MacRumors

While a few committed individuals have been camping out for the iPhone 4S for some time now, others are now beginning to filter toward their local Apple retail stores in their attempts to secure one of the new models first thing tomorrow morning.

We've yet to hear much from Australia, where stores in the eastern part of the country will be the first to open for iPhone 4S sales just a few hours from now. But lines are already long in Japan, another early launch market for the device, with Guillaume Erard reporting that there were over 100 people in line at Apple's Shibuya retail store in Tokyo a full 11 hours before launch time.

Some of Apple's flagship stores in London are also beginning to see substantial lines forming, as evidenced by photos from Regent Street and Covent Garden stores.

Things still appear to be relatively quiet in the United States and Canada nearly 17 hours before the first launches, as we've been receiving scattered reports of lines beginning to form but with only a handful of people encamped at most of the stores from which we've received reports.

MacRumors forum members looking to organize meetups for the iPhone 4S launch are getting together in our dedicated forum.

Update: MacRecord noted earlier today that there were over 100 people (and now up to 150) in line at the Opéra retail store in Paris.

Update 2: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is reportedly the first and only person in line so far at the Los Gatos retail store in California.

MacGeneration shares a new email from Tim Cook to Apple employees notifying them of the company's plans to shut down for the entire week of Thanksgiving in the United States. The extra vacation time, which will see the corporate employees receiving paid time off for November 21-23 leading into the Thanksgiving holiday, comes in recognition of the company's strong performance this year.

Team,

I consider it an honor to come to work every day alongside the most innovative and most dedicated people on earth. This is an extraordinary time to be at Apple, and it's all made possible by your incredible efforts.

We've had a record-setting year so far and we're heading into the holidays with the strongest product lineup in our history. Customers are absolutely in love with the iPad 2, and the amazing new iPhone 4S is off to the best start of any iPhone we've ever made. The Mac is soaring to new heights with OS X Lion, and on the eve of its 10th birthday, the iPod is still the world's most popular music player.

In recognition of the hard work you've put in this year, we're going to take some extra time off for Thanksgiving. We will shut down with pay on November 21, 22 and 23 so our teams can spend the entire week with their families and friends.

Of course, Retail and some other groups will need to work that week so we can continue to serve our customers. If you're in one of these groups, please check with your manager about taking time off at a later date. Our international teams will schedule their three-day shutdowns this quarter at a time that's best for them. Details will be available on AppleWeb.

I hope everyone enjoys this much deserved break.

Tim

As Cook notes, there is some flexibility in the plan outside of Apple's corporate operations in the United States, with international units being able to schedule their time off at a time appropriate for them. Retail stores will obviously also need to remain up and running over the holiday week, particularly with the day after Thanksgiving being "Black Friday", the busiest shopping day of the year. Consequently, retail store employees will have to schedule their time off at other times.

Apple has routinely shut down for several days around Christmas, and it was rumored last year that developer services through iTunes Connect might also be shutting down over Thanksgiving, but no such shutdown came to pass.

iFixit has already begun a high-quality teardown of the iPhone 4S, and while a considerable number of the internal parts have already been seen in leaked parts prior to the device's launch, a more thorough look at the individual components should provide some interesting details on the device.

The teardown is still just getting underway, with iFixit's technicians having opened up the device, examined the battery and pulled out the logic board, but we'll update this post with additional information as the teardown progresses.

Items of interest:

- The baseband chip is a previously-undisclosed Qualcomm MDM6610, an apparent variation of the MDM6600 used in the CDMA iPhone 4 and other devices. It is unclear at this time what differentiates the MDM6610 from the MDM6600.

- As noted by AnandTech, the part number found on the A5 chip in iFixit's teardown confirms earlier claims that the iPhone 4S carries 512 MB of RAM.

- iFixit confirms that the iPhone 4S uses the linear oscillating vibrator motor as found in the CDMA iPhone 4 rather than the rotational motor found in the GSM iPhone 4. As seen in earlier parts images, the entire internal layout of the iPhone 4S is much more like the CDMA iPhone 4 than the GSM iPhone 4, although Apple obviously had to tweak the chip layout somewhat to squeeze the micro-SIM slot onto the logic board. One exception is the display assembly mounting tabs, which follow the GSM iPhone 4's layout rather than the CDMA version's.

- Chipworks is following along with iFixit's teardown and providing a closer look at the chips discovered inside the iPhone 4S. Many of the chips had already been found in other devices, and Chipworks publishing die photos and other details on them as the information is gathered.

Apple's massive software launch yesterday to debut iOS 5 and iCloud resulted in a number of issues for some users, with iOS installation errors being a primary source of frustration as Apple's servers were overwhelmed by demand for the new operating system.

In fact, as Cult of Mac and The Next Web summarize, traffic to Apple was so high that broader Internet infrastructure was even experiencing difficulties under the load. In particular, one Internet exchange point in London saw its traffic jump by 50% as iOS 5 became available.

The traffic at the LONAP (LONAP is a London Neutral Internet Exchange Point where Internet and content providers exchange traffic) increased from a normal peak of around 18Gb/s to around 28Gb/s.

LONAP's Andy Davidson tells MacRumors that the iOS 5 traffic was unprecedented for a software upgrade.

The traffic was around twice what we would see on a typical Wednesday evening. There was as much traffic as we would see for a major sporting event (such as England playing in the World or European cups). Such volumes have never been seen before for a software upgrade.

The iCloud portion of yesterday's launch has also seen some hiccups, with a number of users reporting difficulties getting the service up and running and/or converting from MobileMe to iCloud. Apple issued a status update yesterday evening indicating that it was limiting the rate of conversions in the face of high demand, encouraging customers experiencing difficulties to try again at a later time.

