MacRumors

CNet reports that Apple has settled a class action suit over the iPhone 4's antenna.

The settlement comes from 18 separate lawsuits that were consolidated into one. All share the claim that Apple was "misrepresenting and concealing material information in the marketing, advertising, sale, and servicing of its iPhone 4--particularly as it relates to the quality of the mobile phone antenna and reception and related software."

When the iPhone 4 launched in 2010, some customers were affected by low signals and dropped calls that were believed to be related to the iPhone 4's external antenna. At the time, Apple's response was a press conference as well as a refund offer for iPhone 4 customers or free bumper cases.

Based on the preliminary approval, U.S. residents who bought the iPhone 4 will be entitled to $15 in cash or a bumper case provided by Apple. The lawyers claim that the 25 million customers may be eligible.

Update: The Loop's Jim Dalrymple has obtained a statement from Apple on the settlement:

“This settlement relates to a small number of customers who indicated that they experienced antenna or reception issues with their iPhone 4 and didn’t want to take advantage of a free case from Apple while it was being offered in 2010,” Apple spokeswoman Natalie Harrison told me on Saturday.

ABCNews reports that Apple has given Nightline anchor Bill Weir exclusive access to their suppliers' factories in China.

"For years, Apple and Foxconn have been synonymous with monster profits and total secrecy so it was fascinating to wander the iphone and iPod production lines, meet the people who build them and see how they live. Our cameras were rolling when thousands of hopeful applicants rushed the Foxconn gates and I spoke with dozens of line workers and a top executive about everything from hours and pay to the controversies over suicides at the plant and the infamous "jumper nets" that line the factories in Shenzhen. After this trip, I'll never see an Apple product the same way again" said Weir

This special edition of "Nightline" will air Tuesday, February 21st at 11:35pm ET on ABC.

Apple and Foxconn have been under fire due to working conditions in the factories that manufacture iPads and iPhones. Apple has also allowed the Fair Labor Association to start auditing their factories. FLA has reportedly uncovered "tons of issues" that will need addressing. A full report is to be coming in the next few weeks.

Over the past couple of months, several photos of displays claimed to be for the iPad 3 have surfaced from various sources. Such parts leaks are typical with the device's expected debut early next month. While reports have claimed that these displays are high-resolution "Retina" displays, there has been no definite confirmation of these claims so far.

MacRumors has now been able to obtain one of these iPad 3 displays and examine it under a microscope in an effort to determine whether it is indeed an ultra-high resolution Retina display. Physically, the purported iPad 3 display is the same size as the current iPad 1 and iPad 2 display at 9.7" in diagonal, and looks quite similar to the naked eye.

However, when comparing the iPad 3 display to one from an iPad 2 under a microscope, the difference in resolutions becomes readily apparent, with the iPad 3 display's pixels appearing to be one-quarter the size of those on the iPad 2.

Since we only had a raw iPad 3 display with no method to power it, taking high quality photos of the pixels was difficult. Still, even with the relatively poor lighting, you can easily make out the pixels on each display (made up of red, green and blue elements). We highlighted a cluster of 4 pixels (2x2) from the iPad 2 to compare it to the same area on the iPad 3. On the iPad 3, the same cluster was occupied by 16 pixels (4x4) -- exactly twice the resolution in each direction.

Extrapolating out, the iPad 3 screen should carry a full resolution of 2048x1536, exactly twice the linear resolution of the iPad 1 and iPad 2 which is 1024x768. Such a screen should be able to display much sharper images as compared to the previous generation iPads.

While these iPad 3 screens weren't directly sourced from Apple, they are labeled as OEM replacement parts for the iPad 3 and are apparently in mass production. The difficulties of any 3rd party in mass producing 2048x1536 9.7" Retina displays make us quite confident that these represent legitimate iPad 3 parts.

Apple is expected to introduce the iPad 3 with a media event on March 7, and the device is rumored to be carrying this high-resolution display, a new A6 system-on-a-chip, and LTE support for models with cellular data capabilities.

Apple has posted a new feature on its site promoting a countdown to 25 billion downloads for the App Store.

