MacRumors

Last month, we pointed to research from media firm Nielsen indicating that Apple's iPhone had finally surpassed Research in Motion's BlackBerry operating system in smartphone market share in the United States in October. In a follow-up post yesterday, Nielsen released numbers for November indicating that Apple has widened its lead over Research in Motion, which is now in danger of falling behind Google's Android operating system.

It has been a remarkable turnaround over the past six months, with Apple's share of new smartphone purchases in the U.S. holding relatively steady in the ~26% range for purchases over each preceding six-month period while Android has surged to over 40% and Research in Motion has fallen to under 20%. As recently as July, all three operating systems had been tightly clustered in the 25-28% range.

In another look at market share among the various smartphone platforms, Net Applications has released its browser usage numbers for December 2010, which examine worldwide browser usage and incorporate all iOS devices instead of just the iPhone as limited by smartphone studies.

In its study, Net Applications finds that iOS usage surged across the board between November and December as new customers came on board in the holiday season, with iOS usage share growing 24.3% month-to-month to claim 1.69% of total Internet browser usage. The iPad led Apple's charge with 33.3% share growth, with the iPod claiming 25% growth and the iPhone 20% growth. While Android experienced a slightly higher rate of share growth of 29%, its overall share of 0.40% remained far behind that of iOS, illustrating the impact of Apple's broader iOS ecosystem that extends well beyond smartphones.

Early last month, UK carriers Orange, T-Mobile, and Three debuted subsidized iPads, knocking the price of the entry-level Wi-Fi + 3G iPad model from £529 down to £199 for those customers willing to sign up for two-year data contracts in the range of £25 per month.

While the offerings obviously result in a substantial outlay for customers, it was thought that they would be enticing for customers who had planned on maintaining ongoing cellular data service for their devices instead of opting for only sporadic service on an as-needed basis.

But according to a new report from The Times as relayed by paidContent:UK, sales of the subsidized iPads are coming in far lower than had been expected, at least for Orange.

The company had expected to sell tens of thousands of iPads over the holidays, at a reduced price of £199 ($308) when the buyer took out a 24-month contract on the device. But according to industry sources, it has gotten off to a slow start: selling only 1,000 in its first week of sales.

The report notes that a recent research report suggested that 80% of UK iPad customers were opting for 3G-capable models in the lead-up to the holiday season, offering a significant pool of potential buyers for the subsidized offerings. But obviously either the prospect of a two-year contract was too daunting for customers unsure how much cellular data they would be using on their devices or Orange (and possibly the other UK carriers) failed to appropriately bring the offerings to the attention of customers who might have been interested in the packages.

Apple today took down its online store in the UK for a few hours, moving to raise prices to account for an increase in the national value-added tax (VAT) going into effect today that is seeing the rate rise from 17.5% to 20%.

The price increases have resulted in Apple straying from its usual price point targets, as an entry-level 13" MacBook Pro or 21.5" iMac that previously cost £999 with VAT now goes for £1020, while the entry-level Mac Pro price has moved from £1999 to £2041.

Popular iOS devices have also increased in price, with the 16 GB iPhone 4 rising in price from £499 to £510 and the 16 GB Wi-Fi iPad going from £429 to £439.

Some observers had hoped that Apple might choose to simply absorb the tax increases by reducing their prices slightly in order to maintain the psychological price points used for many of their products, but the company obviously decided that it needed to pass along the tax increase to consumers in order to maintain its margins.

Reuters has been keeping on top of the iOS alarm clock bug that has seen users experiencing problems with alarms activating properly in the new year. Despite reassurances from Apple over the weekend that alarms would begin functioning properly today, a number of users have reportedly continued to experience problems today, the first day of work in 2011 for many people.

Some iPhone users across the globe complained of malfunctioning alarms on the first working day of 2011, even after Apple reassured users that its phones' built-in clocks will work from Monday.

Bloggers, as well as Facebook and Twitter users, complained they missed flights or were late to arrive at work as the alarm built into Apple's iPhone failed to go off for a third straight day for some users.

Apple has yet to offer an updated response to the issue today, and it is unclear why only some users are continuing to experience the bug, which affects non-recurring alarms.

