MacRumors

As is typical when previewing a new operating system, on Monday Apple's Scott Forstall showed off 10 main features of iOS 6 including improvements to Siri, Facebook Integration, a new Maps app, and a Do Not Disturb mode.

However, there is a lot more to the next iPhone operating system than that. A slide shown at the end of Monday's keynote displayed a number of new features that didn't warrant full keynote coverage but are still worth mention to iOS users:

- Users can now set custom email alerts for any of their VIP contacts.

- Turning Bluetooth on and off is much quicker than it was in iOS 5. Bluetooth controls are now located in first page of System Preferences, next to the Wi-Fi and Airplane Mode controls.

- The iPad gains a native Clock app with similar function to the iPhone version.

- Users no longer need to enter their password to update apps -- only when purchasing an app for the first time. Additionally, users aren't kicked to the home screen when buying or updating an app in the App Store.

- Newly downloaded apps gain a temporary 'New' banner on the icon to make them easier to pick them out.

- Geofencing alerts have been added to Find My Friends. One possible use, suggested by Macworld: "If you’re one of the many workers who carpools, you can set up a geofence on the driver to let you know when they leave their house."

- In iOS 5, the color of the menu bar would change depending on what was happening in the background -- green for a phone call or blue for Personal Hotspot. In iOS 6 those colors still exist, but the menu bar changes color to better complement the app. MaxThemes.com has more on how Apple color-matches the menu bar.

- One of the most unnecessary additions to iOS 6 is also one of the most telling. Apple has made the metallic volume slider in the iPod app and elsewhere change its reflection as the iPhone is tilted -- as if it were actually reflecting light. While some may say it's a waste of engineering resources, this shows Apple's incredible attention to detail.

Earlier this week, AppAdvice noted that three categories of content had disappeared from the iTunes app in iOS 6: Podcasts, Audiobooks, and iTunes U. Apple launched a dedicated iTunes U app earlier this year, but the fate of the other content types in iOS 6 remained unclear.

AllThingsD now reports that Apple will also be launching a standalone app for podcasts in iOS 6, giving them greater visibility while simplifying the iTunes app that has become home to an increasingly large number of content categories.

So why have podcasts disappeared from the new version of iTunes that Apple started showing to developers this week?

Because Apple plans on giving the recordings their own bit of digital turf.

People familiar with Apple’s plans tell me that when its new iOS 6 software becomes widely available this fall, podcasts will have their own app, where users will be able to discover, download and play them on mobile devices. Users who access iTunes via laptop and desktop machines will still find them in that version of iTunes, though.

Podcasts are one of the longest-tenured media types on Apple's portable devices, having been available through the iTunes Store since the release of iTunes 4.9 in mid-2005.

As we noted earlier this week as part of our roundup of device compatibility for various iOS 6 features, several of Apple's new mapping features including Flyover and turn-by-turn navigation are not officially supported on the iPhone 4, much less the iPhone 3GS.

But as reported by SlashGear, a member of Russian site iguides has posted videos [Google translation] showing the 3D maps and Flyover working on a jailbroken iPhone 4. The poster has also included instructions for adding the functionality, although the procedure is not yet a completely straightforward one.

Apple has historically placed hardware restrictions on certain features of its iOS release, based at least in part on how well older hardware handles the specific features. In other cases like Siri on the iPhone 4S, Apple's limitations may have more to do with differentiation and marketing. But it seems reasonable to think that 3D map performance on the pre-A5 devices like the iPhone 4 simply doesn't meet Apple's requirements, and thus the company has elected not to officially support the feature on that hardware.

Regardless of the reasons for Apple's limitations on mapping features, hackers and developers will undoubtedly continue working on ways to circumvent those restrictions, and we will likely see other features like turn-by-turn navigation also come to older devices for those willing to tweak their devices to enable them.

A functioning Apple 1 computer, one of the first 200 computers sold by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, sold for $374,500 including the 12% buyer's premium at a Sotheby's action in New York. The Apple 1 originally sold for $666.66. The BBC notes that only about 50 Apple 1's still exist and only a handful actually work.

