MacRumors

The teardown experts at iFixit are undoubtedly itching to get their hands on the iPhone 5 later this week, and in the meantime they've decided to bide their time by taking apart Apple's new EarPods to see how the earphones compare to their predecessors. Overall, the teardown reveals a significantly revamped design with greater durability in the form of better-sealed components and increased cord strain relief features.

Among the most interesting changes is a move to paper cones surrounded by a polymer, shifting away from the all-plastic design seen in the previous headphones.

- Apple's switch to paper-based speaker cones may be the source of their advertised improved low and mid-range response.

- We also discovered that the speaker basket has a much more refined look than previous models (see comparison in next step), with a fine mesh covering the back and symmetrically-placed vents. The basket is a critical component, as it must be rigid to maintain consistent sound quality while still being open enough to not inhibit movement of air behind the vibrating diaphragm.

Early reviews of the EarPods indicate that they perform significantly better than the stock headphones included with previous iPhone and iPod models, but still fall far short of higher-quality offerings available from other companies. Apple is including the EarPods with the iPhone 5 and the new iPod touch and iPod nano, and is also selling them as a standalone $29 accessory.

BGR shares a few photos of what seems to be the first publicly-revealed unboxing of the iPhone 5. It is unclear how the source was able to obtain an iPhone 5, but the photos show the box itself and the rear of the device, as well as the trio of accessories that are included in the box: EarPods, power adapter, and Lightning to USB cable.

The EarPods appear to be packaged identically to the standalone retail version of the new Apple earphones, including a small travel case.

The first round of pre-orders are already en route to their destinations, although Apple has arranged for carriers to hold deliveries until the official Friday launch. It is not unheard of, however, for a handful of deliveries to slip through early.

Semiconductor analyst Linley Gwennap has posted an interesting overview (via CNET) of the series of events that led to Apple's A6 system-on-a-chip, the company's first entirely custom ARM chip design. The report notes that Apple has likely spent in excess of $500 million on the project when including the purchase prices of chip firms P.A. Semi and Intrinsity.

At this point, Apple has spent about $400 million to buy PA Semi and Intrinsity, tens of millions for a license to design its own ARM CPUs, and probably north of $100 million to support its CPU design efforts over the past four years. It appears that the end result will be that Apple ships a Cortex-A15-class CPU about three months before arch-enemy Samsung does. These three months happen to come during the big holiday buying season, during which the iPhone 5 could generate $25 billion in revenue. So that half billion dollars could be money well spent.

The report traces Apple's ARM-based chip development back to its 2008 acquisition of P.A. Semi. Beyond its license to use ARM cores, Apple's acquisition of P.A. Semi led the company to also obtain a rare license to develop its own ARM-based CPUs, as had been rumored in mid-2008. Apple then split the P.A. Semi team into two groups to focus on what would become the A4 system-on-chip and to build Apple's own ARM implementations.

While one group of PA Semi employees set to work on the Apple A4 processor using an ARM CPU core, another group began defining the microarchitecture for the new CPU. According to one source, Steve Jobs initially set an “insanely great” bar for the performance of the new CPU, but he eventually realized that his CPU team was limited by the same laws of physics that apply to everyone else. For whatever reason, the project took a long time to get through the initial definition and design phase.

As Apple iterated on standard ARM solutions for the A4, A5, and A5X, it continued to press forward on its own A6, which reportedly saw design completion in early 2010 and physical design work wrapping up about a year later. With the first samples of the A6 being delivered to Apple in the summer of 2011, the company continued to put the chip and its production processes through extensive testing ahead of full production started earlier this year for the iPhone 5.

The report notes that Apple is likely to follow a typical two-year design cycle with its own chips, working on a 64-bit ARMv8 solution for launch in 2014. As a result, Apple's 2013 devices will likely use ramped-up variants of the current A6 design, perhaps by moving from a dual-core CPU to a quad-core processor or by boosting the graphics capabilities of the package as the company did for the A5X in the third-generation iPad.

Late last month, we noted that net neutrality organization Public Knowledge had accused AT&T of violating Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules in limiting use of the forthcoming FaceTime over Cellular feature in iOS 6 to customers on the carrier's new Mobile Share plans. AT&T responded to note that it was within its rights to block FaceTime over Cellular for customers on other plans because net neutrality regulations do not apply to apps that are preloaded on devices as seen with Apple's FaceTime app.

GigaOM now notes that Public Knowledge has banded together with Free Press and the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute to notify AT&T that they will indeed be filing a net neutrality complaint with the FCC over the issue.

“AT&T’s decision to block FaceTime unless a customer pays for voice and text minutes she doesn’t need is a clear violation of the FCC’s Open Internet rules,” said Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood. "It’s particularly outrageous that AT&T is requiring this for iPad users, given that this device isn’t even capable of making voice calls. AT&T's actions are incredibly harmful to all of its customers, including the deaf, immigrant families and others with relatives overseas, who depend on mobile video apps to communicate with friends and family."

