MacRumors

The Fair Labor Association (FLA) today announced the release of a status report outlining progress that has made since the group's initial high-profile audits of several Foxconn facilities in China serving as assembly plants for Apple products. In follow-up visits to the plants in late June and early July, the FLA found that Foxconn has made a number of changes to help meet the group's recommendations for improving working conditions.

“Our verification shows that the necessary changes, including immediate health and safety measures, have been made. We are satisfied that Apple has done its due diligence thus far to hold Foxconn accountable for complying with the action plan, including the commitment to reform its internship program,” said Auret van Heerden, President and CEO of the Fair Labor Association. “When we finished our initial investigation in March, Foxconn promised to address concerns with its internship program by ensuring that student interns do not work overtime, their work has a more direct connection to their field of study, and they understand that they are free to terminate the internship if and when they wish.”

Foxconn has also begun taking steps toward meeting working hour goals by July 2013, already moving to limit workers to 60 hours per week including overtime and making plans to reduce hours further to 40 regular hours and nine overtime hours per week while still protecting worker salaries.

“The verification confirmed that Apple and Foxconn are ahead of schedule in improving the conditions under which some of the world's most popular electronics are being made,” said van Heerden. “Apple and Foxconn’s progress since the March assessment, combined with the additional actions planned through July 2013, would create the roadmap for all Chinese suppliers in the tech industry.”

Human Rights First, one of the groups backing the FLA, has also acknowledges that significant progress has been made at Foxconn's facilities in China, but also continues to push Apple to hold all of its suppliers to similar standards.

“Foxconn has completed nearly 80 percent of the FLA actions recommended in March. They are ahead of schedule in implementing many of the changes necessary to ensure the health and welfare of Foxconn employees and bring the company’s work conditions into compliance with basic human rights standards,” said Human Rights First’s Meg Roggensack. “This is a win for the employees of Foxconn and for the FLA’s new assessment process. Now, Apple must continue to take steps that ensure all workers within its supply chain have access to these same standards.”

Full details on the Fair Labor Association's status report are available on the group's site, and Apple offers its own information on supplier responsibility on its site. According to Apple, tracking of over 700,000 workers throughout the company's supply chain reveals that 97% of worker weeks were compliant with the current 60-hour maximum standard in July, up well over ten percentage points since the beginning of the year.

TechCrunch reports that it has received word from a Verizon employee that the carrier is imposing a company-wide vacation blackout from September 21 through the end of the month, a timeframe in line with the rumored September 21 launch for the next-generation iPhone in the United States. Apple is expected to introduce the new iPhone with a media event on September 12.

A trusted Verizon employee has just confirmed to TechCrunch that the carrier is having an all-staff vacation blackout from the dates of Friday, September 21 to the following Friday, September 30. You know what that means, right?

Similar blackouts have been instituted around the launch of previous iPhone models and other high-profile Apple products, although these blackouts are sometimes subject to change or extension depending on Apple's exact plans.

Earlier this month, we pointed to testing by Ars Technica showing that upgrading to OS X Mountain Lion on a test Retina MacBook Pro substantially degraded its battery life. The testing showed a 38% decrease in battery life, moving from eight hours of battery life on a single charge under OS X Lion to just five hours under OS X Mountain Lion.

Softpedia now reports that it has heard from one developer claiming that OS X 10.8.1, which entered developer testing just days after Ars Technica's report, does indeed address this battery life issue.

“Until I installed 10.8.1, my MacBook was showing 4h:05m after a full charge,” he said, referring to the amount of time before the battery would deplete completely.

“After installing 10.8.1 it's showing over 8h,” he said. “I'm now able to use my Mac throughout the day again without having to carry my charger,” said the happy developer.

Another report from Apple's discussion forums describes a similar major boost to battery life under OS X 10.8.1, but results from our own forums are less clear. Several users have reported no changes to their battery life while others suggest that there has been some improvement, but it appears that specific testing by those who were affected by the Mountain Lion battery life drop has not been well-documented.

OS X 10.8.1 will be the first maintenance release for OS X Mountain Lion, and such updates are generally pushed quickly through the development and testing processes in order to address the most severe bugs cropping up with the initial public releases of new operating systems. Significant battery life issues would seem to qualify as something Apple would want to address in this update, but the company has not specifically addressed the topic in release notes or other documentation associated with the test builds being distributed.

