MacRumors

Just days after shipping estimates for new iPhone 5 orders improved to 2-4 business days, they are taking the final step with Apple now listing the device as "in stock" in many of its online stores.

We've noticed the new "in stock" quotes in Apple's online stores for the U.S, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand, while a number of other countries are still seeing estimates of 1-3 business days for the time being. Unlocked iPhone 5 models in the U.S. are also still seeing 1-3 business day estimates.

Apple has achieved supply-demand balance for the iPhone 5 just ahead of the holidays and even as the company is working to bring the device to more than 50 additional countries this month.

Apple's deadlines for other holiday delivery of other products are also approaching, with U.S. customers having until December 12 to place their iPad mini orders with guaranteed delivery before Christmas. Other products are already unavailable for the holidays, with the new 27-inch iMac now seeing January shipping estimates as Apple works to deliver the first units to customers.

FOSS Patents reports that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued a notice preliminarily ruling that Apple's massive iPhone patent popularly referred to as "the Steve Jobs patent" invalid in its entirety upon reexamination.

The patent, issued as Patent No. 7,479,949, had been granted in January 2009 and incorporated several prior patent applications dating back to September 2006 before the company publicly unveiled the device. Steve Jobs is listed as the first inventor on the patent, and FOSS Patents notes that it is probably the most famous of the over 300 patents credited at least in part to Jobs.

Some people say that first Office actions are partial because they are based only on submissions made by those challenging the patent, and many examiners like to take a tough position early on in order to enable and require the patentee to present the strongest arguments in favor of validity. But it would be a mistake to underestimate the significance of a first Office action. Also, a complete rejection of all claims of a given patent is potentially more devastating than one affecting only some claims.

Apple has asserted the patent against a number of its competitors, including Samsung and Motorola, and an ultimate finding of invalidity in the reexamination process would substantially weaken Apple's cases against those companies, although it is far from the only weapon in Apple's patent arsenal.

Shipping estimates for Apple's new 27-inch iMac models have been updated today to "January", marking the first time availability of the machines has been pushed back into 2013. Orders had previously been estimated at 3-4 weeks for shipping.

The new "January" estimate may or may not represent a lengthening of lead times given that the previous 3-4 week window was already pushing into January, but at the very least it seems that Apple is introducing some uncertainty into future availability by simply stating a one-month window for new orders rather than measuring estimates in weeks.

Supplies of the new iMac have been tight since the machine's launch one week ago, and were already expected to be constrained into 2013. The bottleneck for Apple is said to be the new production process on the machine's display, which is laminated directly to the cover glass. The process is more troublesome for larger screens, making supplies of the 27-inch iMac more scarce than those for its 21.5-inch sibling.

Following up on its aerial tour of Apple's North Carolina data center earlier this year, Wired has again taken to the skies to get a glimpse of Apple's data center site in Prineville, Oregon.

While construction on the first of two 338,000 square-foot buildings planned for the site is just getting started, Apple's initial "tactical data center" is already in place.

Apple finished this building earlier this year, but just south of it, you can see what will be the site of its much larger 338,000-square-foot data center. Apple wants to eventually build two of these monster data centers on the 160-acre site, but right now, there’s no sign of the second facility.

The photos also show the close proximity of Apple's project to Facebook's twin data centers. Facebook's first 330,000 square-foot data center opened last year, and the second one is nearing completion.

Apple has been working quickly to expand its data center capacity, opening its North Carolina data center last year and earlier this year announcing both the Oregon project and another one in Nevada as it seeks to support the rapidly growing needs of its digital stores and iCloud.

Tim Cook has held the reins at Apple for over a year now, and this evening, he gave his first official television interview with Brian Williams on NBC's Rock Center, where he spoke about his role as CEO after Steve Jobs, lamented about the Maps debacle, and revealed a few hints about what's to come for Apple in the future. The full video is embedded below.

The first part of the interview focused on his first year as CEO, and what it was like to follow in the footsteps of former Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Cook was humble and personable as he explained that Jobs taught him to "just do what's right."

When asked about Apple's Maps application, which has faced significant criticism and resulted in the restructuring of the company, Cook told Williams that Apple "screwed up," and is "putting the weight of the company behind correcting it."

Cook also touched on the ongoing conflict between Samsung and Apple, after Williams played a Samsung commercial for the Galaxy S3 that attacks Apple's iPhone, branding it as uncool.

We love our customers. And we’ll fight to defend them with anyone. Is it thermonuclear war? The reality is, is that we love competition, at Apple. We think it makes us all better. But we want people to invent their own stuff.

In one interesting section of the interview, Williams asked Cook if Apple would last, and how the company would avoid becoming like Sony, popular in the 80's and 90's before fading into the background. Cook reiterated Apple's drive to focus on a small number of products.

We’re very simple people at Apple. We focus on making the world’s best products and enriching people’s lives. I think some companies — maybe even the one that you mention, maybe they decided that they could do everything. We have to make sure, at Apple, that we stay true to focus, laser focus — we know we can only do great things a few times, only on a few products.

The juiciest details of the exchange between Williams and Cook, which were leaked in teasers earlier this afternoon, came in the second part of the interview, where Williams focused on the Apple television, the death of Steve Jobs, and the U.S. production of Apple products.

Cook commented on the much rumored Apple television set, mentioning, as revealed earlier, Apple's "intense interest" in the market, but he revealed little beyond that, speaking cryptically about his love of "The Jetsons."

