MacRumors

Over the past couple of weeks, we've taken a few looks at Apple's new Fusion Drive used in the latest Mac mini and the upcoming iMac. The Fusion Drive system uses software to seamlessly integrate a 128 GB solid-state drive (SSD) with a 1 TB or 3 TB traditional hard drive to offer users the best of both worlds when it comes to speed and capacity. System files and other frequently used data are automatically moved to the SSD for maximum speed, with lower-priority data being stored on the much larger traditional hard drive.

Macworld has now conducted some benchmarks on the various Late 2012 Mac mini models, including one equipped with Fusion Drive, demonstrating how much faster the system runs with the benefit of the SSD.

[I]t was the Fusion Drive that really kicked the BTO Mac mini into overdrive. The standard configuration $799 Mac mini with its 5400-rpm hard drive took more than three times as long to complete our copy file and uncompress file tests as the Fusion Drive did in the BTO Mac mini. The BTO Mac mini’s PCMark productivity test score (using VMWare Fusion) was three times higher than the high-end standard configuration’s score. [...]

The BTO Mac mini was actually faster than the Retina MacBook Pro in a few tests, like the iPhoto, iMovie, and Aperture import tests. But file copy and file uncompress tests were a bit faster on the Retina MacBook Pro with its “pure” flash storage than on the Mac mini’s Fusion Drive.

A new video posted by TechfastLunch&Dinner also shows how keeping the system files on the fast SSD cuts boot times in half for the Fusion Drive-equipped Mac mini compared to a similar system using only a traditional hard drive.

Ars Technica has also posted a thorough examination of how the Fusion Drive works at a detailed level. The report notes that Fusion Drive is a solid consumer-focused tiering solution with some distinct differences from other caching and tiering implementations.

There are no options to configure, no pinning settings to adjust, and no user-visible method to decide what goes where. The FD volume is a single volume, and its Core Storage underpinnings direct all IO to the SSD first. New files are saved transparently to the SSD side of the Fusion Drive, as are new applications you install. Everything goes to the SSD first.

The logic behind this is clear: Fusion Drive is not meant to be a feature that appeals to the propeller-head geek. The kind of person who already has an SSD and a spinny disk in his Mac... and who symlinks his iTunes and iPhoto libraries off the HDD onto the SDD... and who enjoys meticulously balancing out which files go where will almost certainly not enjoy Fusion Drive's hands-off approach. Fusion Drive is not designed to be poked at or prodded. Rather, much in the same way that Time Machine's hands-off approach brought backup to people who otherwise wouldn't be bothering, Fusion Drive's hands-off approach brings tiering to Mac masses who otherwise can't be bothered. The presentation is very Apple-like, with no knobs to twiddle.

Ars Technica goes on to force chunks of data and whole files to be promoted up to the SSD, examines Boot Camp functionality on the Fusion Drive, and explores what happens should one of the drives fail.

Recombu follows up on a Tweet from UK developer CMA Megacorp addressing an issue with recognition of rapid diagonal swipes on the iPhone 5, posting a video comparison showing the issue on devices running both iOS 6 and iOS 6.0.1.

The glitch which as far as we’re aware hasn’t previously been spotted by anyone, manifests itself as a dropout of touch input when quickly scrolling diagonally across the screen. [...]

Using the Mail app to clearly demonstrate the quick scrolling action, we dragged our finger back and forth diagonally from bottom right to top left on each phone’s display. Sure enough, whilst both iPhone 4S’s handled the fast paced scrolling to aplomb, one iPhone 5 struggled to hold its concentration, dropping and picking back up touch input whilst the other stopped registering input altogether.

The report notes cause of the issue is unknown, but iMore has confirmed that it also affects the fifth-generation iPod touch, suggesting that it may be related to the technology behind the new 4-inch display with in-cell touch technology being used in both devices.

Given the unusual rapid diagonal swiping motion required for the issue to appear, most users will notice it rarely, if at all, although certain apps such as Fruit Ninja and Infinity Blade that rely on such swiping motions could be affected by the issue. But given that it has taken two months since the launch of the iPhone 5 to even be noticed, it seems that the glitch generally does not have a significant effect on real-world usage.

The Wall Street Journal reports that China Telecom is preparing to begin offering the iPhone 5 in late November or early December, adding to the potential for a blockbuster holiday quarter for Apple.

Government officials haven't offered guidance on when the iPhone 5 might win final approval. But China Telecom Chairman Wang Xiaochu said Friday in a brief interview on the sidelines of the Communist Party's 18th Party Congress in Beijing that the phone should be by early December if not sooner.

China Unicom Chairman Chang Xiaobing was less certain. "We hope to offer it this year, but what I say doesn't matter," he said on the sidelines of the congress, adding that his company was waiting for the government to grant the remaining licenses for the phone to be released in China.

