MacRumors

Proving that Foxconn employees, even those associated with worker hiring, aren't necessarily privy to information on launch schedules for Apple products, Kotaku reports on an article from Maeil Business Newspaper offering new claims on an iPhone 5 launch date. The report notes that the newspaper contacted the chief of human resources at Foxconn's facility in Taiyuan, China to ask about hiring and iPhone plans, with the employee disclosing that the company has just received an order from Apple for the iPhone 5 ahead of an expected launch date of "around October".

According to a recently published article, the paper asked the head of human resources at Foxconn's Taiyuan factory about the iPhone 5 release date. The human resources head apparently told the paper, "We just got the order. It [the release] will be around October."

The report comes just after a Foxconn recruiter at the same plant claimed last week that a hiring surge of roughly 18,000 workers is supporting production of the iPhone 5 for a June launch.

As we noted in our earlier report, a September-October timeframe has seemed much more likely than a return to a mid-year launch, as Apple would likely prefer to maintain at least a one-year interval between product updates. Returning to a June-July launch for the next-generation iPhone would bring that interval down to only 8-9 months, a rather fast turnaround for the company that is still rolling out the iPhone 4S to new markets and carriers.

On Friday, AT&T released a statement that they would now be offering SIM unlocks for iPhones that are no longer under contract. The process of SIM unlocking a phone allows it to use SIM cards from other carriers. This feature is frequently used during international travel to allow the use of mobile service from local carriers. The Next Web detailed the basic steps required by AT&T.

The process is painless and only takes a few minutes in the chat. The only piece of information required by AT&T is the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number, which can be found under Settings>General>About on your device.

Once you’ve completed the procedure, Apple pushes the unlock code during the next 72 hours to your email address, so the code comes from the mothership, not from AT&T. Once Apple completes the unlock request, a customer has to back-up and restore and tether the device to iTunes to complete the unlock process.

MacRumors readers shared their experiences on Sunday trying to unlock their out-of-contract iPhones in our discussion thread on the topic. Responses from AT&T service representatives were mixed with some seemingly unaware of the process.

Others had better luck, such as Exegesis48, who was able to get his iPhone 3GS unlocked immediately.

I called AT&T Tech Support and was able to get my iPhone 3GS unlocked no problem. In fact, the representative waited on the line to ensure I received my unlock confirmation email, at which point he told me to backup and restore my phone to receive my unlock. I did this and was able to receive my unlock IMMEDIATELY.

Experiences may have improved over the day. Some early callers were told the process would complete on April 16th, while others were told to simply wait 48-72 hours for the confirmation email.

Several readers have noticed that Universal Studios' movies are now available for re-download through Apple's iCloud service. In March we reported that both Fox and Universal were not yet participating in iCloud video streaming due to contractual obligations with HBO. HBO was reportedly working with both Fox and Universal to loosen these restrictions.

HBO agreed to loosen its arrangement with Warner Bros., which is working with iCloud, and also is in talks with Universal and Fox to do the same, the spokesman added.

When searching for movies in iTunes, Universal movies no longer contain a warning that the movies are not available through iCloud, while Fox's movies retain the warning:

Another reader was able to confirm he was able to re-download 40 Year Old Virgin. Previous movie purchases from Universal should now be available for redownload in your previous purchased menu on iTunes.

Fox is also said to be in negotiations with expectations that their movies would also become available through iCloud in the near future.

Digitimes points to a report in Taiwan's Economic Daily News claiming that Apple is planning to introduce updated iMac models in June, a bit later than some had initially hoped given Intel's Ivy Bridge launch schedule that would see quad-core desktop processors launch at the end of this month.

PC ODM Quanta Computer and chassis supplier Foxconn Technology are expected to benefit from the launch of Apple's latest iMac desktops, which are set to launch in June with Intel's latest Ivy Bridge processors, according to a Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) report citing sources from the upstream supply chain.

The report repeats a claim from earlier this week indicating that Apple will be using anti-reflective glass for the new iMac, and also suggests that updated MacBook Pro models are due "at the end of the second quarter".

Unfortunately, Economic Daily News does not have a terribly good track record when it comes to Apple rumors, with past misses including an iPhone nano in 2009, a 7-inch iPad in 2010, and a Retina-display iPad by the end of 2011. But perhaps coming in support of the newspaper's claim of a June launch for updated iMac models, How to Arena earlier this week claimed a similar June-July timeframe for updated iMac models.

