MacRumors

Even as the broader markets are down so far today, Apple's stock price is up a healthy 2.4% over Friday's close, pushing the stock price to an all-time high of over $410 per share. The jump has pushed Apple's market capitalization to $380 billion, giving the company an approximately $25 billion cushion over second-place Exxon Mobil in the rankings of most valuable companies.

Apple's recent stock performance is evidence of the faith the markets have in Apple even as Tim Cook has officially replaced Steve Jobs as CEO. Apple's stock price initially dropped 5% in after-hours trading following Jobs' resignation but rebounded during regular trading the next day to close down only a fraction of a percentage point. Since that time nearly four weeks ago, Apple's stock is up 15% and is now higher than it had ever been under Jobs.

Update: After touching $413.23 late in the trading day, Apple's stock closed at $411.63 per share today.

The debate over just what Apple will be introducing for its revamped iPhone lineup over the coming weeks is continuing to rage, and J.P. Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz has weighed in claiming that the company will indeed be introducing two models: a redesigned iPhone 5 and a cheaper "iPhone 4-plus" focused on the Chinese market but also available elsewhere.

J.P.Morgan’s research suggests the iPhone 5 will be based on a lighter, thinner form factor that is GSM and CDMA capable. In other words, a “world-mode” smartphone, but not LTE-capable. Mr. Moskowitz also expects the iPhone 5 will have a larger retina display [than] the iPhone 4′s 3.5 inch screen and include an 8 megapixel camera with LED flash.

The iPhone 4-plus device is anticipated to be based on the current iPhone and subsume the iPhone 3GS as the lower-end offering. Mr. Moskowitz thinks it could target one or more network carriers in China, but is unlikely to be exclusive to the region.

The only concrete evidence of a redesigned iPhone 5 has come in the form of third-party cases based on a claimed leaked design document for the device. Numerous parts for an iPhone 4-like "iPhone 4S" have surfaced over the past several months, leading some to wonder whether Apple will be releasing both models, and if not, which of the two will be the iPhone 5.

Fueling the uncertainty is that fact that some analysts have seen no sign of a redesigned iPhone 5 in Apple's supply chain, while other sources including Moskowitz maintain that Apple will indeed be launching two separate models.

Late last month, we reported on photos of what appeared to be the logic board for the iPhone 4S or 5, showing a form factor for the board more similar in appearance to the CDMA iPhone 4 than the GSM iPhone 4, as well as space for Apple's rectangular A5 system-on-a-chip.

phoneArena.com now points to a new image that has surfaced on Chinese microblogging site Weibo appearing to show that same logic board with all chips in place and at least partially assembled. A connection to what appears to be a white iPhone 4-like front panel/LCD display is visible, as are a battery and several other flex cables from the device.

The image clearly shows an A5 chip, which is of course expected for the iPhone 5. There has been some debate, however, about whether Apple will be introducing an iPhone 4-like model that has been unofficially dubbed the iPhone 4S, a redesigned iPhone 5, or both. If Apple does indeed release both an iPhone 4S and an iPhone 5, an A5 chip in the lower-level iPhone 4S would be a significant inclusion given that Apple has typically chosen to offer versions of its previous-generation models and technologies as its entry-level devices.

The battery included in the leaked photo is also generating some conversation, as it appears to be the same model number is seen in previous photos, but carries slightly different specs. Earlier photos had shown the battery offering 3.7 V and 5.3 Whr, for a charge capacity of about 1430 mAh. For comparison, the current iPhone 4 battery checks in at 3.7 V and 5.25 Whr, offering 1420 mAh of charge.

This new photo appears to have the charge of 1430 mAh stamped directly on it, but curiously seems to list the voltage at 4.2 V. It is unclear exactly why the battery seems to be reporting a different voltage, and thus a different energy close to 6 Whr to reach the same 1430 mAh charge seen in earlier photos of the same part.

As if a grand opening for Apple's first Hong Kong store this Saturday wasn't enough, the company has also announced that it will be opening its massive new Nanjing East store in Shanghai on Friday.

We noted last week that Apple had added its "curtain opening" promotional signage to the barrier surrounding store, suggesting that a launch was imminent.

First revealed back in February, the store will be Apple's third in Shanghai and fifth overall in China, and will be the largest Apple retail store in the country. The Nanjing East store will span five levels: a ground floor dedicated to sales, a second floor dedicated to support and training, and three additional floors devoted to business customers and office space for Apple's Chinese operations.