Sotheby's said there was a battle between two parties for the item which also included the original manuals. A set of bids were executed by the auctioneer on behalf of an absentee collector, but a telephone bidder proved more persistent and eventually clinched the sale.

APPLE I COMPUTER

Operational Apple Computer I. An Apple I motherboard, labeledﾠon obverse AppleﾠComputer I, Palo Alto, CA. Copyright 1976. Includes circuit board with four rows A-D, and columns 1-18; MOS Technologies 6502 microprocessor, labeled MCS 6502 3776; video terminal; keyboard interface; 8K bytes RAM in 16-pin 4K memory chips; 4 power supplies including 3 capacitors; firmware in PROMS (A1, A2); low-profile sockets on all integrated circuits; breadboard; heatsink; expansion connector; cassette board connector. (15 1/8 x 9 in.; 385 x 234 mm)

Together with: Apple I Cassette Interface, labeled Apple I Cassette Interface Copyright 1976, partial "G" lettered in triangle on reverse, in black ink manuscript (4 x 2 in.; 102 x 50 mm). — Apple-I Operation Manual. Palo Alto: Apple Computer Company. 12 pp. in wrappers (11 x 8 1/2 in.; 280 x 214 mm), with 8 circuit diagrams, 2 on foldout printed verso and recto, one full page; with original Apple Computer Co. logo on upper wrapper; tear along fold, light staining on wrapper and bottom right corner. — Apple-I Cassette Interface Manual, Palo Alto: Apple Computer Company. Oblong 8 pp. bifolia (8 1/2 x 5 1/2 in.; 140 x 215 mm), with some staining to wrappers; original logo on upper wrapper, warranty onﾠlower wrapper —ﾠPreliminary Apple BASIC Users Manual. Palo Alto: Apple Computer Company, October 1976. 8ﾠstapled sheets (11ﾠx 8ﾠ1/2 in.;ﾠ280ﾠxﾠ214 mm), printedﾠversoﾠand recto, with first sheet onﾠblueﾠpaperﾠwith tear along stapleﾠandﾠmanuscript "Randy JﾠSuess."ﾠSomeﾠstaining toﾠfirstﾠandﾠlastﾠpage,ﾠwithﾠtearﾠonﾠlast page. — Double-sidedﾠadvertisement with illustration for Apple IﾠComputer and theﾠApple Cassette Interface,ﾠwith manuscriptﾠnote (11 xﾠ8ﾠ1/2 in.; 280 x 214 mm).

Early Apple memorabilia has been a hot ticket recently. Sotheby's sold Apple's founding corporate papers -- signed by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ron Wayne -- in December for nearly $1.6 million.

Late last month, Apple launched a new "Free App of the Week" promotion on the App Store, featuring a single app on each of the iPhone and iPad platforms and offering the normally-paid titles for free. Apple's digital content stores have of course offered free apps for years, but the new promotion seeks to bring greater visibility to content being temporarily discounted from paid to free.

In another sign that Apple may be looking to increase exposure for free content, the company earlier this week registered two new domains: freeonappstore.com and freeonibookstore.com. There is currently no content located at either of the sites, but it seems that Apple may be interested in either creating specific websites featuring free content or using them as redirects to point to existing features.

The two domains were registered the day after Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference keynote, but they do not appear to have any direct relationship to announcements made during the event. Consequently, Apple's intentions for the domains remains unknown.

Outside of the digital stores themselves, Apple has a number of other venues for promoting free and discounted content, including a partnership with Starbucks for free "Pick of the Week" offerings such as apps and book samples. The current Free App of the Week promotion also began as a Facebook promotion on Apple's App Store page, but has since migrated directly into the App Store.

Four days before the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro was introduced, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo released a report claiming that Apple would launch the machine alongside the then-current MacBook Pro line rather than as a direct replacement.

Kuo's report turned out to be nearly exactly on point, as was the case with his April report claiming that Apple would discontinue the 17-inch MacBook Pro, and so it pays to revisit his Retina MacBook line claims to see what the future might hold.

