MacRumors

Last week, Qualcomm chief marketing officer Anand Chandrasekher called Apple's new 64-bit A7 processor a "marketing gimmick" and claimed the processor had very few consumer-driven features.

Today, Qualcomm is backing away from those comments, according to Macworld. A company spokesperson issued this statement to the magazine:

"The comments made by Anand Chandrasekher, Qualcomm CMO, about 64-bit computing were inaccurate," said a Qualcomm spokesperson in an email. "The mobile hardware and software ecosystem is already moving in the direction of 64-bit; and, the evolution to 64-bit brings desktop class capabilities and user experiences to mobile, as well as enabling mobile processors and software to run new classes of computing devices."

64-bit processing marks a major advance for mobile CPU-makers and will be extremely important for Qualcomm going forward, as the firm has announced that it too is working on such chips. Given the flurry of attention regarding Chandrasekher's comments and Qualcomm's own ambitions in the area, it makes sense for the company to try to walk back the "marketing gimmick" remarks.

The iPad mini and the fourth-generation iPad have the most responsive touch screens, according to a new set of TouchMark benchmarks from cloud streaming company Agawi.

In its latest TouchMark test, Agawi tested the screen latencies of several different tablets, including the iPads, the Microsoft Surface RT, the Kindle Fire HD, the Nexus 7, the Galaxy Tab 3, and the Nvidia SHIELD.

Apple's iPad mini had the lowest Minimum App Response Time (MART), coming in at 75 milliseconds. The fourth-generation iPad came in second at 81, and the fastest Android tablet was the NVIDIA Shield at 92. Samsung's Galaxy Tab 3 had the worst response time, at 168 milliseconds.

In a result that's perhaps now unsurprising, the iOS devices are more responsive than its competitors. Interestingly, the iPad mini – with its smaller screen and 1024×768 resolution – performs similarly to the larger fourth generation iPad and its 2048×1536 resolution, suggesting that responsiveness is not reduced by the larger screen size or resolution.

Our previous speculations continue to apply – more responsive devices may process touches earlier in the stack, poll for touches more frequently or have touchscreens optimized or calibrated to be more responsive. In our latest review of our test apps, we discovered an optimization that suggests that the GPU or GPU drivers in the devices might also add significant latency.

To obtain MART scores for each of the tablets, Agawi used a 240fps high frame rate camera along with a custom-built device called a Touchscope. The MART is the latency experienced between the time that a user touches the device display to the device's on-screen response time.

Previously, Agawi measured the response time of Apple's iPhone 5 compared to several other Android and Windows smartphones, with the iPhone 5 demonstrating a MART time of 55 milliseconds, which is significantly faster than even its own iPads.

Dating back to the launch of the original iPad in early 2010, Microsoft has been considering the possibility of releasing a version of its Office productivity suite for the tablet platform. But despite repeated claims of an imminent launch, the only iOS release so far has been an Office Mobile app for iPhone available for subscribers to the company's Office 365 service.

The most recent word on Office for iPad came back in April, when a leaked roadmap indicated that the next major version of Office was due to ship in spring 2014, with an iPad version arriving in the fall of that year.

Microsoft does indeed appear to be waiting to launch the next major version of its main Office suite before launching an iPad version, as The Verge reports that outgoing Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer today revealed that Office will come to the iPad once a "touch first" interface is ready. That interface will reportedly be arriving on the next version of Office for Windows.

Speaking at a Gartner event in Florida today, Ballmer said "iPad will be picked up when there's a touch first user interface." That touch first interface appears to be making its way to the Windows version of Office first, with the iPad edition to follow afterwards. Ballmer noted the touch first interface is "in progress." [...]

Microsoft's head of applications and services, Qi Lu, also commented on touch versions of Office at an analyst meeting recently. Lu said the company is "working on touch-first versions for our core apps in the Office suite," and that Microsoft will "bring these apps to Windows devices, and also to other devices in ways that meet out customers' needs."

The timing for an Office for iPad release remains unclear based on these most recent developments, but they appear to be consistent with the previously leaked roadmap, which would put the Office for iPad launch into late next year.

Samsung has failed to win a presidential veto overturning a looming import ban on several of its older mobile devices, reports Bloomberg. The ban is based on a verdict in a U.S. International Trade Commission case in which the company was ruled to have infringed upon patents held by Apple.

“After carefully weighing policy considerations, including the impact on consumers and competition, advice from agencies, and information from interested parties, I have decided to allow” the import ban to proceed, Obama’s designee, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, said in a statement today.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative last month vetoed a similar ban that had been issued against Apple over Samsung patents. That order was the first such veto since 1987 and came amid increasing calls for less reliance on the threat of barring product imports as part of patent litigation strategies. In particular, Samsung's wielding of "standards essential" patents covering basic functions of the device necessary for its operation was seen as overly aggressive when such patents are required to be licensed under reasonable terms.

Samsung had argued that its ban should be overturned on grounds similar to those cited in the Apple ban veto, but Froman disagreed, noting that Samsung had already released several devices with approved workarounds for the features that had been ruled to be infringing upon Apple's patents.

Samsung may still seek a delay in the import ban, but that will require a full review of the case on legal ground by a U.S. appeals court.

