MacRumors

As noted [Google translation] by Mackinando, Apple has announced that promo codes for App Store applications are no longer limited to U.S. customers.

Your promo code distribution is no longer limited to U.S. customers. Promo codes in iTunes Connect can now be redeemed by all App Store customers worldwide. Your Team Agent can request 50 codes per version of your app in iTunes Connect and your customers can redeem these codes in any App Store. To learn more about requesting promo codes in iTunes Connect, see the iTunes Connect Developer Guide.

The change will allow developers to get free copies of their applications into the hands of more users, whether it be for review purposes for publications or for giveaways.

Apple allows developers to generate up to 50 promo codes per update of an application, and the codes are good for four weeks after generation.

MarketWatch late yesterday announced that it has selected Apple CEO Steve Jobs as its "CEO of the Decade", recognizing the Apple co-founder for his role in revitalizing the company and revolutionizing portable devices.

"The resurrection of Apple is just the most astounding story that's probably happened in business in at least a decade - you might be able to go further and say it's a half-century," says Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies, a technology-industry think tank. "It's on par with Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell in terms of its total impact."

In parallel with the company's string of successes over the past decade that has seen the iPod, iPhone, and iPad all experience wild success in the marketplace as the Mac has continued to grow its market share, investors have also been rewarded by Apple's success.

During the first decade of the new millennium, Jobs and Apple managed to thrive even when the rest of the country didn't. Apple's shares blossomed, pausing only when Jobs's health was in doubt. While the stock trades at roughly 43 times its level of a decade ago, the S&P 500 has lost about 7%.

Sales are up twelvefold from the end of 2000, surging from $5.4 billion for fiscal 2001 to $65.2 billion for fiscal 2010, which ended in September. Cumulatively, Apple has racked up more than $229 billion in total sales during the decade.

MarketWatch selected Jobs for the award over fellow finalists Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Eric Schmidt of Google, Howard Schultz of Starbucks, and Tim Solso of engine manufacturer Cummins.

Jobs won a similar "CEO of the Decade" award from Fortune last year.

Several MacRumors readers have written in to report that Apple has begun offering high-definition movies for sale in its UK iTunes Store. A very limited library of titles appears to be available at the moment with, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse appearing to be the highest-profile release available for purchase in HD.

Films priced at £9.99 for standard definition are carrying £12.99 price tags in high definition, while cheaper films typically priced at £6.99 for standard definition are being offered at £7.99 in high definition.

Apple launched iTunes movie rentals and sales in the UK in June 2008, but high-definition films were only available for rent, and even then only with limited titles. The company began offering HD movie sales in the United States in March 2009, but has been slow to extend the offering to other countries.

Bloomberg reports that European carriers are looking to band together in an effort to demand that companies such as Apple and Google offering data-intensive smartphones make specific contributions to network infrastructure according to their usage. The move comes as carriers struggle to handle the rapidly-growing demands on their networks as customers increasingly turn to smartphones and consume increasing amounts of data for purposes such as video streaming.

As mobile and Web companies add videos, music and games, operators including France Telecom SA, Telecom Italia SpA and Vodafone Group Plc want a new deal that would require content providers like Apple and Google to pay fees linked to usage.

"Service providers are flooding networks with no incentive" to cut costs, France Telecom Chief Executive Officer Stephane Richard said last month. "It's necessary to put in place a system of payments by service providers as a function of their use."

The carriers claim that the current business model for data usage is economically unsustainable given the billions of dollars worth of infrastructure spending needed just to keep pace with growth in demand. Those infrastructure needs come as revenue from customers has flattened amid stiff competition. Many carriers have already moved to limit unbridled data usage by doing away with unlimited data plans for customers and moving to tiered pricing with various monthly data limits.

Carriers have also pushed back against Apple's rumored plans for an embedded SIM card that would make it easier for customers to activate service and change carriers, with carriers threatening to withhold handset subsidies paid to Apple over fears that the moves would limit their ability to lock in customers to lucrative long-term contracts.

For their part, companies serving the network-intensive content to smartphones note that they do not share in revenues collected by the carriers and thus fail to see why they should have to contribute to building out the carriers' own infrastructure.

DigiTimes reports that suppliers of the backlight unit (BLU) for the next-generation iPad have been selected, quashing speculation that Apple might turn to OLED for display technology in the revised tablet device. According to the report, Taiwanese firm Coretronic has been selected to supply BLUs to iPad display vendors Chimei Innolux and LG Display, with Radiant Opto-Electronics also supplying BLUs to LG.