Shanghai is already home to one iconic Apple store, the Pudong store with its cylindrical glass entrance leading to a below-ground store underneath a central plaza at the city's International Finance Center. Apple has cited the entry's glass panels as the largest such curved glass panels in the world and the result of key technological advancements that the company is using in other projects such as the revamp of its Fifth Avenue cube in Manhattan and its planned second corporate campus in Cupertino, California.

(Thanks Tock!)

Apple today launched new online stores for four new countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and the United Arab Emirates.

The new online stores are advertised prominently on the respective country-specific main Apple pages, which display welcome messages on top of confetti in each country's national colors.

The new stores allow users to purchase directly from Apple, offering standard Apple pricing for the markets and integration with Apple sales and support services. With the four new stores, Apple now offers online stores for 37 countries, with several of those countries seeing their stores offered in multiple languages.

(Thanks Martas!)

Earlier this year, it was revealed that Apple was planning to open its first retail store in Hong Kong by the end of this year, targeting a 15,000 square foot space in the IFC Mall. We soon put together details on the location, which is on the far eastern edge of the mall and spans two levels while displacing ten other retail stores that formerly occupied the space.

Details on the massive new store have continued to surface as Apple has built out the space over the past six months, with a report earlier this month claiming that Apple was planning for a September 24th opening for the store.

That opening date has now been confirmed, as evidenced by a small new sign placed on a stand in front of an entrance to the store. The sign confirms that the store will open this Saturday, September 24th, at 9:00 AM.

The company has also rolled out a new Hong Kong retail page with a dedicated store page already up and running.

Few details on the interior design of the store are known, but it is clear that the location will be a significant new flagship for Apple in one of the world's leading financial centers. Its location in the high-profile IFC Mall at the foot of one of the tallest office buildings in the world offers Apple a unique opportunity to expand its presence in a relatively small but important portion of its "Greater China" market that has seen explosive growth over the past several years.

(Thanks Stig!)

Apple has yet to announce the iPhone 5, but Samsung is apparently already making plans to target it with patent lawsuits as the intellectual property dispute between the two companies continues to escalate. Word of Samsung's plans comes from a "senior executive" at the company and was reported to The Korea Times.

"Just after the arrival of the iPhone 5 here, Samsung plans to take Apple to court here for its violation of Samsung's wireless technology related patents," said a senior executive from Samsung Electronics, asking not to be identified.

"For as long as Apple does not drop mobile telecommunications functions, it would be impossible for it to sell its i-branded products without using our patents. We will stick to a strong stance against Apple during the lingering legal fights."

Samsung is stepping up its attacks on Apple's products after courts in several countries have issued injunctions barring Samsung from selling its Galaxy Tab devices in those markets following complaints of intellectual property infringement from Apple.

Samsung is unable to make any preemptive strikes against the iPhone 5 because Apple has yet to reveal any details on the device, meaning that Samsung has no product against which to lodge infringement claims at this time. But Samsung is clearly preparing its case based on patents it owns related to basic wireless technology, which the iPhone 5 will no doubt be using. Once the device is introduced, Samsung will be free to make its infringement claims against Apple and the iPhone 5.

The report from The Korea Times also briefly cites unspecified "officials" who claim that the iPhone 5 will include near-field communication (NFC) technology. Reports thus far have been uncertain about whether such technology would appear in the iPhone 5 or be held for the iPhone 6, but general consensus has been leaning toward NFC not being included in the iPhone 5.

Apple is planning to reset all iCloud backup data on September 22nd, 2011. As noted by 9to5Mac, the announcement was posted to Apple's developer site for both iOS and Mac developers:

On Thursday, September 22, the iCloud Backup data will be reset. Backing up to iCloud or restoring from an iCloud backup will be unavailable from 9 AM PDT – 5 PM PDT. If you attempt a backup or restore during this time, you will receive an alert that the backup or restore was not successful. After this reset, you will be unable to restore from any backup created prior to September 22. A full backup will happen automatically the next time your device backs up to iCloud.

Apple's iOS 5 has been undergoing developer testing since its announcement back in June. Developers have been able to test iCloud for backups and storage during the developer betas.

Apple has provided 7 betas to developers thus far, and had been previously rumored to be offering the Golden Master (final version before release) on September 23rd. That same rumor had also incorrectly pinpointed a Beta 8 release a few days ago, but the 23rd date seems to line up nicely with this iCloud backup reset.

Apple had said that iOS 5 would launch "this fall" which technically begins on September 23rd.

Apple is picking up the pace of OS X 10.7.2 developer seeds as it moves toward a public launch of iCloud and iOS 5, today pushing out Build 11C57 to developers for testing.

As with the previous seed, which came just five days ago, the iCloud components have been rolled into OS X 10.7.2. iCloud has previously been a separate download for beta testers.

