MacRumors

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.

Back in March, we noted that Apple had activated Safari tab syncing through iCloud in OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview 2, with the feature designed to allow users to sync open browser tabs across Macs and presumably iOS devices. Now in a new report from 9to5Mac outlining several OS X Mountain Lion features that will also be making their way to iOS 6, the site unsurprisingly notes that Safari iCloud tab syncing will indeed be coming to iOS as well as OS X.

When the iCloud Tabs button is clicked on an iOS 6 device (or Mac), all the tabs opened on each device are simply shown in a synchronized list. From here, users can quickly pickup individual tabs that they were working on across their Apple devices. The iCloud Tabs button on the iPhone and iPod touch is hidden behind the Bookmarks toolbar.

Another new Mountain Lion feature also being implemented in iOS 6 is Mail VIPs. With this feature, users can designate "VIPs" whose emails will appear with stars next to them in Mail to make them stand out at a glance. The feature will also be iCloud-compatible on compatible accounts, with designated VIP statuses being synced across devices.

One final OS X Mountain Lion feature said to be coming to iOS 6 is "Do Not Disturb" mode for Notification Center. As implemented in Mountain Lion, users can turn on Do Not Disturb mode to hide incoming Notification Center banners and alerts. An essentially identical setting has reportedly been added to the top section of the Settings app in iOS 6, allowing users to easily hide incoming notifications and prevent interruptions.

9to5Mac also details some of the Facebook integration coming in iOS 6, noting that the implementation will be very similar to that seen for Twitter. One of the primary areas of integration will be in the Photos app, where users will be able to easily post photos directly to their Facebook timelines. Facebook will also utilize a similar system to the Tweet Sheets seen in iOS 5, offering a window for users to type in text to accompany items being posted to Facebook.

Matrox has announced a new Thunderbolt docking station for MacBooks and Ultrabooks.

From a single Thunderbolt connection, users can add multiple peripherals including a large DVI or HDMI® display, a full-size keyboard, and a mouse. A gigabit Ethernet port provides connectivity to a wired corporate network, enabling data transfers 18 times faster than Wi-Fi™. One SuperSpeed USB 3.0 port, two USB 2.0 ports, a microphone input, and a speaker/headphone output are also provided. With its solid aluminum construction, yet sleek design, Matrox DS1 is ideal for office, dorm, or home use.

At a proposed price of $249, the Matrox DS-1 comes in cheaper than Belkin's $299 solution that is due this fall. Matrox's unit lacks a couple of ports (additional Thunderbolt, and Firewire) that are found on Belkin's dock. The DS-1 comes with DVI, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, (2) USB 2.0, Audio Output, Audio Input, and Power connectors:

The Matrox does carry a high speed USB 3.0 port that is absent on Belkin's unit. The addition of that port may make the dock more appealing to PC/Ultrabook customers. It's not clear, however, from Matrox's site if the USB 3.0 port is functional on a Mac. (*Update)

In the past, USB 3.0 support on the Mac has required the installation of 3rd party drivers. These drivers are generally provided by the hardware manufacturer.

Apple has been rumored to be including USB 3.0 support in their next generation MacBook Pros which are due this summer. If that does come to pass, the USB 3.0 port on Matrox's dock may work with Apple's own bundled USB 3.0 drivers.

The Matrox DS-1 Thunderbolt docking station will be available worldwide in September for $249.

Update: Matrox has informed us that MacBooks will be able to take advantage of the USB 3.0 port.

TechCrunch reports that iOS 6 will include system-level integration of Facebook, similar to the integration seen with Twitter in iOS 5. The report comes just days after Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke positively about Facebook at the D10 Conference, closing his thoughts on the relationship between Apple and Facebook with the suggestive phrase "stay tuned".

After much speculation, Facebook integration will indeed be baked into the latest version of iOS, we’ve learned. [...]

To be clear, Twitter will still very much be a part of the new iOS (presumably named “iOS 6″ and codenamed “Sundance“), and that company will be holding sessions at WWDC to chat more about the continued partnership (including the integration into the forthcoming OS X Mountain Lion). But Facebook integration will be very important for iOS — tons of apps use Facebook for sign-ups and authentication (many use Facebook as the only way to do this, to the dismay of some). Apple was undoubtedly watching this activity and realized that it was time to formally bring Facebook on board.

TechCrunch notes that Apple and Facebook are still working out how sharing items to Facebook will be integrated, given the varying levels of permissions on Facebook posts. The report also includes the caveat that Apple has been known to change its mind in the past, but as of right now Facebook integration is reportedly set to be unveiled in iOS 6 at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference later this month.

With Apple's MobileMe service set to shut down at the end of this month as the company completes the transition to iCloud, users of the service are receiving 30-day warning emails reminding them of the impending shutdown.

Those MobileMe users who have yet to move their accounts to iCloud are receiving a message warning them that they need to take action in order for their email to continue functioning and offering instructions on the transition process. Apple is also reminding users that those whose systems don't meet the minimum requirements for the full iCloud service can still migrate their email and calendars to iCloud.

MobileMe users who have already converted to iCloud are receiving a slightly different message reminding them that MobileMe Gallery, iDisk, and iWeb hosting will all be discontinued with the final transition to iCloud. Those users should be sure to download any affected content they wish to keep before MobileMe is shut down.

With Apple reportedly abandoning Google in favor of its own mapping solution for iOS 6, 9to5Google reports that Google will be holding an event on June 6 to show off "The Next Dimension of Google Maps". The event comes just five days before Apple is expected to show off details of iOS 6 at its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote.

At this invitation-only press gathering, Brian McClendon, VP of Google Maps and Google Earth, will give you a behind-the-scenes look at Google Maps and share our vision. We’ll also demo some of the newest technology and provide a sneak peek at upcoming features that will help people get where they want to go – both physically and virtually. We hope to see you there.

Apple has relied on Google to provide the mapping functionality in iOS since the iPhone's initial launch back in 2007. But as competition between the two companies has ramped up, Apple has been working to strengthen its expertise in mapping with the acquisition of several small companies and has been gradually moving certain location and mapping services in-house. That transition is expected to culminate in iOS 6 with the core mapping application shifting from Google to Apple.

The timing of Google's event naturally leads to speculation that it has been specifically planned to upstage any Apple announcement about mapping in iOS 6 and to show what users will be missing out on with the transition by Apple.