The New Year's bug is not the first alarm-related issue to affect Apple's iOS devices. Last year, an issue related to Daylight Savings Time calculations affected recurring alarms beginning in Australia and New Zealand in late September and moving around the world as other countries either began or ended Daylight Savings Time. Apple addressed that specific bug with the release of iOS 4.2 in late November.

Introduced in late 2009 with iTunes 9, iTunes Extras have been billed as a way for movie studios to release additional features and functionalities with their iTunes Store video content, offering a way to compete with and even exceed bonus features found on DVD releases. But while widespread usage of iTunes Extras has yet to take off, paidContent.org notes that Sony Pictures has started to test some advanced bonus features on its iTunes releases that could begin to turn the tide.

In particular, three new iTunes Store releases from Sony, including the Will Ferrell-Mark Wahlberg film The Other Guys, Salt, and Resident Evil: Afterlife, include a trio of unadvertised features designed to enhance the viewer's experience with interactivity and further iTunes integration.

Buy the Will Ferrell comedy The Other Guys and you'll notice three extras that can't be found on DVD or any other digital platform. A search button allows you to input a word, and any mention of it in the script will be retrieved along with a link to the exact moment in the movie in which the line was uttered. A "clip & share" function lets the viewer take select scenes and post them to social networks. There's also a playlist with songs from the film, which are linked to to places on iTunes where those songs can be purchased.

The report notes that the features are available only for iTunes Store purchases, and not rentals of the titles where they are being trialled.

Despite the apparent efforts of movie studios like Sony to differentiate their iTunes Store content by offering such interactive features, Apple has yet to offer full support for iTunes Extras, with compatibility limited to viewing the additional content through iTunes on Mac or Windows or on a first-generation Apple TV. While Apple CEO Steve Jobs has promised support for iTunes Extras and the related iTunes LP format on the new Apple TV, Apple's entire line of iOS-based devices remains incompatible with the bonus features at this time. The shortcoming has been viewed as a major hindrance to the adoption of the extended features, particularly given that the iPad with its larger screen appears to be particularly enticing for such capabilities.

On the first trading day of 2011, Apple's stock has jumped to a new high and broken through yet another psychological milestone by pushing past $300 billion in market capitalization. AAPL stock currently sits at nearly $330 per share with a market cap of over $302 billion.

Apple set a series of market cap milestones last year, passing $200 billion in early March, leapfrogging Wal-Mart just a few days later, and passing Microsoft in late May to become the second largest U.S. company by market capitalization behind Exxon Mobil. Apple continues to trail Exxon Mobil, which also had a strong performance in the latter half of 2010 and currently sits at a market cap of about $368 billion.

French site Hardmac has been keeping its ear to the ground when it comes to Apple's Final Cut video processing suites, noting today that it has heard that revised versions of the company's Final Cut offerings are likely to debut in March or early April. The report reiterates previous claims that the company may not be able to deliver all of the improvements hoped for by professional-level users, although the updates are still reported to be "substantial".

AS we reported earlier, all version of Final Cut should be unveiled in March or early April. It should be a substantial update when compared to the previous version, but not sure it could bring all new features expected by all Pro users.

According to today's report, Apple has separate versions of Final Cut running as betas for Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Lion, with some features claimed to be Lion-only due to changes to QuickTime in the forthcoming operating system update. Mac OS X Lion is not scheduled to launch, however, until "summer" 2011.

Last year, following concerns over rumors that Apple will be focusing the next version of Final Cut more on mainstream users than professional-level users, both Steve Jobs and Apple sought to reassure customers that the next version will be "awesome" and satisfy professional users.

Hardmac also weighs in on a couple of other topics in today's report: Xserve and Blu-ray. According to the report's sources, there continues to be substantial turmoil over the imminent discontinuation of Apple's rackmountable server line due to poor sales. A number of high-profile users, including Apple director and former Genentech chairman Art Levinson, have reportedly complained about the discontinuation, and while Hardmac indicates that "this storm is maybe not over", it is unclear if Apple is contemplating some alternative to canceling the Xserve line.

With regards to Blu-ray, sources indicate that Jobs still considers the technology to be a "bag of hurt", with DRM restrictions and licensing issues that make the format unattractive. According to the report, Jobs noted during a recent internal meeting that he is "ashamed" that Apple's name is associated with the Blu-ray format through its position as a member of the Blu-ray Disc Association's board of directors, a role it has held since 2005.