Apple continues to list no known issues with the latest build, and has made no changes to its list of focus areas for testing, which include AddressBook, GraphicsDrivers, iCal, iChat, iCloud, Mac App Store, Mail, MobileMe, Safari, Spotlight, and Time Machine.

Macworld reports that Apple has made a change to its Mac App Store providing warnings to users attempting to purchase apps that are already installed on their computers but purchased from outside the Mac App Store. The warning says:

[App name] is already installed and was not purchased from the Mac App Store

Do you want to buy [app name] again?

The report notes that while Apple has yet to provide a way for users to bring their existing non-Mac App Store apps into the Mac App Store ecosystem, the step does help prevent accidental double purchases of apps in cases where users fail to realize that they have an application already installed.

As noted by The Next Web, however, the existing app and the Mac App Store must be the exact same version in order for the warning to be triggered. Consequently, users will still need to be careful to pay attention to their existing installed apps when browsing the Mac App Store.

With the new 27" Apple Thunderbolt Display now shipping to customers, Apple has posted a new support document outlining what can and can not be accomplished with multiple monitors on Thunderbolt-enabled Mac systems.

As far as compatibility, Apple notes that all Thunderbolt-enabled systems with the exception of the MacBook Air can handle two Thunderbolt displays, with a caveat for the 13-inch MacBook Pro being that the computer's internal display will not function if two Thunderbolt displays are connected. The high-end $799 Mac mini with discrete AMD graphics is also capable of running a third display via HDMI.

- MacBook Air (Mid 2011): One Thunderbolt display.

- MacBook Pro (Early 2011): Two Thunderbolt displays. Connecting a second Apple Thunderbolt Display (27-inch) to a 13-inch MacBook Pro will make the screen on the MacBook Pro turn black. This is expected behavior.

- iMac (Mid 2011 and Late 2011): Two Thunderbolt displays. iMac (27-inch, Mid 2011) with two Thunderbolt ports supports a total of two Thunderbolt displays regardless of which Thunderbolt port each display is connected to.

- Mac mini (Mid 2011): Two Thunderbolt displays. Mac mini with AMD graphics can support a HDMI compatible device on its HDMI port when using two Thunderbolt displays.

One other note of interest that will be a disappointment for some users is the disclosure that users will not be able to daisy chain a Mini DisplayPort display off an Apple Thunderbolt Display.

Mini DisplayPort displays will not light up if connected to the Thunderbolt port on an Apple Thunderbolt Display (27-inch).

The revelation is a bit of a surprise, as Mini DisplayPort displays can currently be daisy chained off other Thunderbolt peripherals. Some users had been hoping to reuse their existing Mini DisplayPort displays as part of multiple-monitor setups using the new Thunderbolt display, but will apparently be unable to do so.

Finally, Apple recommends that users daisy chaining the Apple Thunderbolt Display with Thunderbolt storage devices connect the display directly to the computer's Thunderbolt port, with other peripherals daisy chaining off of the display.

Update: Macworld appears to have demonstrated that you can indeed daisy chain a Mini DisplayPort monitor as long as it is connected to some other device than the Thunderbolt display. In Macworld's apparent setup, a Pegasus RAID storage device is placed between the Thunderbolt display and an older Mini DisplayPort display from Apple and all displays work properly.

It is unclear why simply inserting another Thunderbolt device into the middle of the chain allows the Mini DisplayPort display to function, but at least one MacRumors forum member has confirmed that he is unable to daisy chain his Mini DisplayPort-enabled Apple Cinema Display directly off of the new Thunderbolt display.

According to a new research note from J.P. Morgan's Mark Moskowitz summarized by AppleInsider, Apple is unsurprisingly working on prototypes for the iPad 3, but should be in "no rush" to release the device as competitors have yet to put forward compelling alternative devices.

Analyst Mark Moskowitz with J.P. Morgan revealed on Friday that his conversations with industry insiders have revealed that Apple's next iPad will not be available until sometime in 2012, even as prototypes for the device begin to circle in the supply chain.

"In our view, Apple should be in no rush," he said. "The other tablet entrants have stumbled so far, and that trend-line could persist deep into 2012."

Moskowitz's report comes as yet another competing tablet exhibits poor marketplace performance, with Research in Motion reporting (PDF) yesterday that it shipped only 200,000 PlayBook tablets during its second fiscal quarter of 2012 that ended on August 27th. It is unknown how many of those shipments translated into sales to end users. In contrast, Apple shipped 9.25 million iPads during its most recently completed quarter.

