MacRumors

As noted by Steven Troughton-Smith (via 9to5Mac), Apple appears to be testing a revised iCloud.com portal at beta.icloud.com that shows two additional icons for Notes and Reminders in the background of the login screen. The standard iCloud.com portal displays only icons for Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Find My iPhone, and iWork.

Attempts to log in through the beta portal are unsuccessful, and even access to the portal has become intermittent, with it occasionally showing broken images or simply redirecting to Apple's standard iCloud information page.

The development comes just days after Apple was observed testing notifications on the regular iCloud.com portal, suggesting that Apple may indeed be working on a significant enhancement to its iCloud services. More information may become available at next month's Worldwide Developers Conference.

Update: Tom Klaver notes that the following text was included in one of the .js files used on the beta site:

To use http://beta.icloud.com, first sign in to iCloud with the iOS 6 Beta.

Update 2: A second portal at developer.icloud.com has also been active periodically, and SlideToLock has pulled out an iCloud developer icon from that background.

In line with its Creative Suite 6 announcement from earlier this week, Adobe today launched its Creative Cloud subscription service. As part of the Creative Cloud debut, Adobe has also publicly debuted Muse, a subscription-based website creation package that allow users to easily create websites without needing to know HTML. Muse has been in public beta since last August.

Adobe Creative Cloud Membership Delivers:

- Access to download and install all CS6 applications, new HTML5 desktop products – Adobe Muse and Adobe Edge preview – and integration with Adobe Touch Apps
- Easy storage and sharing of content across desktop, mobile devices and the cloud
- Integrated website publishing and hosting
- Ongoing innovation that provides members with the most up-to-date products and services

Individual pricing for Creative Cloud is set at $49.99 per month with an annual commitment or $74.99 on a month-to-month basis. Muse is included in that package, but is also available as a standalone subscription product priced at $14.99 per month with an annual commitment or $24.99 on a month-to-month basis.

Adobe's Creative Cloud launch has also seen several improvements to the company's suite of iOS applications, including the launch of two new iPad apps: Adobe Proto [App Store] and Adobe Collage [App Store]. Plans for the two apps were announced last October as part of Adobe's push into tablet apps.

Proto is a protoyping tool that allows users to create wireframes of websites and apps right on their iPads using touch gestures, while Collage is a mood board app allowing users to combine images, video, and text to help define creative concepts and share them with others. Adobe has also updated its existing Photoshop Touch [App Store] and Ideas [App Store].

All four iOS apps, which are priced at $9.99 each, integrate with the new Creative Cloud services, including the free level of support which offers 2 GB of cloud-based file storage to allow for syncing of documents across applications.

9to5Mac reports that Apple will moving away from Google Maps services in iOS 6, making the transition to an in-house mapping service that included 3D views. According to the report, Apple's prior acquisitions of mapping companies Placebase and Poly9 are ready to bear fruit, with last year's purchase of 3D mapping firm C3 Technologies rounding out the suite of services.

The most important aspect of the new Maps application is a powerful new 3D mode. The 3D mode does not come enabled by default, but users simply need to click a 3D button that is conveniently and visibly stored in the app. Perhaps under the fold like the current traffic, pin, and map view buttons. This 3D mode is said to essentially be technology straight from C3 Technologies: beautiful, realisitic graphics based on de-classified missile target algorithms.

Apple's in-house mapping services will otherwise be rather similar in appearance to the current Google Maps application, although Apple's implementation is said to be a "much cleaner, faster, and more reliable experience" and will include a new icon based on the same view of the company's Infinite Loop headquarters in Cupertino but with new colors and styling.

Apple has clearly been working for some time to reduce its reliance on Google by developing its own mapping services for iOS, as evidenced by its acquisitions of mapping expertise and job postings addressing its ambitions for mapping. The company has already moved location services in-house and revealed last year that it is building a crowd-sourced traffic database based on users' GPS data.

With the release of iPhoto for iOS back in early March, Apple took its first big step outside of the actual Google mapping services, taking advantage of OpenStreetMap and other services to generate its own map tiles for the application's Photo Journals feature.

Apple is expected to preview iOS 6 at next month's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, with the operating system presumably making its public debut alongside new iPhone hardware later in the year.

Update: AllThingsD says that it has independently confirmed the claim.

