MacRumors

One item of interest regarding last week's Mac OS X 10.6.8 update reveals that Apple has enabled TRIM support retroactively for solid state hard drives shipped in Apple-produced configurations. TRIM is a feature that allows solid state drives (SSDs) to automatically handle garbage collection, cleaning up unused blocks of data and preparing them for rewriting, thereby preventing slowdowns that would otherwise occur over time as garbage data accumulates.

Support for TRIM has been included in OS X Lion since its early developer builds, but Apple has apparently decided to push the feature out to Snow Leopard users as well. The new native TRIM support does appear to limited to stock Apple drives, as users who have installed third-party SSDs into their machines have reported that TRIM is not enabled by the update.

Mac OS X 10.6.8 also appears to have brought graphics improvements that have been most apparent to gamers. According to one set of benchmarks, Mac OS X 10.6.8 outperforms Mac OS X 10.6.7 in many measure of graphics performance, sometimes by a significant margin.

User reports in the MacRumors forums and the Steam forums similarly point to significant improvements in graphics performance under real-world conditions. A number of users has actually reported significant declines in graphics performance with Mac OS X 10.6.7, so improvements with the new Mac OS X 10.6.8 are certainly to be welcome.

Update: To clarify Apple's TRIM support, the new MacBook Pros released in February shipped with a special build of Mac OS X 10.6.6 that included TRIM support for Apple SSDs. But that TRIM support had not been extended to all SSD-configurable Macs until the release of Mac OS X 10.6.8 last week.

Update 2: A number of users of pre-"Late 2010" MacBook Air models have reported that Mac OS X 10.6.8 does not enable TRIM on their machines.

Late last week, Apple released Beta 2 of iOS 5 to developers. The new release added a number of small features to the previous beta, including the activation of Wi-Fi sync.

One small but notable additional feature that we've been made aware of is the addition of upcoming calendar events on the Notification Center.

Apple's Notification Center is a centralized view of all your push notifications and widgets. A simple swipe from the top of the screen brings the notification center into view. See this video for the Notification Center in action in both portrait and landscape mode.

In the latest beta, Apple has also included calendar events for the upcoming 24 hours in the view, so you can see easily see your calendar appointments at a glance. There are no settings yet to adjust how far in advance you can see your events. Apple has announced it will be releasing iOS 5 to the public this fall.

Over the past several days, a number of reports have been coming out about Apple and Google being pressured by the Taiwanese government to modify their app sales policies to comply with a law requiring a one-week return and refund window on all purchases. The first mention came on Saturday from WantChinaTimes, which reported that Apple will be complying with the order.

At the request of Taipei City Hall, Apple agreed to let their phone users have a trial period of seven days, within which a user can return the app for a full refund.

Until now, Apple has not allowed any trial period for paid apps, although refunds have been available on a case by case basis through iTunes support.

A new report from The Economic Times of India offers additional information on the situation, confirming that Apple has indeed complied with the requirement while Google has been fined $34,600 over its continued refusal to offer a 7-day refund period. That report and another one from the Taipei Times reveal that Google has gone as far as to completely withdraw its paid app marketplace in Taiwan rather than comply with the regulations. The suspension is said to continue while discussions to resolve the impasse are underway.

It is unclear what changes were made by Apple in order to comply with the refund law, and we have received no word of obvious changes in the handling of purchases made through the App Store. Consequently, it is possible that Apple is simply addressing it through its usual iTunes support procedures and simply granting refunds upon request rather than building any specific refund functionality into the purchasing system. Also unknown is whether Apple will be extending the policy to other countries.

Back in March, a report suggested that Apple was preparing to shift production of its A5 system-on-a-chip for the iPad 2 from Samsung to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), a deal that was claimed to span multiple generations of chips and would reduce Apple's reliance on competitor and legal foe Samsung for iOS device components. Early examinations of iPad 2 chips did, however, reveal that Samsung continued to be Apple's supplier for the brains of the popular tablet device.

Talk of TSMC striking a deal with Apple revived late last week, with Merrill Lynch analyst Dan Heyler claiming that the chip manufacturer stands a good chance of winning orders for Apple's next-generation "A6" chip next year. And today Ars Technica weighs in, sharing word from a "plugged-in source" that chatter about an Apple-TSMC deal is "growing deafening".

