s iPhone 4, however, authorities said the phone could still be started normally despite severe traces of burning on its exterior. The phone’s data cable, charger, and plug were all intact.

A police investigation into the incident is underway, and Apple has pledged to look into the accident. "We are deeply saddened to learn of this tragic incident," said an Apple spokeswoman. "We will fully investigate and co-operate with the authorities in this matter."

A second iPhone related electrocution has also been reported (via ZDNet), involving a man who was injured while connecting his iPhone 4 to a third party charger 10 days ago. The man, who is currently in a hospital in Beijing, remains in a coma.

After introducing iWork for iCloud during its Worldwide Developers Conference and sending invites to registered developers soon after, Apple has begun inviting normal users to test the software according to a number of MacRumors tipsters.

The following invitation is being sent out to users who have been accepted into the iWork for iCloud beta:

We’ll soon be introducing a new and exciting feature to iCloud. It’s called iWork for iCloud and it’s a suite of apps — Pages, Numbers, and Keynote — that make it easy for anyone with an iCloud account to create and edit great-looking documents, spreadsheets, and presentations right on the web.

We’d like to invite you to be one of the first to try it, so we’re giving you early access to the iWork for iCloud beta. All you have to do is sign in to iCloud on a Mac or a PC using the current version of Safari, Chrome, or Internet Explorer. Then just click on Pages, Numbers, or Keynote and you’re off.

We’re really proud of these apps and we’d appreciate your help in making them as great as they can possibly be. So we’d love to hear your feedback as you use them.

Sign in to iCloud.com to get started with iWork for iCloud today.

Sincerely,

The iWork Team

iWork for iCloud offers in-browser versions of Apple's iWork software suite, including Pages, Keynote, and Numbers. The software can be accessed from both PC and Mac computers as well as a number of mobile devices. It is expected to be released to the public later this year.

Thanks to Jason and the other tipsters!

Apple today released an update for the Mid–2013 MacBook Air to fix both an issue that caused some users to experience severe flickering when using Adobe Photoshop and a bug that caused some users' Wi-Fi to intermittently disconnect.

This update is recommended for MacBook Air (mid 2013) models.

This update fixes an issue that in rare instances may cause an intermittent loss in wireless connectivity, an issue with Adobe Photoshop which may cause occasional screen flickering, and an issue which may cause audio volume to fluctuate during video playback.

News of the screen flickering issue emerged shortly after the release of the 2013 MacBook Air, when users began noticing display flickering when using Photoshop, especially when accessing the app's larger brush tools. An Adobe representative noted that it was likely a driver or GPU issue and last week, a tipster reported that OS X 10.8.5 fixed the issue, suggesting that Apple had found a solution.

New MacBook Air owners also experienced Wi-Fi connection issues, prompting Apple to begin looking for a solution in mid-June after issuing an order for Apple Geniuses to "capture" MacBook Airs experiencing connectivity problems.

Apple's June 2013 MacBook Airs use the newest 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard, which is designed to offer faster connectivity and bandwidth.

The update can be downloaded via the software update page or through the software update tool in the Mac App Store.

After launching an investigation into the anti-theft practices of smartphone manufacturers like Apple, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón will today test how Apple’s Activation Lock feature holds up against determined thieves, reports CNET.

First introduced at WWDC, Activation Lock is designed to prevent Find My iPhone from being deactivated, which keeps stolen iPhones from being wiped and reactivated. The feature is included in iOS 7, which is expected to be released to consumers this fall.

Gascón and Schneiderman are planning to bring in security experts from the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center to attempt to bypass Activation Lock in order to gain access to an iPhone. The security team will also test the Lojack for Android software on a Samsung Galaxy S4.

"While we are appreciative of the efforts made by Apple and Samsung to improve security of the devices they sell, we are not going to take them at their word," Schneiderman and Gascón said in a joint statement. "Today we will assess the solutions they are proposing and see if they stand up to the tactics commonly employed by thieves."

The two officials have pushed for greater anti-theft measures from cell phone manufacturers after a spike in mobile device thefts. While carriers agreed last year to develop a centralized database to track stolen phones, it has proven to be largely ineffectual. Both Gascón and Schneiderman have stated that they believe Activation Lock is an inadequate theft deterrent and Gascón has urged Apple to implement a "kill switch" that would permanently disable stolen iOS devices.

The results of the Activation Lock investigation are expected to be released later today.

According to a new report from mobile analytics firm Flurry, free apps supported by ads and/or in-app purchases are becoming an increasingly popular choice for developers and consumers alike, with 90% of iOS apps now being offered for free. In 2012, that number was just 84%, marking a 6% increase over the past year.

Some might argue that this supports the idea that "content wants to be free". We don’t see it quite that way. Instead, we simply see this as the outcome of consumer choice: people want free content more than they want to avoid ads or to have the absolute highest quality content possible.

Flurry also compared the pricing of both Android apps and iPhone and iPad apps, finding that iOS users are generally more willing to pay for content. The average Android app price as of April 2013 was $0.06, while the average iPhone app price was $0.19.

iPad apps have traditionally been more expensive with developers charging a higher premium for more screen real estate, which caused the average iPad app price to be a good deal higher than Android or iPhone apps at $0.50. iPad apps, on average, are priced 2.5 times higher than iPhone apps and eight times higher than Android apps.

Due to the uptick in free apps, Flurry suggests that consumer behavior indicates ad-supported content will continue to surge, and that ads in apps are a "sure thing for the foreseeable future."

Flurry collects its data from the more than 350,000 people that access its Flurry Analytics tools.

Several years ago, the popular desktop media player VLC was released for iPhone and iPad on the App Store. However, the app was eventually removed from the store over copyright issues with the GPL license.