In that report, Kuo claimed that the 13-inch MacBook Pro would likely arrive in the August timeframe at the earliest, with the machine's release being held back by display yield and challenges with heat dissipation in the smaller body.

[W]e don’t expect the new 13” MacBook to be available until after August this year, as it has limited space for thermal dissipation and uses a lower-yield retinal display than the 15” version.

With the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro now available, Kuo has released a new report taking another look at Apple's plans for the 13-inch version, and AppleInsider reports that he is now estimating a September production ramp for the machine with an early October launch to follow.

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI shared in a note with AppleInsider on Thursday that he expects Apple to ramp up production of a 13-inch next-generation MacBook Pro with Retina display in September. That would allow the product to hit stores in early October, in time for the holiday shopping season.

In his note last week, Kuo predicted that the 15-inch Retina model would carry a thickness of 19 millimeters (0.75 inches), while the 13-inch model could come in slightly thinner at 18 millimeters (0.71 inches). But the 15-inch model Apple actually introduced already comes in at the 18 millimeter figure, so it is unclear whether Apple would be able trim any additional thickness off for the 13-inch model.

Potentially supporting the idea of a 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro being in testing is the discovery of a "MacBookPro10,2" listing in the results database for the battery utility app MiniBatteryLogger. The 15-inch MacBook Pro carries a designation of "MacBookPro10,1", and while the MacBookPro10,2 designation could presumably have been faked, there are several indications that it may be legitimate.

First, the database entry appeared on April 25, well ahead of much specific information on the Retina MacBook Pro that might have helped create a legitimate-looking fake entry. Second, the machine's battery registers a design capacity of 6580 mAh, roughly 14% greater than the 5770 mAh battery found in the non-Retina 13-inch MacBook Pro. By comparison, the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro's 8460 mAh battery has roughly 22.5% greater capacity than the 6900 mAh battery in the non-Retina model.

While the battery capacity ratios between corresponding Retina and non-Retina MacBook Pro batteries would not be exactly the same if this MacBookPro10,2 is indeed a genuine 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, they are at least in the same range and one could imagine that a smaller display and lack of a discrete graphics card could shrink the amount of capacity boost needed to power a 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro.

Earlier this year, Apple came under fire from consumers advocates and Congress after it was discovered that apps, most notably Path, were uploading users' entire address books to their servers without alerting users or asking for authorization. Path deleted the information, but a pair of U.S. Congressmen sent a letter to Apple asking for information on the company's data collection policies.

More recently, LinkedIn came under fire for transmitting information from iOS calendar entries back to its servers in plain text.

In the OS X Mountain Lion beta, Apple began requiring apps to get explicit permission to access user's address book information, and Apple PR said in February that any iOS app "wishing to access contact data will require explicit user approval in a future software release."

Starting with iOS 6, Apple now requires apps to get explicit user permission before accessing Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, and Photos. From the "Data Privacy" section in Apple's iOS 6 Release Notes:

In addition to location data, the system now asks the user’s permission before allowing third-party apps to access certain user data, including:

- Contacts
- Calendars
- Reminders
- Photo Library

For contact, calendar, and reminder data, your app needs to be prepared to be denied access to these items and to adjust its behavior accordingly. If the user has not yet been prompted to allow access, the returned structure is valid but contains no records. If the user has denied access, the app receives a NULL value or no data. If the user grants permission to the app, the system subsequently notifies the app that it needs to reload or revert the data.

As the iPhone and iPad have grown in popularity, Apple has come under increasing scrutiny over the privacy practices of both Apple and developers participating in the App Store ecosystem. Last year, Senator Al Franken asked both Apple and Google to require app developers to have "clear and understandable" privacy policies.

Apple later agreed to comply with a new California law requiring links to privacy policies in consistent locations and provide a method for users to report apps that do not comply with privacy requirements.

Congress also got involved over the disclosure of location information to app makers, going so far as to introduce a bill that would force companies to get explicit authorization before disclosing the user's location to anyone. Apple now asks the iOS users if Location Services should be enabled during the initial setup process.

iOS 6 is currently in beta and is expected to be publicly released this fall.