Coretronic has reportedly entered the supply chain for the second generation iPad, and will supply BLUs to Chimei Innolux (CMI) and LG Display.

Coretronic has declined to comment.

The second generation iPad is expected to hit the market at the end of the first quarter of 2011 and suppliers in the supply chain are estimated to start shipments in the first quarter.

It is understood that Coretronic is the only BLU supplier of CMI for iPad 2, while LG Display is getting iPad 2 BLUs from Coretronic and Radiant Opto-Electronics.

Rumors of Apple adopting OLED display technology have surfaced prior to the release of numerous portable Apple products, dating as far back as 2003 with early-generation original iPods. OLED technology can offer lower power requirements and superior contrast ratios to traditional LCDs, but pricing, technical, and production capacity issues have slowed adoption of the technology over the years.

Research firm DisplaySearch today announced the results of its latest quarterly estimates for shipments of "mobile PCs", which include notebooks, netbooks, and tablets. The estimates for the third quarter of 2010 highlight the "iPad Effect" that has seen Apple leap to third place worldwide and first place in North America.

Capturing a 12.4% share of global mobile PC shipments in Q3'10, Apple is benefiting from the iPad Effect, which continues to shake up the mobile PC market. According to preliminary results from the DisplaySearch Quarterly Mobile PC Shipment and Forecast Report, Apple took the #3 position worldwide, and ranks #1 in North America as a result of the continued success of the iPad. The iPad accounts for an 8% share of global shipments of all mobile PCs. 95% of iPad shipments were to developed regions, primarily North America.

While Apple grabbed 12.4% of the worldwide mobile PC market with the iPad included, it would have placed eighth with 4.8% of the market had the iPad not been considered a mobile PC.

The report notes that iPad acceptance has been weak in Japan amid customer concerns regarding a lack of content tailored to the local language and interests. Adoption is also slow in developing countries, due in part to the iPad's partial reliance on a PC for content syncing.

The report echoes similar data released in August by Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore which likewise saw Apple jumping to third place among global notebook PC manufacturers for the second quarter of 2010 when the iPad was included in Apple's sales totals.

Apple's MobileMe service has been a bit of a mixed bag with consumers, with some seeing value in the service's email, photo/file hosting, and syncing capabilities while others feel that the $99 annual list price for the service is too high. The latter sentiment is becoming especially prevalent now that the "Find My iPhone" service that had previously required a MobileMe subscription is free for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch users running iOS 4.2.

Some MobileMe customers have also experienced performance and access issues dating all the way back to the service's debut in mid-2008 as Apple transitioned from the former .Mac service. Aside from occasional downtime, users have also reported issues with syncing data among devices and integrating that data from the various devices into combined databases for syncing.

One MacRumors reader frustrated by his experiences with MobileMe emailed Apple CEO Steve Jobs to share his dissatisfaction and to inquire whether improvements might be coming to the service. Jobs reportedly replied, claiming that MobileMe will "get a lot better in 2011".

Q: I love my iPad and iPhone4 and am a huge fan of yours and all that Apple does. I desperately want to stay inside of Apple'e ecosystem as much as possible.

However, MobileMe is making it very difficult for me to do so. Unreliable/unpredictable syncing, creating duplicate entries (sometimes scores of them), etc. It's almost unusable.

And I know from forums (including Apple's own support boards) that I am not the only one experiencing these very real and frustrating problems.

Please tell me it will get better, and soon?

A: Yes, it will get a lot better in 2011.

Sent from my iPhone

With Jobs offering only a brief and vague response as typical in his emails, it is unclear whether Apple is planning significant feature enhancements for MobileMe or if he is merely referring to performance improvements for its existing capabilities. Jobs' statement should offer some reassurance, however, that Apple apparently has plans for significant improvements to the service that will hopefully result in more customers finding its offering to be worth MobileMe's annual fee in a market where a growing variety of cheap and free applications and services are providing increasing features and capabilities.

9 to 5 Mac reports that it has received word that Apple appears to be sending out emails to select customers offering them free iTunes movie rentals.

iTunes has more than 8,500 movies, including new releases, to rent without late fees, envelopes, or queues. Try one today on us.

Redeem your free movie rental below, and start watching one of your favorite movies on iTunes. Watch what you want, when you want. Enjoy movie rentals on your iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, the all-new Apple TV, or on your computer. You have 30 days from the moment you rent a movie to start watching, and 24 hours to finish it.

The free rentals appear to be limited to the United States, and it is unclear how Apple is selecting users to receive the offers.

Apple launched iTunes movie rentals in January 2008, but has been pushing the rental model in recent months with the introduction of the new streaming-only Apple TV and TV show rentals in September.