We’ve independently confirmed that this is indeed the case. Sources describe the new Maps app as a forthcoming tent-pole feature of iOS that will, in the words of one, “blow your head off.” I’m not quite sure what that means, and the source in question declined to elaborate, but it’s likely a reference to the photorealistic 3-D mapping tech Apple acquired when it purchased C3 Technologies.

China Daily briefly notes (via How To Arena) that Foxconn chairman Terry Gou directly addressed the topic of Apple's rumored television set yesterday at a news conference in Shanghai marking the start of construction on a new company headquarters facility.

According to the report, Gou claimed that Foxconn is making preparations for Apple's television set, with its recent partnership with Sharp to push forward LCD display technology being one of those moves.

Gou said Foxconn is making preparations for iTV, Apple Inc's rumored upcoming high-definition television, although development or manufacturing has yet to begin.

iTV reportedly features an aluminum construction, Siri, and FaceTime video calling

Foxconn's recent 50-50 joint venture factory with Sharp in Japan is one of the preparations made for the new device, Gou added.

Rumors of an Apple television set have been picking up steam since Steve Jobs was quoted in his authorized biography as noting that he had "finally cracked" how to create "the simplest user interface you could imagine" for a television set, presumably referring to Siri voice control.

Update: Foxconn has issued a statement to The Next Web officially denying that Gou made any such comments.

In remarks at a media briefing during the groundbreaking of Foxconn’s new China headquarters in Shanghai on May 10, Terry Gou, Foxconn’s Chief Executive Officer, made it very clear that he would neither confirm nor speculate about Foxconn’s involvement in the production of any product for any customer because Foxconn’s policy is not to comment on any customers or their products.

At no time did he confirm that Foxconn was in development or manufacturing stages for any product for any of its customers. He did say that Foxconn is always prepared to meet the manufacturing needs of customers should they determine that they wish to work with Foxconn in the production of any of their products. Any reports that Foxconn confirmed that it is preparing to produce a specific product for any customer are not accurate.

Apple has released a new update for the generation 2 and 3 Apple TV models. The update allows movies and TV show previews from the iTunes Store to be viewed in HD and fixes a few other minor issues.

Apple TV Software Update 5.0.1

iTunes previews - Previews for movies and TV shows from the iTunes Store can now be viewed in HD.
AirPlay - Fixes an issue that caused some iOS apps to have trouble connecting via AirPlay.
Home Sharing - Improves the reliability of Home Sharing connections.
Netflix - Addresses an issue affecting Netflix login and navigation.
Stability and performance - Includes fixes for issues affecting stability and performance.

The update can be performed directly on the Apple TV by going to the Settings menu, then General, then selecting Update Software.

Apple is continuing the process of preparing OS X Lion for Macs offering ultra high-resolution "HiDPI" screens, upgrading several application icons to higher resolutions in yesterday's public release of OS X 10.7.4.

AppleInsider pointed to TextEdit as one example, with Apple having upgraded its icon's previous maximum size of 512x512 under OS X 10.7.3 to 1024x1024 in OS X 10.7.4. But the larger image 1024x1024 is also listed as measuring at 512x512 points, indicating that it is indeed being targeted for screens measuring at double the resolution of current displays in each dimension.

Under OS X 10.7.3, the TextEdit icon file included four different image sizes: 16x16, 32x32, 128x128, and 512x512. With the move to OS X 10.7.4, the icon now comes in ten different sizes: 16x16, 32x32 HiDPI, 32x32, 64x64 HiDPI, 128x128, 256x256 HiDPI, 256x256, 512x512 HiDPI, 512x512, and 1024x1024 HiDPI.

TextEdit is not the only application to see an upgrade, however, as Automator has not only seen new HiDPI icons appear in OS X 10.7.4, but the icon itself has also undergone some tweaking. In OS X 10.7.4, the Automator robot has taken on a somewhat darker tone, with the glossiness being toned down and the previously silver arms, legs, and pipe now appearing black. The tweaked design had previously surfaced in developer previews of OS X Mountain Lion, but is now included in OS X Lion.

Like TextEdit, Automator has seen an increase in the number of image sizes included in the icon file, although to a smaller extent. Under OS X 10.7.3, the Automator icon included the same four basic sizes: 16x16, 32x32, 128x128, and 512x512. But under OS X 10.7.4, the new icon now comes in six different sizes: 16x16, 32x32, 128x128, 256x256, 512x512, and 1024x1024 HiDPI.

