Apple has introduced a new perk for Apple employees, giving them a free 50GB upgrade to their iCloud storage -- a $100/year value. This is similar to the free MobileMe subscription that employees received until last year when iCloud replaced that service. The standard iCloud account includes 5GB of storage.
Earlier this year Apple employees were granted a new discount on Apple hardware, offering employees $500 off a Mac (excluding the Mac mini) or $250 off an iPad -- and that discount was recently extended to the Retina MacBook Pro as well.
With Apple having announced its new Passbook digital wallet for iOS 6, speculation regarding the potential for the incorporation of near field communications (NFC) in the next-generation iPhone has ramped up. The technology would allow for contactless payments that could be closely incorporated into the Passbook functionality. Rumors of NFC capabilities for the next-generation iPhone received another boost of speculation after photos of an assembled front panel surfaced showing an unknown square feature that Japanese blog Mac Otakara said was part of the NFC system for the device.
As part of an extensive analysis of likely features for the next iPhone, AnandTech laid out the case for why NFC is unlikely to appear in the device.
Given the primarily metal backside of the new iPhone, it's highly unlikely that NFC is in the cards for this generation. In fact, given the very little space at top and bottom dedicated to those glass RF windows, you can almost entirely rule it out.
Next-generation iPhone front panel with feature incorrectly claimed to be for NFC (boxed in red)
The well-connected Jim Dalrymple has now added his perspective on the matter, sharing a simple "Yep" confirming that AnandTech was correct in its conclusion: There will be no NFC capabilities in the forthcoming iPhone.
TmoNews reports (via Engadget) that it has received a pair of photos from T-Mobile USA's internal news system announcing that the carrier will be rolling out new training programs focused on "selling against the iPhone". The new training modules are being deployed on September 21, the rumored launch day for the next-generation iPhone in the United States.
Perhaps it’s coincidental that the information for employees to utilize against the iPhone will drop on September 21st, a date being tossed around as a possible release date for the next-generation iPhone. Perhaps it’s just coincidence but we can’t envision a scenario in which T-Mobile would prepare their employees to sell against a product they are about to receive.
T-Mobile is the only one of the four major U.S. carriers to not officially offer the iPhone, hampered by its use of 3G spectrum bands that are not supported by iPhone models released to date. That has not stopped customers from bringing their GSM iPhones to the carrier for use on its 2G network, and T-Mobile has been working to increase support for the over one million iPhones in use on its network even as it seeks to downplay the impact of its official absence to potential customers.
Following its failed merger with AT&T, T-Mobile USA announced earlier this year that its work on refarming spectrum would make the carrier's 4G HSPA+ network compatible with a broader range of devices, including the iPhone, by the end of 2012. Today's report from TmoNews reveals that T-Mobile is also rolling out new Monthly4G SIM kits that are compatible with the iPhone 4S and 4 later this month, perhaps signaling an increased effort to attract iPhone customers as its iPhone-compatible HSPA+ network reaches critical mass.
Earlier this month, we reported on several changes at Apple retail stores that were reportedly seeing some employees being laid off or seeing recent promotions being retracted, while other part-time employees were seeing their hours reduced significantly, in some cases to zero. Our report was followed several days later by an acknowledgement from Apple that the company had "messed up" in adjusting its staffing formulas for its retail stores.
ifoAppleStore now takes a close look at the situation, tying changes in the philosophy of Apple's retail experience to the passing of Steve Jobs and the operational focus of Apple CEO Tim Cook and new retail chief John Browett. At the most basic level, Jobs served as the champion for former retail chief Ron Johnson's vision of Apple stores focused on consumer satisfaction, and without Jobs to protect that vision Apple has slipped into a numbers-focused perspective for its retail operations.
Johnson was champion of customer satisfaction, designing and staffing the stores to provide a superior experience for visitors and buyers alike. He was able to win over Steve Jobs with the concept that revenue and profit should be a secondary goal of Apple’s retail stores.
But in 2009, Jobs took six months of medical leave and put Tim Cook in charge of the company, including the retail stores. Cook is primarily an “operations guy,” sources explain, and his natural focus is revenues and profits, not customers. While Jobs was away, Cook and chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer began to confront Johnson on his customer-centric retail philosophy—both felt the stores didn’t generate enough revenues to justify operating expenses.
