MacRumors

Apple's longtime camera sensor supplier for iOS devices, Omnivision Technologies, has announced a new 8-megapixel sensor which claims to be 20 percent slimmer than any other 8-megapixel module in commercial use today.

"With our new OmniBSI-2 architecture, we have further miniaturized our pixels while delivering a 20 percent improvement in peak quantum efficiency in all color channels, a 35 percent improvement in low-light sensitivity and a 45 percent increase in full-well capacity in an extremely compact and power efficient package," said Per Rosdahl, senior product manager at OmniVision. "This 1.1-micron OmniBSI-2 pixel enables the next generation of miniaturization in mobile cameras, and is key to the high-resolution smartphone camera roadmap."

The new camera module should pave the way to thinner smartphone designs which has always been a priority for Apple. Apple has used Omnivision's technology in the past and presently uses it in the iPhone 4. Omnivision has also been heavily rumored to be one of two suppliers for an 8-megapixel camera sensor in the iPhone 5.

Based on the press release, however, this particular sensor may not be ready in time for the iPhone 5's release which is expected in October. Sampling of this new part begins in August with mass production expected in the first quarter of 2012.

For reference this new part has a build height of 4.7mm. The current iPhone 4 5MP back-side camera has been measured to be 6.5mm.

AllThingsD summarizes a Chinese language report that originally appeared at Sohu.com.

The original report claimed that China Telecom had reached a preliminary agreement with Apple to begin selling two new versions of the iPhone before the end of October.

“According to Sohu.com, China Telecom will offer two types of iPhone that include the iPhone 5 and a ‘simplified iPhone 4,’” says White. “Essentially, this potential ‘simplified iPhone 4′ would be a more economical version of iPhone to target a broader customer base in developing countries such as China, allowing for an expanded market opportunity.”

The report claims there will be two new iPhones: the iPhone 5 and a "simplified" iPhone 4. The simplified iPhone 4 is expected to be a cheaper version of the current iPhone to target the low-end market. While there have been multiple reports that China Telecom will be selling the iPhone later this year, this is the first that specifies the types of models that the carrier will be selling.

This isn't the first time we've heard suggestion that Apple will be launching a lower cost iPhone 4. Previous claims have included a move to cheaper components to reduce the cost of the device. Meanwhile, other claims have suggested that Apple might keep the iPhone 3GS around as a free with contract option. It's important to note that the Chinese market is quite unique from the rest of the iPhone market, and it may get its own distinct models. Apple originally sold Wi-Fi disabled iPhones in China.

Find My Mac has gone live for developers beta testing Apple's iCloud service. Find My Mac was officially added to Lion in Developer Preview 4, released after WWDC in June, though evidence of the feature had leaked in prior releases.

Find My Mac is very similar to Find My iPhone, only because the Mac has no GPS functionality, it seems likely the feature relies solely on nearby Wi-Fi networks to determine the computer's location.

Once it finds the lost Mac, users can send a message, remotely lock the screen, or even wipe out the entire drive. Find My Mac may launch this fall with the general release of iCloud.

Google believes Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies are waging a "hostile, organized campaign against Android" though "bogus patents", according to a post on the Official Google Blog:

They’re doing this by banding together to acquire Novell’s old patents (the “CPTN” group including Microsoft and Apple) and Nortel’s old patents (the “Rockstar” group including Microsoft and Apple), to make sure Google didn’t get them; seeking $15 licensing fees for every Android device; attempting to make it more expensive for phone manufacturers to license Android (which we provide free of charge) than Windows Mobile; and even suing Barnes & Noble, HTC, Motorola, and Samsung. Patents were meant to encourage innovation, but lately they are being used as a weapon to stop it.

The post, written by David Drummond, Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer at Google, also attacks Microsoft and Apple's $4.5 billion winning bid for Nortel's portfolio (which is currently under investigation by the Department of Justice on antitrust grounds), saying the patent war is "escalating the cost of patents way beyond what they’re really worth." Google's final losing bid for Nortel's patent assets was around $4 billion.