Today, Intel announced their next generation processor architecture known as "Sandy Bridge" (or 2nd Generation Core processor). The new processors are built on the 32nm process and integrate the processor, memory controller and graphics on the same die. In particular the new integrated graphics performance is significantly improved over previous Intel's previous chips.

TechReport summarizes the changes:

Sandy Bridge is, essentially, a next-generation replacement for Intel's primary CPUs for desktops and laptops .... At the heart of Sandy Bridge is an essentially new processor microarchitecture, the most sweeping architectural transition from Intel since the introduction of the star-crossed Pentium 4. Nearly everything has changed, from the branch predictors through the out-of-order execution engine and into the memory subsystem. The goal: to achieve higher performance and power efficiency, even on single-threaded tasks, where the integration of multiple CPU cores hasn't been much help.

Anandtech in particular notes that the new processor architecture is a major step forward for laptops, significantly closing the price/performance gap between desktops and laptops.

Also promising for Mac users is that they found the graphics performance generally exceeded that found in the NVIDIA 320M that is presently used in the MacBook and MacBook Airs in Low detail settings:

Again, Sandy Bridge delivers playable performance in every single title at 768p and "Low" detail settings. What's more, it actually surpasses the GeForce 320M in Apple's MacBook Pro 13 in five out of six games (the exception being STALKER).

Performance, however, did lag in Medium detail settings. Intel's previously poor integrated graphics performance was seen as one of the reasons why Apple has stuck with pairing of previous generation Intel processors and NVIDIA 320M GPUs.

Overall, Anandtech is impressed with the performance and battery life of the new chips:

Not only do we get 50 to 100% better performance than the previous generation high-end Intel mobile chips, but we also get more than double the integrated graphics performance and battery life in most situations should be similar to Arrandale, if not better. And that's looking at the quad-core offerings!

Meanwhile, dual core and low-power versions of Sandy Bridge processors are expected to arrive next month.

Macworld summarizes findings first reported by Engadget. Apparently a bug in the iPhone clock app prevents non-recurring alarms from properly triggering on New Years day.

I was able to confirm this after a couple of false starts. For the bug to show itself, your iOS device must actually tick over from 11:59 p.m. on December 31, 2010 to 12:00 a.m. on January 1, 2011.

The work around for now is to set up the alarm as a recurring event. 9to5Mac claims that the problem corrects itself after January 3rd. In the meanwhile, be aware if you use your iPhone as your alarm clock.

Update: Apple has officially acknowledged the problem:

Apple spokesperson Natalie Harrison confirmed to Macworld that Apple is aware of the problem. "We're aware of an issue related to non repeating alarms set for January 1 or 2," Harrison said. "Customers can set recurring alarms for those dates and all alarms will work properly beginning January 3."

The Wall Street Journal reports that several of the purported iPad 2 photos found on Alibaba.com , a small business e-commerce site, have been removed upon legal demand:

But someone -- its unclear who -- doesnt seem to appreciate all the attention: Alibaba.com was asked to remove the listings. We do not know whether these products are what they say they are, but we have received a legitimate takedown request and are removing the listings, Alibaba Group spokesman John Spelich said Wednesday.

Further inquiries to the led to little detail as to who requested the takedown, but one of the companies named Fullchance Industrial Co. claimed the case designs were "extremely accurate" and that they worked directly with Hon Hai Precision Industry. Hon Hai assembles Apple's iPhone and iPad devices, though a Hon Hai spokesperson denied any connection between Hon Hai and the listings on Alibaba.

Meanwhile, recent 9to5Mac report with design images for the iPad 2 has also been pulled:

Update, we've been told (not so nicely) to remove those mold drawings because they are the property of someone else. Weve complied.

The images of the cases have already seen wide distribution and are even physically in the hand of some bloggers:

As 2010 draws to a close, several sites are posting their 2010 year in review articles. In honor of the end of the year, we've compiled this collection of the biggest Apple leaks in 2010.

iPhone 4

The biggest leak of 2010 was, of course, the iPhone 4 leak. The story goes that an Apple engineer had left the prototype device in a bar where it was picked up by an individual who eventually sold the device to Gizmodo. The site then went on to disassemble and detail the then unreleased iPhone 4 for all to see. Perhaps even stranger is the fact that another lost iPhone 4 appeared in Vietnam a month later.

iPad

Perhaps the biggest rumor of 2010 was Apple's move into the tablet space with the iPad. This image leaked the night before the big announcement presumably from someone with access to Apple's pre-event setup location.

