MacRumors

One of the promises of Intel's Thunderbolt technology was the possibility for fiber optic cables, offering greater cable lengths and setting the stage for faster connectivity once the standard matures. But Thunderbolt launched using only traditional copper wire cables, and there has been some dispute about just how soon fiber optic cables will become available.

IDG News now reports that Intel as issued a statement indicating that it will be launching fiber optic Thunderbolt cables "later this year".

Intel has said copper cables are adequate for data transfers over short distances of up to six meters. Optical cables will be good for data transfers over longer distances of tens of meters.

The upside to optical is that it allows for longer cable runs, and as the technology develops, more bandwidth, [Intel spokesman Dave] Salvator said in email.

The downside to fiber optic cables, however, is that devices connected using the longer fiber optic cables will require separate power cables, as running power over the cables at those distances is not currently practical. Fiber optic cables are also likely to be significantly more expensive than their copper counterparts, although Intel has not offered any guidance on pricing.

For those who already own a Thunderbolt-enabled Mac, Intel notes that the existing Thunderbolt ports will be compatible with both copper and fiber optic cables, ensuring cross-compatibility once the new cables arrive.

Just last week, Intel announced that it was working on moving Thunderbolt to the PCI Express 3.0 standard, a move that could see the company double the effective bandwidth for data transfers. The company has not, however, provided a projected timeframe for a public launch of the enhanced Thunderbolt speeds.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple is the target of a new lawsuit from an iPhone 4S customer who claims that the company engaged in "misleading and deceptive" advertising in promoting its Siri personal assistant feature for the device. The plaintiff, Frank Fazio, alleges that Apple's depictions of Siri in its advertising suggest an ease of use that he claims is not present in real-world usage.

Fazio claims Siri is far less responsive in real life. When he asked for directions to a certain place, or to locate a store, “Siri either did not understand what Plaintiff was asking, or, after a very long wait time, responded with the wrong answer.”

The class action lawsuit seeks unspecified damages from Apple and a court order preventing Apple from engaging in any further misleading advertising related to the feature.

Apple has not responded publicly to the lawsuit, but the company has repeatedly noted on its website and elsewhere that Siri is a beta feature. While Apple rarely releases beta products to the public, it did so in the case of Siri in order to help build the library of voice input it needs to improve Siri's voice recognition capabilities. The beta label has also not stopped Apple from extensively promoting Siri, making it a key part of its iPhone 4S marketing from the iPhone 4S launch event to its website to its television advertising.

Earlier this month, Apple and Vodafone won a case in the United Kingdom in which a member of the public complained that Apple's iPhone 4S advertising in the country was misleading for its depictions of location-based services that are only available in the United States at the present time. The Advertising Standards Authority ruled in Apple's favor when it determined that Apple's UK ads did not depict Siri integration with the Maps application (a U.S.-only feature for the time being) and that Siri's ability to access a user's local weather in the UK was sufficient to satisfy Apple's claims that it can use location information to provide personal assistance.

Last month, we reported on U.S. Mac sales data for the month of January as shared by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who concluded that NPD's calculated year-over-year growth of 1% was somewhat soft but perhaps not out of line with expectations given the firm's historical understatement of Apple's growth. Measuring only U.S. sales, NPD's data does not account for Apple's strong growth in international markets, and Munster notes that last quarter Apple's Mac sales outpaced NPD projections by 14 percentage points.

In a new report out today, Munster shares data for February, with NPD seeing Mac sales up 4% year-over-year. The performance is slightly better than January's 1% number, but it still suggests that consumers are holding back on their purchases as they await updated Mac models. Even with Munster's adjustment of 14 percentage points, Apple's total Mac sales for the quarter would be exhibiting year-over-year growth of 18%, slightly below the 20% growth expected by Wall Street analysts for the entire quarter and not enough to make up for January's slow start.

Nevertheless, Munster believes that the data puts Apple in position to meet overall expectations with sales of 4.4-4.6 million Macs for the quarter.

We have analyzed domestic NPD retail data for the first 2 months of the March quarter, which is up 4% y/y. The early data appears soft on a y/y basis; however, last quarter actual Mac growth outpaced NPD by 14 percentage points. Net-net, we believe this early data suggests Mac sales in the range of 4.4m-4.6m, or 17%-22% y/y growth (we believe Street consensus is 4.5m, or +20% y/y, and we are also at 4.5m).

