MacRumors

In-store availability for the Mac Pro has long been spotty at Apple's retail locations, making it difficult to read too much into any apparent shortages as hints of future updates. But MacRumors has learned that Apple began recalling Mac Pro stocks from its retail stores several weeks ago, with retail store staff having been instructed to inform customers that they may still order the machines online.

A quick survey of roughly 100 U.S. Apple retail stores for availability of the entry-level stock Mac Pro model shows that nearly all of them are indeed out of stock for in-store pickup, although we did find four California stores and one Texas store with machines available for immediate pickup.

Projected availability dates for orders placed online today vary significantly, with some stores citing availability on June 8 or 9 while others would not be able to offer a Mac Pro for pickup until June 12 or 13. Apple's keynote address at its Worldwide Developers Conference takes place next Monday, June 11.

Apple has been rumored to be updating nearly all of its Mac products next week, although it remains unclear whether the Mac Pro will be included in the mass rollout. The Mac Pro was last updated in July 2010, and new Xeon E5 processor options to provide a substantial upgrade to the line are now available.

Separately, we've heard that Apple is holding a secret "overnight" for staff at its retail stores on June 12, with employees being kept in the dark about the focus of the session. A separate overnight session to be held tonight was highlighted last week, but we've heard that tonight's session is simply a routine rearranging of sales floor content.

MarketWatch reports that Sprint will announce later this week that it will begin offering the iPhone on a prepaid basis through its Virgin Mobile brand. The announcement will come just days after Leap Wireless announced that it would begin offering the iPhone on a prepaid basis through its Cricket brand beginning June 22.

The Overland Park, Kan., carrier will announce this week it will offer the popular smartphone on its Virgin Mobile pay-as-you-go brand starting as soon as July 1, according to people familiar with the company's plans. Sprint follows Leap Wireless International Inc. in selling the device with prepaid service.

By offering the iPhone, Sprint may help satisfy its commitment to Apple to buy $15.5 billion of the phones over four years, an aggressive bet as more carriers are getting access to the once-exclusive device. Sprint's prepaid service, which also includes the Boost Mobile brand, has been its lone area of growth as contract customers have fled.

Virgin Mobile's pricing for the iPhone remains unknown, and it is also unclear whether Sprint's Boost Mobile brand will also gain access to the device. Boost had been rumored last week to be adding the iPhone in September.

Virgin Mobile's existing smartphone plans begin at $35 per month with unlimited data (throttled after 2.5 GB), although the report notes that it is unknown whether the iPhone would be eligible for the carrier's cheapest plans.

Back in January, Belkin officially unveiled its Thunderbolt Express Dock, a single-cable hub priced at $299.99 and offering a variety of USB, Ethernet, and FireWire ports to provide easy desktop expandability for portable machines. But with the product not scheduled to ship until September, Belkin left itself with plenty of time to continue tweaking its design and today announced that it has revised the specs to boost the previous USB 2.0 ports to USB 3.0, as well as add new eSATA and audio in ports. The company has also announced a one-meter Thunderbolt cable to aid in connectivity.

"As more hardware companies announce plans to incorporate Intel's Thunderbolt technology into their products, we aim to create quality accessories that take advantage of Thunderbolt's blazing fast speeds and other benefits," said Martin Avilla, general manager of Belkin's core business unit. "Over the past few months, we have really listened to our end users and created a one-meter cable and refined the dock to make it an even better desktop solution, which we believe will make Belkin a go-to provider for Thunderbolt accessories when they launch in the summer and fall."

Belkin's improvements to the Thunderbolt Express Dock come with a cost, however, as the retail price has risen from the previous $299.99 to $399.99. The Thunderbolt cable will run an additional $44.99.

Belkin is holding firm on its plans to launch the Thunderbolt Express Dock in September, with the Thunderbolt cable making its debut next month.

Just a few days ago, Matrox announced its own Thunderbolt docking station priced at $249. The Matrox DS-1 has only one USB 3.0 port alongside a pair of USB 2.0 ports, and also lacks FireWire and eSATA ports while providing video output via DVI rather than HDMI. Perhaps most importantly, Matrox's solution does not include a second Thunderbolt port for passthrough, meaning that the docking station must be placed at the end of any daisy-chained peripheral setup.