Due to high demand, we are temporarily limiting the number of users moving from MobileMe to iCloud. Please try again later. We apologize for any inconvenience.

And while many of the high traffic issues have settled down by today, users are now reporting that iCloud mail is down for the moment, although Apple has yet to issue a status update addressing the situation.

Brief downtime and minor issues are not particularly surprising given the popularity of Apple's services and the crush of demand at rollout, but customers who remember the difficult rollout of MobileMe several years ago are undoubtedly hoping that Apple can iron out the wrinkles more quickly this time around.

Update: Apple has issued a status update acknowledging the problems with iCloud mail.

Some users are experiencing intermittent authentication errors when trying to use mail. Normal service will be restored ASAP. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Businessweek has an in-depth look at Apple's Senior Vice President of iOS Software, Scott Forstall. Readers will be familiar with Forstall from his keynote appearances where he often demonstrates the latest iOS features.

The Businessweek article is a not always flattering look at the man who has been partly responsible for much of Apple's success with the iPhone. Forstall is described as almost as a "mini-Steve" being a detail oriented manager but also one that is difficult to work with.

In fact, the article suggests that Forstall was a major factor in Tony Fadell's departure from Apple in early 2010. Fadell had been called the "Godfather" of the iPod due to his key role in that device's creation.

Forstall and Fadell reportedly went head to head in 2005 when Steve Jobs pitted the two against each other in determining the underlying operating system for the iPhone. The two possibilities were a Linux-based operating system or a Mac OS X based one.

In other words, should he shrink the Mac, which would be an epic feat of engineering, or enlarge the iPod? Jobs preferred the former option, since he would then have a mobile operating system he could customize for the many gizmos then on Apple’s drawing board. Rather than pick an approach right away, however, Jobs pitted the teams against each other in a bake-off.

Forstall, of course, led the shrunken down Mac OS X project and ultimately won, but the bad blood over time was said to be a factor in Fadell's decision to leave.

The profile also reports that Forstall may also been an indirect cause of the lost iPhone 4 prototype in 2010. Forstall reportedly convinced Jobs to allow dozens of his engineers to carry prototypes of the then unreleased iPhone 4. It was one of those employees who lost the iPhone 4 at a Redwood City, California bar where it was picked up and sold to Gizmodo.

Forstall had originally joined NeXT, Inc. after college and came to Apple with Steve Jobs after Apple's acquisition of NeXT in 1996. The NeXT operating system then became the basis for Mac OS X and ultimately the iPhone.

The LATimes and Wall Street Journal are both reporting that Apple is working to finalize deals with major movie studios that would allow iTunes customers to stream purchased movies to their devices.

Apple Inc. is negotiating with Hollywood studios for deals that would let people who buy movies from the iTunes Store watch streaming versions of those movies on Apple devices such as iPads or iPhones without manually transferring them, according to people familiar with the matter.

With the launch of iCloud and associated services, Apple has started allowing iTunes customers to freely redownload both music and TV shows to any of their devices.

Even in the weeks leading up to the original iCloud announcement, we'd heard reports that Apple had been in deep negotiations with movie studios to provide just that sort of service. One of the hurdles at the time was reported to be the special exclusivity deals that the studios have with HBO. Those agreements would prevent the sale or distribution of movies while they were being aired on HBO. It's not clear how that conflict will be resolved.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that an Australian court has granted Apple's request for an injunction blocking the sale of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 in that country, with the move apparently setting the stage for Samsung to cancel the device's release there entirely.

Justice Annabelle Bennett today said Apple had a prima facie case that Samsung had infringed two of its patents relating to touch screens and the gestures that control them.

Samsung had agreed several times to delay the Galaxy Tab 10.1 launch in Australia as the request for a preliminary injunction was considered, but noted last week that it would likely scrap the launch entirely if an injunction was granted. The injunction would essentially force the company to miss the holiday sales period and make the Galaxy Tab 10.1 relatively outdated by the time the injunction could be lifted through a full hearing on the matter.

In a statement, Samsung Electronics said it was disappointed with the ruling and would be seeking legal advice on its options.

"Samsung will continue its legal proceeding against Apple's claim in order to ensure our innovative products remain available to consumers," it said.

"This is a part of our ongoing legal proceeding against Apple's claim. Samsung is also confident it can prove Apple's violation of Samsung's wireless technology patents through a cross-claim filed on September 16, 2011 with the Federal Court of Australia, New South Wales.

Apple previously won an injunction blocking the sale of the Galaxy Tab in Germany, while a separate injunction targeting Samsung's smartphones in Europe had been set to go into effect tomorrow. Samsung has indicated, however, that it has addressed that issue by removing the infringing behavior of allowing users to swipe between photos.

Research firm Gartner today released its preliminary personal computer shipment data for the third quarter of 2011, offering up a picture of market performance during the quarter. Riding the strength of the MacBook Air, Apple experienced aggressive 21.5% year-over-year growth to take third place in a U.S. market that grew by only 1.1% overall.

Gartner's early study shows that Apple experienced the strongest growth among the top five vendors in the U.S. PC market. Apple's PC shipments increased 21.5 percent in the third quarter of 2011. The robust growth of the MacBook Air continued to lead Apple's overall growth in the U.S. market.

With the boost, Apple's market share in the U.S. grew to 12.9% during the third quarter, up from 10.8% in the year-ago quarter and 10.7% last quarter.

As usual, Gartner did not cover Apple's worldwide market share for the quarter, as the company does not rank among the top five vendors on a worldwide basis.