With a number of media outlets having received Retina MacBook Pro review units on Monday after the Worldwide Developers Conference keynote and a few early hands-on reports having been published, more extensive reviews are now beginning to appear. To help summarize the overall response to the new machine, we've put together this roundup of some of the major reviews, along with some highlights from each of them.

The New York Times – David Pogue

If you could design your dream laptop, how would you describe it?

Superfast. Superthin. Superlight. Superlong battery life. Immense storage. Enough memory to keep lots of programs open at once. Stunning screen, comfortable keyboard, terrific sound. Fast start-up, rugged body, gorgeous looks.

And, of course, inexpensive.

The new Apple laptop that went on sale Monday hits an impressive number of those high notes in one radical swoop. As you might guess, the one it misses by the biggest margin is “inexpensive.”

Engadget – Tim Stevens

Is this the best Mac ever? You can't ignore the Air as an amazing piece of machinery, especially with the new, higher-powered Ivy Bridge processors and faster SSDs tucked inside its wedge profile. But, this new Pro is on another level of performance. With a quad-core processor and up to 16GB of RAM it's a proper beast -- a proper beast that you can throw in your messenger bag and carry around all day without spending all night complaining about an aching back.

That said, this is not exactly a small machine, heavy enough that those happy Air users who've been feeling tempted might want to take a swing by their closest Apple Store and lift one themselves. It's expensive, too.

The Verge – Ross Miller

If you’re in the market for a premium OS X laptop right now, it’s hard not to recommend the new MacBook Pro with Retina display. If, however, power isn’t your ultimate goal, may we suggest shaving a few pounds and specs for the MacBook Air. As for everything in between, those non-Retina “standard” MacBook Pros, well... the writing’s on the wall. And of course, it doesn’t hurt to be even a little bit patient and wait for more apps to push Retina-optimized updates — if you get the MacBook Pro with Retina display now, you’ll be waiting on the world to change.

Time – Harry McCracken

Even for those of us who are unlikely to spend more than two grand on a computer, or who prefer something more ultraportable than a 15″ model, the arrival of the Retina MacBook Pro is a meaningful moment in Mac history. It’s the most refined, advanced PC that Apple has produced to date. And it’s a safe bet that the ideas it exhibits will be reflected in future models from the company, including ones with smaller screens and smaller price tags. It’s both a great computer, and a preview of great computers to come.

CNET – Dan Ackerman

I've previously called the 15-inch MacBook Pro one of the most universally useful all-around laptops you can buy. This new version adds to that with HDMI, faster ports, and more portability. But it also subtracts from that with its exclusion of an optical drive and Ethernet port, plus its very high starting price. The Pro and Retina Pro are clearly two laptops designed for two different users, and with the exception of all-day commuters who need something closer to a MacBook Air or ultrabook, one of the two branches of the MacBook Pro family tree is still probably the most universally useful laptop you can buy.

(Image from CNET)

While we noted early yesterday that the first Retina MacBook Pro orders had begun shipping, a number of MacRumors readers are now reporting that the first deliveries are already arriving.

At least one of the readers who received his new MacBook Pro had ordered a custom configuration, bumping the high-end stock model to the 2.7 GHz processor and 16 GB of RAM.

A few customers have reported being able to obtain the new Retina MacBook Pro in-store, but many Apple retail stores still do not have any stock of the machines beyond the display models, with some now indicating that they will not have stock until Monday.

(Thanks, Trevor and Jeremy!)

As noted by AllThingsD, Apple and Time Inc. appear to have settled their long-running differences over digital magazine subscriptions, with Time launching iPad-only subscriptions for its magazines through Newsstand. According to a press release from Time, the offering addresses all 20 of its consumer magazines, which include Fortune, People, Sports Illustrated, and Time.

