MacRumors

Reuters reports that Apple's potential plans for its first retail store in London's financial district have been thrown into question as existing buildings surrounding the site may see their protected access to sunlight impinged upon by the development. Apple is said to be looking to build its store on the ground floor of a 10-story building planned for construction at 100 Cheapside in London.

The proposed 10-storey development at 100 Cheapside has planning permission for 87,000 square feet of offices and 13,000 square feet of retail.

U.S. developer Hines is in talks to buy the site for under 25 million pounds and Apple is interested in taking space there, a source close to the process told Reuters.

The property's current owner has asked the city to use its power to waive the ability for owners of neighboring properties to seek injunctions against the project. Thirteen properties are said to be affected by the development, with impact to eight of them substantial enough that their owners are likely to seek injunctions against the project.

Given that construction has yet to begin on the proposed building and the potential legal difficulties facing the project, it is unclear at this time whether Apple will seek other options for a retail store in the area.

Apple has two flagship stores within a few miles of the proposed site, with its Covent Garden store lying approximately 1.5 miles to the west and its Regent Street store about a mile further to the west.

While much of the focus of patent lawsuits involving Apple has revolved around Samsung and other major smartphone manufacturers in recent weeks, Apple this week faces two new lawsuits from smaller companies seeking to assert their intellectual property claims.

On Wednesday, mobile Internet communications technology firm Openwave Systems announced that it had filed a lawsuit and International Trade Commission (ITC) complaint against Apple and Research in Motion, alleging violation of five different patents across a broad spectrum of applications.

The complaint, filed at the International Trade Commission (ITC) in Washington, DC, requests that the ITC bar the import of smartphones and tablet computers that infringe Openwave patents, including, but not limited to, Apple’s iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod Touch, iPad and iPad 2; and RIM’s Blackberry Curve 9330 and Blackberry PlayBook. Openwave also filed a similar complaint in federal district court in Delaware.

“Openwave invented technologies that became foundational to the mobile Internet. We believe that these large companies should pay us for the use of our technologies, particularly in light of the substantial revenue these companies have earned from devices that use our intellectual property,” said Ken Denman, Chief Executive Officer of Openwave. “Before filing these complaints, we approached both of these companies numerous times in an attempt to negotiate a license of our technology with them and did not receive a substantive response.”

As noted by AllThingsD, Openwave appears to have a small yet fairly strong patent portfolio, suggesting that the company may have a decent chance of winning concessions from Apple and Research in Motion and forcing them into licensing discussions.

In other news, Canadian firm Wi-LAN today announced that it has filed suit against Apple and eight other major companies alleging infringement of two patents related to CDMA, HSPA, Wi-Fi, and LTE technologies.

Wi-LAN is generally regarded as a patent troll, having given up on product manufacturing and focused its business solely on attempts to license its intellectual property. The company has not been shy about filing lawsuits alleging infringement of its patents, and has in fact sued Apple several times in the past, most recently in a 2010 complaint targeting over two dozen companies for their implementations of Bluetooth communications technology.

VR-Zone claims to have heard that Apple is still exploring the integration of USB 3.0 into their future computers. USB 3 is the most recent major version of the USB standard. Apple presently supports USB 2 in its computers. The main improvement in USB 3 is that it can support transfer speeds up to 10x faster than USB 2. VR-Zone writes:

A lot of people have been disappointed over Apple's lack of interest in the USB 3.0 standard, but thanks to a little bird, VR-Zone has heard that the company is still looking at USB 3.0 as a potential feature to add on future products. As to when and how this might happen is not something we know, but from our understanding it'll happen before Intel integrates USB 3.0 support into its chipsets.

Apple has been believed to be holding off on USB 3.0, in part, due to a lack of Intel support in their motherboards. Steve Jobs, responding to an email back in October 2010 said the following:

We don't see USB 3 taking off at this time. No support from Intel, for example.

Intel has since announced that their 2012 platform known as 'Ivy Bridge' will support both USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt. Intel says they view the two technologies as complementary. VR-Zone, however, believes that Apple may be considering implementing USB 3.0 before Intel's adoption.

That leaves us wondering when Apple might actually get around to doing this, and for which computers. The iMac, Mac mini and MacBook Pro have all been updated to the latest Intel architecture. We don't expect them to be updated again until the first half of 2012, which is when Intel's USB 3 ready "Ivy Bridge" is also expected to be available. That just leaves the Mac Pro model which is due for upgrade.