Retina-sized graphics have been appearing with increasing frequency in both OS X Lion and developer previews of OS X Mountain Lion. In line with those changes, Apple has been rumored to be launching a Retina display 15-inch MacBook Pro in the near future, with a 2880x1800 display measuring in at twice the resolution of the current 1440x900 display in each dimension.

As with the move to Retina displays on Apple's iOS devices, content would appear at the same physical size on these new displays as on current displays, but with much sharper image quality for applications bundling resources supporting the HiDPI mode. Even applications that do not immediately update their resources to HiDPI quality should see improvements in sharpness, as Apple will undoubtedly include the same font scaling improvements used in iOS to automatically scale up text in applications to HiDPI resolution.

(Thanks, Mario!)

iMore reports that Apple is "currently targeting" an October launch for a smaller iPad, with the device carrying a display of roughly 7 inches and being priced in the $200-$250 range.

According to our source, which has proven reliable in the past, the reason for such aggressive pricing is to do to the tablet market what Apple did to the MP3 market in 2004 with the expansion of the iPod product line -- leave absolutely no space for competitors.

Interestingly, the report's source claims that the 7-inch iPad will be "identical in every way" to the current iPad with the exception of the display size, apparently including a Retina display. That would give the smaller iPad a pixel density roughly identical to that of the iPhone 4S.

It remains unclear how Apple would be able to meet a $200-$250 price point for the smaller iPad given the apparent specs, although the device will reportedly come with only 8 GB of storage. Still Apple's current iPod touch starts at $199 and this smaller iPad will undoubtedly carry significantly higher component costs.

Reports of a smaller iPad have been circulating ever since the launch of the original iPad, enhanced in recent months by perceived competition from Amazon's $199 Kindle Fire. The sheer number of rumors suggest that Apple has at least been working on such a device, and reports of a planned launch for later this year have been increasing. Most observers have, however, believed that the device would carry a non-Retina display in order to allow Apple to meet lower pricing targets.

iMore has been rather accurate with its recent iOS device rumors, correctly pinpointing the third-generation iPad launch event date back in February and backing claims of LTE compatibility for the device ahead of its launch.

The site has since offered claims of a smaller dock connector for the next-generation iPhone, an idea which has been gaining traction with other rumors. The site has also issued claims of a fall (likely October) launch of an LTE iPhone anticipated to carry the same 3.5-inch display size seen in all iPhone models to date.

Last week, Network World shared a long-lost internal Apple video from 1984 featuring a brief cameo by Steve Jobs in the role of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Given the early 1980s production value and Apple's alternate universe take on its battle with IBM, the video naturally sparked an array of reactions from around the Apple community,

But now another internal Apple video from the same timeframe is gaining some renewed attention for its inclusion of Jobs in another cameo appearance. The video, entitled "Blue Busters", is a spoof of the movie "Ghostbuster" using a reworked version of the film's theme song. And while edited clips of the video including an appearance by Steve Wozniak have been floating around for some time, Network World earlier this week posted an uncut version of the video which includes Jobs' brief appearances.

Jobs' cameos appear at the 3:00 and 4:04 marks in the video, while Wozniak makes an appearance at 2:21.

Apple's "1944" and "Blue Busters" videos demonstrate the company's commitment to taking on IBM in the corporate world, an effort that saw Apple making forays into printers and other peripherals in an attempt to gain a foothold with businesses. But between expensive machines and a lack of software, Apple experienced only limited success despite some devoted fans of its innovations.

Reuters reports on comments from Foxconn chief Terry Gou, who claims that Apple and Foxconn will be splitting the initial costs to improve working conditions at Foxconn's facilities in China.

"We've discovered that this (improving factory conditions) is not a cost. It is a competitive strength," Gou told reporters on Thursday after the ground-breaking ceremony for a new China headquarters in Shanghai.

"I believe Apple sees this as a competitive strength along with us, and so we will split the initial costs."

It was unclear if the split would be 50/50 or in some other ratio.

Foxconn has raised wages several times over the past couple of years as it has faced scrutiny over the treatment of its employees. And following a series of audits, Foxconn and the Fair Labor Association reached an agreement in late March to reduce overtime while boosting compensation packages to compensate for the reduction in hours.

It is unclear how much the actions are costing Apple and Foxconn and how the costs are being split, but with Foxconn operating on a very slim profit margin it has limited ability to finance such improvements without raising costs for its customers or receiving direct support from Apple to assist with the changes.