Now, VLC is back on iOS [App Store Link] with a complete rewrite including AirPlay support, multiple ways to load files into the video app, realtime video filters, playback speed manipulation, subtitles and more.

VLC for iOS is still rolling out to international App Stores, beginning in Australia and New Zealand and arriving in the U.S. this evening.

Today, it’s my pleasure to announce that VLC for iOS is back on the App Store. It’s available free of charge in any country, requires iOS 5.1 or later and runs on any iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

This is more than an upgrade of the initial version: it’s a full re-write. From the ground-up. Relying on the power of MobileVLCKit and its underlying libvlc, we started with modern video and audio output modules offering faster drawing, full support for 10bit H264 encodings, retina displays and lower latency.

Some of the major features include:

Wi-Fi Upload - Allows users to upload files directly to the iOS version of VLC through a web browser on the PC or Mac.
Dropbox Integration - Play media directly from Dropbox or download it for offline playback.
Download from Web - Download files from any web server for offline playback
Network Streams - Play any network streams support by VLC media player for desktop operating systems
3rd-Party App Integration - Any app with a 'share' dialog can use VLC for iOS for media playback
Video Filters - Video playback can be modified for brightness, contrast, hue, saturation or gamma in real time.

To avoid further copyright issues, VLC for iOS is fully open-source and the video playback and library kits are available for integration by other developers. An SDK will be released later this summer.

VLC has already launched on the Australian and New Zealand App Stores and will be launching on others throughout the day and evening. It should be available in the U.S. at 11PM Eastern time. [App Store Direct Link]

Earlier today, Verizon became the third major U.S. iPhone carrier to announce a program designed to allow customers to upgrade their handsets more frequently. Verizon's "Edge" program, which launches August 25, will join AT&T's "Next" program introduced earlier this week and T-Mobile's "Jump" offering announced last week.

While the new frequent upgrade plans may seem appealing to some users, The Verge earlier this week highlighted how AT&T's Next program is actually a poor deal for most customers.

Through the program, customers end up double paying for their devices through both the new monthly handset payments and the portion of the monthly service charge that has traditionally been collected by the carrier to recoup its upfront handset subsidies. Assuming that $20 of AT&T's monthly service fees go toward recouping the carrier's handset subsidy, a customer looking to upgrade after 12 months would have paid $390 in device payments on a 16 GB iPhone 5 and $240 from monthly service fees, yielding total payments of $630 for the $650 device, although they also have to turn in the device to AT&T.

Verizon's Edge program appears to work in a similar manner, although perhaps with a slightly better deal than at AT&T. Splitting the $650 iPhone cost over 24 months yields monthly payments of just over $27, and thus a customer looking to upgrade after 12 months would have paid $325 in device payments and $240 from monthly service fees, making for total payments of $565 plus the device trade-in.

T-Mobile has addressed this issue by completely decoupling handset purchases from service charges, creating lower monthly service fees while moving the device costs into a separate no-interest financing plan. Under T-Mobile's Jump plan, a customer purchasing a 16 GB iPhone 5 with a retail price of $650 and then looking to upgrade after a year would pay the $146 down payment plus $252 in monthly device payments plus $120 in Jump program charges, making for total payments of $518 plus the device trade-in.

In all cases, customers would seem to be able to save some money by purchasing a contract-free phone upfront for $650 and then reselling it on their own terms whenever they wish to upgrade, almost certainly saving hundreds of dollars in the process. Customers looking to upgrade more frequently than once per year may do somewhat better, but still likely not better than simply purchasing a unsubsidized device directly.

Following a report from earlier this week indicating that Apple is still "aggressively" hiring new employees to support its smart watch project, 9to5Mac has published a lengthy feature highlighting a number of the company's recent hires. In particular, the report focus on Apple's hiring in the health sensor field.

Based on new hires, it seems that Apple’s interest in sensors focuses on the ability to measure glucose and other body level information. With this data, the product could inform users of vital information in a non-invasive way. These sensors could also pick up more data to give a user a snapshot of their health, which would be ideal for fitness applications.

To assist with the development of these sensors, Apple has hired several scientists and executives from multiple sensor developers. Some notable firms who lost employees to Apple are AccuVein, C8 MediSensors, and Senseonics.

C8 MediSensors had been pursuing non-invasive monitoring of glucose and other substances, and Apple had reportedly considered an acquisition of the company. Ultimately, C8 MediSensors ceased operations and Apple was able to hire a number of the company's employees earlier this year.

The report also outlines the structure of Apple's "iWatch" group, which is reportedly led by Senior Vice President of Technologies Bob Mansfield, as well as former Adobe Chief Technology Officer Kevin Lynch and engineering senior director James Foster.

According to our sources, Lynch’s side of the team is focused on overall software vision, and Foster’s group is developing the technologies and mechanics that will shape the features of the device. While Lynch and Foster run two different groups that are part of the bigger project, sources say that the groups are closely knit.

Other Apple teams, such as Dan Riccio’s Hardware Engineering group, Jony Ive’s Industrial Design team, and Craig Federighi’s software developers, are likely collaborating closely to develop the user-facing hardware and software.

Apple has also reportedly tapped some of the original iPhone engineers with expertise in miniaturization, as well as some of the company's Mac engineers with expertise in battery technology. In addition, some members of Apple's AuthenTec fingerprint sensor team are said to be working on other types of sensors for the iWatch.

Apple CEO Tim Cook addressed the topic of smart watches and other wearables at the D11 conference back in May, calling the market "incredibly interesting" and "ripe for exploration". Apple has been rumored for some time to be bringing a smart watch to the market, but while the company has begun filing for "iWatch" trademarks, the latest rumors have suggested the device may not launch until late next year as Apple works to solve numerous technical challenges.