MacRumors

Yesterday, we noted that Apple's grand opening of its new Highland Village retail store scheduled for 8:00 AM on Friday hinted that the company was likely to planning to launch the new iPad at that time rather than in a late afternoon launch as was seen with the iPad 2.

We received word soon after that visual merchandising staff at Apple's retail stores were scheduled for an overnight shift on Thursday night into Friday morning in order to prepare the store for a morning launch, and now 9to5Mac posts a photo from a retail store source showing some of the new signage going up this week confirming an 8:00 AM launch for the device on Friday.

Apple's product launches have historically been scheduled by local time, so customers in any of the iPad launch countries with Apple retail stores should expect those stores to open at 8:00 AM in their local time zones. With Apple having sold out of its initial batch of online pre-orders for Friday delivery, those still looking to secure an iPad on launch day will need to wait in line at an Apple retail store or other launch retailer in hopes of obtaining one.

AT&T today officially announced that it will offer all Wi-Fi + 4G models of the new iPad through its sales channels beginning this Friday, March 16, in line with Apple's official launch. The announcement is of course no surprise given past history and an information page that has been available on the carrier's site since soon after the device's introduction, but the carrier has now made official its plans to make the device available through all sales channels including online and in-store.

AT&T today announced it will offer the new iPad with Wi-Fi + 4G in the United States on Friday, March 16. AT&T will offer all models of iPad with Wi-Fi + 4G with a range of attractive data plans that will allow customers to connect to the AT&T 4G LTE network with speeds up to 10 times faster than 3G. [...]

Customers can buy the new iPad through all AT&T sales channels beginning Friday, March 16. For complete details on pricing and availability please visit www.att.com/ipad.

The carrier offers three monthly data plans for the iPad, a 250 MB plan for $14.99, a 3 GB plan for $30, and a $5 GB plan for $50. All plans are commitment-free and include access to over 29,000 AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots around the United States.

AT&T has not yet made any announcements on whether it plans to support the personal hotspot functionality of the new iPad, but as things currently stand the feature is not included in AT&T's data plans. Verizon, which will presumably be announcing similar launch plans for Friday, will be offering personal hotspot connectivity as part of its data plans at no additional charge.

Electronics retailer RadioShack has also announced plans to launch the new iPad on Friday, taking pre-order deposits in the form of $50 gift cards that can be applied to the device purchase.

Update: Verizon has also published its press release announcing availability of all Wi-Fi + 4G models beginning on Friday. The carrier is also touting its support for the new iPad's personal hotspot functionality.

Verizon Wireless today announced it will offer the new iPad with Wi-Fi + 4G nationwide on Friday, March 16. Verizon Wireless will offer all models of iPad with Wi-Fi + 4G with a range of attractive data plans that will allow customers to connect to the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network with speeds up to 10 times faster than previously available on 3G. Additionally, Verizon Wireless is supporting the Personal Hotspot feature of the new iPad so users can share their fast network connection with up to 5 other devices using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or USB.

Last month, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who has long been a proponent of an Apple television set, reported that Apple was investigating components for just such a product, contacting suppliers to learn about the capabilities of their various offerings.

As shared by Business Insider, a new report from Jefferies & Co. analyst Peter Misek claims that things have now moved a step further, with his recent visit to Asia yielding reports of "small quantities" of various components being shipped to Apple's television display panel partners. Misek expects that commercial production of an Apple television set will begin in May or June, with a launch coming sometime in the fourth quarter of this year.

Evidence of commercial iTV production is starting: we believe specialty components have begun to ship to Apple's Asia panel suppliers with polarized films, filters, and IGZO components starting to move in small quantities. We expect commercial production in May/ June with 2M to 5M builds likely. We still expect a CQ4 launch.

Despite resistance from content providers, Apple has also been rumored to be pressing ahead to develop a subscription TV service for launch by the end of the year, in line with predictions for the launch of the television set itself.

In his report today, Misek has also raised his price target for Apple's stock from $599 to $699, boosting his iPhone sales prediction for the current quarter by over 5 million to 33.2 million units.

In addition to the just-surfaced unboxing video of the new iPad, Tinhte.vn also posts Geekbench benchmarks of the device, revealing that the device's A5X system-on-a-chip contains a 1 GHz application processor and 1 GB of RAM.

The new iPad received a total Geekbench score of 756, essentially identical to that of the iPad 2, although Geekbench only tests processor and memory performance and does not address graphics capabilities that are the focus of improvements in the A5X. The A5X offers the same 1 GHz CPU found in the A5, and bumps the RAM from 512 MB to 1 GB as had been predicted and suggested in leaked screenshots of a debug tool for the device.

