MacRumors

Research firm IHS iSuppli has released updated projections for tablet sales through 2015, showing Apple maintaining its leadership position longer than previously expected as rivals continue to be unable to make a significant dent in the iPad's position.

According to the report, Apple is projected to ship 44.2 million iPads this year, up 500,000 from the firm's previous estimate. That previous number had, however, been lowered from earlier projections after Apple posted lower-than-expected sales early figures for the iPad 2 as it struggled to ramp up production. The new 44.2 million figure for 2011 is expected to represent 74% of the total tablet market, up from 64% in the previous report.

“All the momentum in the media tablet market is with Apple right now,” said Rhoda Alexander, senior manager, tablet and monitor research for IHS. “The competition can’t seem to field a product with the right combination of hardware, marketing, applications and content to match up with the iPad. Furthermore, Apple’s patent litigation is serving to slow or complicate competitors’ entry into some key regional markets. With Apple lapping its competitors, many of whom are still struggling to get out of the starting gate, this remains a one-horse race.”

Looking out even further, IHS iSuppli now sees Apple holding onto its majority share of the tablet market through 2013, one year longer than previously anticipated. At the far end of its projections, the report sees Apple shipping 120 million iPads in 2015, up from previous projections of 97.9 million units. Even at that extended timeframe, Apple is projected to hold 43.6% of the tablet market, up significantly from earlier estimates of 32%.

Apple today released iMac Graphic FW Update 3.0, a new firmware update to address issues which could cause users' machines to freeze up.

About iMac Graphic FW Update 3.0

This firmware update fixes a graphics issue that may cause an iMac to hang under certain conditions.

Do not shut off the power on your iMac during this update. Loss of power could result in your iMac failing to start up.

The update weighs in at 482 KB and requires OS X Lion. Apple does not specify exactly which iMac models require the update, so users should run Software Update to see if the download appears for their specific machines.

Discussion forums on Apple's site and elsewhere have been filling with numerous reports of freezing issues on iMac models under OS X Lion. It is unclear if this update is designed to target the exact issues being reported in those complaints, but it seems reasonable to speculate that Apple is indeed looking to solve at least some of those problems.

In the wake of yesterday's report that Sprint will begin offering the iPhone in the United States with the launch of the iPhone 5, apparently scheduled for "mid-October", MacTrast now reports that T-Mobile USA will also be gaining access to the iPhone. The addition of T-Mobile, which AT&T has announced its intent to acquire, alongside Sprint would bring the iPhone to all four of the major U.S. carriers.

Following our report yesterday that Apple’s upcoming iPhone 5 will be arriving on the Sprint network, a contact within T-Mobile who claims to have been briefed on the matter has informed us that, in addition to arriving on Sprint at launch, the iPhone 5 will arrive on T-Mobile’s network at launch as well.

The informant, who requested to remain anonymous, went on to claim that the iPhone 5 would also operate at 3G speeds on T-Mobile US network. Current unlocked iPhone 4 units can only operate at at 2G “edge” speeds on T-Mobile’s network, and lack certain network-dependent features, such as Visual Voicemail.

T-Mobile USA claimed earlier this year to already have one million iPhones running on its network, despite the devices being limited to EDGE speeds and missing other features.

Apple and AT&T have reportedly been testing iPhone prototypes compatible with the carrier's 3G network, making a deal to bring the device to T-Mobile a realistic possibility. Research analysts and other sources have periodically claimed that T-Mobile USA will be gaining the iPhone, but rumors have been quiet in recent weeks even as other iPhone-related rumors have ramped up as the iPhone 5 launch reportedly nears.

RetailSails compiles (via 9to5Mac) a list of the top 20 U.S. retail store chains, revealing that Apple easily leads the pack with sales of well over $5,000 per square foot. Second-place Tiffany & Co. came in well behind at under $3,000 per square foot.

It’s not surprising Apple leads the pack, as there have been numerous articles such as this, but it is quite shocking by how far ahead of the competition they are, especially considering the company only has 10 years of retail experience.

RetailSails' report analyzed over 160 U.S.-based retail companies, reporting sales information and calculated sales per square foot on a global basis.

Some of Apple's flagship locations understandably generate sales significantly above the average, with performance at the company's Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan being pegged at approximately $35,000 per square foot several years ago.

Last week, we noted that a Dutch court was weighing an infringement claim by Apple against Samsung over the Galaxy line of smartphones and tablets, with Apple requesting a complete ban on the sale of Samsungs products in the European Union. A decision in that case was to be handed down on September 15th.