As for Economic Daily News' claim that Apple will be releasing MacBook Pro updates at the end of the quarter, which would mean late June, Apple's situation appears to be complicated by chip availability from Intel. While quad-core chips appropriate for the 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro are said to be launching on April 29, dual-core chips viewed as successors to those used in the current 13-inch model do not appear to be launching until early June.

Recent reports have indicated that production on new 15-inch models has begun ramping up but that 13-inch MacBook Pro updates won't begin ramping until June, and it is unclear whether Apple would introduce the new 15-inch models before the 13-inch models are ready.

AppleGazette has assembled a large collection of photographs taken inside Apple Headquarters in Cupertino. The collection includes photos of the reception areas at 1 Infinite Loop, shots of the atriums, The Company Store, Apple's Town Hall auditorium, the Apple gymnasium and more.

For such a private and secretive company, there are a decent number of photos taken inside the walls of headquarters. Of course, we have seen lots of plans for the new Apple headquarters which should be completed in a few years.

Reuters reports that five people have been charged with intentional injury in southern China after a teenager sold one of his kidneys in order to purchase an iPad and iPhone. According to the report, those charged include the surgeon who removed the kidney and another person who arranged for the transplant into an undisclosed recipient.

The boy, identified only by his surname Wang, now suffers from renal deficiency, Xinhua quoted prosecutors in Chenzhou city, Hunan province as saying.

According to the Xinhua account, one of the defendants received about 220,000 yuan (about $35,000) to arrange the transplant. He paid Wang 22,000 yuan and split the rest with the surgeon, the three other defendants and other medical staff.

The iPad 2 in Apple's Chinese online store ranges from 2,988-5,499 yuan, while iPhone pricing begins at 2,888 yuan for an unlocked iPhone 3GS and goes up to 6,788 yuan for a 64 GB iPhone 4S.

The report indicates that Wang is from Anhui, one of the poorest provinces in China, and that he is suffering from renal deficiency since the transplant, a condition that is continuing to worsen. Interestingly, a nearly identical story surfaced last June, and while the teenager in that case was identified by a surname of "Zheng", the cases are so similar in their details that they may be referring to the same event.

Trading and sale of human organs is banned in China, where low organ donation rates have led those in need of transplants to seek out alternatives to established organ matching programs.

(Image from Kidney News [App Store])

AT&T has announced it will begin unlocking customers' iPhones once their 2-year contracts have expired. The move will free up the currently-locked devices to use a micro-SIM from any carrier offering a network compatible with the device.

AT&T issued this statement to MacRumors:

Beginning Sunday, April 8, we will offer qualifying customers the ability to unlock their AT&T iPhones. The only requirements are that a customer’s account must be in good standing, their device cannot be associated with a current and active term commitment on an AT&T customer account, and they need to have fulfilled their contract term, upgraded under one of our upgrade policies or paid an early termination fee.

Last month, 9to5Mac reported that AT&T had agreed to unlock a user's off-contract iPhone 3GS under a "special one-time exception" after the user sent an email to Apple CEO Tim Cook about the issue. AT&T had previously refused to unlock the device, which the customer wanted to continue to use after moving to Canada, but relented after being contacted via Cook's office.

There have been many different hacks to unlock iPhones over the years, but this policy change will make it extremely easy for AT&T customers to legitimately and permanently unlock their iPhones for use on any network.

Earlier this week, Gareth Wright disclosed his recent work showing that Facebook's app for iOS contains a security vulnerability that could allow malicious users to access login credentials held in a .plist file associated with the app. Obtaining a copy of that .plist file could allow a malicious users to automatically login in to the affected user's account on another device. The flaw reportedly also exists on Android devices.

Wright first discovered the issue while using iExplorer to browse files on his iPhone, discovering that the Facebook .plist file maintains the full oAuth key and secret needed to access his account in plain text. Working with a friend, Wright was able to demonstrate that simply moving that .plist file to another device granted that device access to his Facebook account.

After backing up his own plist and logging out of Facebook he copied mine over to his device and opened the Facebook app…

My jaw dropped as over the next few minutes I watched posts appear on my wall, private messages sent, webpages liked and applications added.