The press release is a required 10-day advance notice of the intended action, with the group saying that the complaint will be filed "in the coming weeks".

In support of the initial launch of the iPhone 5 this Friday, Apple has announced five new grand openings for its retail store chain. The first opening of this week will take place on Thursday, when the new Rio Shopping store in Valladolid, Spain opens its doors. The somewhat unusual Thursday opening stems from the fact that the brand-new Rio Shopping mall itself is opening on that date.

With the iPhone 5 set to launch at 8:00 AM local time on Friday in nine countries, three new retail stores will be opening their doors for the first time for the launch. The new stores include:

- Sindelfingen, outside of Stuttgart, Germany, which we noted earlier this month was reported to have seen its opening date brought forward slightly as a hint of September 21 iPhone 5 availability in Germany. The report claimed that the store would open on Thursday, September 20, but this appears to have been referring to the media preview and friends and family events that precede the official opening.

- La Toison d'Or in Dijon, France, which will be the 13th Apple retail store in the country. The closest current stores in Lyon and Geneva are roughly 200 kilometers away.

- Valley Plaza, in Bakersfield, California, which will be the 52nd Apple retail store in California. Despite its arrival in Apple's most popular state for retail stores, the new Bakersfield store fills a void in the company's coverage for the metro area of over 800,000 people, as the closest existing store until now has been located nearly 90 minutes away in Santa Clarita.

And finally, the launch week wraps up with the arrival of the Il Leone store in Lonato, Italy on Saturday. The new store, located between Milan and Venice and roughly 80 kilometers from the nearest current store in Bergamo, will see a traditional Saturday opening because Italy is not one of this Friday's launch markets for the iPhone 5. The device will launch in Italy one week later on Friday, September 28 as part of a rapid expansion to 22 new countries.

Following today's news that the iPhone 5 has set a record with over two million pre-orders during the first 24 hours of availability last Friday, Apple's stock price is rising once more. Apple's share price broke through the $700 mark for the first time today in after-hours trading, continuing the company's meteoric rise as the most valuable publicly traded company in the world.

The stock price has been on a tear -- albeit with a bit of a lull in the middle of the year -- since Apple reported blowout earnings for the first fiscal quarter of 2012, rising more than $270/share, or over 65%, in nine months.

At the end of February, Apple broke through the important psychological barrier of $500 billion in market capitalization, then through $600 billion in April. Apple is now worth more than $650 billion, which is $225 billion -- or approximately one Google -- more than second-place ExxonMobil.

According to reports on the MacRumors Forums and on Twitter, Apple's iMessage SMS-replacement service is currently experiencing some sort of system outage.

Users are experiencing difficulties with delayed messages, messages completely failing to send, as well as read receipt notification errors. The problem is intermittent and not universal, but given the high-profile that Apple places on the service -- it's enabled by default on every iOS device -- any sort of outage is going to affect many users.

We've emailed Apple for comment and a timeline for a resolution, but have yet to hear back.

Update: iMessage appears to be working again for many.

Following Apple's announcement earlier today that it took two million iPhone 5 pre-orders in the first 24 hours of availability, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has published a new research note predicting that Apple will achieve sales in the range of 6-10 million units for the opening weekend, with the mid-range number of 8 million units being used for modeling purposes. Munster bases his predictions on the strong pre-order numbers and comparisons to last year's performance for the iPhone 4S.

Given the 2 million pre-orders, we remain confident that Apple can deliver 8 million (range of 6-10 million) iPhones in the launch weekend. The reason we are confident in the 8 million is two-fold. First, initial 24 hour pre-orders for the iPhone 5 were up 100% y/y from the iPhone 4S. Last year, pre-orders accounted for 25% of total weekend launch unit sales. Assuming the same initial pre-order/retail distribution, the pre-order total would suggest 8 million launch units.

Last year, Apple reported that first-day pre-orders for the iPhone 4S "topped one million", with that number translating into over four million units sold in the opening weekend of actual sales.

Munster notes that with Apple's fourth fiscal quarter of 2012 coming to a close at the end of September and the company already quoting shipping estimates of 2-3 weeks for new iPhone 5 pre-orders, some of the launch weekend total may actually bleed over into the following quarter, as Apple recognizes revenue once orders ship to customers.

Back in late June, we reported that some early purchasers of Apple's Retina MacBook Pro were experiencing image persistence or "ghosting" issues in which remnants of previously-displayed windows remain visible on the screen for sometime afterward.