The report claims that Cook hired Browett to replace Johnson, who departed Apple to lead department store chain JC Penney last year, specifically because of his focus on "traditional concepts of retailing" that prioritize revenues and profits as the key performance metrics.
Tim Cook (left) and John Browett (right)
Even with Apple reportedly having reversed a number of the staffing changes that brought the company such significant publicity earlier this month, stores are reportedly still subject to directives reducing workshop offerings for customers and specifying policies on staff evaluation and compensation that prioritize profits over the customer experience and employee satisfaction.
Back in May, Apple announced that its annual iTunes Festival in London would be moving to September for 2012, with the event once again offering 30 days of free concerts at The Roundhouse. While tickets to the shows have been awarded on a lottery basis, Apple this year is offering access to the concerts with a number of live streaming options including through the iTunes Festival website, through a dedicated universal iOS app, and through Apple TV.
For those interested in watching the shows on Apple TV, the company has just pushed out an automatic update adding the iTunes Festival app to users' set-top boxes, making it easy for users to access the shows from the main menu of the device.
This is not the first time Apple has experimented with delivering live content directly to the Apple TV, as the company earlier this year offered a live stream of a Paul McCartney concert through both iTunes and the Apple TV.
The 2012 iTunes Festival kicks off on September 1 with Usher and runs daily throughout the month until closing with Muse on September 30.
Apple today seeded a new version of OS X Lio 10.7.5 to developers for testing. The new version, Build 11G45, arrives less than two weeks after the previous seed, and the build increment of nine suggests that Apple has been continuing to make a number of tweaks to the update in preparation for a public launch.
Apple continues to list no known issues with the update and is asking developers to focus on the same testing areas as in the previous build, which included graphics performance and image and media handling.
The public Alpha program began more than a month ago to help Tweetbot get feedback on the Mac Twitter client as the developers moved towards final release.
One of the API changes relates to how many "tokens" a particular Twitter app can have, limiting the total number of customers an app can serve without approval from Twitter. In order to protect their ability to sell the maximum number of copies of the app going forward, Tweetbot has discontinued the alpha program and ceased distribution of the app.
As some of you may have already noticed the download link for the Tweetbot for Mac alpha no longer works. Twitter’s latest API Changes means now we have a large but finite limit on the number of user tokens we can get for Tweetbot for Mac. We’ve been working with Twitter over the last few days to try to work around this limit for the duration of the beta but have been unable to come up with a solution that was acceptable to them. Because of this we’ve decided its best for us to pull the alpha.
More than a few pundits have expressed their displeasure with the situation, putting the blame squarely on Twitter. Even so, at this point, Tweetbot for Mac will be available for sale "in the near future" and the developers are merely stopping the public phase of prerelease testing.
Apple today announced that Craig Federighi and Dan Riccio will be joining the company's senior executive team, receiving promotions to the Senior Vice President level.
As senior vice president of Mac Software Engineering, Federighi will continue to be responsible for the development of Mac OS X and Apple’s common operating system engineering teams. Federighi worked at NeXT, followed by Apple, and then spent a decade at Ariba where he held several roles including vice president of Internet Services and chief technology officer. He returned to Apple in 2009 to lead Mac OS X engineering. Federighi holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.
Riccio, as senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, will lead the Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod engineering teams. He has been instrumental in all of Apple’s iPad products since the first generation iPad. Riccio joined Apple in 1998 as vice president of Product Design and has been a key contributor to most of Apple’s hardware over his career. Dan earned a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1986.
Apple has also announced that Mansfield will remain with the company rather than retiring as previously announced, staying on to "work on future products" and reporting directly to CEO Tim Cook.
A New Jersey teenager was arrested this weekend for allegedly attempting to shoplift a pair of headphones from the Fifth Avenue Apple Store in Manhattan, reports Macworld. Eric Shine says he scanned the barcode of a pair of Bose headphones, and navigated the EasyPay purchase process to the final screen, but failed to complete his purchase. Upon trying to leave the store, he was stopped by store employees who accused him of shoplifting and called the police to have him arrested.
I pulled out my iPhone, and realized it still showed the Pay Now button, and not the receipt," Shine said. "I told them I had no intent of stealing; I’ve been in the store for an hour, and I’m still willing to purchase the headphones."