Time was prepared to launch iPad subscriptions for Sports Illustrated two years ago, but Apple refused to allow Time to bill subscribers directly rather than going through the iTunes Store mechanism where Apple would keep 30% of the revenue and limit publisher access to subscriber information. As a result, iPad users were initially limited to purchasing titles on a single-issue basis.

Nearly a year later, Apple and Time reached an agreement to allow print subscribers to receive free access to the iPad editions of the publisher's major magazine titles. But digital-only subscriptions remained off the table even as other major publishers such as Hearst were accepting Apple's subscription terms and rolling out their own offerings.

AllThingsD notes that it is unclear what changed between Time and Apple to now allow full-fledged digital subscriptions, including whether Time simply relented or if it was able to obtain some concession from Apple.

It could be as simple as Time Inc. trying to boost sales, which haven’t been stellar recently — a slump at its People magazine title is particularly troublesome for the publisher. Or perhaps parent company Time Warner got some other concession from Apple for one of its other units, like HBO or Turner.

Digital subscription pricing for Time titles varies, but a flagship title like Sports Illustrated is being offered at a $3.99 monthly rate or a $38.99 annual rate, a significant discount from the $4.99 single-issue pricing for the weekly magazine.

Last year, there was some controversy over whether or not Apple's iTunes Match service supported streaming of music or just downloading files. As it stands, iTunes Match appears to play songs as they download, which is an issue of semantics -- but all that will change in iOS 6.

As noted by Apple 'n' Apps, in the iOS 6 beta, iTunes Match has become a full-on streaming service. Songs can be downloaded or streamed, with streaming being the default playback option:

iTunes Match has become a streaming service in the beta. We confirmed it, by playing a few songs, then turning off iTunes Match, and seeing that the music folder then had no music. In iOS 5, the few tracks you listened to are stored. The various playlists, artists, and songs also drop the cloud icon next to them, and those are reserved for the album view, and a little bit off to the side.

iTunes Match costs $24.99 per year, matching songs in your iTunes library to those in the iTunes Music Store.

Back in mid-May, a pair of Geekbench 2 benchmarks that claimed to be from unreleased MacBook Pro and iMac models appeared, setting off speculation that updates to both lines might be imminent if the entries were indeed legitimate. But with Apple not updating the iMac earlier this week at its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote, those looking for an upgraded all-in-one desktop Mac have been left waiting.

With updated MacBook Pro models reaching the public, Primate Labs highlighted some of the benchmarks yesterday, and the details for the non-Retina 15-inch MacBook Pro match up nearly exactly with what appeared in the entry from last month, all but confirming that it was indeed a legitimate leak.

Now with that information in hand, it pays to revisit the iMac benchmark that appeared around the same time, and while the two benchmarks aren't necessarily linked, it could generate hope that an updated iMac may still be right around the corner. The iMac benchmark referred to an "iMac13,2" model running a 3.4 GHz Core i7-3770 quad-core processor with 4 GB of 1600 MHz RAM, and while it is possible that the information could have been faked, Primate Labs previously reported that it believes the entry to be legitimate.

Further fueling speculation of a near-term iMac update is recent confusion in which it was initially reported that Apple representatives had told reporters that new iMac and Mac Pro models would likely be arriving in 2013. But following publication of those reports, Apple press relations staff specifically clarified those remarks to note that only the Mac Pro would be seeing the 2013 update. The assumption related to that clarification is of course that an iMac update is very likely to come sooner than the end of this year.

It has already been over 400 days since the iMac was last updated, and Ivy Bridge processors appropriate for the iMac have been available since late April. Consequently, it seems likely that the iMac will still be receiving an update in the relatively near future despite not making an appearance at this week's conference.

As for what improvements the next-generation iMac will see beyond Ivy Bridge, at least one mainstream news report has claimed that Apple is working on Retina displays for the iMac, although we previously analyzed how daunting of a task it would be to support four times the number of pixels found on the current models, particularly on a 27-inch display. Other sources have claimed that Apple is working on anti-reflective glass for the iMac, rumors that may have gained some support with Apple having touted this week that the Retina MacBook Pro's display produces 75% less glare than non-Retina models.