Whether or not Apple's Mac sales numbers for the March quarter meet expectations may depend on whether the company can squeeze out any product updates, such as a new Mac Pro, before the end of the month. The wait for Intel's Ivy Bridge platform may, however, keep updated models for most of Apple's products on the sidelines until next quarter. That development could leave a slight shortfall on the Mac side during the quarter, although pent-up demand could lead to a blockbuster June quarter for the company in that scenario.

Aside from Macs, Piper Jaffray continues to see strong iPhone sales during the current quarter, above Wall Street consensus, while iPod sales remain in-line with expectations as that product family continues to decline. On the iPad side, Munster believes that strong sales of the new iPad may drive upside for Apple, projecting first-day sales of at least one million units. Munster's projections on launch day sales of new Apple products have, however, generally been less than accurate when Apple has released such numbers.

Following last month's developer seed, Apple today released Safari 5.1.4 to the public. The release is available for OS X Lion and Snow Leopard, as well as Windows. Apple highlights the following improvements on OS X Lion:

Safari 5.1.4 for OS X Lion includes changes that:

- Improve JavaScript performance up to 11% over Safari 5.1.3*
- Improve responsiveness when typing into the search field after changing network configurations, or with an intermittent network connection
- Address an issue that could cause webpages to flash white when switching between Safari windows
- Address issues that prevented printing U.S. Postal Service shipping labels and embedded PDFs
- Preserve links in PDFs saved from webpages
- Fix an issue that could make Flash content appear incomplete after using gesture zooming
- Fix an issue that could cause the screen to dim while watching HTML5 video
- Improve stability, compatibility, and startup time when using extensions
- Allow cookies set during regular browsing to be available after using Private Browsing
- Fix an issue that could cause some data to be left behind after pressing the “Remove All Website Data” button

Safari 5.1.4 weighs in at 44.71 MB for Lion users, 47.52 MB for Snow Leopard users, and 36.72 MB for Windows users.

Update: Software Update is offering Safari 5.1.4 for download, but Apple's support pages and the Safari download page have reverted to showing information on Safari 5.1.2

Earlier this month, we noted that Apple's forthcoming Highland Village retail store in Houston had seen its grand opening date moved up by a day in recent weeks, with Apple opting to open the store on Friday, March 16 rather than holding a traditional Saturday grand opening store. The change led to speculation that the new iPad might be launching on the new date, and Apple did indeed announce last week that the device will be available beginning on March 16.

Apple has yet to announce, however, what time it will begin in-store sales of the new iPad on Friday. The company has sometimes launched major new products first thing in the morning, with stores generally opening early for the events, but as in the case of the iPad 2 last year, the company has also occasionally launched products in late afternoon time slots.

But as noted by the Houston Chronicle, (via @tech513), Apple has now publicly announced that the new Highland Village store will be opening at 8:00 AM on Friday. Like the Friday date, an early grand opening is unusual for Apple's new retail stores, as they generally have their grand opening events at normal opening times, which in the case of the Highland Village store will be 10:00 AM. Consequently, it seems that the early opening may be tied to a launch of the new iPad, in which case Apple may be planning the debut for 8:00 AM local time at its other stores in launch countries.

The store’s doors will open at 8 a.m. Friday, the same day that Apple’s third-generation iPad will go on sale. An Apple spokeswoman would not say whether all its stores will open at that time on Friday, but an early opening is typical when the company starts selling a new iPad or iPhone model.

As noted by Slash Gear over the weekend, the first lines for the new iPad have already begun to form, with a pair of customers staking out their spots outside the Regent Street store in London.

Apple has said that demand for the new iPad is "off the charts", with the company's online stores in all launch countries now quoting shipping estimates of 2-3 weeks for new orders.

Last week, we noted with the launch of the new Apple TV and iTunes in the Cloud for movies that Fox and Universal were not participating in the iCloud video streaming due to contractual obligations with HBO. At the time CNET indicated that the issue was a temporary one and that HBO and the affected studios would be working to address the holdup in the near future.

The Wall Street Journal now reports that HBO is indeed working with Fox and Universal to loosen its restrictions on film distribution, with a spokesperson for HBO confirming the negotiations.

HBO isn't planning to give up its exclusive windows, for which it pays hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and which allow it to beam movies to its online service HBO Go as well as to its traditional TV channels. But HBO is relaxing terms to let users of iCloud and other services send movies they already own to other devices during those windows, an HBO spokesman said.

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.

Sources at Fox suggest that the roadblock on iCloud will be lifted "as soon as within weeks", while Universal sources also indicate that a resolution is near.

In a rare interview, Apple design chief Jony Ive participated in a Q&A exchange with the London Evening Standard, offering his perspective on a number of topics including how the design process works at Apple.