As of today, nearly 25 billion apps have been downloaded worldwide. Which is almost as amazing as the apps themselves. So we want to say thanks. Download the 25 billionth app, and you could win a US$10,000 App Store Gift Card. Just visit the App Store and download your best app yet.

Users can enter the promotion either by purchasing/downloading an app from the App Store or by filling out an entry form. The contest winner will be the individual who either downloads the 25 billionth app as determined by Apple or who submits the alternate entry form immediately after the 24,999,999,999th app download, whichever comes first.

Apple has run similar promotions in the past, with a nearly identical one for ten billion App Store downloads taking place just over a year ago and another one for ten billion iTunes Music Store downloads coming in February 2010. Earlier promotions occurred at the one billion song and app marks and at the 100 million song milestone.

Reuters reports that Apple's manufacturing partner Foxconn has announced new wage increases for entry-level workers at its facilities in China, boosting pay anywhere from 16-25 percent. The increase, which comes as Foxconn is again under increasing global pressure stemming from reports on working conditions and worker rights issues at the company, is the company's third wage hike since 2010.

In a statement on Friday, Taiwan-based Foxconn said the pay of a junior level worker in Shenzhen, southern China, had risen to 1,800 yuan ($290) per month and could be further raised above 2,200 yuan if the worker passed a technical examination.

It said that pay three years ago was 900 yuan a month.

Foxconn says that its wages are already far above minimum wage standards set by the government and that it will continue to focus on training and education for its employees. The company also provides room and board for its employees, although some have criticized the living conditions centered around cramped dormitory-style housing with various reports citing anywhere from eight up to fifteen or more beds per room.

Foxconn made a significant boost to worker salaries in mid-2010 following significant scrutiny over worker suicides at the company's facilities. Initial reports had claimed that Apple was directly subsidizing those wage hikes, but Foxconn later denied those reports.

With yesterday's announcements from Apple regarding its forthcoming OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion operating system, a number of media outlets had been provided with advance briefings and early copies of the software for the purposes of having reviews prepared and ready to go. When Apple published its press release and went live with OS X Mountain Lion information at 8:30 AM Eastern yesterday, the embargo was lifted and all of the pre-briefed publications immediately posted their stories on the topic.

But one publication with a long track record of receiving favored access from Apple was missing from that group: The New York Times. An article from the Times' David Pogue was published about five hours after Apple's announcement, and it did not appear to include any specific details suggesting that he had received advance notice of the release.

As reported by The Washington Post, Apple apparently shunned The New York Times over the newspaper's "iEconomy" series of articles that has focused in large part on working conditions in Foxconn's manufacturing plants in China.

Says a source at the Times: “They are playing access journalism...I’ve heard it from people inside Apple: They said, look, you guys are going to get less access based on the iEconomy series.”

The on-the-record word from the New York Times differs only slightly from the not-for-attribution word: “We’re never happy with our access to Apple. We never have been. Apple is a difficult company to report on,” says Damon Darlin, the paper’s tech editor.

A decision by Apple to cut off access for a publication presenting the company in a less-than-favorable light should certainly be no surprise to longtime Apple watchers, and the technique is not an unusual one in business as companies constantly seek to ensure the most positive coverage possible. But as The Washington Post notes, the Times may be more than happy to lose some access to Apple in exchange for its ability to publish high-profile investigative reports such as its iEconomy series.

Update: David Pogue did report on Twitter yesterday that he had been "running Mac OS X Mountain Lion for a week", so it is unclear exactly why his report was not ready to go when the embargo lifted and why his article did not offer any mention of a pre-briefing session as a number of the articles from other publications did.

Update 2: John Gruber reports that David Pogue was indeed present for a pre-briefing with Apple.

When I left my briefing with Schiller last Wednesday in New York, waiting in the hallway for the next briefing was: David Pogue.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google and several other advertising agencies have been discovered to be circumventing privacy protections in Apple's Safari browser for iOS devices in order to track users through ads on numerous popular websites. Google implemented the technique in order to embed +1 buttons on its ads, tricking users' systems into allowing cookies by using an invisible form submission to make Google's third-party cookies, which are blocked by Safari, appear as first-party cookies that are allowed.