Two months after the public release of Photoshop Lightroom 4, Adobe has now brought the software to the Mac App Store [Direct Link]. The release marks the most substantial Mac App Store release yet for Adobe, joining Photoshop Elements 10 Editor and Premiere Elements 10 Editor as well as the subscription-based Revel (formerly known as Carousel) in Apple's online marketplace for OS X software.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 is priced at $149.99 in the Mac App Store, identical to Adobe's suggested pricing for the boxed version, although Adobe also offers a $79 boxed upgrade version for users of previous Lightroom versions. Adobe also offers the boxed Lightroom 4 at a discounted $99 when purchased with one of the company's new Creative Suite 6 bundles. Per its standard policy, Apple takes a 30% cut of purchases made through the Mac App Store.

The Creative Suite package has of course been one of the major software titles users have been looking for to come to the Mac App Store, with Microsoft Office being another popular software package high on users' wish lists. And while Adobe has not yet made the leap to offering any of the Creative Suite packages or even standalone applications from those bundles available through the Mac App Store, the addition of Lightroom is certainly a significant step for Adobe in the direction of offering higher-end titles through the marketplace.

Apple today released OS X 10.7.4, the fourth maintenance update to OS X Lion. The update is currently available via Software Update and should appear on Apple's download pages soon.

The 10.7.4 update is recommended for all OS X Lion users and includes general operating system fixes that improve the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac including fixes that:

- Resolve an issue where the “Reopen windows when logging back in” setting is always enabled
- Improve compatibility with certain British third-party USB keyboards
- Address an issue that may prevent files from being saved to a server
- Improve the reliability of copying files to an SMB server

Detailed information is available in the full release notes. Notably, the update also includes a fix for the password security hole detailed earlier this week.

An issue existed in the handling of network account logins. The login process recorded sensitive information in the system log, where other users of the system could read it. The sensitive information may persist in saved logs after installation of this update. See http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4272 for more information about how to securely remove any remaining records. This issue only affects systems running OS X Lion v10.7.3 with users of Legacy File Vault and/or networked home directories.

Available versions include:

- OS X Lion Update 10.7.4 (Client) (692.68 MB)
- OS X Lion Update 10.7.4 (Client Combo) (1.4 GB)

- OS X Lion Update 10.7.4 (Server) Client (738.71 MB)
- OS X Lion Update 10.7.4 (Server) Combo (1.49 GB)
- Server Admin Tools 10.7.4 (212.4 MB)

Apple has also released Security Update 2012-002 to bring security fixes to users running systems with Mac OS X Snow Leopard:

- Security Update 2012-002 (Snow Leopard) (238.73 MB)
- Security Update 2012-001 Server (Snow Leopard) (258.11 MB)

Apple has separately pushed out a Safari 5.1.7 update containing several improvements including disabling out-of-date versions of Adobe Flash Player for security reasons.

Out-of-date versions of Adobe Flash Player do not include the latest security updates and will be disabled to help keep your Mac secure. If Safari 5.1.7 detects an out-of-date version of Flash Player on your system, you will see a dialog informing you that Flash Player has been disabled. The dialog provides the option to go directly to Adobe's website, where you can download and install an updated version of Flash Player.

Finally, Apple has also released Apple Remote Desktop 3.5.3 Client (3.80 MB) to address general compatibility issues.

Apple customers who purchased an iPod between September 12, 2006 and March 31, 2009 are being informed via email that they are being included in a class-action lawsuit filed against Apple in 2004. The lawsuit was granted class-action status by the courts last year and includes millions of customers who purchased any of a broad number of iPod music players. Notices are being distributed to customers covered by the class, directing them to the lawsuit's webpage.

The class-action suit was filed in January 2005 by a customer complaining about the exclusive nature of Apple's digital music offerings encoded with FairPlay, preventing users from playing music purchased from the iTunes Store on other companies' music players and other music stores' digital offerings from being played on iPods. In particular, Apple's efforts to thwart RealNetworks' reverse engineering of FairPlay with its own "Harmony" technology served as the impetus for the lawsuit.

In 2011, then Apple CEO Steve Jobs was instructed to provide a deposition in the case. Apple of course no longer sells DRM-encoded music through the iTunes Store, but the lawsuit argues that Apple sought to build monopolies in the digital music and portable music player markets by integrating its products and services while preventing interoperability with competitors' products.

Three individuals who bought iPods have sued Apple seeking to recover money for themselves and other people who bought iPods. The lawsuit claims that Apple violated federal and state laws by issuing software updates in 2006 for its iPod that prevented iPods from playing songs not purchased on iTunes. The lawsuit claims that the software updates caused iPod prices to be higher than they otherwise would have been.