That didn’t satisfy the Apple Store staff. "They said, they see this all the time, and that they knew I had the intent to steal, and this was an easy excuse," said Shine, who pointed out to the manager that he had asked for—and received—a bag from an Apple Store employee for the headphones. When you successfully complete a transaction, the Apple Store app clearly states that, to get a bag, "just show a specialist your receipt." Shine says the Apple Store employee he spoke to didn’t ask to see his receipt, compounding his own error with the app.
Last year, the 'Apple Store' iPhone app was updated with a new 'EasyPay' feature that allowed users to purchase products in the retail store without interacting with any salespeople. This benefits both customers and the store by freeing up store employees to deal with customers that need one-on-one attention.
EasyPay has been popular with Apple's more tech-savvy customers, but the risk of misunderstandings like this are easy to foresee. Shine was offered a plea bargain for one day of community service and attending a class on larceny in exchange for having the charges against him reduced, but he declined. He told Macworld that he "didn't try to steal anything" and will instead face larceny charges in October.
In the wake of Apple's $1 billion victory over Samsung in its high-profile lawsuit over patent and trade dress issues, The Verge reports that the company has officially requested U.S. sales bans on eight Samsung smartphones found by the jury to infringe upon Apple's intellectual property.
The report notes that impact of any sales bans would likely be negligible, as most of the cited products have already been discontinued in the U.S. in favor of successor devices.
Apple is requesting a preliminary injunction covering these eight devices out of the 28 devices at stake in the trial, but is reserving its rights for a future permanent injunction request in favor of moving quickly to ban sales of this subset of devices.
The company behind the popular LifeProof iPhone case today announced a new waterproof iPad case called the Nüüd. The case is an alternative to other high-protection iPad cases like the OtterBox Defender, with the addition of waterproof protection (to 6.6 feet).
The most interesting part of the Nüüd case -- and the origin of the odd name -- is that the case appears to have no protection over the iPad's screen. The screen is left exposed, delivering what LifeProof claims is a better experience. The company says other cases leave an air gap between the iPad and a built-in screen protector, making viewing the screen less clear as well as making touch recognition less consistent.
LifeProof says the Nüüd case protects against drops from 4 feet, is totally sealed from dust and particles, and can handle being submerged to 6.6 feet for 30 minutes, as well as keeping out all melting snow and ice.
LifeProof, the award-winning maker of all-protective, everyday cases for smartphones and tablets, today announced the availability of the LifeProof nuud case for iPad. Unleashing new freedom for mobile computing, the LifeProof nuud case for iPad is water, dirt, snow and shock proof, and features a totally naked screen that provides a perfect tactile response and visual clarity. The new LifeProof iPad case protects both iPad 2 and iPad Gen 3 devices.
For second and third-generation iPad owners using their devices in harsh environments -- or in a swimming pool -- the $160 case may be a worthwhile investment.
Philipp Seibel of eightloops let us know that his company was working on a fresh new take on the OS X email client. There has been a bit of a resurgence in the interest of alternative Mail clients since the launch and acquisition of Sparrow, which has left some customers abandoned.
Eightloops' new client is called Unibox and borrows a lot of organization and interface cues from chat clients like Messages. Like Messages, the interface consists of two panes: contacts on the left and messages on the right. The contact list is ordered by last received message and all emails from that contact are consolidated into that one entry:
Due to the fact that contacts only appear once in the list, many short back-and-forth emails don't clutter your inbox, they just result in moving the respective contact to the top. Another nice side effect is that notification emails from twitter, facebook, amazon etc don't spam your inbox but are limited to one entry in your contact list.
On the right side, incoming messages are displayed in a chat-like interface with incoming on the left and outgoing on the right. Outgoing messages are also written in the right hand column with support for editing, formatting, and attachments.
Meanwhile, attachments from a single contact can be viewed in a Finder-like interface. Seibel notes that this creates an interesting side effect:
Displaying attachments this way creates some interesting new views on your emails and contacts. Attachment grids of a family member or friend mostly look like shared photo albums while attachment lists of co-workers and business partners are like a shared dropbox that contains all the relevant business documents like design assets, word documents, excel sheets, etc.