The report notes that China was responsible for $5.7 billion in revenue for Apple last quarter, 16% of the company's total.

Apple has committed to a rapid rollout of the iPhone 5 to at least 100 countries by the end of the year, despite continuing production issues that have resulted in shortages where the device has already launched. China is typically well behind the lead pack of countries when it comes to new Apple product launches, but the compressed launch schedule for the iPhone 5 means that this gap may only be roughly two months from the first round of launches in the U.S. and other countries.

The introduction of the iPhone 5 in China is also likely to reduce the number of units being siphoned off from other countries by gray market dealers purchasing the devices elsewhere for resale in China. Despite Apple's efforts to limit their ability to soak up supplies, scalpers are still working to secure as many iPhones as possible from retail stores in Hong Kong, the U.S., and other countries to send back to China.

9to5Mac shares an email sent to Apple employees by CEO Tim Cook announcing that the company has donated $2.5 million to the American Red Cross in support of Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.

Team:

For the past week, our thoughts have been with those affected by Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath. And Apple employees and customers the world over have raised millions of dollars toward the relief effort so far. But we can always do more.

That's why, on behalf of all our employees, Apple is making a donation of $2.5 million to the American Red Cross to benefit Hurricane Sandy relief. We hope this contribution will help families, businesses, and communities recover and rebuild.

Tim Cook
November 8, 2012

Apple's own donation comes in addition to its program facilitating donations from iTunes Store users. Under that program, users can donate by simply clicking a button in the iTunes Store, with the amount of the donation being charged to the credit card on file for their account. Apple is not taking a cut of those donations, passing 100% of the amount along to the American Red Cross.

Apple has just posted new downloads of iOS 6.0.1 for the forthcoming cellular-capable models of the iPad mini and fourth-generation iPad. The downloads, which arrive as Build 10A8426, signal that Apple is preparing to launch the devices, which are scheduled for a "Mid-November" debut in the United States. We've seen signs that Apple will be delivering pre-orders of these devices as soon as Friday, November 16.

The new downloads include:

iPad mini
- iPad2,6
- iPad2,7

Fourth-generation iPad
- iPad3,5
- iPad3,6

Apple posted downloads of iOS 6.0 for the Wi-Fi models of the iPad mini and fourth-generation iPad three days before they launched on November 2.

A number of U.S. customers who pre-ordered cellular-capable models of the iPad mini and fourth-generation iPad are now reporting that their order statuses have been updated to reflect delivery estimates right around Thanksgiving.

Many MacRumors forum members are reporting that they are now seeing delivery dates of Wednesday, November 21, although several are seeing deliveries scheduled for Tuesday, November 20.

We've received a couple of reports regarding the cellular-capable models of the fourth-generation iPad, with delivery of those orders currently scheduled for November 23, which is Black Friday.

Apple had previously listed similar delivery timeframes for U.S. pre-orders, but removed those dates and replaced them with "mid-November" estimates before returning to the more specific dates today. Cellular-capable iPad mini and iPad models are arriving in the U.S. first, with other countries seeing deliveries following later in the month.

MacRumors has also received unconfirmed word from one source saying that AT&T will be launching in-store sales of the cellular-capable models of the iPad mini and fourth-generation iPad on Friday, November 16. This would appear to be somewhat inconsistent with pre-order deliveries not occurring until the following week, as Apple typically times deliveries and in-person launches for the same timeframe. Apple's pre-order delivery dates may, however, be subject to change.

Update 2:07 PM: We've heard from one customer who called Apple and was able to have his standard shipping upgraded free of charge to Next Day Shipping due to his travel plans, and his fourth-generation iPad order is now showing delivery on Friday, November 16.

(Thanks, Michael!)

AT&T announced today that it is planning to allow any customer "with an LTE device" on a "tiered data plan" to use iOS 6's FaceTime over Cellular feature. Previously, only customers with a Mobile Share plan could use the feature.

AT&T today announced it will enable FaceTime over Cellular at no extra charge for iOS 6 customers with an LTE device on any tiered data plan. AT&T will also continue to offer FaceTime over Cellular to customers with any AT&T Mobile Share plan, as well as FaceTime over Wi-Fi, which has always been available for all customers. AT&T expects to roll out this functionality to customers over the next eight to ten weeks.

As part of its commitment to serving customers with disabilities, AT&T is also making FaceTime over Cellular available to deaf and hard of hearing customers who qualify for special text and data-only packages.

In practice, the change only affects iPhone 5 and iPad with LTE customers with tiered, though not unlimited, data plans. The company plans to roll out the functionality over the next 8 to 10 weeks.

Jim Cicconi, AT&T's head of External and Legislative Affairs, wrote a blog post explaining AT&T's thoughts on FaceTime. He notes that there was no way for the company's engineers to model usage and network impact and, as a result, the company was conservative in how it was rolled out.