The Mac Pro has been believed to have been a candidate for USB 3 in the past. It's overdue for an update, and is expected to see a refresh late this year. So, that's one possible candidate.

The wildcard is the new Mac Product line that was previously rumored. From VR-Zone's description of their source, it sounds like someone who works in a supplier of USB 3 controllers, so they seem to know that Apple has been looking into them, not the intended target for the parts.

It also seems an unusual move as Apple has committed to Thunderbolt in the most recent round of updates. The main disadvantage of Thunderbolt over USB 3 seems to be the cost of implementation, both in the host computer but also the 3rd party accessories which may be limited to high-end devices to start.

Apple has put the previous version of its Final Cut Studio video editing suite back on sale after a mixed reception to the new and completely redesigned Final Cut X. We received word that Apple had issued a memo this afternoon announcing re-availability of the product.

We confirmed with an Apple telesales representative at 800-MY-APPLE that Final Cut Studio, part number MB642Z/A, is again available for $999 (and $899 for educational customers). The product is only available through the 800-number and is not available in Apple Retail Stores or on the Apple Online Store.

Final Cut Studio is a comprehensive video editing package that includes Final Cut Pro 7, Motion 4, Soundtrack Pro 3, DVD Studio Pro 4, Color 1.5 and Compressor 3.5. Apple had discontinued the product at the launch of Final Cut Pro X, their next generation video editing suite. Critics of the new product had complained that the abrupt discontinuation of the previous version of the software had made the transition more difficult. Apple had promised regular updates to Final Cut Pro X.

Apple has been working for over two months to upgrade the iconic glass cube and surrounding plaza at its flagship retail store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, with the company switching to larger panes of glass for the cube to make for a cleaner appearance as the total number of panes is reduced from 90 to 15.

TUAW notes that deliveries of the new glass panes have begun at the site, with workers utilizing a large crane to work through the night unpacking the large panes for installation.

According to Justin Parmer, who shot photos and brief video of the unloading process, the glass panes are roughly two inches thick. Based on the dimensions of the original cube, the new panes should check in at about 32 feet high by a little over 10 feet wide.

Apple is continuing its major push of retail store openings, with three more coming this week in three different countries. With these grand openings, Apple will have opened 14 retail stores over the space of four weeks as it moves toward its goal of opening a total of 30 stores during the July–September quarter.

- Mapleview Centre (Burlington, Ontario, Canada): Apple's 21st Canadian store, Mapleview Centre is located in Burlington, Ontario west of Toronto along the Lake Ontario shoreline. The store will be the eighth in or near the "Golden Horseshoe" region of Ontario wrapping around the western end of Lake Ontario.

- City-Galerie (Augsburg, Germany): City-Galerie will be Apple's sixth German store and the second in Bavaria in the southeast of the country. The new store will join the existing Munich store just under 50 miles away.

- Campania (Caserta, Italy): Apple's seventh retail store in Italy, the Campania store is located in the province of Caserta and is the first to open south of Rome. It is located approximately 25 km north of Naples in the Centro Commerciale Campania along the main Autostrada A1 motorway that serves many of Italy's major cities between Milan in the north and Naples in the south.

Just yesterday, we noted that Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president for Internet services, had been responding to customer emails redirected to him via Tim Cook. 9 to 5 Mac now notes that Cue has been officially promoted to a senior vice president position, reporting directly to Cook.

Cue has already received his own page on Apple's list of senior executives, which now includes nine senior vice presidents under Cook. From an internal Apple email sent by Tim Cook:

Team,

It is my pleasure to announce the promotion of Eddy Cue to Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services. Eddy will report to me and will serve on Apple’s executive management team.

Eddy oversees Apple’s industry-leading content stores including the iTunes Store, the revolutionary App Store and the iBookstore, as well as iAd and Apple’s innovative iCloud services. He is a 22-year Apple veteran and leads a large organization of amazing people. He played a major role in creating the Apple online store in 1998, the iTunes Music Store in 2003 and the App Store in 2008.

Apple is a company and culture unlike any other in the world and leaders like Eddy get that. Apple is in their blood. Eddy and the entire executive management team are dedicated to making the best products in the world that delight our customers and make our employees incredibly proud of what they do.