Steam

Not an Apple product leak, and not really even a leak as this was actually an official teaser sent out to sites, the arrival of Steam for Mac was one of the biggest 3rd party announcements in 2010.

iPod Nano

No one was exactly sure what Apple was planning on using this 3x3cm touch screen for at the time of leak, but it eventually made its way into the multi-touch iPod nano that was released two months later.

Magic Trackpad

Several photos of Apple's multi-touch trackpad (Magic Trackpad) were seen well before its release.

MacBook Air

We'd heard some credible rumors that the MacBook Air would see a major revision with an "blade"-style SSD drive, and, sure enough, photos confirmed it just days later.

4th Generation iPod Touch

Chinese part suppliers seem to be the biggest point of failure for Apple's secrecy. Numerous images of the 4th generation iPod Touch with front-facing camera were leaked prior to its launch.

With so many eyes on Apple these days, we expect we'll continue to see and hear about Apple's new products in the weeks to months in advance.

A pair of Apple patent applications published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today reveal that the company is continuing to look into ways of harnessing the knowledge of groups of consumers to assist in the shopping process both online and in brick-and-mortar stores. With these methods, the company hopes to assist consumers with social networking tools in the shopping environment, as well as use community-based sales ranking predictions to help consumers find the best products for themselves.

The first patent, noted by AppleInsider, is entitled "Social Networking in Shopping Environments" and was filed in June 2009. It addresses methods by which customers can use social networking tools to select items while shopping and solicit opinions on the appropriateness of the articles from friends. In some variations, store employees could also tap into the system to offer their feedback on proposed purchases and alternatives available in the store.

In a shopping environment, a user may identify one or more articles of interest. Before purchasing the articles, the user may wish to consult with friends or other people. To do so, the user can use a mobile device to transmit identifying information for the articles to mobile or other devices of the user's friends (e.g., some or all friends in an address book, or just friends located within a maximum distance of the user, for example in the same mall). The identifying information can include links to databases of the articles, images or photographs of the articles, location information for the friends to see the articles (e.g., identify a rack in a store where an article of clothing was found) or any other suitable information. The user's friends can review the identified articles, and provide comments for the user. For example, the user's friends can give a thumbs up/down, a star rating, a comment (e.g., text, audio or video), or any other type of comment.

In some embodiments, the user can receive recommendations of other articles to purchase instead of or in addition to the initially identified articles. For example, other users can provide identifying information for other articles available for purchase. As another example, other users can identify other articles already owned by the user that would go well with articles available for purchase (e.g., articles previously identified by the user, or articles identified by other users). The received recommendations can include comments to assist the user in determining whether to make a purchase. The recommendations provided by friends can include articles available in the store in which the user is shopping, in other stores (e.g., in the same complex or mall), online or from remote sources (e.g., links to an online store or to a catalog from which articles can be ordered) or from any other suitable source.

A second patent application, known as "Systems, Methods, and Computer-Readable Media for Community Review of Items in an Electronic Store", was also filed in June 2009 and addresses online marketplace as opposed to the brick-and-mortar stores addressed in the first application.

This second patent application describes ways to harness the input of users of online stores to predict the relative sales rankings of various products, thereby bringing them to the attention of other shoppers. The application begins by citing the difficulties in generating accurate reviews of products in online stores, from the cost and effort required for stores to perform their own reviews to the lack of trustworthiness from reviews provided by manufacturers themselves or other customers.

Apple's method describes how users could be surveyed to predict the performance of certain products, with the reviews of those who most accurately predict future performance over time carrying more weight when it comes to sharing their thoughts with other potential customers. For users predicting rankings, an increased "credibility score" may be sufficient incentive to drive participation in the program, although online stores could also offer financial incentives for customers making predictions.

Over the past year and a half, we've been following the efforts of the European Commission to make micro-USB a universal charging standard for smartphones as of January 2011. Follwing the European Commission's adoption of the standard in August of this year, two European standards bodies have now weighed in with their approval on the technical specifications for the standard to be used.