It’s a market that we see, that has been left behind. You know, I used to watch “The Jetsons” as a kid. I love "The Jetsons." We’re living “The Jetsons” with this. It’s an area of intense interest. I can’t say more than that. But …

He also went into more detail about Apple's plans to bring production back to the United States, confirming that next year, one of the Mac lines will be produced in the United States.

You know, this iPhone, as a matter of fact, the engine in here is made in America. And not only are the engines in here made in America, but engines are made in America and are exported. The glass on this phone is made in Kentucky. And so we’ve been working for years on doing more and more in the United States. Next year, we will do one of our existing Mac lines in the United States.

Williams ended the interview trying to get a few more tidbits on Apple's plans for the future, but this is all Cook had to say:

Our whole role in life is to give you something you didn’t know you wanted. And then once you get it, you can’t imagine your life without it. And you can count on Apple doing that.

As part of its teaser for tonight's Rock Center interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook, NBC has released a clip with Cook talking about the virtual keyboard built into the iPhone and the iPad. He suggests that Brian Williams should stick with it and trust the autocorrect feature in iOS.

Cook says that he does spend time on the Mac but spends 80% of his time on the iPad. "And of course" Cook says, "I have [my iPhone] with me all the time."

Cook also shares that he gets many emails from customers and loves it because "they talk to you as if you're sitting at their kitchen table." He does share that he sometimes "gets an earful" from dissatisfied customers.

Just as it announces that it will begin offering Apple products, presumably including the iPhone and iPad, next year, T-Mobile USA has also revealed that it will be restructuring the way it sells to customers by eliminating device subsidies and focusing on lower monthly plan costs. The plans were announced at Deutsche Telekom's annual investor conference today and noted by Fierce Wireless.

Currently T-Mobile offers Classic plans that subsidize the device and require a two-year contract and Value plans that let customers pay the full cost of their smartphones or pay it off in monthly installments in exchange for lower monthly plan rates. Legere said that in 2013 T-Mobile will eliminate its Classic rate plans that include device subsidies and instead only offer Value plans to customers.

Under one example for "the most iconic device in the world", Legere noted that customers might pay $99 upfront and then $15-$20 per month for 20 months on top of their monthly plan in order to pay off the full cost of the device. With the customer being responsible for the full cost of the device, T-Mobile can offer lower base plan pricing.

Legere did not provide specifics on the company's plans to offer Apple products, which was announced earlier today. However, he did say that when the company launches Apple's products, it will be dramatically different. He also said that T-Mobile had not made a volume commitment to purchase Apple products on size of what Sprint Nextel has committed to "or anything close to it." Sprint last year inked a four-year, $15.5 billion deal to sell the iPhone.

T-Mobile will become the last of the four major U.S. carriers to offer the iPhone, joining AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and a host of smaller carriers that have partnered with Apple on the device.

Apple has launched the newest version of its annual “12 Days of Christmas” holiday app for European and Canadian iTunes users. The free app, which is available for the iPhone, the iPod touch, and the iPad, provides free content each day from December 26 to January 8.

You and your friends can download a fantastic selection of songs, music videos, apps, books and TV episodes for free. Each download will only be available for 24 hours. Get our 12 Days of Christmas app to make sure you don’t miss out.

Don’t have an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch? Don’t worry. Come back December 26 to download gifts from your computer.

Apple's 12 Days of Christmas has been a long running tradition in Europe, and has existed in a modified form in Canada for several years, but the Canadian program has now been folded into the main app. Unfortunately, due to regional licensing restrictions, Apple is unable to offer the same promotion in the United States.

Last year, gifts included episodes of The Big Bang Theory and Mad Men, music videos and songs from Kings of Leon, and games like Diner Dash and Fishing Kings.

The 12 Days of Christmas app can be downloaded for free in the Canadian and U.K. App Stores, as well as those for a number of other European countries.

In line with analyst speculation from last week, Engadget reports that Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann has just announced at his company's analyst day event that T-Mobile USA will begin selling Apple products in 2013.

The announcement was posted --nearly as an afterthought, oddly enough -- as part of a press release in which Deutsche Telekom spelled out its financial plans through 2015. While the two companies have not explicitly given specifics on which Apple devices we can expect to see in a retail store near you, the timing of the launch will likely correspond with the fourth-largest carrier's LTE launch in 2013.

T-Mobile is currently the only one of the four major U.S. carriers to not offer the iPhone, due at least in part to longstanding incompatibilities between Apple's hardware and the spectrum used by T-Mobile for its fastest data networks. The carrier has, however, been working hard to refarm its spectrum to add compatibility for frequencies supported by the iPhone, and it previously stated that it would be ready for the iPhone by the end of 2012. T-Mobile USA will also be rolling out LTE service for its customers in 2013.

Update: Deutsche Telekom's press release is now available.

The higher investment volume is to be used to roll out the broadband infrastructure in Germany and the United States in particular. In the mobile communications network, this will be done using the state-of-the-art technology LTE. Around EUR 6 billion is earmarked for rolling out the broadband infrastructure in the German fixed network with optical fiber and vectoring between 2013 and 2020. In addition, T-Mobile USA has entered into an agreement with Apple to bring products to market together in 2013.

No further details on exactly which products are included in the deal are available yet, but presumably both the iPhone and iPad will be coming to T-Mobile.

Update 2: Apple has also confirmed to The Loop that it has struck a deal with T-Mobile.