Still, with the price difference between the Matrox and Belkin solutions increasing from $50 to $150 with the price increase on the Belkin dock, the Matrox product may prove more appealing for many customers.

Apple also essentially offers a Thunderbolt docking station built into its $999 27-inch Thunderbolt display. Apple's display offers three USB 2.0 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, a FireWire 800 port, a FaceTime HD camera, and a 2.1 speaker system, all connected to the user's computer over a single Thunderbolt cable.

A photo posted to Chinese forum Weiphone claims to reveal the specs for an upcoming 13.3" MacBook Pro revision from Apple. The specs show only minor improvements to the 13.3" MacBook Pro model with the addition of a 2.5GHz Ivy Bridge processor along with the Intel HD Graphics 4000 GPU. The image also reveals the addition of Bluetooth 4.0 and the faster USB 3.0 standard to the Mac laptop line.

Other specs, however, remain the same as the current generation 13" MacBook Pro. Notably, the screen resolution remains the same at 1280x800 rather than incorporating a high resolution "Retina Display". RAM, Hard Drive and SuperDrive specs also remain the same, suggesting that there also hasn't been a dramatic space-saving thinning of the design.

The authenticity of the image is impossible to verify. The claim by the original forum poster is that the image came from a "friend inside Apple".

Apple is expected to launch new products at the Worldwide Developer's Conference (WWDC) next week. Revised MacBook Pros using the Ivy Bridge processors have been expected. Rumors, however, have suggested that we may be seeing more dramatic upgrades to at least some of the models.

Update: Additional Sketchy 15" MacBook Pro Specs from same forum post.

9to5Mac reports that Apple will update nearly all of its Mac products at next week's Worldwide Developers Conference, with "at least four" out the company's five Mac families seeing upgrades.

The most solid candidate for an upgrade is the MacBook Pro, which has been reported by numerous sources to be gaining a slimmer form factor with the update. Apple's iMac and MacBook Air lines are also considered solid bets for upgrades next week. The report claims that both the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air will receive ultra-high resolution Retina displays, but while the iMac has also been rumored to be gaining the feature in the future, it is unclear whether it will make it into the next update of Apple's flagship desktop line.

If Apple is planning to only update four of its lines, the final spot would come down to the Mac mini and the Mac Pro, with 9to5Mac arguing that the Mac mini is the most likely to see an update given that just-released Ivy Bridge chips that could also be appearing in a 13-inch MacBook Pro would be suitable for a Mac mini refresh.

Xeon E5 chips suitable for a significant Mac Pro update have been available for several months now, but Apple has so far elected not to refresh its professional-level workstation product and there continue to be questions about its fate given that it has been nearly two years since it was last updated.

Finally, today's report indicates that Apple may also be taking the opportunity of a massive Mac update to also introduce new and updated accessories, although details on Apple's plans for those products remain unknown.

As previously rumored, Apple is replacing the default Google Maps service within its iOS operating system with its own mapping solution, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Later this year, Apple is planning to oust Google Maps as the preloaded, default maps app from the iPhone and iPad and release a new mapping app that runs Apple's own technology, according to current and former Apple employees. Apple could preview the new software, which will be part of its next mobile-operating system, as soon as next week at its annual developer conference in San Francisco, one person familiar with the plans says. Apple plans to encourage app developers to embed its maps inside their applications like social-networking and search services.

Both 9to5Mac and All Things Digital had previously reported that Apple will be using an in-house mapping service in iOS 6 following its purchase of a number of mapping companies, including 3D mapping firm C3 Technologies last year.

Apple has clearly been working for some time to reduce its reliance on Google by developing its own mapping services for iOS, as evidenced by its acquisitions of mapping expertise and job postings addressing its ambitions for mapping. The company has already moved location services in-house and revealed last year that it is building a crowd-sourced traffic database based on users' GPS data.

Earlier this year it was noted that Apple wasn't using Google Maps in its iPhoto for iOS application, instead using OpenStreetMap and other services to generate map tiles.