Scoopz then opened Draw Something on his iPad which logged him straight into my account where he sent some pictures back to my friends.

Wright outlines a number of different ways in which a malicious user could obtain the login credentials, including customized apps, hidden applications installed on public PCs, or hardware solutions such as a modified speaker dock that could siphon the data.

Facebook has issued a statement claiming that the issue only affects devices that have been jailbroken or lost, as it requires either installation of a custom app or physical access to the device. But as pointed out by Wright and confirmed by The Next Web, unmodified devices need not be lost in order to be targeted, as simply plugging in a device to a compromised computer or accessory would be sufficient to allow the data to be gathered.

Furthermore, The Next Web has confirmed that the same issue affects Dropbox for iOS, similarly allowing a user to simply copy the .plist file from one device to another in order to gain access to the account. Given that two high-profile apps are vulnerable to credential theft, it seems likely that other services are also affected by the same issue.

As multiple reports note, there is no evidence that this method of collecting login credentials is actively being used in a malicious manner, and users can protect themselves for the time being by not connecting their devices to public computers or charging stations.

Update: While Wright's initial post claims that the issue affects "locked passcoded unmodified iOS Devices" when connected to a PC set up to capture the .plist file, The Next Web has now updated its report to indicate that in its testing the technique does not work on devices protected with a passcode.

Apple has released its second update in two days to the OS X implementation of Java. The first update closed a vulnerability that has led to the infection of more than 600,000 Macs via a trojan horse. The infections have received increased media attention in the past day, including a splashed headline on the Drudge Report.

While yesterday's Java for OS X Lion 2012-001 update closed the vulnerability in Java 1.6.0_29, there's no indication what the new update -- called Java for OS X 2012-002 -- fixes. The update notes link to the same support document as update 2012-001.

Last year, Apple introduced a security update to OS X that would automatically remove malicious software from OS X installations. It isn't clear if the infected machines can be fixed via the internal OS X security mechanisms.

In OS X Mountain Lion, the next version of the OS X software that will be released this summer, Apple will include a feature called Gatekeeper. The new system relies not only on Mac App Store distribution as means of vetting apps, but also on a new "identified developer" program under which developers distributing their applications outside of the Mac App Store can register with Apple and receive a personalized certificate they can use to sign their applications. Apple can then use that system to track developers and disable their certificates if malicious activity is detected.

Previously-released data from NPD on U.S. Mac sales for January and February have demonstrated relatively anemic year-over-year growth, with January sales tracking only 1% above the previous January's performance and February sales coming in 4% higher. Still, analysts have suggested that ongoing growth in international markets could compensate for stagnation in the U.S. market as consumers continue to wait for product updates. Consequently, analysts have generally been holding firm on their predictions of 15-20% Mac unit growth on a worldwide year-over-year basis for the full quarter.

Some analysts had also held out hope that Apple could sneak in at least one update to its Mac lineup before the end of the quarter to provide a spark for Mac sales, but with the first group of Intel's Ivy Bridge processors not launching until the end of the month, Apple was unable to update its main Mac models within the first three months of the year.

Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty is out with a new research note today incorporating NPD's data on U.S. Mac sales for March, and as might be expected given the lack of hardware updates, Apple continues to fall short of analyst expectations, with Mac shipments down 4% year-over-year for the first calendar quarter.

Huberty continues to believe that international growth will offset at least some of the flat performance in U.S. sales for the quarter, although she appears somewhat pessimistic that it will be able to reach her 15% growth target on a global basis. Nevertheless, Huberty seems optimistic that booming iPhone and iPad sales will make up for any shortfall on the Mac side due to the balance of profits among the segments.

Although the US retail market improved in March, Apple shipment growth decelerated as the company faced much tougher Y/Y comparisons due to a notebook refresh this time last year. US retail data suggest Apple shipments fell 4% Y/Y in C1Q12 compared to our estimate of 15% global Mac unit growth. We expect faster international growth to offset some of the deceleration in the US. In fact, the divergence between international and US growth has accelerated from about four points in prior quarters to 15 points in C4Q11. More importantly, we expect demand upside from iPhone and iPad (83% of gross profit) to more than offset any Mac downside (9% of gross profit).