Please join me in congratulating Eddy on this significant and well-deserved promotion. I have worked with Eddy for many years and look forward to working with him even closer in the future.

Tim

In addition to overseeing the iTunes Store, App Store, iBookstore, and iCloud, Cue will also take over leadership of the iAd mobile advertising group at Apple. iAd had been led by Quattro Wireless founder Andy Miller, who came to the company with Apple's acquisition of Quattro last year. It was revealed several weeks ago that Miller is leaving Apple to take a position with a venture capital firm.

Cue's promotion may be the first move in a reshuffling of Apple's leadership following Tim Cook's ascension to the CEO position. There has been speculation about what Apple might do to fill the currently-vacant Chief Operating Officer position previously held by Cook, and Ron Johnson's position as senior vice president for retail will soon be vacant as he leaves to take the CEO position at department store chain J.C. Penney.

Back in July, word surfaced that Apple might be planning to release a white version of its iPod touch for the first time later this year. Several photos of white front plates for the iPod touch have surfaced since that time, although there have been suggestions that these plates were either knockoff parts or for a white version of the current-generation model that was never released.

Japanese site Mac Otakara has now spotted a white headphone jack claimed to be for the fifth-generation iPod touch being offered by Chinese repair site Luna Commerce (via AppleInsider). The jack sports the same slanted profile as found in the current iPod touch, necessary to fit the device's tapered design.

Headphone jack parts for the iPhone 5 or 4S appeared in both black and white back in mid-August, with those parts carrying the flat profile needed for the current iPhone 4 design. A tapered iPhone 5 as has been rumored would presumably require a slanted headphone jack, leading to speculation that the flat parts are intended for the cheaper iPhone 4-based model informally known as the iPhone 4S.

Parallels has announced version 7 of their popular virtualization software that allows Mac users to run Windows on their machines alongside Mac OS X. The new version is said to include 90 new features and enhancements including:

- Lion integration and support, including Launchpad and Mission Control for Windows programs
- Shared iSight and FaceTime HD cameras in both Windows and Mac
- Up to 1GB of video memory, for ultra-high resolutions
- Improved graphics performance, up to 45% faster 3D
- 60% faster resuming Windows
- Windows on Demand - purchase and automatically install Windows on your Mac from Parallels Desktop 7 in the U.S.

Parallels 7 supports running OS X Lion as a "guest" operating system under virtualization, meaning you can run a completely separate copy of Lion within your main copy of Lion. In July, we reported that Apple had changed the license agreement in OS X Lion that allowed users to run up to 2 additional copies of Lion on a single machine without the need for extra licenses.

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With the release of the iTunes Match Beta to developers earlier week, there has been a lot of confusion about whether or not the service was "streaming" or not.

Early hands on videos seemed to show that iTunes Match was a streaming service for both the Mac and iOS devices. Music would play over the internet, but not appear to be permanently downloaded to your device.

Apple, however, later denied that the service was actually streaming. Instead they described it as "a simultaneous listen and download". We labeled the distinction one of semantics and still considered it streaming based on what had been observed in the early build.

With the release of iOS Beta 7, however, Apple is right and iTunes Match (for iOS) is a listen and download service, and not a streaming one. InsanelyGreatMac put together a new video of how things have changed with this latest release.

Songs that are played are now permanently downloaded to your iPhone, iPod or iPad library. Even if you skip past a song, the entire song is saved directly to your device. That means as you listen to music, songs are pulled from the iCloud and stored. The main distinction is that users may have to manually free up space over time. Once a song is deleted, it will again be available for download once again in the same manner.

As a result, the original impression of streaming may have just been an iOS user interface bug or simply an oversight by Apple. What makes us think it was not just an interface bug is the fact that songs are still streamed in iTunes Beta for Mac. Even with the newest iTunes beta release from tonight, users can reportedly stream songs from iTunes Match and those songs are not saved permanently to their Mac. Mac users must explicitly press the iCloud button to download and save songs locally -- of course, this could change.

Apple's clearly continuing to tweak and make changes to iTunes Match, and we hear there remain a lot of bugs in the interface itself. We should know more for certain when the software seeds stabilize as we approach the expected launch this fall.