Microsoft today made a series of announcements at E3 revealing a major push into the living room with the Xbox 360 as the focal point. Among the most interesting announcements for Apple users is "SmartGlass", a new wireless technology that is essentially a two-way Airplay-like standard that allows users to push content from their mobile devices to their TVs via the Xbox but also allows mobile devices to act as second screens for content being displayed on TV from an Xbox. Engadget reports:

SmartGlass brings AirPlay-style wireless technology to Xbox and Windows 8 by letting you send video from your tablet or phone to your TV. It then turns that second screen into an information window giving you data of the content you're watching. Plus, it updates the info on your mobile device as the content on the TV changes. The app also enables peripheral controls for games you're playing -- so you can scroll through different plays on your tablet while playing Madden on your big screen, for example.

The SmartGlass companion app will be available this fall on a variety of platforms, including iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Windows 8 for tablets.

The SmartGlass app will arrive alongside a significant increase in the amount of content accessible through the Xbox 360, with Microsoft making a number of other announcements including a version of Internet Explorer for Xbox, a new Xbox Music streaming service, and access to streaming sports services such as WatchESPN, and live streams from the NBA and NHL. Enhancements to Kinect controls will allow for voice control of Bing searches and Internet Explorer, as well as a new partnership with Nike+ for training games on the Xbox 360.

Apple has of course been working on the Apple TV as its "hobby" focused on the living room, ramping up the device's capabilities to include AirPlay and a number of content services such as Netflix, Major League Baseball, NBA League Pass, and NHL GameCenter Live. The company has been expected to make an even more significant push into the living room with a full-fledged television set integrated with the iTunes Store, iCloud, and other services, although Apple's exact plans and timing remain unknown.

9to5Mac reports that one of the major new features coming in iOS 6 is the addition of Siri to the iPad. Siri is currently supported only on the iPhone 4S, with the new iPad having gained the dictation aspect of Apple and Nuance's voice recognition partnership but not seeing the inclusion of full Siri support at its launch earlier this year.

Siri on the iPad is activated by a quick hold of the home button, just like on the iPhone 4S. The interface slides up from below the display with a clever animation. Siri is built into the iPad as a small window on top of whatever interface the user is currently interacting with. This Siri window with rounded corners sits at the bottom center of the display, as you can see in our mockup above. The Siri iPad interface takes very little space over the iPad interface currently in use, and is designed with the same linen texture as on the iPhone 4S. Siri for iPad also works from the lock screen.

The report speculates that Siri for iPad may be exclusive to the new third-generation models, and it is unclear whether Apple will tout the feature at next week's Worldwide Developers Conference or if it will elect to keep it under wraps until closer to the public launch of the software later this year.

In November 2010, Mac and iOS developers Algoriddim first previewed their djay app for iPad. The beautifully designed app pushed some boundaries of the iPad by taking advantage of new iOS 4.2-specific audio features that allowed them to perform realtime mixing effects and audio analysis.

That app has since received a number of positive reviews and won an Apple Design Award in 2011.

Later this week, Algoriddim is launching a new app called vjay which again offers some impressive real-time mixing and effects, but now applied to video. Algoriddim has provided MacRumors with this exclusive preview of the app:

Similar to how djay works, vjay allows you to mix/fade between two video clips and apply real time effects to the output. Due to the heavy processing required to decode and mix two video streams, the app only works on the iPad 2 or the new iPad.

Video clips can be full music videos, such as those downloaded from the iTunes store, or they can be your own personal video clips. Audio can either be the original video audio or intermingled with songs your own music library. Both video and audio tracks can be swapped out independently at any time.

Regardless of whether or not you have any actual djing skills, vjay is surprisingly fun to play with once you seed it with your own favorite music videos. Just mixing songs back and forth while playing around with effects is strangely enjoyable.

If you're like me, your first instinct might be to treat the app like another kind of video editing app, stitching your own clips together into some sort of music video, but that seems to miss the point. The actual focus of the app is these sort of "real time" performances and mixing. The app also has the ability to output mixed content in real time via AirPlay to your television.

These real-time performances can also be recorded and saved to your camera roll to save and share. Meanwhile, more advanced users can take advantage of MIDI accessories and a pre-cueing adapter to line up the next song.

vjay will be available for a discounted launch price of $9.99 on June 7th, 2012. Algoriddim has a teaser page accepting email addresses for the launch announcement.