On a broader basis, the PC market is seeing even more substantial declines in sales, with U.S. PC sales tracking for declines of 10-15% year-over-year for the quarter. That performance is, however, better than Huberty had been modeling for, and major PC manufacturers such as HP and Dell could see some upside if their final results fall in line with data released so far.

Announced at CES earlier this year, the LaCie's new Thunderbolt eSATA Hub is now shipping. The device allows external eSATA drives to be connected to Thunderbolt equipped Macs. The daisy-chainable hub includes two eSATA ports and retails for $199.

eSATA is a high performance drive connector used to connect external hard drives to your computer. eSATA has never been a standard option on Macs, but is a faster alternative to USB 2.0 and Firewire and is commonly found on high performance external drives and storage arrays.

For those who are have existing eSATA drives or are waiting for Thunderbolt drives to drop in price, this could be a good interim solution. The Hub isn't yet available for order on LaCie's website. We spoke to someone at LaCie's sales center who told us the first batch had sold out, but that more were to arrive in a few days. Interested parties can contact LaCie sales directly to place an order for one of these backordered units, and it'll ship out when LaCie receives them.

Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson says Jobs' anger over Android was real and not "for show" as alleged by Google's Larry Page in an interview this week. Macworld UK attended a lecture Isaacson gave at the Royal Institution and the biographer said that Jobs felt Android's similarity to iOS was "history repeating itself", and compared it to Jobs' feeling that Microsoft's Windows was a rip-off of the Macintosh.

He did the integrated system again, iPod, iPad, and it worked, “but what happens? Google rips it off”.

Isaacson continued: “It's almost copied verbatim by Android. And then they licence it around promiscuously. And then Android starts surpassing Apple in market share, and this totally infuriated him. It wasn't a matter of money. He said: 'You can't pay me off, I'm here to destroy you'.”

Isaacson went on to say that he believes that Tim Cook will handle things differently and "will settle that lawsuit." Apple is currently involved in a number of lawsuits over Android with manufacturers around the world.

While Apple's lost iPhone 4 that surfaced on Gizmodo back in 2010 made the biggest headlines, a similar situation reportedly played out ahead of the iPhone 4S launch last year, with an Apple employee having apparently lost a prototype of the device at a San Francisco bar more than two months before it was publicly introduced.

Apple responded relatively quickly to the loss of the prototype iPhone, and early reports claimed that the company had worked with San Francisco police to track the device to a home in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. They were, however, unsuccessful in locating the iPhone. Controversy erupted when the San Francisco police initially denied that they had participated in any such investigation, leading to suggestions that Apple investigators had impersonated police officers in their search.

The San Francisco Police Department did finally admit that it had assisted Apple with a search of the home in question, but the home's owner, Sergio Calderón, threatened to file a lawsuit over the incident. He claimed that the Apple security officers who searched his home had given the impression that they were police officers, thus making their search of his home an illegal breach of his rights. The last significant update in the case came in early December, when CNET interviewed Calderón's lawyer, who indicated that settlement negotiations with Apple had ended and that a lawsuit would be filed in the following weeks.

Nearly four months later and with no lawsuit having been filed, Network World has now followed up with the lawyer, David Monroe, to find out the status of the situation. Tellingly, Monroe repeatedly asserted that he had "no comment" on any of Network World's questions, all but confirming that he and his client did in fact reach a settlement with Apple. Unsurprisingly, that settlement would have included a nondisclosure agreement preventing Monroe or Calderón from commenting on the situation.

Having heard nothing more in the subsequent four months, I called Monroe yesterday and asked if he could update me on the status of that lawsuit.

"I have no comment about that," he replied.

I asked if there had been a settlement between Apple and his client, Sergio Calderone.

"I have no comment about that."

I mentioned the bit about him saying in December that a lawsuit was then imminent - within a few weeks -- and asked what had changed since then.

"I have no comment about that."

I was about to try a fourth round but by then we were both chuckling over the futility of the exercise.

Apple has refused to comment publicly on the situation all along, and did not respond to an inquiry from Network World regarding an update. Curiously, Apple's head of global security, John Theriault, left the company in November of last year, with sources indicating that his departure was indeed linked to the circumstances surrounding the lost iPhone 4S. Theriault now works as an independent management consultant in San Francisco.