Apple was reportedly replacing the affected machines and DisplayMate's Ray Soneira had indicated that it was likely to be an early production issue, but three months later users are still complaining about the issue. Extensive threads in the MacRumors forums and at Apple Support Communities have been tracking the issue, which preferentially affects displays manufactured by LG. Displays manufactured by Samsung do not generally appear to be suffering from the problem.

Several of the affected users report being on their third or fourth machine and still receiving units that are affected by the issue. But even as Apple is replacing machines showing image persistence, the company has posted a new support document stating that the phenomenon is normal on the in-plane switching (IPS) displays used in the Retina MacBook Pro and other products.

On an IPS display, when an image such as a login window is left on screen for a long period of time, you may temporarily see a faint remnant of the image even after a new image replaces it. This is referred to as "persistence," "image retention," or "ghosting." This is normal behavior for an IPS display, and the faint image will disappear over time.

You can prevent image persistence by using the display sleep feature to turn off the display when it is not in use. You can also use a screen saver to make sure that a static image isn't on the display for long periods of time. Both of these features are on by default in Mac OS X, but you can adjust the settings as needed.

As noted in our forum thread users can paste the following command into Terminal in order to determine the manufacturer of their displays:

ioreg -lw0 | grep \"EDID\" | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6

Model numbers beginning with "LP" indicate an LG display while model number beginning with "LSN" correspond to Samsung displays. A number of those affected by the issue indicate that it was not necessarily noticeable at first but has seemed to worsen over time, and a checkerboard image posted to our forums can be used to help assess the severity of the problem. Users with significant issues should, however, be able to easily see the image persistence when moving any window away from a contrasting background after even just a few minutes on the screen.

Following today's announcement by AT&T sharing word that the iPhone 5 has broken pre-order sales records at the carrier, Apple has issued a press release noting that it too saw record-breaking pre-orders of over two million units in the first 24 hours of availability. The performance breaks last year's record of one million iPhone 4S units pre-ordered on the first day of availability.

“iPhone 5 pre-orders have shattered the previous record held by iPhone 4S and the customer response to iPhone 5 has been phenomenal,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “iPhone 5 is the best iPhone yet, the most beautiful product we’ve ever made, and we hope customers love it as much as we do.”

The iPhone 5 will be available beginning this Friday, September 21. The first pre-orders have begun shipping from China, but delivery companies will be coordinating to hold the shipments until Friday. Customers who did not pre-order the device have also begun lining up at a few Apple retail stores ahead of Friday's launch, although most of those seen so far are lining up for promotional purposes.

Apple noted on Friday that it was "blown away" by demand for the iPhone 5, and today AT&T tells MacRumors that the iPhone 5 broke sales records over the weekend. AT&T customers ordered more iPhone 5 models than any previous iPhone, breaking records both for first day preorders and for the whole weekend.

AT&T set a sales record with iPhone 5 over the weekend, making it the fastest-selling iPhone the company has ever offered. Customers ordered more iPhones from AT&T than any previous model, both on its first day of preorders and over the weekend.

It has become tradition for Apple to "sell out" of iPhones during its pre-order period. It did so for the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 4, and the iPhone 4S, and now the iPhone 5.

In June 2010, Apple announced that it took 600,000 pre-orders for the iPhone 4, a number that was "far higher" than the company anticipated and one that resulted in server issues for both Apple and its carrier partners. In October 2011, Apple had a much smoother pre-order process, taking 1,000,000 pre-orders for the iPhone 4S.

If Apple follows its usual protocol, the company should announce pre-order numbers in a press release later today.

Over the weekend, several readers have let us know that iPhone 5 orders have begun shipping from China. It's common for Apple to spread out shipments for the week prior to the launch with special instructions to couriers to hold deliveries at local warehouses until the target date. In this case, the iPhone 5 is set to be delivered to customers on September 21st.

Those who are impatient to receive their tracking number from Apple, may be able to determine it from the UPS website. TSX posts how to obtain your UPS tracking number. The same technique may work for Fed-Ex as well. Apple uses both carriers for iPhone deliveries.

Our iPhone forums are buzzing with activity amongst those waiting for their deliveries. Several discussion threads are active tracking activity and movement of deliveries. Several are listed here:

- Apple.com Pre-Order Discussion
- AT&T Pre-Order Discussion
- Verizon Pre-Order Discussion
- Sprint Pre-Order Discussion
- Canadian Pre-Order Discussion
- UK Pre-Order Discussion

Readers are even decoding serial numbers to find when their iPhone 5 was manufactured. The earliest recorded manufacture date is the week of August 5-11. Those who ordered from Apple.com can see their iPhone 5's serial number in Apple's Support Profile page.

Meanwhile, Fortune has posted that the line has already begun at New York City's 5th Avenue Apple store. The line, however, currently consists of those there for promotional/paid purposes rather than personal purchases.