While Apple continues to source components from Samsung for its mobile devices under contracts that were likely signed more than a year ago, Apple presented a huge pile of evidence that Samsung was attempting to copy at least some of the secret sauce that made its iPhone and iPad so successful. So Apple very likely sees moving production to a non-competitor as a strategic business move.

Dan Heyler, a semiconductor analyst with Merrill Lynch in Taipei, told the China-based Commercial Times newspaper on Friday that TSMC will most likely be producing "A6" processors for Apple, a next-generation ARM-based design, in 2012. That jibes with what Ars has heard from a plugged-in source -- that the chatter on the foundry grapevine about an impending Apple/TSMC deal is growing deafening.

Apple has surpassed Sony to become Samsung's biggest customer, making for an uneasy relationship that has seen Apple and Samsung have a strong reliance on each other even as Apple has been pursuing legal action against Samsung, claiming that Samsung has copied Apple's designs with its own products.

Fortune reports that Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore today released a new research note claiming that Apple may be preparing to release two new iPhone models later this year, with the usual iPhone revamp being joined by the debut of a cheaper model coming in at an unlocked, unsubsidized price of $349.

In a note issued early Monday, Deutsche Bank's Chris Whitmore is telling clients to expect both -- an iPhone 5 and an iPhone 4S.

"With Nokia and RIMM struggling," he writes, "the time is right for Apple to aggressively penetrate the mid range smart-phone market (i.e. $300-500 category) to dramatically expand its [total addressable market] and market share."

As Whitmore sees it, an iPhone 4S that is unlocked, priced around $349, and comes with a pre-paid voice plan would "drive significantly greater penetration" into an addressable market that has grown to include 1.5 billion potential customers in 98 countries, two thirds of whom prefer pre-paid plans.

Whitmore notes that while the market for prepaid smartphones is very small in the U.S., many other markets around the world have much higher levels of prepaid activity, and a cheaper iPhone would significantly lower the barrier to entry for those customers.

A cheaper (and in many cases smaller) "iPhone nano" has been the subject of many rumors over the years, although it is unclear just how Apple will be able pare down the current iPhone's feature set to bring the unsubsidized pricing down to the $349 level suggested by Whitmore, or even lower price points as suggested in previous reports. Unsubsidized pricing for the iPhone 4 begins at $649, although the 8 GB iPhone 3GS still sold by Apple comes in at a much lower $449. With Apple's iPod touch line starting at $229, there may in fact be some flexibility to put together a somewhat stripped down iPhone coming in at a price point in the $350 range.

Also unclear is the basis of Whitmore's claim, whether it be concrete information obtained from Apple's supply chain or mere speculation on what Apple "should" do.

A separate note issued yesterday by Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty claims that Apple is set to begin ramping production of a new iPhone in mid to late August, suggesting that a launch might not occur until late September. Rumors have increasingly pointed to a September launch for the next iPhone, although many have been hoping that Apple will introduce it at an early September event in line with the company's usual iPod-focused event.

BestBuy.com has stopped shipping MacBook Airs to customers ahead of expected revisions to the MacBook Air. 9to5Mac speculates this is to divert the limited MacBook Air stock to their retail locations:

This typically means that supplies are so constrained that they have to focus their remaining inventory on their popular physical retail stores. BestBuy.com does not provide a date for when they will be shipping the notebooks again, but these types of things are usually indicative of a product refresh.

Rumors have all pointed to an imminent refresh of the MacBook Air in the coming weeks. Apple also may be holding up new Macs in order to pre-install the final version of Mac OS X Lion on launch. Mac OS X Lion is due for release in July.

In a lengthy article on DVCreators.net, Josh Mellicker revisits the Final Cut Pro X complaints and what Apple might have to do to address its limitations. The full article may be of interest to video editing professionals.

For the rest of us, the most interesting part of the article was a reference to how Apple's Chief Architect of Video Applications Randy Ubillos had originally created an application called "First Cut" which later evolved into iMovie '08. iMovie '08 was met with similarly mixed reactions due to the complete overhaul over iMovie 6.

Steve Jobs told the story when he originally introduced iMovie during a keynote in August 2007, but left out some details. According to Mellicker, Ubillos returned from vacation and found that Final Cut wasn't ideal for organizing raw footage. From that experience, First Cut was born which would let you import your raw footage and quickly skip through, organizing and building a rough edit. The intention originally was to then export to Final Cut Pro. At some point, Apple officially latched onto the project and turned it into the new iMovie '08.