To get around Safari's default blocking, Google exploited a loophole in the browser's privacy settings. While Safari does block most tracking, it makes an exception for websites with which a person interacts in some way—for instance, by filling out a form. So Google added coding to some of its ads that made Safari think that a person was submitting an invisible form to Google. Safari would then let Google install a cookie on the phone or computer.

The cookie that Google installed on the computer was temporary; it expired in 12 to 24 hours. But it could sometimes result in extensive tracking of Safari users. This is because of a technical quirk in Safari that allows companies to easily add more cookies to a user's computer once the company has installed at least one cookie.

Google halted the practice once it was contacted by The Wall Street Journal about it, but has tried to downplay the impact of the issue.

In a statement, Google said: "The Journal mischaracterizes what happened and why. We used known Safari functionality to provide features that signed-in Google users had enabled. It's important to stress that these advertising cookies do not collect personal information."

In a companion blog post, The Wall Street Journal notes that the loophole that had permitted Google to bypass Safari's privacy protections has been closed in WebKit, the open source engine behind Safari, with the change having been made by two Google engineers. Consequently, Apple could and appears to be preparing to bring that fix to the public version of Safari.

An Apple spokesman said: “We are aware that some third parties are circumventing Safari’s privacy features and we are working to put a stop to it.”

An update to the software that underlies Safari has closed the loophole that allows cookies to be set after the automatic submission of invisible forms. Future public versions of Safari could incorporate that update. The people who handled the proposed change, according to software documents: two engineers at Google.

The issue was discovered by Stanford graduate student Jonathan Mayer, who has also published an extensive blog post offering additional technical details on how Google and other advertising companies circumvented Safari's default cookie settings.

Consomac has discovered that the OS X Lion Messages Beta that was released yesterday will not be a permanent feature for Lion users. Messages is the new iMessage-compatible version of iChat that will be included in OS X Mountain Lion. Apple also released a public beta version for OS X Lion users to try the app in the meanwhile.

Based on the text strings found in the App's resources, it has been revealed that Messages will no longer be available for Lion users once the beta expires. Instead, Apple tells users to visit the App Store to purchase OS X Mountain Lion to continue to use Messages:

Thank you for participating in the Messages Beta program. With the inclusion of Messages in OS X Mountain Lion, the Messages Beta program has ended.

To continue using Messages, please visit the Mac App Store and purchase OS X Mountain Lion.

OS X Mountain Lion will be a paid update and is expected to be released in late summer.

There has been plenty of evidence that Apple is planning for ultra high resolution Mac displays. In July 2011, we first detailed the existence of a new "HiDPI" mode in OS X Lion. This HiDPI mode was put in place in anticipation of the day that Macs would have double-resolution (4x the number of pixels) "Retina" Displays.

As on the iPhone, Apple's plan was to make it easier on developers to jump to exactly 2x the linear resolution. For example, a 1440x900 pixel screen would go straight to 2880x1800 pixels. This would allow applications to automatically scale up by a factor of two without necessarily having to include high resolution artwork. Apple already made such a transition when going from the iPhone 3GS's screen (320x480) to the iPhone 4's Retina Display (640x960).

In iOS, Developers can include high resolution versions of their artwork designated by the "@2x" suffix. From the developer documentation:

The inclusion of the @2x modifier for the high-resolution image is new and lets the system know that the image is the high-resolution variant of the standard image.

A look at some of the resources from Apple's new Messages app shows several graphics that come in multi-part TIFFs that include regular and double resolution versions. In fact, if you look at the information embedded within the images, you can see the resources were at one point named in the same "@2x" convention. So, it seems Apple's Messages App is already building in support for Retina displays on the Mac.

Rumors have even suggested that we might see our first Retina Display Macs in 2012. One early report claimed Apple was working on a 2880x1800 MacBook Pro for the middle of this year.

Earlier today, Apple announced the developer preview for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. OS X 10.8 offers a number of new features we've detailed before.

