MacRumors

Apple today seeded the fourth beta version of iOS 5 to developers, continuing progress on the next-generation mobile operating system for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch set for public release in the fall alongside iCloud. The new version is listed as Build 9A5274d.

We've yet to hear word of specific changes in the release, although it does appear that Apple has also issued it as an over-the-air update for those running iOS 5 Beta 3, although users are reporting errors when trying to access it via that method. We'll provide updates as more information surfaces.

Update: Over-the-air updating seems to be working now, and saves nearly 700MB of downloading vs. the full size download.

Update: BGR has the full change log.

Update: Several readers pointed out that to perform an over-the-air software upgrade, the iOS device must have at least 50% battery life left, or be plugged into the wall charger or a computer.

Incoming Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam, speaking on CNBC today, noted that revenue growth in the past quarter had been impacted because the next iPhone hasn't been released yet.

We had assumed that we would see an iPhone early in the summertime as it's been usually, and that's going to be a little bit later in the year now.

In a conference call with analysts today, McAdam suggested analysts check with Apple on when the next iPhone will come out -- but expected it this fall:

We are probably what I would view as maybe a quarter behind what we had talked about in January, primarily because we expected an iPhone 5 refresh sometime this summer.

We don't know when the next one is going to come out. You will have to ask Apple that, but we expect that probably sometime in the fall, and I think you will see a significant jump there when we get to that point.

Later in the CNBC interview, McAdam discusses Verizon's switch to tiered data plans for smartphones, noting that streaming video is the main reason they dropped unlimited data plans:

We just converted over to tiered pricing, data tiered pricing, because we see a huge wave of video coming. That's going to take a lot more capacity in the individual networks, and so I think for a lot of customers that won't be an issue from a revenue perspective. But, for the heavy users, we do see the revenue go up significantly.

Lowell McAdam is the current COO of Verizon and will be replacing current CEO Ivan Seidenberg.

Last month, T-Mobile USA revealed that it had over one million iPhones running on its network, despite not being officially sanctioned by Apple and the handsets not being able to take advantage of 3G data speeds due to differences in the carrier's network standard compared to other GSM networks. T-Mobile customers had also needed to trim down their T-Mobile SIM cards to fit into the iPhone's micro-SIM slot, as the carrier had not yet begun offering the smaller cards.

As noted by App Advice late yesterday, T-Mobile USA has now rolled out micro-SIMs and has specifically targeted iPhone owners on its page promoting the new cards.

Already have a GSM phone or iPhone that you need to activate—or have an unlocked GSM phone you want to use on the T-Mobile network? Just get a Micro SIM card and choose a plan. Slip the ready-to-use Micro SIM Card into your phone and you’re ready to go.

T-Mobile is offering the new micro-SIM free of charge with a two-year contract when purchased via the carrier's website.

T-Mobile USA has been rumored for some time to be preparing to offer the iPhone, although AT&T is currently in the process of trying to acquire the carrier. That potential acquisition has received some opposition, however, and regulatory authorities are still examining the proposed deal. But even with an acquisition, AT&T has said that T-Mobile and AT&T will operate somewhat independently for several years as the combined carrier works to integrate its systems, meaning that an iPhone specific to T-Mobile is likely still of interest.

Just like the MacBook Air yesterday, iFixit has also conducted a teardown of the new Mac mini. While the internals are very similar to the previous generation, the teardown does reveal that users may be able to install a second hard drive on their own if a proper cable can be found.

The possibility of adding a second hard drive is made possible by Apple's removal of the optical drive from all models of the Mac mini, leaving enough space for a traditional hard drive or solid-state drive to be installed. From iFixit's blog post on the teardown:

Apple has done away with the optical drive and replaced it with some good old-fashioned emptiness. We found that hole (as well as the empty extra SATA connection on the logic board) to be perfect for adding a secondary hard drive — essentially bypassing the $400 premium over the “server” model. The only snag in this master plan is being able to find another hard drive cable to hook it up to the logic board, something we’ll work on sourcing.