Ubillos was the creator of the first three versions of Adobe Premiere and later developed KeyGrip which was sold to Apple and released as Final Cut Pro. Ubillos continues to be the Chief Architect of Video Applications at Apple.

With the release of Final Cut Pro X, Ubillos has been answering emails and told one of our readers "I'm extremely proud of Final Cut Pro X, it's a huge step forward in digital storytelling." He went on to say suggest if the user gave it a fair shot, they may be pleasantly surprised. Ubillos also write "Final Cut Pro X 1.0 is the beginning of a road, not the end."

Apple's iOS 5 Beta 2 that was released to developers Friday contains a number of new findings. The biggest one we covered yesterday with the additional of Wi-Fi syncing.

AppleInsider posts a couple of screenshots from the new lock-screen notifications which show a slightly more prominent display:

They also point out that the keyboard in iMessage now recedes when scrolling upwards into message history.

3G download support for Over the Air updates appears to be confirmed with these strings found by 9to5mac. Apple had announced that the new version of iOS will support "Over the Air" updates which allows the operating system to be upgraded without syncing to your computer. These strings seem to indicate that this can occur over Wi-Fi or 3G.

Another more subtle tweak was posted by Johan Brook which reveals that Apple is now supporting a new CSS property that will allow web developers to get "native" iOS scrolling behavior in their web apps. This refers to the "momentum" inherent in native apps. DaringFireball previously described this behavior:

One area in particular where iPhone web apps fall short of native iPhone apps is scrolling. Take for example a long list, such as your full address book in Contacts, or all your songs in the iPod app. When you scroll these lists, you can fling the list, and the list will scroll at high speed after you let go. The effect is sort of like spinning a wheel with very little friction. With iPhone web apps, you can make a list that looks almost, maybe even exactly, like a native iPhone list view. But all web views on the iPhone scroll with almost no momentum. You can’t fling them. iPhone web views feel like they have a lot of scrolling friction.

While there have been javascript work-arounds floating around, with iOS 5 this functionality will be easily implemented for web apps.

As noted by ItsAllTech, Apple has released the first followup beta release to iOS developers. iOS 5 Build 9A5248d was just released this evening. The first changes noted include:

- Wireless syncing has been enabled for Mac OS X computers

WiFi Syncing

In iOS 5.0 beta 2, wireless syncing is now available for the Mac. It requires iTunes 10.5 beta 2 and OS X 10.6.8 or Lion. You will see an option to enable wireless syncing when you connect your device to iTunes with the USB cable. It is recommended you perform your initial sync with a cable after restoring your device.

Wireless syncing is triggered automatically when the device is connected to power and on the same network as the paired computer. Or, you can manually trigger a sync from iTunes or from Settings -> General -> iTunes Sync (same network as paired computer required). Be sure your device is plugged into a power source when performing Wireless syncs.
If you find issues with apps, media and/or photos synced to your device, you can reset then resync. From Settings -> General -> Reset, choose Erase all Content and Settings. Then reconnect to iTunes and sync again.

In this beta, iTunes may incorrectly report Photos as "Other" in the capacity bar. Photo syncing otherwise works as expected.

iTunes 10.5 beta 2 and Apple TV Software beta 2 has also been released.

iFans has release notes. Summarized here:

- iTunes 10.5b2 can’t sync iOS 5 Beta 1 devices
- iOS5 Beta 1 devices can’t iMessage iOS5 Beta 2 devices and vice-versa
- WiFi sync now works with OS X computers; it has to be enabled in iTunes 10.5 beta 2 first
- OTA updates have been released, though none are currently available
- iCloud has a new logo in the Settings.app
- You can now backup to iCloud or the computer when setting the device up
- If no notifications are available, Notification Center shows the text “No New Notifications”
- Stock widget in the Notification Center is now off by default
- Stock wallpapers are back, but are the same that were in iOS 4
- General speed improvements, kills bugs that were present in iOS 5 beta 1

Video of Wi-Fi Sync from iPhoneDownloadBlog:

We'll post updates as we hear more.

Earlier today, we noted that LaCie is preparing to roll out its first Thunderbolt-enabled Little Big Disk external hard drives, although the initial models will be limited to higher-end SSD-based devices.

iLounge now reports that slow roll-out of Thunderbolt and the lack of consumer-based options may be due to high pricing for incorporating the technology, an issue that appears to also be affecting third-party peripherals compatible with Apple's AirPlay streaming technology. According to the report, the inclusion of Thunderbolt or AirPlay compatibility can add as much as $100 to the price of these devices, limiting their ability to address mainstream consumer markets.