While the official launch of the 3rd Generation iPad isn't until March 16th, Vietnamese site Tinhte.vn has managed to get their hands on one of the new iPads and shot an unboxing video.

The video, of course, is in Vietnamese, but you can follow along pretty easily.

Additional photos can be seen in the Tinhte forum thread.

The 3rd Generation iPad launches officially on March 16th. Many readers have already received shipping notices for their pre-orders. While some may slip through the cracks and be delivered early, Apple typically requests shipments to be delayed until launch day.

One of the promises of Intel's Thunderbolt technology was the possibility for fiber optic cables, offering greater cable lengths and setting the stage for faster connectivity once the standard matures. But Thunderbolt launched using only traditional copper wire cables, and there has been some dispute about just how soon fiber optic cables will become available.

IDG News now reports that Intel as issued a statement indicating that it will be launching fiber optic Thunderbolt cables "later this year".

Intel has said copper cables are adequate for data transfers over short distances of up to six meters. Optical cables will be good for data transfers over longer distances of tens of meters.

The upside to optical is that it allows for longer cable runs, and as the technology develops, more bandwidth, [Intel spokesman Dave] Salvator said in email.

The downside to fiber optic cables, however, is that devices connected using the longer fiber optic cables will require separate power cables, as running power over the cables at those distances is not currently practical. Fiber optic cables are also likely to be significantly more expensive than their copper counterparts, although Intel has not offered any guidance on pricing.

For those who already own a Thunderbolt-enabled Mac, Intel notes that the existing Thunderbolt ports will be compatible with both copper and fiber optic cables, ensuring cross-compatibility once the new cables arrive.

Just last week, Intel announced that it was working on moving Thunderbolt to the PCI Express 3.0 standard, a move that could see the company double the effective bandwidth for data transfers. The company has not, however, provided a projected timeframe for a public launch of the enhanced Thunderbolt speeds.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple is the target of a new lawsuit from an iPhone 4S customer who claims that the company engaged in "misleading and deceptive" advertising in promoting its Siri personal assistant feature for the device. The plaintiff, Frank Fazio, alleges that Apple's depictions of Siri in its advertising suggest an ease of use that he claims is not present in real-world usage.

Fazio claims Siri is far less responsive in real life. When he asked for directions to a certain place, or to locate a store, “Siri either did not understand what Plaintiff was asking, or, after a very long wait time, responded with the wrong answer.”

The class action lawsuit seeks unspecified damages from Apple and a court order preventing Apple from engaging in any further misleading advertising related to the feature.

Apple has not responded publicly to the lawsuit, but the company has repeatedly noted on its website and elsewhere that Siri is a beta feature. While Apple rarely releases beta products to the public, it did so in the case of Siri in order to help build the library of voice input it needs to improve Siri's voice recognition capabilities. The beta label has also not stopped Apple from extensively promoting Siri, making it a key part of its iPhone 4S marketing from the iPhone 4S launch event to its website to its television advertising.

Earlier this month, Apple and Vodafone won a case in the United Kingdom in which a member of the public complained that Apple's iPhone 4S advertising in the country was misleading for its depictions of location-based services that are only available in the United States at the present time. The Advertising Standards Authority ruled in Apple's favor when it determined that Apple's UK ads did not depict Siri integration with the Maps application (a U.S.-only feature for the time being) and that Siri's ability to access a user's local weather in the UK was sufficient to satisfy Apple's claims that it can use location information to provide personal assistance.

Last month, we reported on U.S. Mac sales data for the month of January as shared by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who concluded that NPD's calculated year-over-year growth of 1% was somewhat soft but perhaps not out of line with expectations given the firm's historical understatement of Apple's growth. Measuring only U.S. sales, NPD's data does not account for Apple's strong growth in international markets, and Munster notes that last quarter Apple's Mac sales outpaced NPD projections by 14 percentage points.

In a new report out today, Munster shares data for February, with NPD seeing Mac sales up 4% year-over-year. The performance is slightly better than January's 1% number, but it still suggests that consumers are holding back on their purchases as they await updated Mac models. Even with Munster's adjustment of 14 percentage points, Apple's total Mac sales for the quarter would be exhibiting year-over-year growth of 18%, slightly below the 20% growth expected by Wall Street analysts for the entire quarter and not enough to make up for January's slow start.

Nevertheless, Munster believes that the data puts Apple in position to meet overall expectations with sales of 4.4-4.6 million Macs for the quarter.