For its part, the San Francisco Police Department conducted an internal investigation into its handling of the case, but it is unclear what the outcome of that investigation was.

Back in late February, we noted that Apple had begun selling Brazilian-assembled 8 GB iPhone 4 models in that country, yielding the first fruits from Foxconn's production lines starting up in the country. Foxconn has also been said to be gearing up for iPad production in Brazil, with domestic production of the iPhone and iPad providing a means by which Apple could avoid hefty import taxes in one of the world's most populous countries.

While Apple has yet to begin selling Brazilian-assembled versions of the iPhone 4S or even give any sign that it intends to do so, MacRumors has learned that Apple has been making better progress with the iPad. Specifically, the company has already received certification to sell Brazilian-assembled models of the 16 GB iPad 2 in Brazil alongside the current Chinese-assembled models. Apple already sells the full line of iPad 2 models in Brazil, but only the 16 GB models will continue to be available once the new iPad launches and it appears that Apple will be adding domestically-assembled models to the mix at that time.

Regarding the new iPad, certifications for all models of the new iPad are still pending for both Brazilian- and Chinese-assembled models, but it is clear that the company is making preparations to launch the device with at least some domestic production in Brazil. Apple will, however, be unable to launch the new iPad in Brazil until appropriate certifications are received, and the company has yet to announce a launch date for the device.

As with the iPhone, Chinese-assembled versions of iPad models manufactured for sale in Brazil would carry the BZ/A suffix on their model numbers as seen with most Apple products in that market, while their Brazilian-assembled counterparts would carry a BR/A suffix.

Ars Technica reports on a Tweet from Russian malware analyst Ivan Sorokin at Dr. Web claiming that the Flashback trojan has now infected over 600,000 Macs worldwide. That number reportedly includes 274 machines "from Cupertino", presumably meaning at Apple's headquarters.

According to Dr. Web, the 57 percent of the infected Macs are located in the US and 20 percent are in Canada. Like older versions of the malware, the latest Flashback variant searches an infected Mac for a number of antivirus applications before generating a list of botnet control servers and beginning the process of checking in with them.

The authors of the Flashback trojan have continued to tweak the software since it first surfaced last September, adjusting its tactics several times to include both social engineering tricks and exploits of vulnerabilities.

The most recently-seen version of Flashback surfaced earlier this week, exploiting a Java vulnerability that was unpatched on OS X. While Oracle had released an update closing the hole on Windows back in February, Apple had yet to issue a fix for Macs, as the company has historically maintained its own Java updates that are deployed some time after Oracle issues its own corresponding updates. But just a day after that report, Apple did update Java to address the vulnerability being exploited by Flashback.

Antivirus firm F-Secure has instructions on how users can determine whether their machines are infected by the Flashback trojan. The instructions do involve running commands in Terminal, and users should thus take care to follow the instructions exactly.

As noted by The Tech Block and The Next Web, during his Talk Show podcast with Dan Benjamin, DaringFireball's John Gruber offered up some additional confirmation of the existence of a 7.85" iPad. Gruber reports that he has been told by "numerous" people that this size iPad is something Apple has been "noodling with".

When asked by Benjamin if he thought a 7.85" iPad would ever be released, Gruber responded (at ~1hr 19min):

“Well, I don’t know. What I do know is that they have one in the lab…a 7.85 inch iPad that runs at 1024×768… it’s just like the 9.7" iPad shrunk down a little bit. Apps wouldn't need to be recompiled or redesigned to work optimally on it. It's just the iPad smaller.

Gruber has offered accurate information in the past and seems to have many contacts with Apple. Gruber does point out that Apple has many prototype products that never make it to market, and reminds us that Steve Jobs once said that he's was as proud of the products that Apple hasn't done as the ones they have.

It has been clear to us that a 7.85" iPad has been in late prototyping stages. Reports have been coming from the Chinese supply chain about such a device for months. This indicates that Apple isn't just toying around the the form factor in their labs in Cupertino, but is also working with supplies on possible production. As Gruber said, this still isn't a sign that Apple will necessarily release such a device.

The reason why a 7.85" screen might make sense for a new iPad has been detailed in the past, and we have a paper mockup that can be printed out to compare its size to a 9.7" iPad.