Our sources have described the AirPlay technologies as considerably more expensive to incorporate than Apple's standard docking Made for iPod/iPhone/iPad Dock Connectors, and noted that Apple is very heavily pushing developers to adopt the wireless technologies despite the costs involved.

We similarly have learned that the price of the components required to add a Thunderbolt port to an external hard drive is roughly equal to the cost of a low-end hard drive itself, a high cost that one developer has suggested will limit Thunderbolt's near-term use to products aimed at the professional market.

For the time being, announced Thunderbolt products do seem to be coming in at price points above those typically within range of mainstream consumers, as evidenced by Promise's 8 TB Pegasus RAID R4, which briefly appeared on Apple's store priced at $1399.95 before being pulled. That price is only $100 more than for Promise's current 8 TB RAID offering, but it remains to be seen just how quickly Thunderbolt will be able to make its way into more mainstream products.

iLounge suggests that there may at least be some hope for price drops for AirPlay devices in the relatively near future, noting that Philips earlier this week debuted AirPlay-compatible speaker systems with price tags as low as $229, a new floor in what has until now seen the feature primarily limited to higher-end receivers.

Bungie has posted on their official blog an interview with iOS developer Daniel Blezek who has been working on porting Marathon to the iPad. Blezek has been working on this project for some time but there were initially questions about the legal issue related to distributing Marathon's original level packs.

Based on notes from the interview, however, it seems that this is now a Bungie-sanctioned port.

For many, Marathon will invoke a wave of nostalgia; for others, this will be the first experience with the seminal Mac FPS. I hope all players appreciate Bungie's commitment to their fans. It's not every company who would support bringing a 16 year old game back to life!

Marathon is a first person shooter developed by Bungie Software for the Macintosh in 1994. It was a Mac exclusive launch and was released shortly after Doom first debuted for the PC. Bungie later went on to be acquired by Microsoft and released the popular Halo game series for the Xbox. Halo was originally developed for the Mac as well, but the release was delayed after Microsoft's acquisition.

The iPad version of the game has reportedly been submitted and will be released for free.

A new video promoting a theretofore unreleased Skype for iPad app and demonstrates a stylish interface and video chat capabilities. The video, allegedly posted to Skype's YouTube channel and then quickly removed, was captured by Twitter user @trackizmy1 and reposted by RazorianFly.

Skype for iPhone supports voice chat, voice calling, and instant messaging but does not include a native iPad client, instead running in pixel doubled mode.

Update: TUAW confirms details of the new Skype for iPad app in an interview with Skype VP Rick Osterloh. There is no estimate of when the app will be available.

Since Apple and Intel introduced the Thunderbolt high-speed connectivity standard back in February, users have been waiting for third-party manufacturers to deliver compatible peripherals taking advantage of the significant speed boost over existing mainstream interfaces.

At the Thunderbolt debut, prominent external hard drive solution provider LaCie was one of the first to commit to the new connectivity standard, noting that it was planning to release Thunderbolt-enabled versions of its Little Big Disk external hard drives.

SlashGear today posted a hands-on video with the Thunderbolt-enabled Little Big Disk, showing off an SSD-based version packing two 160 GB drives. LaCie's setup saw two such drives daisy-chained in a RAID 0 configuration with a 24-inch display tacked on at the end of the chain, all connected to a Core i7-based MacBook Pro. The drive setup was able to handle impressive read speeds of over 825 MB/sec and write speeds of over 350 MB/sec.

The first demo was a raw speed test, reading and writing to the drives with 4GB files. As you can see in the video, the MBP was able to write at up to 352.5 MB/s, while read speeds reached 827.2 MB/s. The company told us that the same setup had hit 870 MB/s peaks in their own testing.

The second test was playing back three simultaneous video files stored on the drives, each coming in at 1080p Full HD resolution. Again, as in the video, playback was stutter-free whether windowed or full-screen. We were also able to scrub back and forth through the clip - with the two others running in the background - with no lag or pauses.

SSD models of the Little Big Disk with Thunderbolt are due to ship this summer ("a question of weeks from now", according to the LaCie representative), but pricing has not yet been released. More budget-friendly models based on traditional hard drives are also in the works, although LaCie has yet to offer a release timeline for those models.