Apple had been rumored to be trying to launch the iPad 3 sometime near the end of this year, but has now reportedly settled on an early 2012 debut. Some reports have claimed that technological difficulties with building a Retina display for the iPad 3 forced Apple to cancel any plans of a 2011 release for the device.

Continued word of a 2012 release for the iPad 3 comes as TiPb notes that Target is listing at least some of the current iPad 2 models as "discontinued" in its internal store inventory systems. Such stock systems can be unreliable indicators, however, and thus it is not believed to be suggestive of an imminent iPad 3 launch. The reason for the change in status does, however, remain unknown.

9to5Mac claims that there are indeed two new iPhone models: the "low-end" iPhone 4-look alike that we've seen parts for already, and the teardrop shaped iPhone 5 (artist rendition below).

But they also claim that this new iPhone 5 design is seeing design and production delays so there may be shortages into 2012:

It appears that the tear-drop shaped iPhone 5 with larger screen and thinner, rounder body is seeing continued design and production delays, at least on one assembly line (Apple has multiple production sources – Pegatron, Foxconn, etc). We therefore think that iPhone 5 will be delayed slightly at the very least and may see shortages all the way into 2012.

Apple is expected to hold a media event announcing the iPhone 5 later this month, but has been known to pre-announce products that won't be available for some period of time. Most recently, Apple's Thunderbolt Display was announced to be delivered "within 60 days". With the iPhone, Apple will certainly try to minimize that delay in order to avoid suppressing sales during the holiday quarter. To be clear, the iPhone 5 announcement may still be "weeks away", but availability and stock of the iPhone 5 may be limited to start, if this rumor is to be believed.

Apple's annual iPhone announcement is already much later in the year than usual. In the past 4 years, Apple has launched a new iPhone in the summer, while this year's launch has still not been officially confirmed.

Meanwhile, MacRumors has also heard through a supplier that the case manufacturers are very confident that the leaked case designs are representative of the iPhone 5. There's been some speculation about how certain the case manufacturers need to be to start mass producing these early case designs. At least according to one of our contacts, they seem very certain.

As noted by CNet, one of the areas of focus in Intel's next generation Ivy Bridge processors is the graphics processing unit (GPU). Anandtech reports that Intel expects there to be a 60% improvement in graphics benchmarks over Sandy Bridge's integrated graphics. Sandy Bridge is the current generation Intel CPU that ships in Apple's computers.

During this week's developer's conference, CNet relays that Intel also confirmed that Ivy Bridge's integrated GPU will offer OpenCL support for the first time. OpenCL is an Apple-backed framework that makes it easier for developers to offload general non-graphical work to GPUs. It was first introduced in Apple's Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and was described by Apple:

Snow Leopard further extends support for modern hardware with Open Computing Language (OpenCL), which lets any application tap into the vast gigaflops of GPU computing power previously available only to graphics applications. OpenCL is based on the C programming language and has been proposed as an open standard.

Apple has continued support for OpenCL in OS X Lion and presently presently lists these graphics cards or processors as providing support for OpenCL:

- NVIDIA GeForce 320M, GeForce GT 330M, GeForce 9400M, GeForce 9600M GT, GeForce 8600M GT, GeForce GT 120, GeForce GT 130, GeForce GTX 285, GeForce 8800 GT, GeForce 8800 GS, Quadro FX 4800, Quadro FX5600
- ATI Radeon HD 4670, ATI Radeon HD 4850, Radeon HD 4870, ATI Radeon HD 5670, ATI Radeon HD 5750, ATI Radeon HD 5770, ATI Radeon HD 5870
- AMD Radeon HD 6750M, AMD Radeon HD 6770M, AMD Radeon HD 6970M

If your machine does not have any of these graphics processors listed, you can't take full advantage of OpenCL enabled applications. Notably absent from the list are the Intel integrated graphics systems that presently power the MacBook Airs and 13" MacBook Pros.

The quality of Intel's integrated graphics processor performance has been long discussed over the past year. Due to the small size of the MacBook Air and 13" MacBook Pro, it's not feasible for Apple to include a discrete 3rd party graphics card to boost GPU performance. Instead, those models must rely on the graphics processor integrated into the CPU/chipset itself. In the past, Apple had used the better performing NVIDIA integrated graphics, but due to a legal dispute with Intel, NVIDIA was unable to continue manufacturing those chipsets. This year's MacBook Air finally made the transition from NVIDIA graphics to Intel graphics, though was seen as a downgrade by some.

When it's launched in 2012, Ivy Bridge should bring some welcome graphical performance improvements to Apple's MacBook Air line, which is becoming an increasingly popular choice for consumers. OpenCL support is another nice addition that should also make its way into the 2012 MacBook Airs.