Digitimes reports that Foxconn Electronics factories have recently been notified that they will ship Apple's next generation iPad within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400,000-600,000 units.

The sources pointed out that the iPad 2 will ship as soon as the end of February in 2011. Apple originally planned to start mass production in January, but because the device's firmware is currently still in testing, Apple has been postponing the schedule. Since Foxconn's new plants in Chengdu are still in pilot production, iPad 2 will be mainly supplied by its Shenzhen plants, while the company's upstream component partners have all been notified of the shipments schedule.

A February launch would be consistent with rumors pegging the iPad revision in the first part of 2011. Other rumored features include a FaceTime camera, gyroscope, thinner form factor, better display and a USB connector.

Popular ratings and reviews magazine Consumer Reports today announced the release of its latest report on cellular service providers in the United States, unsurprisingly demonstrating wide customer dissatisfaction with AT&T, the exclusive carrier for Apple's iPhone.

Of all the carriers rated, AT&T was the only one to drop significantly in overall satisfaction.

Over half of the survey respondents who used AT&T as a carrier owned some version of the iPhone, the Apple smart phone that is exclusive to AT&T, at least for now. Consumer Reports data, reflecting all versions of the phone, found that iPhone owners were much less satisfied with their carrier and rated data service (Web and e-mail) lower than owners of smart phones on other carriers that, like the iPhone, have a host of apps to encourage heavy data use.

The Houston Chronicle has published the key ratings chart for contract cellular providers at the national level, showing AT&T ranking dead last with the magazine's lowest "worse" rating in eight of nine areas and only one step above the lowest for the company's texting service.

In the 2009 survey, AT&T was at the bottom of the list locally, but came in next-to-last nationally. This time, it brings up the rear nationwide, and in every city in which Consumer Reports surveyed its readership. The magazine even calls out AT&T's shortcomings on its cover with a snarky blurb:

Plus
Best & worst providers
(Sorry, AT&T)

In contrast, Verizon Wireless, the country's largest carrier and widely rumored to be gaining iPhone distribution rights early next year, placed second among the five carriers included in the survey and garnered middle-of-the-road ratings in eight areas and even rated one step higher for voice service. Regional carrier U.S. Cellular topped the charts in the survey.

Among handsets, the iPhone 4 tied with the Samsung Captivate as the highest-rated handset on AT&T's network. Consumer Reports has notably refused to recommend the iPhone 4 due to antenna issues that received considerable publicity in the weeks after the device's launch.

Late last month, it was revealed that Apple had purchased HP's 98-acre campus in Cupertino, California, located across the street from a 50-acre parcel Apple had purchased in 2006 and just a few blocks from its main campus on Infinite Loop. As picked up by MacStories, Spanish business newspaper El Economista is now reporting [Google translation] that acclaimed British architect Norman Foster has been selected to design the new campus.

According to the report, environmental issues are being included as a key aspect of the campus design, with all roads reportedly being placed underground to allow for a maximum amount of open green space on the campus. The design will reportedly also incorporate the latest in building materials and renewable energy capabilities.

In designing Apple's campus, Foster is reportedly drawing on his experience with Masdar City, a new sustainable community under development in Abu Dhabi designed to house up to 50,000 people in a car-free, zero-carbon environment powered entirely by renewable energy sources.

Foster, working with his firm Foster + Partners, is among the most highly-recognized architects in the world, having been awarded the premiere Pritzker Prize for architecture in 1999 and twice won Britain's Stirling Prize. Among Foster's most well-known works are the Millennium Bridge and 30 St Mary Axe ("The Gherkin") in London, Hearst Tower in New York City, and his reconstruction of the Reichstag in Berlin, including the addition of a glass dome offering a panoramic view of the city.

AppleInsider reports on a new research note from Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu claiming that Verizon has stepped up in its negotiations with Apple for the iPhone, reportedly paying a premium to ensure that the handset remains exclusive to current carrier AT&T and Verizon, which has been widely rumored to be launching the iPhone in the U.S. early next year. According to the report, Verizon is seeking to prevent iPhone distribution from also being extended to T-Mobile and Sprint, the country's other two major carriers.

"We are hearing that (Verizon) does not want iPhone, the hottest selling smartphone, available on T-Mobile USA and/or Sprint and may be willing to pay for exclusivity to itself and AT&T," Wu wrote. "For these reasons, (Verizon) could be more willing to give in to Apple's terms."

The report also claims that Google's Android operating system has begun to "lose some of its luster" at Verizon, as AT&T has continued to make gains in customer share with the iPhone despite Verizon's strong promotion of Android devices.

If true, the development would likely be a strong sign for Apple's bottom line, which some had expected might take a hit in the form of lower carrier subsidies when AT&T loses its exclusivity in the U.S. With Verizon seeking a form of exclusivity of its own to keep out T-Mobile and Sprint, Apple could see the benefit of a significant new base of potential customers while keeping the average selling price for the iPhone units at or near its current price of over $600.

It should be noted that Wu has a rather poor track record when it comes to Apple predictions, but his report today is already making waves among Apple watchers and those waiting for the iPhone to move beyond AT&T in the United States, and if true would represent a significant development for Apple and its customers in 2011.

Google today announced the launch of its previously-rumored eBookstore, bringing another significant competitor to the market targeted by major bookstore chains, Amazon's Kindle Store, and Apple's iBookstore. The new Google eBookstore currently offers over three million titles with "hundreds of thousands" of pay titles available.

We designed Google eBooks to be open. Many devices are compatible with Google eBooks - everything from laptops to netbooks to tablets to smartphones to e-readers. With the new Google eBooks Web Reader, you can buy, store and read Google eBooks in the cloud. That means you can access your ebooks like you would messages in Gmail or photos in Picasa - using a free, password-protected Google account with unlimited ebooks storage.

Google is launching an iOS application to allow iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch users to access their Google eBookstore content on their devices, although the application does not yet appear to have gone live in the App Store. With the company's Web reader, users can access their content through computers running any Javascript-enabled browser.

Notably, Google is also partnering with third-party booksellers such as Powell's and Alibris to allow customers of those business to purchase Google eBooks directly through those stores' sites. Digital right management (DRM) technology on Google eBooks is driven by Adobe's Content Server 4.

A quick glance at Google's offerings for The New York Times Best Sellers shows pricing for most titles at $12.99, equivalent to pricing for those same titles in Apple's iBookstore. A handful titles are, however, priced at $14.99 through Google while Apple offers them at $12.99.

Update: The free Google Books [App Store] application for iOS is now live in the App Store.

AppleTell claims that Apple may be targeting a launch of the Mac App Store as early as December 13th.

An inside source has just told us that Apple is targeting a Monday, December 13th launch of the Mac App Store. The company apparently told developers to have their software prepared for a launch as early as Monday the 6th of this month, but our contact would be shocked if that happened at this point. Apple has made no official announcements regarding this, and delays could always happen, but there's a push to be launched before Christmas, well ahead of the previously estimated January release.

According to their source, Steve Jobs has been pushing for an early release and Apple is reportedly ahead of schedule for the release.

While we can't verify these claims, we do know that Apple started asking developers to submit their apps to the Mac App Store back on November 3rd. Apple has also recently seeded a new version of Mac OS X 10.6.6 to Mac App developers. Mac OS X 10.6.6 will be required for end users to use the Mac App store and needs to be ready for the launch.

Such an early launch would be well ahead of schedule. Apple had announced on October 20th that the Mac App Store would open in "90 days", which gave it a target date of late January 2011.

Bloomberg reported last week that Intel and NVIDIA are in talks aimed at settling the legal dispute between the companies. The legal issues which began late last year resulted in NVIDIA exiting the chipset business pending a resolution of the disagreement.

The details of the settlement were not revealed but a resolution could be good news for Apple, as pointed out by ArsTechnica.

Apple had adopted NVIDIA's chipsets to power its MacBook and MacBook Pro line in late 2008 providing their laptop line a boost in integrated graphics performance. The licensing dispute, however, prevented NVIDIA from supplying the next generation chipsets for Intel's Nehalem processors. This restriction most likely affected Apple's decision not to use the new Nehalem/Arrandale chips in the new MacBook Airs and the 13" MacBooks.

However, the licensing dispute meant that Apple couldn't upgrade the processors in some of its most portable machines, including the 13" MacBook models and its ultraportable MacBook Air, without giving up the benefit of the graphics boost from NVIDIA's integrated graphics. This, in turn, has left Apple to continue using Core 2 Duo processors - based on a decidedly outdated architecture - paired with an updated NVIDIA 320M controller. Despite the fact the final product offers good performance, the use of the positively ancient Core 2 Duo still looks bad for a company that markets premium products and demands a premium price.

Essentially, when given the choice between a faster processor vs faster integrated graphics in its price and space constrained machines, Apple opted for faster video performance.

If Intel and NVIDIA are able to come to terms and NVIDIA is able to provide next generation chipsets, Apple may be able to offer both the latest Intel CPUs and NVIDIA integrated graphics chips across all their machines.