FOSS Patents and Tweakers.net [Google translation] now report that the case has been decided ahead of that timeline, with the judge ordering that Samsung's subsidiaries be banned from selling Galaxy smartphones (but not tablets) in many European Union countries as of October 13th. The ban applies to the Samsung Galaxy S, Galaxy S II, and Ace phones.

The judge's decision was relatively narrow compared to the claims brought by Apple, which included a number of assertions that Samsung had copied Apple's product designs and functionality. The judge rejected most of those claims, finding only that Samsung had violated an Apple patent related to using swiping gestures to switch between photos in a gallery application. The ban will apply in any country where that specific patent is valid, although documentation suggests that the patent has lapsed in a number of countries due to a failure by Apple to provide necessary documents or fees.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Sprint will offer the iPhone 5 when it launches later this year, becoming the third U.S. carrier to offer the iPhone. According to the report, the iPhone 5 will launch simultaneously on Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T in "mid-October".

Sprint Nextel Corp. will begin selling the iPhone 5 in mid-October, people familiar with the matter said, closing a huge hole in the No. 3 U.S. carrier's lineup and giving Apple Inc. another channel for selling its popular phone.

The timing, however, indicates Apple's new iPhone will hit the market later than expected and too late to contribute to sales in the company's fiscal fourth quarter, which ends in September. Most observers had expected the device to arrive next month.

The iPhone 5 will debut on AT&T and Verizon at the same time, and Sprint is said to also be gaining the iPhone 4.

AT&T was the exclusive iPhone carrier in the United States until earlier this year, when Apple released a CDMA version of the iPhone 4 for Verizon. Sprint also operates a CDMA network.

The iPhone on Sprint has been a popular topic for rumor and speculation, especially since Verizon landed the iPhone earlier this year. Several analysts had claimed that the iPhone would be coming to Sprint by the end of this year, and an Apple job posting located near Sprint's Kansas headquarters back in May further fueled speculation that Apple was working with the carrier to launch the iPhone.

A full week after releasing OS X 10.7.1 via Software Update and Apple's download pages, the company has finally updated its Mac App Store offerings for OS X Lion and the OS X Lion Server components to the new versions.

The update should mean that users newly purchasing OS X Lion will receive 10.7.1 directly rather than having to install the base 10.7.0 version and then update to 10.7.1.

With previous major releases of Mac OS X released on disc, Apple has only rarely updated its retail packaging to include more up-to-date versions of the operating systems. For example, Apple's original Mac OS X Snow Leopard discs were eventually supplanted by discs shipping with Mac OS X 10.6.3, but work continued on Snow Leopard after that time, topping out at version 10.6.8.

As we've noted in a number of reports in recent months, Apple and Samsung are currently engaged in a high-stakes intellectual property battle, with Apple seeking injunctions in a number of countries to prevent Samsung from selling its Galaxy Tab and other Android-based products. Apple claims that Samsung has infringed upon Apple's intellectual property rights by copying the designs of popular Apple devices such as the iPhone and iPad.

In a curious turn of events noted by FOSS Patents, Samsung has turned to the film industry in its defense against Apple's request for an injunction in the United States.

According to court filings, Samsung has presented a scene from Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey as evidence of prior art that should invalidate Apple's design claims on the iPad. From the filing:

Attached hereto as Exhibit D is a true and correct copy of a still image taken from Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey." In a clip from that film lasting about one minute, two astronauts are eating and at the same time using personal tablet computers. The clip can be downloaded online at //www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ8pQVDyaLo. As with the design claimed by the D’889 Patent, the tablet disclosed in the clip has an overall rectangular shape with a dominant display screen, narrow borders, a predominately flat front surface, a flat back surface (which is evident because the tablets are lying flat on the table's surface), and a thin form factor.

The patent in question is a design patent covering the ornamental design of the iPad, with Apple claiming that the Samsung Galaxy Tab is substantially identical to that design. By pointing to an example of a similar design made public in 1968, even if not an actual functioning tablet device, Samsung hopes to demonstrate that there is little variation possible when designing a tablet and show that the general concept used by Apple for the iPad has actually been circulating for decades.

Over the past several months, we've made several mentions of commercial airlines testing the iPad as a replacement for flight bags used by pilots. The testing programs have been looking to replace bulky and heavy flight bags full of navigational charts and other materials with iPads in order to reduce the weight of pilots' bags and save fuel on flights.