Seibel wasn't willing to release full interface screenshots quite yet, but expects the app to be released this winter. They have set up a teaser page at UniboxApp.com that will notify you when the app is released. Seibel's company has been a longtime Mac developer, but has focused on contractual work in the past. This is their major independent Mac project that they've been working on for over a year.
Yesterday, we pointed to a report from The Korea Times quoting a senior Samsung executive as saying the $1 billion judgment against the firm in its patent and design dispute with Apple was the "worst scenario" for Samsung. Several senior executives were reportedly holding an emergency meeting yesterday to discuss Samsung's next moves in the case.
Reuters now notes that Samsung CEO Kwon Oh-hyun, who took the reins of the company as part of an executive reshuffling in June, was not present at that meeting. According to the report, Kwon's absence was part of Samsung's efforts to compartmentalize the patent and design dispute within the company. While he does serve as CEO, Kwon's primary responsibility is to oversee the company's component business, a division that maintains a close relationship with Apple.
The clear message from Samsung is that a strict internal firewall between its handset business and its components operations remains intact.
While it plans to appeal the U.S. verdict, and a damages bill for $1.05 billion for copying critical features of Apple's popular mobile devices - a sum that could be trebled - Samsung will not want to put at risk its Apple supply contract which is worth billions of dollars.
The report notes that both Samsung and Apple have been seeking to diversify their supply relationships to reduce their reliance on one another, but the two companies remain very close partners on the supply chain side. According to statements by Apple's lawyers during the trial, Samsung parts currently comprise 26% of the component cost of the iPhone, even with Apple taking steps to move contracts for some commodities such as DRAM from Samsung to competitors Elpida and Hynix.
Yesterday, TechCrunch reported that AT&T had issued a vacation blackout for September 21-30 ahead of an "iconic release", coinciding exactly with a similar blackout at Verizon.
9to5Mac now reports that AT&T has specifically denied that a company-wide blackout is in effect for that time period. Anecdotal reports from store staff do, however, suggest that the carrier may be increasing its staffing levels around that time.
This morning, an AT&T spokesperson told us that there is no company-wide vacation blackout at the end of September.
We’ve also talked to AT&T reps at other stores who’ve implied that, depending on staffing levels of that particular store, more people are being put on duty – but there is no “blackout”. In fact one New York employee will be sitting out the first week of the iPhone launch on a long planned vacation.
Numerous sources have indicated that Apple will be introducing the next-generation iPhone at a media event on September 12, but the actual launch date for the device has been somewhat less certain. Several sources have pointed to September 21 as the launch date for the first group of markets, a timeframe that does fit with Apple's typical pattern seen in previous launches.
With Samsung having already issued a public statement following the $1 billion verdict against the company in its patent and trade dress dispute with Apple, the company has now published its internal memo to employees about the issue, noting that it will continue to fight on through all available means until it wins its case.
Certainly, we are very disappointed by the verdict at the US District Court for the Northern District of California (NDCA), and it is regrettable that the verdict has caused concern amongst our employees, as well as our loyal customers.
However, the judge’s final ruling remains, along with a number of other procedures. We will continue to do our utmost until our arguments have been accepted.
The statement also takes a direct stab at Apple in suggesting that it will be impossible to win the "hearts and minds of consumers" by focusing on patent law abuse rather than innovation, as it believes Apple has done.
History has shown there has yet to be a company that has won the hearts and minds of consumers and achieved continuous growth, when its primary means to competition has been the outright abuse of patent law, not the pursuit of innovation.
We trust that the consumers and the market will side with those who prioritize innovation over litigation, and we will prove this beyond doubt.
Reuters also notes that Samsung has filed a motion seeking to overturn the preliminary injunction barring U.S. sales of its Galaxy Tab 10.1. Samsung argues that the jury found no infringement of the design patent cited in the injunction, and thus it is also seeking compensation for the effects of the injunction in requesting that Apple's $2.6 million bond be held. Apple will be arguing that the jury was incorrect in its ruling of non-infringement and that Judge Lucy Koh should overrule that decision.
We've been following Apple's efforts to open retail store locations in Sweden for some time, noting last November that the company had filed for a business registration certificate. The company began hiring for its new stores in February, although the locations for those stores were not disclosed at the time.