We have analyzed domestic NPD retail data for the first 2 months of the March quarter, which is up 4% y/y. The early data appears soft on a y/y basis; however, last quarter actual Mac growth outpaced NPD by 14 percentage points. Net-net, we believe this early data suggests Mac sales in the range of 4.4m-4.6m, or 17%-22% y/y growth (we believe Street consensus is 4.5m, or +20% y/y, and we are also at 4.5m).

Whether or not Apple's Mac sales numbers for the March quarter meet expectations may depend on whether the company can squeeze out any product updates, such as a new Mac Pro, before the end of the month. The wait for Intel's Ivy Bridge platform may, however, keep updated models for most of Apple's products on the sidelines until next quarter. That development could leave a slight shortfall on the Mac side during the quarter, although pent-up demand could lead to a blockbuster June quarter for the company in that scenario.

Aside from Macs, Piper Jaffray continues to see strong iPhone sales during the current quarter, above Wall Street consensus, while iPod sales remain in-line with expectations as that product family continues to decline. On the iPad side, Munster believes that strong sales of the new iPad may drive upside for Apple, projecting first-day sales of at least one million units. Munster's projections on launch day sales of new Apple products have, however, generally been less than accurate when Apple has released such numbers.

Following last month's developer seed, Apple today released Safari 5.1.4 to the public. The release is available for OS X Lion and Snow Leopard, as well as Windows. Apple highlights the following improvements on OS X Lion:

Safari 5.1.4 for OS X Lion includes changes that:

- Improve JavaScript performance up to 11% over Safari 5.1.3*
- Improve responsiveness when typing into the search field after changing network configurations, or with an intermittent network connection
- Address an issue that could cause webpages to flash white when switching between Safari windows
- Address issues that prevented printing U.S. Postal Service shipping labels and embedded PDFs
- Preserve links in PDFs saved from webpages
- Fix an issue that could make Flash content appear incomplete after using gesture zooming
- Fix an issue that could cause the screen to dim while watching HTML5 video
- Improve stability, compatibility, and startup time when using extensions
- Allow cookies set during regular browsing to be available after using Private Browsing
- Fix an issue that could cause some data to be left behind after pressing the “Remove All Website Data” button

Safari 5.1.4 weighs in at 44.71 MB for Lion users, 47.52 MB for Snow Leopard users, and 36.72 MB for Windows users.

Update: Software Update is offering Safari 5.1.4 for download, but Apple's support pages and the Safari download page have reverted to showing information on Safari 5.1.2

Earlier this month, we noted that Apple's forthcoming Highland Village retail store in Houston had seen its grand opening date moved up by a day in recent weeks, with Apple opting to open the store on Friday, March 16 rather than holding a traditional Saturday grand opening store. The change led to speculation that the new iPad might be launching on the new date, and Apple did indeed announce last week that the device will be available beginning on March 16.

Apple has yet to announce, however, what time it will begin in-store sales of the new iPad on Friday. The company has sometimes launched major new products first thing in the morning, with stores generally opening early for the events, but as in the case of the iPad 2 last year, the company has also occasionally launched products in late afternoon time slots.

But as noted by the Houston Chronicle, (via @tech513), Apple has now publicly announced that the new Highland Village store will be opening at 8:00 AM on Friday. Like the Friday date, an early grand opening is unusual for Apple's new retail stores, as they generally have their grand opening events at normal opening times, which in the case of the Highland Village store will be 10:00 AM. Consequently, it seems that the early opening may be tied to a launch of the new iPad, in which case Apple may be planning the debut for 8:00 AM local time at its other stores in launch countries.

The store’s doors will open at 8 a.m. Friday, the same day that Apple’s third-generation iPad will go on sale. An Apple spokeswoman would not say whether all its stores will open at that time on Friday, but an early opening is typical when the company starts selling a new iPad or iPhone model.

As noted by Slash Gear over the weekend, the first lines for the new iPad have already begun to form, with a pair of customers staking out their spots outside the Regent Street store in London.

Apple has said that demand for the new iPad is "off the charts", with the company's online stores in all launch countries now quoting shipping estimates of 2-3 weeks for new orders.

Last week, we noted with the launch of the new Apple TV and iTunes in the Cloud for movies that Fox and Universal were not participating in the iCloud video streaming due to contractual obligations with HBO. At the time CNET indicated that the issue was a temporary one and that HBO and the affected studios would be working to address the holdup in the near future.