In this instance, with the FaceTime app already preloaded on tens of millions of AT&T customers’ iPhones, there was no way for our engineers to effectively model usage, and thus to assess network impact. It is for this reason that we took a more cautious approach toward the app. To do otherwise might have risked an adverse impact on the services our customers expect – voice quality in particular – if usage of FaceTime exceeded expectations. And this is important for all our customers regardless of which smartphone they may use.

As we noted several weeks ago, Apple scheduled a meeting with members of its Made for iPod/iPhone/iPad (MFi) program for November 7-8 in Shenzhen, China to brief them on the latest developments with the new Lightning connector standard. With Apple having moved rather slowly to bring accessory manufacturers up to speed, Lightning-equipped accessories have been slow to appear and it was not until this week that the first official Lightning products were even announced.

TUAW now reports on a few details that have leaked out of the meeting, including the fact that the Lightning connector is waterproof and that all MFi accessory manufacturers must agree to abide by Apple's supplier responsibility code.

[D]uring the meeting this week a few interesting tidbits have made their way to us through the Great Firewall. Most are trivial (did not know: the Lightning connector is waterproof!) but one big one is not. According to our source at the event, Apple intends to make compliance with its supplier code of conduct a condition of MFi licensing. [...]

Pushing it out to the larger accessory ecosystem would be a concrete example of Apple using its 800-pound-gorilla status in the consumer electronics space to influence more companies to behave ethically on worker rights, environmental issues and more.

The report notes that details on requirements for adherence to the code and potential penalties are not yet known, and speculates that U.S.-based accessory companies may have an advantage in compliance with stricter controls already in place.

Back in June, one of the founders of the "Modbook" project to develop an OS X tablet based on the internals of a MacBook, announced that he was bringing back the concept with a new Modbook Pro product scheduled for launch in late 2012.

Pre-orders for the Modbook Pro, which starts at $3499, went live in early October with a launch target of mid-November. With the release timeframe now approaching and Modbook seeing strong customer response, the company has announced upgraded specs for the Modbook Pro, with all pre-order customers receiving a free upgrade to the new base specs. The launch of the Modbook Pro is also now targeted for late this month.

Beginning immediately, we’re doubling the pen pressure levels on the Modbook Pro from 512 to 1,024. At 1,024 levels, the Modbook Pro — which sports a state-of-the-art Wacom Penabled pen tablet digitizer — will now have four times the industry standard of 256 for pen-based tablets!

This dramatic enhancement in pen capability will give Modbook Pro users extraordinarily precise and subtle control of renderings and underscores the Modbook Pro’s usefulness as a portable content-creation platform.

In addition to the improved pen capabilities, the base Modbook Pro will also see a RAM boost from 4 GB to 8 GB and a solid-state drive boost from 64 GB to 120 GB using a faster asynchronous drive.

The Modbook Pro starts at $3499 and can be configured with additional processor, RAM, and storage options.

Research firm Strategy Analytics today released a report estimating that Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone overtook the iPhone 4S for the top spot in global shipments.

Samsung’s Galaxy S3 smartphone model shipped 18.0 million units worldwide during the third quarter of 2012. The Galaxy S3 captured an impressive 11 percent share of all smartphones shipped globally and it has become the world’s best-selling smartphone model for the first time ever.

Apple observers will of course be quick to note that the iPhone 4S saw waning sales during the third quarter leading into and following the launch of the iPhone 5, while the Galaxy S III is still riding relatively high as Samsung's flagship Android device since its launch in May of this year. Strategy Analytics also estimates that Samsung's position at the top will be short-lived, with the iPhone 5 expected to take back the crown for the current quarter.

The Apple iPhone 5 has gotten off to a solid start already with an estimated 6.0 million units shipped globally during Q3 2012. We expect the new iPhone 5 to out-ship Samsung’s Galaxy S3 in the coming fourth quarter of 2012 and Apple should soon reclaim the title of the world’s most popular smartphone model.

Canaccord Genuity analyst Michael Walkley had previously reported that the Galaxy S III overtook the iPhone 4S in sales at major U.S. carriers back in August.

As noted by CNET, Apple has tweaked its international sites to remove code that automatically pushed footer text including a court-order acknowledgment that Samsung had not infringed the protected iPad design in the UK below the scroll unless the user's browser window was extremely tall.

While Apple has used such vertically responsive design before to automatically adjust page layouts based on browser window size, its use on the company's international front pages (but not the main apple.com page) was seen as an effort to hide the notice on its UK page.

The international pages are now using the same layout as the main apple.com site, alternating between the iPad mini and the fourth-generation iPad as featured products and keeping a static layout. Previously, images within the iPad mini feature linking to the keynote and product videos automatically moved to underneath the feature section as the browser window was made taller, pushing the footer text where the Samsung acknowledgement was out of view unless the page was scrolled.