Q: How does a new product come about at Apple?

A: What I love about the creative process, and this may sound naive, is this idea that one day there is no idea, and no solution, but then the next day there is an idea. Where you see the most dramatic shift is when you transition from an abstract idea to a slightly more material conversation. But when you make a 3D model, however crude, you bring form to a nebulous idea and everything changes — the entire process shifts. It galvanises and brings focus from a broad group of people. It’s a remarkable process.

Ive talks more about how deeply prototyping is ingrained in the design process at Apple, and also discusses how Apple's approach of creating entirely new categories of products rather than simply improving on existing ones "exercises the skills" of Ive and his team.

It’s not a problem you’re aware of, nobody has articulated a need. But you start asking questions: what if we do this, combine it with that, would that be useful? This creates opportunities that could replace entire categories of device rather than tactically responding to an individual problem. That’s the real challenge and very exciting.

By trying to create new classes of products that people don't even realize they need until they are unveiled, the process results in incredible freedom and excitement, but significant challenges for the designers.

Last November, CBS CEO Les Moonves acknowledged that his company had been in talks with Apple about a potential streaming television service, revealing that CBS had ultimately declined to support the plan due to Apple's demands that it include a split of advertising revenue between the two companies.

As noted by The Hollywood Reporter, Moonves has now added a bit more detail about those talks, revealing that they occurred at the highest levels between Steve Jobs and Moonves himself. But according to Moonves, the talks fell apart over fears of such a deal disrupting CBS's revenue streams.

Moonves told a conference audience that he met with Jobs, the late Apple CEO, and heard a pitch for what was billed as a subscription content service, but ultimately he said he wasn't interested in providing CBS shows or films to the venture.

"I told Steve, 'You know more than me about 99 percent of things but I know more about the television business,' " Moonves said, citing his concerns about providing content to a service that could disrupt CBS' existing revenue streams. Moonves said Jobs, in characteristic fashion, strongly disagreed with his assessment.

Back in late 2009, CBS and Disney were reportedly close to signing on with Apple for a television service that would have seen Apple offering a "best of television" package through the iTunes Store, but the plan was ultimately shelved as other networks refused to sign on and CBS apparently reconsidered its position. Interest is said to have been revived recently as Apple reportedly moves closer to launching its own television set, with Apple said to be pushing ahead even as it continues to meet resistance from content providers.

Apple told USA Today that demand for the newest iPad has been "off the charts" and that the initial batch had been sold out:

"Customer response to the new iPad has been off the charts and the quantity available for pre-order has been purchased," Apple said in a statement. "Customers can continue to order online and receive an estimated delivery date."

We previously reported that U.S. pre-orders had already been pushed past its March 16th launch date as of Friday morning, with shipping estimates now having been pushed out to 2-3 weeks in all countries included in the initial batch of launches.

The 3rd Generation iPad will still be available for purchase on March 16th at Apple retail stores, presumably to long lines. The new iPad was announced last week and introduced a Retina Display, A5X Chip, LTE and 5MP Rear Camera.

Tether, the company behind the iTether iOS app that Apple approved and then quickly removed from the App Store, has a new tethering solution. This time, it's HTML5 based and doesn't require downloading anything from the App Store.

"It was clear from our initial application iTether, there was enormous demand within the iPhone ecosystem," says Tim Burke, CEO of Tether. "It was unfortunate that Apple decided to remove our application, only 20 hours after we launched. However, this caused us to innovate. Our underlying patent-pending technology behind Tether for iPhone is unlike anything on the market."

Tether's new version for the iPhone is purely based on HTML5 and creates a completely wireless connection over AdHoc. This circumvents the need of buying the application directly from Apple's App Store and allows any iPhone or iPad with a data connection to allow tethering.

Apple today sent out an email to users registered for its iWork.com beta noting that it will be discontinuing the service as of July 31. The discontinuation comes as Apple places its focus on iCloud, which offers users ways to keep documents in sync among their various iOS devices.

Dear iWork.com user,

Thanks for participating in the iWork.com public beta.

Last year, we launched iCloud, a service that stores your music, photos, documents, and more and wirelessly pushes them to all your devices. Today, there are already over 40 million documents stored on iCloud by millions of iWork customers. Learn more about iCloud.

With a new way to share iWork documents between your devices using iCloud, the iWork.com public beta service will no longer be available. As of July 31, 2012, you will no longer be able to access your documents on the iWork.com site or view them on the web.

We recommend that you sign in to iWork.com before July 31, 2012, and download all your documents to your computer. For detailed instructions on how to save a copy of your documents on your computer, read this support article at Apple.com.