Samsung today announced that it will spend roughly $4 billion to revamp some of its existing facilities in Austin, Texas in order to boost production of its system-on-a-chip platforms that power a number of mobile devices including Apple's iOS products.

The funds will be used to renovate its existing fabrication operations to accommodate full System LSI production.

The remodeled fabrication line will mainly produce state-of-the-art mobile SoCs on 300mm wafers at the 28nm process node.

Starting work this month, the project is scheduled to initiate mass production within the second half of 2013. About 2,500 construction workers and equipment vendors will be at the site to retrofit the facility and set up the equipment.

As noted by the Austin American-Statesman, Samsung will be converting older facilities currently used for memory chip production.

Although Samsung does not say exactly who it is making the new chips for, technology industry analysts say the Austin factory is a key maker of low-power system chips.

The two key customers of the Austin fab, analysts say, are almost certain to be Apple Inc., which depends on Samsung to make essential smartphone chips, and Samsung's own smartphone business.

Austin is already a hub for both Samsung's system-on-a-chip production and Apple, with Samsung having opened a new factory dedicated to production of Apple's A5 chips just last December and Apple currently pursing a major expansion of its existing presence in the city.

As noted by The Next Web, UK communications regulator Ofcom today announced that it has awarded permission to carrier Everything Everywhere to begin using its existing 1800 MHz spectrum to offer LTE and WiMAX services beginning on September 11.

In a statement on its website, Ofcom announced that it had approved Everything Everywhere’s request to rebrand its 1800MHz spectrum to deliver 4G services from September 11, 2012, highlighting that as a result it would be able to deliver “significant benefits to consumers, and that there is no material risk that those benefits will be outweighed by a distortion of competition.“

It will take some time for Everything Everywhere, which currently operates the Orange and T-Mobile brands in the UK, to roll out the service, but a number of of observers have already pointed out that the effective date comes just one day prior to Apple's all-but-confirmed media event to introduce the next-generation iPhone.

The current-generation iPad only supports LTE over 700 MHz and 2100 MHz frequencies, and Apple will need to support several other frequency bands if it wishes to support LTE service in major markets outside of the existing iPad compatibility in the U.S. and Canada. Just last week, Korean carriers reported that they were talking to Apple about supporting LTE service on their 800 MHz and 1800 MHz bands.

While Everything Everywhere is undoubtedly pleased by Ofcom's ruling giving it early permission to offer LTE service, The Verge notes that the carrier's competitors (Vodafone, Three and O2) are less enthusiastic as they look toward the UK's main auction of 800 MHz and 2600 MHz bands early next year, arguing that Everything Everywhere's advantage will distort the competitive landscape in the UK mobile market.

Digitimes reports that the long-rumored 7.85" iPad will begin volume production in September with a target of 4 million units per month.

Supply volume of Apple's 7.85-inch iPad is estimated to reach four million units per month starting in September in order to prepare for demand from year-end holidays, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.

The goal is said to launch the new device before the 2012 holiday season.

The timing is consistent with previous rumors that Apple would be ramping production in September. iMore reported back in May that Apple was targetting an October launch for the smaller iPad with a target price in the $200-$250 range. iMore also lumped in the iPad Mini to be announced alongside the next iPhone on the rumored September 12th media event.

The September 12th date seems certain for an Apple media event as it has been verified by a number of publications. Apple has yet to officially announce an event, however.

While a number of part leaks have already revealed what to expect in the next iPhone, iPad mini parts have been quite scarce. This seemingly late ramp up in production may have been intentionally timed by Apple to correspond with their launch media event in order to prevent as many leaks for this new device.

Digital advocacy organization Public Knowledge has accused AT&T of violating FCC rules on net neutrality with its new policy regarding the use of FaceTime over Cellular. AT&T announced late last week that it will only allow users on its new Mobile Share data plans to use the new FaceTime over Cellular service in iOS 6.

A senior staff lawyer for Public Knowledge told the New York Times that it felt AT&T was violating FCC rules that service providers not "block applications that compete with the provider's voice or video telephony services." John Bergmayer, lawyer for the organization, noted that "there is no technical reason why one data plan should be able to access FaceTime and another not."