A few weeks ago, it was rumored that Apple and Google were weighing competing bids for InterDigital, a mobile-technology firm that has an extensive wireless patent portfolio. That portfolio could sell for billions as well.

Back in June, department store chain J.C. Penney announced that it had named Apple retail boss Ron Johnson as its next Chief Executive Officer, with Johnson set to take the new job as of November 1st. Johnson has played an instrumental role at Apple over the past decade, overseeing the company's entire retail store initiative since joining Apple from discount retailer Target in 2000.

As part of its efforts to find a replacement for Johnson, Apple has reportedly extended its reach internationally with the hiring of search firm Egon Zehnder to assist with the search, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Chief Executive Steve Jobs, who's now on medical leave, was extensively involved in the decision to use a search firm and chose Egon Zehnder mainly because he wants to consider executives who are based abroad, one person familiar with the situation said.

Apple's hiring of the global recruitment firm suggests that the company may be seeking an executive with international retail experience. That makes sense given that it has been focusing most of its recent retail expansion in international markets.

Apple's emphasis on international retail stores over the past several years has seen the international component of the company's retail arm grow to nearly 30% of the over 325 total stores. Apple currently operates retail stores in ten countries beyond the United States, and is in the midst of a significant push to open 30 more stores before the end of September.

Apple's "Greater China" market of China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong has been a major focus for the company over the last year or two, although Apple has been relatively slow to open new stores there as the company currently operates only four stores in the country, all of which rank among the busiest in the company's chain. Apple last year announced plans to open up to 25 new stores in China during the following 24 months, but the company has opened only three locations since that time as it has worked hard to identify the best locations and to make plans for larger and more iconic stores than originally anticipated.

One of Intel's major new initiatives has been to push its processors down into more energy-efficient designs over the next few years. The first step in the process was introducing a new class of laptops dubbed "Ultrabooks". The first Ultrabook demoed was an ASUS model that bore a close resemblance to the MacBook Air, and Intel feels that these ultra-thin and light laptops could make up 40% of the consumer laptop market by the end of 2012.

DigiTimes reports, however, that manufacturers are having trouble pricing their new machines under Apple's MacBook Air, raising concerns about their prospects for market success.

The sources pointed out that the new MacBook Airs are priced at about US$999-1,599 with rather strong demand in the US; however, designing an ultrabook based on Intel's technical suggestions will still be unable to reduce the machine's price level to lower than the MacBook Air's unless Intel is willing to reduce its prices, which already account for one-third of the total cost.

Intel's effort to match the MacBook Air's thin profile has seen the company push forward its new platform with more components integrated directly onto the machines' circuit boards and using non user-replaceable batteries, mirroring Apple's own steps. Those requirements have, however, pushed up the cost of those components beyond that of the modular ones typically used in PCs, resulting in Ultrabook pricing coming in at the same levels as Apple's MacBook Air.

Building on his earlier claims that Apple is preparing a subscription video streaming service to take on Netflix, Jefferies analyst Peter Misek today issued a new report claiming that Apple already has deals in place with the major video studios and TV networks to support such a service.

Apple might be ready to roll out its own video subscription service similar to Amazon and Netflix, Peter Misek at Jefferies reports in a note this morning.

Specifically, he says, "As part of Apple's roll-out of cloud video services (and eventually an iTV), we believe Apple has unannounced deals with all/most of the studios/TV networks that are similar to the subscription streaming deal between Amazon and CBS."

Apple earlier this week expanded its nascent iCloud service to include the re-downloading of purchased TV shows, including allowing Apple TV devices to stream the purchased content directly from the cloud. And with another claim today suggesting that Apple may finally be preparing to launch its "iTunes Replay" service that would fold the cloud-based TV show offerings in with a similar program for movies to support re-downloads and streaming, Apple appears to be making a significant push into bringing video to iCloud.