InsanelyGreatMac has put together this nice walkthrough video of OS X AirPlay mirroring. That feature allows you to transmit your OS X desktop onto your Apple TV over Wi-Fi:

Meanwhile, CultofMac does a walkthrough of 30 other features in OS X 10.8. Some previously listed, and some new:

There's more discussion on OS X Mountain Lion in our forums.

BlogdoiPhone claims to have somehow obtained a "pre-GM" version of iOS 5.1. GM refers to Golden Master version of the software which is typically the final production version.

Only two new minor findings have been discovered. One is an ever-present camera icon on the lock screen of iOS 5.1. In present versions, the camera button only appears if you double-tap the home button. In this version of iOS 5.1, the camera icon is there at all times, but instead of a button, it's a slider.

Sliding up on the camera icon seems to reveal the Camera app that allows you to take photos without fully unlocking the iPhone. Presumably, this is quicker than the existing solution which actually requires the Camera app to be launched.

The other finding is the presence of a Japanese language setting in Siri. This has been rumored to be an impending feature for Siri.

Apple has been seeding developers with versions of iOS 5.1 beta for some time, but the last release was January 9th. Apple may be waiting to release iOS 5.1 alongside the new iPad which is expected on March 7th. We're not certain about the legitimacy of BlogdoiPhone's screenshots, but carriers presumably do get early builds that may not make it into developer betas.

Apple surprised everyone this morning with a developer preview of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. The new release brings a number of iOS-like features to the Mac, as detailed in this video:

- Messages - new version of iChat with iMessage support
- Reminders - create lists and tasks, synced via iCloud
- Notes - create notes, synced via iCloud
- Notification Center - on screen pop-up notifications
- Share Sheets - share buttons to email, tweet, message, etc...
- Game Center - social gaming center for Mac
- AirPlay Mirroring - broadcast your Mac's screen to your Apple TV

Apple also released a public beta of the Messages App for OS X Lion users and is available today.

Apple did give some of the media early previews of Mountain Lion, which we suspect may have been the unusual media event that had been predicted. OS X Mountain Lion is available to registered developers today, and will be go on sale in late summer 2012.

Roundup of our earlier coverage:

- OS X Mountain Lion's Documents in the Cloud Simplifies File Access Across Devices
- Apple Officially Drops 'Mac' Name from OS X Mountain Lion
- Software Update to Move Inside Mac App Store in OS X Mountain Lion
- OS X Mountain Lion Limits Apps to Mac App Store, Signed Apps by Default
- OS X Mountain Lion Drops Support for Many 2006-2008 Macs with Integrated Graphics
- OS X Mountain Lion to Be True Mac App Store Exclusive

We've also opened an OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion forum for questions and discussions about Apple's new operating system.

With developers needing to prepare for Apple's new Gatekeeper feature in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, Apple has revealed that the functionality is already baked into OS X 10.7.3 but hidden by default. Apple has instructed developers that they can enable Gatekeeper on OS X 10.7.3 from the command line in order to test the functionality.

Mac OS X users will soon have the option of turning on Gatekeeper, a new Mac OS X security feature. When a user does this, the system provides an additional measure of safety: it blocks that user from opening newly-downloaded applications that are not Developer ID–signed. In this scenario, the same user is easily able to launch downloaded applications that are Developer ID–signed.

By default, Gatekeeper is not enabled in Mac OS X v10.7.3. For testing purposes, you can turn it on by using the new Mac OS X system policy control command-line tool, spctl(8).

Running the command "sudo spctl --enable" in Terminal will enable Gatekeeper on OS X 10.7.3, and the system can be turned off by replacing "enable" with "disable". With the system enabled, developers can then test how their applications will behave on systems using Gatekeeper.

Regular users obviously would have little use for activating Gatekeeper on their Lion systems at the present time, as developers have not yet had a chance to begin distributing updated versions of their applications integrating the new Developer-ID functionality. But its inclusion in OS X 10.7.3 is an interesting tidbit that will help developers test their applications with the new program and explains why the new Xcode 4.3 that supports Developer-ID requires OS X 10.7.3.

In another sign of Apple's desire to quickly implement Gatekeeper, Panic's Cabel Sasser notes that Apple contacted select developers last week to invite them to learn more about the feature.