The same argument could be made for tethering the iPhone to a laptop -- however, it isn't clear what AT&T service Public Knowledge feels FaceTime is competing with. The rule in question is designed to prevent ISP's from blocking things like VoIP apps or Netflix that compete with their own products.

An AT&T spokesperson issued the following statement about the allegations:

FaceTime is available to all of our customers today over Wi-Fi, and we’re now expanding its availability even further as an added benefit of our new Mobile Share data plans.

The FCC had no comment about the matter, and iPhone owners will not be affected by the policy until FaceTime over Cellular is enabled in iOS 6 later this year.

Following up on last week's photos of iPad mini and next-generation iPhone parts including Apple's new, smaller dock connector and the bottom-mounted headphone jack, parts and repair firm iResQ has taken the iPhone part and placed it in a rear shell obtained from a separate source.

The two parts fit together extremely well, with screw holes and components lining up perfectly. While the fit is not conclusive evidence of the legitimacy of these parts, it does provide additional confidence that they are intended to be used together. The photos also provide a better idea of what the next iPhone will look like when viewed from the bottom, with the significantly smaller dock connector making room for the headphone jack and a larger speaker grille along the bottom edge of the device.

A number of parts claimed to be for the next-generation iPhone have already leaked, giving a good idea of what the device with its taller 4-inch display will look like. One of the key parts observers have been waiting for is the device's logic board, and while photos of one did leak earlier this month, most of the details were obscured by shielding on the part.

Apple is expected to introduce the next-generation iPhone on September 12, with the "iPad mini" potentially seeing an introduction on the same date, although some sources have speculated that Apple will wait to introduce the smaller iPad at a later date.

With Apple opening a pair of new Canadian retail stores this past weekend in Halifax, Nova Scotia and Coquitlam, British Columbia, The Loop shares some fresh data on the company's retail chain performance.

Following the two grand openings this weekend, Apple now has 375 stores worldwide, and Apple notes that those stores have seen nearly 300 million visitors so far this year, or roughly 3500 visitors per store per day. Those numbers obviously vary significantly from store-to-store and day-to-day, but the company clearly continues to attract both new and existing customers to test drive Apple's products, make purchases, and seek support.

While meeting with Apple, I was able to get a few details about how the retail operation is going overall.

According to Apple, the company has seen almost 300 million worldwide visitors so far in 2012. To give you some type of comparison, by July 2011, the population of the United States was estimated to be 311 million people.

On the support side, Apple now reports that the company's retail store Genius Bars are now serving 50,000 users per day, or about 130 per store per day.

Apple has been working hard to meet surging demand for its retail stores, opening new stores on a regular basis and expanding or replacing some of its smaller outdated locations. The company has also been looking for ways to increase Genius Bar availability at its existing stores, increasing multitasking demands on its staff several years ago and even mocking up redesigned Genius Bars that could serve more customers at a time.

Update: The Loop has clarified that the store visitor numbers refer to fiscal 2012 rather than calendar 2012, meaning that the company is seeing closer to 2500 visitors per day at its stores on average.

Late last week, jailbreak hacker pod2g disclosed an issue with the way Apple's iOS handles optional headers in SMS messages, a vulnerability that could allow users to be targeted by SMS spoofing that makes messages appear to originate from people other than the actual senders. While SMS spoofing is certainly not new and can be performed through various services, this specific issue in the handling of reply-to addresses could be addressed fairly easily by Apple.

Engadget reported over the weekend that it had obtained a statement from Apple on the issue, with Apple simply touting its iMessage service as a more secure alternative to SMS.

Apple takes security very seriously. When using iMessage instead of SMS, addresses are verified which protects against these kinds of spoofing attacks. One of the limitations of SMS is that it allows messages to be sent with spoofed addresses to any phone, so we urge customers to be extremely careful if they're directed to an unknown website or address over SMS.

iMessage is of course an Apple-specific messaging service, and is thus only compatible with iOS devices running iOS 5 or later and Macs running OS X Mountain Lion. Consequently, it is generally not possible for users to entirely replace their SMS usage with iMessage. Apple has also not committed to making any changes in how it handles reply-to addresses for SMS, so it is unknown whether they will be directly addressing the issue.

Milestones for Apple's stock are falling rapidly in recent days, with another strong performance today pushing Apple past Microsoft for the title of most valuable publicly-trade stock ever, a distinction Microsoft has held since December 1999.