Apple of course already offers the option of two hard drives on the server model of the Mac mini, although that model also brings other upgrades including a quad-core Intel Core i7 processor that push the price to $999, a $400 premium over the entry-level model.

With the Mac mini being relatively easy to open up and service, users looking to add a second hard drive to their Mac mini without going all in on the server model may in fact be able to do so, provided that an appropriate hard drive cable can be found for purchase.

Like the new MacBook Air, the revised Mac mini also includes a new Bluetooth 4.0 chip and Thunderbolt capabilities, as well as some other minor updates to components

Concord Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has in the past provided some accurate claims primarily regarding Apple's notebook lines, now reports to AppleInsider that Apple may be planning to introduce a white iPod touch later this year. The forthcoming fifth-generation iPod touch is said to otherwise be nearly identical to the current version.

Looking into the current third calendar quarter, Kuo said checks indicate Apple has placed orders for white iPod touch models that are expected to go into mass production sometime in late August, but he added that the build plans for those models reflect few, if any, distinguishable changes from the existing black models introduced last fall.

"It means no spec update of iPod touch this year," he said.

Last month, references to a new iOS-based iPod known as "iPod4,2" were discovered in the iOS 5 beta, with Apple's use of that naming convention instead of "iPod5,1" leading to speculation that the next-generation iPod touch will indeed be a minor update.

Lending credence to the claims of a forthcoming white iPod touch is the discovery of a new white front plate for the iPod touch obtained by parts and repair firm iFixyouri and reported to 9 to 5 Mac. The white part appears essentially identical to the black one used in the current iPod touch, and thus it can not be definitively stated whether the part is intended for a forthcoming model or was for a white version of the current generation that was ultimately scrapped before release.

Patent holding firm Lodsys, which has received tremendous publicity for targeting iOS and Android app developers in a patent dispute over the developers' use of in-app purchasing and upgrade links within their apps, has amended the list of defendants in its lawsuit on the manner to include a number of high-profile gaming firms.

As detailed by FOSS Patents, Lodsys has now included Angry Birds developer Rovio, Electronic Arts, Atari, Square Enix, and Take-Two Interactive in its complaint. From the amended complaint regarding Rovio:

Defendant Rovio has infringed and continues to infringe, directly, indirectly, literally, under the doctrine of equivalents, contributorily, and/or through the inducement of other, one or more claims of the '565 patent. Rovio makes, sells, uses, imports, and/or offers to sell infringing applications, including but not limited to Angry Birds for iPhone and Angry Birds for Android, which infringe at least claim 27 of '565 patent under 35 U.S.C. § 271.

Besides adding the five game studios to its lawsuit, Lodsys also dropped Vietnamese developer Wulven Games from the suit, making for a total of eleven developers and companies targeted by the suit. All told, Lodsys has targeted 37 entities in suits related to a number of patents, with defendants ranging from small developers to major firms such as HP, Best Buy, The New York Times Company and EA.

Apple previously stepped forward to assist iOS developers being targeted by Lodsys, claiming that Apple is "indisputably licensed" to the intellectual property in question and that third-party developers are covered by that license. Apple has also filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit and take on the role of a defendant and counterclaim plaintiff.

Earlier today, Adobe made waves with a statement in a tech note outlining issues with Adobe products running on OS X Lion by claiming that Lion may have dropped support for hardware acceleration of Flash Player content.

Adobe has now issued a correction retracting that statement and noting that OS X Lion does in fact offer the same level of hardware acceleration as found in Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

The final release of Mac OS X Lion (10.7) provides the same support for Flash hardware video acceleration as Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6). The previous "Known Issue" described in a tech note suggesting that video hardware acceleration was disabled in Lion was incorrect and based on tests with a pre-release version of Mac OS X Lion that related to only one particular Mac GPU configuration.

Adobe notes that it continues to "work closely" with Apple on bringing a high quality Flash experience to Mac users. Apple has, however, famously tried to distance itself from Flash, opting not to include any Flash support on its iOS devices and dropping pre-installed Flash Player from its Mac machines. Apple has instead advised Mac users to download Flash Player themselves if they wish to have it installed, thereby ensuring that they are immediately running the most recent version of the software.