The Court in charge of the case is the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, and the case is known as In re Apple iPod iTunes Antitrust Litigation, C-05-00037-JW.

The list of affected iPods is extensive, including all 5th generation iPods; the iPod Classic; the U2 Special Edition iPod; first, second and third generation iPod Shuffle models; first and second generation iPod Touch models; and, first, second, third and fourth generation iPod Nano models.

Customers who wish to be excluded from the class must inform the court by July 30, 2012. Members of the class who wish register with the court can sign up on the lawsuit's website.

With the introduction of its new ENVY Spectre XT Ultrabook today, HP is finding itself defending the lightweight notebook's design as observers have raised comparisons to Apple's MacBook Air. The issue was addressed directly in a Q&A session with HP design executive Stacy Wolff, with Engadget reporting on Wolff's response to a question speculating that Apple might try to sue over the design. Wolff argued:

I would go back to the TC1000 [Tablet PC] from about 10 years, and that's a tablet. I think if you look at the new Spectre XT, there are similarities in a way, not due to Apple but due to the way technologies developed. Apple may like to think that they own silver, but they don't. In no way did HP try to mimic Apple. In life there are a lot of similarities.

Engadget followed up with Wolff after the session, and he offered some more thoughts on how there are only so many solutions to a given design problem and how HP's design differs from Apple's.

The thing is that you have to design what's right, and that is that sometimes the wedge is the right solution, silver is the right solution. I see a lot of differences as much as the similarities. I think anybody that's close enough to the business sees that there are differences in the design. Ours is rubber-coated at the bottom. We use magnesium; they didn't do that -- they use CNC aluminum. We did a brush pattern on our product; they didn't. We did a different kind of keyboard execution. We did audio as a component; they didn't. So there are a lot of things I can list off that are differences; but if you want to look at a macro level, there are a lot of similarities to everything in the market that's an Ultrabook today. It is not because those guys did it first; it's just that's where the form factor is leading it.

Wolff goes on to cite the "form follows function" argument in claiming that there are only so many ways internal components can fit into a notebook and that the wedge shape is a natural result of how those physical constraints manifest themselves in a usable product design.

Responding to comments about the black "chiclet" keyboard on silver body being similar to Apple's implementation, Wolff notes that a simple color choice doesn't amount to copying and that HP's work with chiclet-style keyboards dates back to the mid-1980s.

HP is far from the first ultrabook manufacturer to be the subject of questions about potentially copying Apple's MacBook Air. Most notably, ASUS was one of the first company's to show off an ultrabook design in the middle of last year, with that design bearing an even more remarkable similarity to the MacBook Air. PC manufacturers have been rushing to bring ultrabooks to the market, now taking advantage of Intel's new Ivy Bridge processors in an effort to take on the MacBook Air in what is predicted to be the future of notebook computing.

Digitimes has had a hit-or-miss track record when it comes to Apple rumors, but with the site having offered some accurate information in the past, its claims continue to be closely watched. In its latest report, the site lays out a timeline for Apple's iPhone and iPad plans for the remainder of the year, basing its claims on sources within Apple's supply chain.

The report focuses on Pegatron, which has served as an alternate assembly partner to Foxconn for a number of Apple products. According to Digitimes, Pegatron has landed orders for both a new iPhone planned to launch in September and a new iPad scheduled to debut "in the fourth quarter".

The iPhone claim appears to be a reasonable one given current thinking that Apple will return to a roughly one-year interval between iPhone updates, with a September launch coming just under a year after the early October introduction of the iPhone 4S last year.

But the iPad claim is a more troublesome one, as Apple has so far stuck to a yearly schedule for iPad hardware updates centered around the March-April timeframe. A late 2012 release of a new "10-inch iPad" presumably arriving as a next-generation version of the current device would mark a significantly shorter lifecycle for the current model than would be expected.

Similar rumors of a late-year iPad update surfaced last year before being quashed amid reports that work on the new Retina display would keep Apple on its yearly update cycle.

Digitimes makes one final claim in its latest report, indicating that Foxconn will be a manufacturing partner for a smaller 7-inch iPad, which is planned for release in August. Claims of such a device have been circulating for some time with some reports similarly pointing to a Q3 launch, and it seems likely that Apple has at least toyed with the idea. It is unclear, however, whether the company truly has any intentions of bringing it out of its design lab.