Microsoft's market capitalization peaked on December 30, 1999, reaching an intraday high of $119.94 per share. With Microsoft having documented 5,160,024,593 outstanding shares as of October 31, 1999 in its quarterly earnings report, the company would have had a market capitalization of $618.89 billion on December 30.

Apple's most recent quarterly filing listed 937,406,000 outstanding shares as of July 13, 2012, and with the company's stock price hitting $660.73 today, its market capitalization reached $619.37 billion.

While Apple now holds the all-time market capitalization record in terms of raw numbers, accounting for inflation would still allow Microsoft to retain the title by a fairly wide margin. In inflation-adjusted terms, Microsoft's $618.89 market capitalization in December 1999 would be equivalent to roughly $842.5 billion in today's dollars.

Apple's market capitalization title is also subject to several other caveats, perhaps most notably being PetroChina's trillion dollar market cap it achieved when it launched for trading on the Shanghai stock exchange in 2007. That figure comes with its own qualifications, however, as PetroChina is a government-dominated firm that saw only 2% of its shares being made available on the Shanghai exchange. Trading in PetroChina shares on the Hong Kong exchange and American depositary receipts on the New York Stock Exchange never supported the trillion dollar valuation the company received on the Shanghai exchange.

Update: Apple's stock closed at $665.15 today, giving the company a market capitalization of $623.5 billion.

With Apple and Samsung having concluded their presentations for the jury in the high-profile U.S. court case over patent and design issues, Bloomberg reports that Apple CEO Tim Cook and Samsung CEO Kwon Oh Hyun will talk one last time in an effort to settle or at least narrow their differences before jury deliberations begin as soon as tomorrow.

The companies’ lawyers will report to U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in federal court in San Jose, California, on the outcome of today’s telephone discussion between Apple’s Tim Cook and Samsung’s Kwon Oh Hyun, according to the person, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. [...]

As testimony in the trial drew to a close, Koh asked that the CEOs talk, and said she was “pathologically optimistic” they could settle claims over patents for smartphones and tablet computers.

Senior executives of the two companies met several times leading up to the trial and were unable to reach an agreement, but Samsung is now operating under new CEO Kwon, who was elevated to the position in early June as part of an executive reshuffling.

Apple estimates that it should be owed roughly $2.5 billion in damages based on sales of Samsung devices it claims infringed upon Apple's patents and trade dress, while Samsung claims that Apple owes approximately $400 million in licensing fees for 3G-related patents based on a royalty rate of 2.4% per unit sold. Apple has claimed that the licensing fees for the standards-essential patents should be significantly lower.

UBreakiFix has received these photos of the full front panel of the next generation iPhone from one of their distributors.

The parts don't appear to be particularly revealing. We've seen similar components before with the exception of a close look at the new iPhone's LCD screen.

The new screen is said to have increased to 4" in diagonal (up from 3.5") while preserving the same pixel density as the current iPhone design. This would provide apps with additional screen space to fill. UBreakiFix also provided a zoomed in photo of the top area with serial numbers and LCD connector.

The new iPhone is expected to be launched on September 12th.

Photos of parts for the next-generation iPhone and the rumored iPad mini continue to leak, with repair firm iResQ posting new photos of what are said to be the dock connector/headphone jack flex cable parts for both devices. Each of the parts is available in both black and white, indicating that Apple will be coordinating the dock with the bodies of the devices.

Like the photo that leaked earlier this week, the iPad mini parts curiously show the headphone jack at the bottom of the device. That placement is inconsistent with case leaks and other claims made thus far, which have indicated that the jack would be at the top of the device as on the full-size iPad.

These new iPad mini part photos also reveal a newer part number than seen on the previous part leak. These new photos appear to carry a part number of 821-1516, while the photo leaked early this week carried a part number of 821-1476. These iPad mini parts are the first interior components of the device to appear, and while they have not been confirmed to be for the device in question they are consistent with Apple parts and are too large to fit inside an iPhone.

A second photo also offers a close-up interior look at the dock connector port, showing where the eight gold pins on the claimed dock cable and accessories will make contact. The number of pins for the dock connector has been in dispute, with some suggesting that the metal surrounding the pins on the connector could act as a ninth pin.

Update: MacRumors has received more info from iResQ about the new dock connector port. The site tells us that "there is just one set of eight contacts inside of the port" with "none on the top side".