Apple is considering a bid for Hulu, the online streaming service, according to a report from Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. is considering making a bid for the Hulu online video service, according to two people with knowledge of the auction.

Apple is in early talks that may lead to an acquisition offer for Los Angeles-based Hulu, said the people, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

There are several companies considering making offers for Hulu, with Yahoo reportedly making a bid of $2 billion but the company wanted a five-year exclusive on streaming content. Google, AT&T and a number of other companies are also in the mix, though Microsoft reportedly dropped out of the bidding earlier this week.

If sold, Hulu would retain its exclusive content licenses from current owners Disney (where Steve Jobs is a major shareholder and sits on the board) FOX/News Corp., and Comcast/NBC.

This week Apple reported that it had $76.2 billion in cash and marketable securities on hand. In October, Steve Jobs said of the cash pile, "we strongly believe that one or more very strategic opportunities may come along that we can take that we're in a unique position to take advantage of because of our strong cash position."

Just like early reports on the new MacBook Air released yesterday, the new Mac mini is also showing significant improvements in raw performance over its predecessor machines. Mac mini web hosting company Macminicolo.net has obtained both standard and server models of the new line and put them through some preliminary benchmarking using Geekbench.

The testing reveals significant performance improvements for the Mac mini, with the entry-level 2.3 GHz Core i5 model showing an over 50% jump in Geekbench scoring over earlier generations and the 2.0 GHz Core i7 server model showing even more impressive results with its Geekbench score coming in at well over double that of its predecessor.

As we noted on yesterday's MacBook Air report, Geekbench focuses on raw processor and memory performance, and real-world performance will also depend on other aspects of a system including graphics capabilities and data storage components.

The report also offers a few unboxing photos and some shots of the initial setup process in which the Mac mini server model offers to migrate from an existing server setup. Also noted is the fact that the server edition includes iLife apps, as the server portion of Lion is simply an add-on for the basic OS X Lion. Under Mac OS X Snow Leopard, iLife apps were not included on server machines.

Apple announced today that more than 1 million copies of OS X Lion have been downloaded from the Mac App Store worldwide in the day it has been available. Apple notes users are buying Lion faster than any other OS release in Apple's history.

Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller:

Lion is off to a great start, user reviews and industry reaction have been fantastic. Lion is a huge step forward, it’s not only packed with innovative features but it’s incredibly easy for users to update their Macs to the best OS we’ve ever made.

At 3.7GB per download, this totals more than 3.5 petabytes of data -- 3,700,000 gigabytes.

In 2005, it took more than a month for Apple to sell two million copies of Mac OS X Tiger. Two years later, Apple sold more than two million copies of Mac OS X Leopard in its first weekend.

In 2009, it was estimated that sales of Snow Leopard -- which, like Lion, was priced considerably cheaper than either Tiger or Leopard -- were double that of Leopard, although Apple didn't tout sales numbers in a press release like they have with Lion.

I just care that what I sell every day are authentic Apple products, and that our customers don’t come back to me to complain about the quality of the products.

This is what an employee at the fake Apple Store in Kunming, China told a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Earlier this week we reported on these counterfeit Apple Store that appeared in China, that closely mimicked the layout of Apple's own retail stores.

The WSJ couldn't get in touch with the owner or manager of the store, but did get in touch with a salesperson who confirmed that the store was not an authorized reseller -- but did sell genuine Apple products at the same prices as those on Apple's website.

The salesperson said it didn't "make much of a difference" if they were authorized. Instead, as the quote above illustrates, the staff in the store simply want to do a good job selling Apple products -- just like the authentic employees at an Apple Retail Store.

Regarding the counterfeit stores, the salesperson felt his "store should be one of the best in terms of scale and the level of professionalism," noting that the employee t-shirts and name lanyards give it a similar look and feel to the authentic Apple Stores in China, in Beijing and Shanghai.