The Wall Street Journal now reports that HBO is indeed working with Fox and Universal to loosen its restrictions on film distribution, with a spokesperson for HBO confirming the negotiations.

HBO isn't planning to give up its exclusive windows, for which it pays hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and which allow it to beam movies to its online service HBO Go as well as to its traditional TV channels. But HBO is relaxing terms to let users of iCloud and other services send movies they already own to other devices during those windows, an HBO spokesman said.

HBO agreed to loosen its arrangement with Warner Bros., which is working with iCloud, and also is in talks with Universal and Fox to do the same, the spokesman added.

Sources at Fox suggest that the roadblock on iCloud will be lifted "as soon as within weeks", while Universal sources also indicate that a resolution is near.

In a rare interview, Apple design chief Jony Ive participated in a Q&A exchange with the London Evening Standard, offering his perspective on a number of topics including how the design process works at Apple.

Q: How does a new product come about at Apple?

A: What I love about the creative process, and this may sound naive, is this idea that one day there is no idea, and no solution, but then the next day there is an idea. Where you see the most dramatic shift is when you transition from an abstract idea to a slightly more material conversation. But when you make a 3D model, however crude, you bring form to a nebulous idea and everything changes — the entire process shifts. It galvanises and brings focus from a broad group of people. It’s a remarkable process.

Ive talks more about how deeply prototyping is ingrained in the design process at Apple, and also discusses how Apple's approach of creating entirely new categories of products rather than simply improving on existing ones "exercises the skills" of Ive and his team.

It’s not a problem you’re aware of, nobody has articulated a need. But you start asking questions: what if we do this, combine it with that, would that be useful? This creates opportunities that could replace entire categories of device rather than tactically responding to an individual problem. That’s the real challenge and very exciting.

By trying to create new classes of products that people don't even realize they need until they are unveiled, the process results in incredible freedom and excitement, but significant challenges for the designers.

Last November, CBS CEO Les Moonves acknowledged that his company had been in talks with Apple about a potential streaming television service, revealing that CBS had ultimately declined to support the plan due to Apple's demands that it include a split of advertising revenue between the two companies.

As noted by The Hollywood Reporter, Moonves has now added a bit more detail about those talks, revealing that they occurred at the highest levels between Steve Jobs and Moonves himself. But according to Moonves, the talks fell apart over fears of such a deal disrupting CBS's revenue streams.

Moonves told a conference audience that he met with Jobs, the late Apple CEO, and heard a pitch for what was billed as a subscription content service, but ultimately he said he wasn't interested in providing CBS shows or films to the venture.

"I told Steve, 'You know more than me about 99 percent of things but I know more about the television business,' " Moonves said, citing his concerns about providing content to a service that could disrupt CBS' existing revenue streams. Moonves said Jobs, in characteristic fashion, strongly disagreed with his assessment.

Back in late 2009, CBS and Disney were reportedly close to signing on with Apple for a television service that would have seen Apple offering a "best of television" package through the iTunes Store, but the plan was ultimately shelved as other networks refused to sign on and CBS apparently reconsidered its position. Interest is said to have been revived recently as Apple reportedly moves closer to launching its own television set, with Apple said to be pushing ahead even as it continues to meet resistance from content providers.

Apple told USA Today that demand for the newest iPad has been "off the charts" and that the initial batch had been sold out:

"Customer response to the new iPad has been off the charts and the quantity available for pre-order has been purchased," Apple said in a statement. "Customers can continue to order online and receive an estimated delivery date."

We previously reported that U.S. pre-orders had already been pushed past its March 16th launch date as of Friday morning, with shipping estimates now having been pushed out to 2-3 weeks in all countries included in the initial batch of launches.

The 3rd Generation iPad will still be available for purchase on March 16th at Apple retail stores, presumably to long lines. The new iPad was announced last week and introduced a Retina Display, A5X Chip, LTE and 5MP Rear Camera.

Tether, the company behind the iTether iOS app that Apple approved and then quickly removed from the App Store, has a new tethering solution. This time, it's HTML5 based and doesn't require downloading anything from the App Store.

"It was clear from our initial application iTether, there was enormous demand within the iPhone ecosystem," says Tim Burke, CEO of Tether. "It was unfortunate that Apple decided to remove our application, only 20 hours after we launched. However, this caused us to innovate. Our underlying patent-pending technology behind Tether for iPhone is unlike anything on the market."

Tether's new version for the iPhone is purely based on HTML5 and creates a completely wireless connection over AdHoc. This circumvents the need of buying the application directly from Apple's App Store and allows any iPhone or iPad with a data connection to allow tethering.