United Airlines today announced that it has gone a step further, committing to a full transition to using iPads as electronic flight bags and rolling out 11,000 iPads to United and Continental pilots.

Each iPad, which weighs less than 1.5 pounds, will replace approximately 38 pounds of paper operating manuals, navigation charts, reference handbooks, flight checklists, logbooks and weather information in a pilot's flight bag. A conventional flight bag full of paper materials contains an average of 12,000 sheets of paper per pilot. The green benefits of moving to EFBs are two-fold--it significantly reduces paper use and printing, and, in turn, reduces fuel consumption. The airline projects EFBs will save nearly 16 million sheets of paper a year which is equivalent to more than 1,900 trees not cut down. Saving 326,000 gallons of jet fuel a year reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 3,208 metric tons.

The iPads are equipped Jeppesen Mobile FliteDeck, which is a free download from the App Store but requires a paid subscription to Jeppesen's services.

The report notes that the iPads will streamline pilots' work by eliminating the need for thumbing through sheafs of paper or waiting for pages to print. The iPads will reduce clutter on cramped flight decks and offer quick and easy access to required data at all times.

Just like last week, Apple once again plans to open three new retail stores this Saturday, continuing its push to open a total of 30 new stores between July and September. ifoAppleStore details the openings, which include two in the United States and one in France.

- Carré Sénart (Paris, France): Actually located in Sénart on the outskirts of Paris, the store is Apple's fourth in the Paris metro area and eighth overall in France.

- Northlake Mall (Charlotte, North Carolina): Joining the SouthPark store across town, the new Northlake Mall store will be the second in Charlotte and fifth in North Carolina.

- The Promenade at Chenal (Little Rock, Arkansas): First discovered back in March and apparently sped up from its original timeframe calling for an October opening, the new store is Apple's first in Arkansas. The state is ranked 32nd among U.S. states by population with 2.9 million residents and has been the most populous U.S. state without an Apple retail store. The opening will leave just six states (Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming) still without stores, and West Virginia, ranked 37th with a population of 1.8 million, will become the new most populous state without an Apple retail store.

Image credit: 1000 Words / Shutterstock.com

Reuters revives rumors that Apple is building a lower priced 8GB version of the iPhone 4 to launch this fall. Reuters cites "two people with knowledge of the matter".

The flash drive for the 8GB iPhone 4 is being manufactured by a Korean company, one of the people said on Tuesday, declining to name the company. Apple currently sources its flash drives from Japan's Toshiba and South Korea's Samsung Electronics.

In addition to this low cost iPhone 4, Apple is also said to be targeting "an end of September" launch for the iPhone 5. This new iPhone 5 will reportedly look "largely identical" to the iPhone 4, but have a bigger touch screen, better antenna and an 8-megapixel camera. This contradicts many of the early case designs that have shown a dramatically different form factor.

This news comes at an interesting time, as we've been hearing more from suppliers and seeing leaked parts appear on the web. In addition to the battery prototype photo, UK repair shop iPatchiPods had also told us that their suppliers had also relayed that there would be two such models: a less expensive iPhone 4, as well as the expected iPhone 5. Due to the simultaneous development, there could be some confusion with regard to parts appearing on the net. While many are claimed to be for the iPhone 5, there may be some that are intended for this low-cost iPhone 4. In one example, the back camera part that leaked yesterday was found to be a 5 megapixel part, not an 8 megapixel part as rumored. It's possible the part could be intended for this cheaper iPhone 4.

In fact, the low-cost iPhone 4 screen is already circulating in the hands of suppliers, and we are trying to get more information on it and other potential iPhone 5 parts.

Techcrunch reports that at least one developer has found evidence that Apple is testing the iPhone 5 against current App Store apps. The logs seem to confirm that the iPhone 5 (running iOS 5) will be a dual-mode device supporting both GSM and CDMA in one phone.

The logs show that the app has been briefly tested by a handful of people using what is almost certainly an iPhone 5, evidently running iOS 5, sporting two distinct sets of mobile network codes (MNC) / mobile country codes (MCC). Those codes can be used to uniquely identify mobile carriers.

Sure enough, some registrations for the app – which the developer also asked not to be named – were logged from a new Apple device, using the MNC/MCC codes from both Verizon and AT&T.

Apple presently produces two different models to support both Verizon and AT&T. It's long been believed that the iPhone 5 will support both standards in a single device.

Apple's Verizon iPhone 4 already contains the expected Qualcomm chipset that supports both standards. Verizon CFO has even publicly stated their belief that the next iPhone will be a "global device".