Following a mandate from the European Commission, the European Standardisation Bodies CEN-CENELEC and ETSI have now made available the harmonised standards needed for the manufacture of data-enabled mobile phones compatible with a new common charger. This is the most recent development in the process towards a global common mobile phone charger initiated by the European Commission. It follows the June 2009 agreement of fourteen leading mobile phone producers to harmonise chargers for data-enabled mobile phones (i.e. that can be connected to a computer) sold in the European Union.

The fourteen mobile phone manufacturers participating in the agreement include Apple, as well as Nokia, Research in Motion, Samsung, and a number of other prominent smartphone manufacturers. According to yesterday's press release, the first smartphones and standalone chargers supporting the standard are expected to debut in Europe early next year.

There has been considerable speculation about whether Apple will be able to meet the requirements of the micro-USB standard, as the company currently uses a proprietary 30-pin dock connector for charging and interfacing with computers over USB. But based on the original Memorandum of Understanding (PDF) signed in June 2009, it appears that Apple can comply with the regulations by including with the iPhone a small adapter to interface either directly between the dock connector and micro-USB or between the USB connector on the end of the existing charging cable and micro-USB.

In order that compatibility of as many Mobile Phones as possible with a Common EPS [external power supply] may be enabled, if a manufacturer makes available an Adaptor from the Micro-USB connector of a Common EPS to a specific non-Micro-USB socket in the Mobile Phone, it shall constitute compliance to this article.

Consequently, Apple will not be required to abandon the 30-pin dock connector currently in use on the iPhone or include a separate micro-USB interface directly on the device for charging purposes.

It is unknown whether any changes Apple makes to comply with the new European regulations will also be made in other markets around the world.

Earlier this week, we noted that a new App Store application, Quick Snap - Camera Plus, had appeared on December 15th, allowing users to activate the camera shutter on their iPhone using the hardware volume buttons on the side of the device. The approval of the application was clearly an error by Apple's review staff, as the remapping of hardware buttons from their original purposes is clearly prohibited by Apple's guidelines and several other applications offering similar functionality had been rejected for that reason.

Now that Apple's holiday shutdown has lifted, the company's staff members have moved quickly to yank the application from the App Store. Given that the application's primary marketing advantage lay in its use of the hardware buttons for activating the camera shutter, it is unclear if the developer will attempt to resubmit the application without the functionality.

Developers TapTapTap earlier this year attempted to sneak such functionality by Apple's reviewers by hiding it as an unlockable easter egg in their popular Camera+ application after Apple had rejected the feature when it was included openly in an update for the application submitted for review. TapTapTap succeeded in slipping the easter egg by Apple's reviewers, but Camera+ was quickly pulled once the functionality was publicly disclosed. After four months in the penalty box, Camera+ (without the volume button shutter activation) reappeared in the App Store just before Christmas and saw very solid sales with the holiday push.

Skype unleashed version 3.0 of the Skype App for iOS this evening. The new version brings the long awaited video conferencing for iPhone and iPod Touch.

- Make Skype to Skype video calls on WiFi and 3G*
- Call Skype desktop users (Mac OS X or Windows) and other iPhone users.
- Two-way video calls supported on iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch 4th gen.
- Receive only video supported on iPad and iPod touch 3rd gen, with no camera.
- Make video calls in portrait and landscape.
- Skype video calling requires iOS 4.0 or above.

The new video conferencing feature works between capable iOS devices as well as desktop machines. Skype is a free download on the App Store. [App Store]

Businessweek reports that Apple is planning on introducing the Verizon iPhone sometime after CES 2011, according to a person familiar with Apple's plans. Businessweek speculates the anticipated event could come before Valentines day which falls on February 14th, but there's no clear indication how they came to that date.

The article debates how much of an impact a Verizon iPhone will have on AT&T's bottom line. The hassle of switching carriers as well as high early termination fees are cited as reasons that AT&T may not lose as many customers as some believe. AT&T has been hampered with coverage issues for some of its customers. Verizon is believed to be able to comfortably handle the sudden growth of iPhone users, according to one analyst.

Earlier today we discussed the possibility of hearing about a Verizon iPhone as early as CES next week, but it seems more likely that Apple will keep that announcement for themselves during an early 2011 media event.