Over this past weekend, 99mac reported [Google translation] that a new location listing in Swedish search engine and mapping service Hitta.se has revealed Apple's forthcoming store in the Täby Centrum shopping center in Stockholm. According to sources, the store is scheduled to open on September 15.
IDG.se followed up [Google translation] with a visit to the shopping center, where it discovered the under-construction store covered by Apple's traditional black construction barrier emblazoned with the Apple logo and the URL for company's Swedish site.
Apple is reportedly working on several other Swedish retail store sites, with a location in Malmö said to be planned for an October 25 opening and a second Stockholm site also said to be under consideration.
Sweden appears set to become the 14th country with an Apple retail store presence, with the company counting China and Hong Kong as separate markets. Unlike Apple's high-profile entry into the Netherlands earlier this year with a flagship store, the first Swedish store appears to be of the more standard mall-based variety, although with a very wide storefront indicating that it should be of substantial size.
The Verge reports that Google has officially responded to Friday's ruling in the Apple vs. Samsung case that saw a jury award Apple over $1 billion in deciding that Samsung had infringed upon Apple's patents and trade dress.
In its statement, Google attempts to distance itself from the controversy somewhat, indicating that most of the issues addressed in the trial do not relate to Android itself. The issues instead deal with Samsung's specific software implementations and its hardware design decisions. Google writes:
The court of appeals will review both infringement and the validity of the patent claims. Most of these don't relate to the core Android operating system, and several are being re-examined by the US Patent Office. The mobile industry is moving fast and all players - including newcomers - are building upon ideas that have been around for decades. We work with our partners to give consumers innovative and affordable products, and we don't want anything to limit that.
Some of the key pieces of evidence weighing in Apple's favor in the jury's mind were in fact 2010 memos and conversations between Google and Samsung that included Google "demanding" Samsung make changes in its implementation of Android over concerns that it was too similar to Apple's iOS. From one internal Samsung email describing Google's concerns:
“I am notifying you of the team leader’s directives from the executives’ meeting yesterday,” the message begins. The sixth item on the list addresses a need to “respond to the issue of design similarity for the S series,” which Samsung designer Kim Jin Soo testified was a reference to the company’s S series of smartphones.
“Google is demanding distinguishable design vis-à-vis the iPad,” according to the e-mail. “Consider design distinguishability for the items demanded by Google while maintaining the current design, and in regards to each carrier’s demands.”
With the Korea Stock Exchange having just opened for trading for the first time since the ruling, Samsung's stock is currently trading down 7%. Apple's stock rose nearly 2% in after hours trading Friday following the ruling.
Part leaks claimed to be for the next-generation iPhone continue to surface as the all-but-confirmed September 12 media event introduction approaches, with the latest batch of photos showing what appears to be the most completely assembled front panel seen yet. The new photos, which were highlighted by Apple.pro [Google translation], were posted to a Photobucket account that previously posted photos of measurements showing that the third-generation iPad would be thicker than the iPad 2, as well as the first leaked photo of the next-generation iPhone front panel in white.
Assembled front panel complete with LCD frame, front camera, and home button
The latest set of photos posted to the account shows a nearly fully assembled front panel with even more parts than seen in last week's leak of the front panel with the LCD attached. The new photos show not only the LCD attached to the front panel but also the home button installed and secured by a metal bracket, the shielding frame for the display that was first seen as a standalone part earlier this month, and the front-facing camera installed behind additional shielding.
Closeups of top portion showing flex cables for display and front camera
Increasing numbers of parts are leaking in ever more complete states of assembly, offering good looks at the overall appearance and layout of the next-generation iPhone.
While the front of the device will appear very similar to the iPhone 4S/4 with the exception of a taller screen and slight tweaks in the locations of the camera and sensors, it is the rear of the device that seems to be generating the most discussion. The forthcoming iPhone appears to incorporate a unibody design that will incorporate a two-toned rear/side shell featuring a large metal section in the center paired with two strips of glass or plastic at the top and bottom that will allow for transmission of the numerous types of signals necessary for the device's operation.
Closeup of home button installed behind metal bracket
Note: Watermarks have been obscured due to political statements contained within them.
Update: Mac Otakara points out that the unknown square-shaped feature visible at the top may be a near field communications (NFC) chip.
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