Sincerely,
The iWork team

iWork.com launched as a free beta in January 2009, with Apple eventually intending to offer the service with tools for collaboration on iWork documents for a fee. The service never exited beta, however, and with iCloud offering new options for moving documents around the company has decided to eliminate the program. But while iCloud does offer a number of new features, it does not offer the level of collaboration tools envisioned for iWork.com.

The elimination of iWork.com will come a month after Apple officially shuts down its MobileMe services. Apple has continued to support MobileMe since the introduction of iCloud last year in order to give users time to move over to the new service. But as of June 30, MobileMe and several of its features such as iDisk, Gallery, and iWeb publishing will no longer be available.

As highlighted by SlashGear yesterday, the Wi-Fi + 4G iPad announced by Apple on Wednesday and launching in ten countries next Friday will not be compatible with LTE networks under development in most of the launch countries. Apple's LTE discussion during the media event focused on five carriers in the United States (AT&T and Verizon) and Canada (Bell, Rogers, and Telus), noting that international markets would have other options available for cellular connectivity.

The issue with international LTE availability stems from the fact that the AT&T version of the new 4G iPad released in the United States supports LTE on the 700 Mhz and 2100 MHz frequency bands. Apple is distributing that same model to its international markets, but LTE implementations in most of those countries are utilizing 800 Mhz, 1800 Mhz, and 2600 MHz bands that are not supported by the device.

The new iPad WiFi + 4G put up for pre-order in Europe yesterday supports the same 700MHz and 2100MHz LTE bands as the AT&T version in the US; however, actual LTE roll-out in Europe is expected to use the 800MHz, 1800MHz and 2600MHz bands.

That means, even if commercial LTE networks become more commonplace in Europe – which has for the most part remained using the faster variants of 3G technology, such as DC-HSDPA, which the new iPad also supports – the Apple tablet is unlikely to be compatible with them.

Apple has confirmed to The Verge that those international 4G iPad models can be used on AT&T's LTE network in the United States by travelers, even though they will not have LTE support at home. According to Apple:

iPads sold internationally will be able to connect to AT&Ts LTE network when in the US with the appropriate SIM and plan.

The iPad 4G LTE model sold for Verizon in the United States is an exclusive to that carrier for at least the time being, with its LTE compatibility limited to only the 700 MHz band in line with the carrier's implementation of the technology.

Apple has now completely sold out of its launch day iPad allotment in its U.S. online store, with all 18 models now offering shipping estimates of March 19 for new orders. Accounting for shipment time, customers placing orders now shouldn't expect them to arrive until the middle of the week following the device's launch next Friday.

A similar situation exists in the Canadian online store, while the stores for Australia and Singapore quote shipping dates of March 22 for all models. Stores for Apple's European launch countries (France, Germany, Switzerland, and the UK) and Japan are all quoting shipping estimates of 2-3 weeks for new orders.

Apple is planning to launch the new iPad in 25 additional countries on March 23, but with new orders in the first round of launches already bumping up against that window, Apple may be hard-pressed to have sufficient stock available to meet launch demand in the second round of debuts.

IDG News reports that Intel is currently working on shifting its Thunderbolt standard to the PCI-Express 3.0 protocol, a move that could allow the company to double data transfer speeds over existing implementations based on PCIe 2.0.

Intel in the future will support the PCI-Express 3.0 protocol to shuttle data faster between host devices and peripherals, an Intel spokesman said in an email. Computers with Thunderbolt interconnect currently communicate with external devices using the older PCI-Express 2.0 technology.

The company will incorporate PCI-Express 3.0 in Thunderbolt, but could not provide a time frame for when it will be accomplished.

PCIe 3.0 offers a 60% boost in raw data transfer speed compared to PCIe 2.0, going from 5 gigatransfers per second (GT/s) to 8 GT/s. But significantly lower overheard requirements in PCIe 3.0 mean that the effective bandwidth can be doubled by moving to the latest standard.

PCIe 3.0 is already making an appearance in Intel's chip products, including the just-launched Xeon E5 chips that could power updated Mac Pro models, as well as the forthcoming Ivy Bridge chips for notebooks and desktops. It will, however, take some time to move Thunderbolt over to PCIe 3.0 and get peripheral manufacturers onboard with the standard.

Apple and Intel debuted Thunderbolt technology with a MacBook Pro update in February 2011, and the standard has rolled out to Apple's entire Mac product line with the exception of the Mac Pro, which has not been updated since mid-2010.