Back in 2009, AppleInsider reported that Apple was developing an on-demand video service that would allow users to stream their purchased iTunes movies and TV shows from Apple's servers for playback on personal devices. The service was called "iTunes Replay", and would eliminate the need to store large media files on your iPod or iPhone.

AppAdvice now claims that they have been able to confirm that Apple is about to finally launch this "iTunes Replay" service to customers.

In a nutshell, iTunes Replay is an extension to what Apple is already doing with iCloud and free re-downloads of previously purchased music. As Apple secures the remaining rights, TV Shows as well as Movies in iTunes will be given little arrow indicating whether they’re “iTunes Replay eligible”, that is, available to be downloaded subsequent times.

Apple has just recently started allowing users to re-download television shows to their Mac and iOS devices, and allowing Apple TV owners to stream previously purchased content. So, it's no stretch to believe that Apple might start allowing the same for movies.

AppAdvice indicates that there may be a re-download limit of 5 times for some content and they seem uncertain how streaming counts against this limit. Apple would certainly have had to renegotiate with content providers for this change in service, and may explain why it is only launching now.

In the weeks prior to WWDC, countless reports had suggested that Apple was in deep negotiations with Movie providers about offering a "digital locker" of streaming content. From May:

In the past several weeks, Apple executives have stepped up their attempts to convince some of the major Hollywood film studios to issue licenses that would enable Apple to store its customers' movies on the company's servers, two sources close to the negotiations told CNET. Apple began discussing a cloud service with the studios over a year ago.

When iCloud was officially announced, there was no mention of this sort of "digital locker" streaming service that had been so heavily rumored. It seems perhaps the negotiations for the service had not yet completed in time for a WWDC launch.

Engadget publishes a hands on with iCloud.com and the iWork beta. iCloud works as we described, acting as a replacement for MobileMe with Mail, Contacts, Calendar and Find My iPhone interfaces.

They go into a little more detail about how the iWork interface works on the web. iWork in iCloud is primarily a sync and download service, rather than an editing service:

You can't create iWork files using the iCloud web interface, but if you've enabled sync on your iOS device, documents you create will appear almost instantly on each app's respective webpage. From the Keynote tab, you can view and download each presentation as a Keynote file, PDF, or in PowerPoint format. Pages documents can be downloaded as Pages files, PDFs, or in Word format, and Numbers spreadsheets can be exported to the desktop version of Numbers, PDF, and Excel.

The following video show iWork editing and creation between the iOS apps and the iCloud web interface:

One interesting addition, however, is that users can upload documents to iCloud/iWork. This lets you quickly upload documents that will instantly sync back via iCloud to your iOS apps.

AppleInsider also notes that Apple is actively recruiting for an iWork web developer which could indicate they are working to further expand their web support for the iWork suite.

Back in June, it was reported that the iPhone 5 was in carrier testing, with high-level executives at Apple and some of its carrier partners said to be carrying the device around for testing purposes.

In addressing a new claim that the next iPhone won't debut until October, later than the September timeframe that has been the focus for some time now, The Guardian offers some details on the carrier testing process that is said to indeed be underway.

My carrier sources tell me that the boxes in which the new iPhone hardware is encased have been transported to carriers for testing. This is an important step in the release cycle for any phone. ... The next iPhones go for their testing inside locked and sealed boxes so that the carriers can carry out checks on their network compatibility in their labs. It's very high security, as you could guess; my understanding is that barely anyone inside the carriers gets to open those boxes, and even when they do the hardware is encased in a dummy body which means there's no clue to what the actual phone will do.

The report suggests that with the iPhone 5 now in final carrier testing, a process that should take only weeks, Apple is in prime position to ramp up manufacturing to meet a September launch.

Other sources are also skeptical of the October launch claim, with RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky noting that Apple during its last earnings conference call noted that it would be experiencing a "future product transition" affecting the current quarter, which ends in late September. Abramsky also cites channel checks that continue to point to an August/September build ramp for the new iPhone to meet a September launch, as well as increased retail staffing and vacation blackouts at Apple and its carrier partners for the September timeframe.