National Geographic photographer Jim Richardson took his iPhone 5s to Scotland and, after taking 4,000 photographs, called the camera on the device "very capable" with pictures that "didn’t look like I was having to settle for second best because it was a mobile phone".

Apple's Phil Schiller tweeted a link to the article this evening, commenting "iPhoneography".

With intense use (I’ve made about 4,000 pictures in the last four days) I’ve discovered that the iPhone 5S is a very capable camera. The color and exposures are amazingly good, the HDR exposure feature does a stunningly good job in touch situations, the panorama feature is nothing short of amazing—seeing a panorama sweeping across the screen in real time is just intoxicating. Best of all it shoots square pictures natively, a real plus for me since I wanted to shoot for Instagram posting.

Once I figured out what the camera could do well I began to forget all the things it couldn’t do at all.

While the iPhone 5s still uses an 8-megapixel camera, it utilizes a sensor that has a 15 percent larger surface area, which means it will produce higher quality photos in low-light conditions. It also has a 5-element lens with an aperture of f/2.2, an improvement over the iPhone 5's f/2.4 aperture and the pixels are larger, at 1.5 microns, for better light absorption. All in all, the iPhone 5s has a 33 percent increase in light sensitivity.

Interested readers can follow Jim Richardson's Instagram page at @jimrichardsonng or #proofscotland from the Instagram iOS app. The full post from National Geographic's Proof blog has more images as well.

Following last week's news that iTunes Radio would be expanding to Canada within the next few months, Bloomberg is reporting that Apple plans expand the service to the U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand by early 2014, ahead of competitor Pandora’s own expansion. The expansion could also include Nordic countries.

Apple Inc. plans to expand iTunes Radio to English-speaking countries outside the U.S. by early 2014, beating industry leader Pandora Media Inc. to the U.K. and Canada, people with knowledge of the situation said.

ITunes Radio is also set to start early next year in Australia and New Zealand, where Pandora already operates, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public. Nordic countries are also being targeted in the same time frame, the people said.

According to Bloomberg, Apple is able to roll out its service to additional countries more quickly than Pandora because it has already signed international rights deals with Universal Music Group and other record companies. Pandora, however, relies on rights "granted by government entities" which limits its service to the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand.

First introduced alongside iOS 7 in September, iTunes Radio is currently limited to listeners in the United States, though users in other countries can skirt restrictions with a U.S. iTunes account.

Apple's senior vice president of Internet software and services Eddy Cue has said that launching iTunes Radio worldwide is a top priority for the company, with Apple ultimately aiming to have the service "in more than 100 countries."

Apple updated its investor relations page today to note that it will announce its earnings for the fourth fiscal quarter (third calendar quarter) of 2013 on Monday, October 28. The earnings release typically occurs just after 4:30 PM Eastern Time following the close of regular stock trading, and the conference call is scheduled to follow at 5:00 PM Eastern / 2:00 PM Pacific.

MacRumors will provide running coverage of the earnings release and conference call.

The release will provide an early look into iPhone 5s and 5c sales across their first weeks of availability, as well as updates on the new products announced at WWDC. Apple's stock price is down some 8.3 percent year-to-date and roughly $180/share off its highs of last year. Analysts have continuing concerns about Apple's ability to innovate without Steve Jobs, though the current price is up quite a bit from the previous earnings call.

In its third-quarter earnings call, Apple guided expected revenue of $34-37 billion and gross margin between 36 and 37 percent for the fourth quarter. If Apple makes the low revenue number, it will have generated more than $167 billion in earnings for the 2013 fiscal year, a rise of more than $10 billion from 2012.

Both LG and Samsung plan to release phones that feature curved displays in the near future, reports Reuters. Flexible curved displays, which have been utilized in television sets, are a developing technology for smartphones and other consumer electronic devices.

Curved displays are in the early stages of development and allow bendable or foldable designs that could eventually allow mobile and wearable gadgets to take new forms that could radically change the high-end smartphone market.

Apple has been rumored to be working on curved displays for several years, with rumors from 2011 suggesting the company could debut a curved glass iPhone. A patent for such a device was published in March of this year, depicting a phone with a wraparound body.

The debut of LG and Samsung's initial curved display products will provide a glimpse of what the future could hold for upcoming smartphones and other electronic devices, including the iWatch.

LG's smartphone is said to utilize a 6-inch display that curves from top to bottom, while Samsung's will curve from side to side. Both displays are built on a plastic substrate that allows them to bend and flex, and according to LG, its display will be among the world's thinnest mobile panels.

While the phones incorporate displays that bend, it is unclear whether the finished smartphones themselves will be flexible or rigid, similar to the impliable designs used in television sets from both companies.

Samsung's smartphone will launch in October, while LG's will come slightly later, in November. Apple's iWatch is not expected to debut before late 2014.

Sharp has announced that its 32" 4K touchscreen monitor will eventually have drivers for full OS X touchscreen support, reports Japanese site Mac Otakara [Google Translate] (via 9to5Mac).

The display, which is aimed at retail/commercial applications (PDF), sports a 3840x2160 IGZO LCD panel and includes a capacitative touch interface and pen support. Sharp demonstrated the display running off an Apple notebook at the CEATEC Japan trade show earlier this month.

Sharp demonstrated the panel at CES earlier this year, though it wasn't running OS X at the time: