MacRumors

We've reported a couple of times over the past few days about the imminent opening of Apple's North Carolina data center and rumors that the company is already considering doubling the size of the facility.

All Things Digital has continued digging into the story and discovered a photo posted to the official Flickr page of Catawba County, North Carolina showing a schematic of the facility containing two buildings instead of the single building that exists today. The image, which dates from July 2009, suggests that Apple has intended to double the size of the existing facility all along, rather than the decision being a recent one.

The discovery also raises the question of the size of the current facility. Public disclosures regarding the facility have always referred to it as a 500,000 square-foot project with a price tag on the order of $1 billion. Consequently, rumors of a doubling of the data center's size assumed that that would bring the facility to a total of one million square feet. It seems possible, however, that the publicized figures in fact referred to the total project with both buildings completed, and thus the current building set to begin operation may only be 250,000 square feet.

Update: One MacRumors reader has performed a rough overlay of Apple's schematic with Google Maps satellite imagery of the area, determining that each building contains a footprint of roughly 500,000 square feet.

Update 2: A building schematic included on an assessment report for the property appears to show that the initial building includes just over 500,000 square feet of space in three separate components, surrounded by just over 140,000 square feet of "masonry patio" aprons for loading bays and other functions.

Primate Labs publishes initial benchmarks for Apple's new 13-inch and 11-inch MacBook Air, comparing the new models to earlier generations of the MacBook Air, the current 13-inch MacBook Pro, and the iPad.

There are two ways you can look at the new 11-inch MacBook Air; it's either a much smaller but slower MacBook Pro, or a much faster but larger iPad. The 11-inch MacBook Air is small enough that I'd consider bringing it instead of an iPad, but I'd worry it's not fast enough (or have enough screen space) to be my primary laptop.

The 13-inch MacBook Air is a much more straightforward produc; it has 80% of the processor performance of the latest 13-inch Pro, making it an acceptable substitute for users looking for a slightly more portable Pro.

The report emphasizes, however, that Geekbench only measures processor and memory performance, leaving out what is expected to be significant overall performance improvements over earlier generations due to the use of the NVIDIA GeForce 320M video card and flash storage across all models.

A CNET report regarding a hiring spree by several customer service call center companies in the mobile phone business has been generating renewed speculation since late Friday that Verizon may be staffing up to support an early 2011 launch of the iPhone on its network.

The hiring companies, Salt Lake City-based Teleperformance and Kennesaw, Ga.-based Ryla, are hiring at facilities around the country, with Ryla advertising for 1,700 positions in Indiana, California, Virginia, and Colorado.

Though few of the job postings specify which company the new employees will be taking calls for, Teleperformance's Careerbuilder post says employees in Pennsylvania will field calls for a "major wireless cell phone service retailer."

The report also points to a Fresno Bee article on Ryla's hiring in Clovis, California, which is said to be in support of "a Fortune 50 cellular/telecommunications company that expects to increase its marketing and sales", a designation that would appear to limit the possibilities to AT&T and Verizon.

Teleperformance has worked with both Verizon and Apple in the past, which when considered along with size of the hiring surge, has obviously led to speculation that the new positions are set to support a Verizon iPhone. Several mainstream newspapers have claimed in recent weeks that a CDMA-based iPhone is set to launch on Verizon early next year.

During last week's media event, Apple demoed a few early features of Mac OS X Lion which will be released in 2011. While Apple focused on a few particular features (Mac App Store, LaunchPad, and Full Screen Apps), readers have noticed a few other user interface changes coming to Apple's next operating system.

One rumor that was posted ahead of the event predicted that Mac OS X 10.7 would be getting iOS-inspired scroll bars. During the event, Apple showed off new versions of their Apps with these new scroll bars in place. Like iOS, the scroll bars disappear when not in use, but reappear during scrolling or with mouse movement.

Meanwhile, one reader who had accurately predicted these changes also reveals that in Mac OS X 10.7, users will be able to resize windows from any corner.

ALSO you can now resize the windows from any corner, again, works nicely.

Currently, windows are only resizable on the bottom-right corner of the windows.

A couple of other new features that Apple glossed over during the presentation was "Auto Save" and "Apps resume when launched". As a result of these new features, it appears that Mac applications are no longer depicted as launched or unlaunched in the Mac OS X Dock:

This actually represents a big shift in Mac OS X's representation of apps. The typical "light" indicator under each launched application is gone from the Mac OS X Lion dock. Apple's implementation of instantly resuming applications when launched may blur the lines between launched/unlaunched, though the distinction still remains important when talking about multitasking.

DataCenterKnowledge posts an aerial video of Apple's near-complete North Carolina Data Center. The Data Center is said to begin operations "any day now" according to local officials.

The video was posted by a local realtor who reports that Apple is rumored to already be expanding the newly completed data center.

There is a rumor that Apple will double the 500,000 square foot $1 Billion Data Center in North Carolina. Though there has been no official announcement, I discovered that site work is being performed and it clearly appears that there may be some truth to the speculation.

The rumor appeared both in Charlotte Business Journal and All Things Digital:

With its 500,000 square feet of data center space (currently, sources tell me that Apple is considering doubling that) the facility has been built for something.

Doubling their data center so soon after construction would represent massive expansion. Apple has yet to officially confirm their plans for the data center.

One of the controversial changes in the upcoming iPad OS 4.2 was the change in functionality of the iPad's Orientation locking switch to a Mute switch.

...the physical switch on the iPad's side for locking the screen orientation has been repurposed as a mute switch. The change has been confirmed by posters in our forums.

With the change, screen orientation locking is now accomplished within the multitasking tray as on the iPhone under iOS 4.

According to a reader email from 9to5Mac, Steve Jobs reports that this will not be user selectable.

Q: In IOS 4.2 for iPad is the switch on the side going to be the mute and not screen orientation lock from now on?
Steve Jobs: Yep.
Q: Are you planning to make that a changeable option?
Steve Jobs: Nope.

Bloomberg reports on AT&T's preparations for the loss of iPhone exclusivity in the United States, which has been claimed by some sources to be coming at the end of the year. According to the report, AT&T's recent announcements regarding the addition of a plethora of new Android and Windows Phone 7 handsets is being accompanied by a significant retraining of its staff to handle the shift from the iPhone focus to a broader platform of offerings.

AT&T Inc., facing the possible loss of its hold on the iPhone, is adding handsets at an accelerating clip and retraining store staff to help reduce reliance on its top-selling smartphone during the holidays.

The company's lineup this year will have ballooned by about 10 smartphones ahead of the holiday season to more than 20, including ones running Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc. software. Yesterday, AT&T reported the effort is showing early success, saying more than half of new customers chose a device other than the iPhone last quarter, up from 36 percent a year earlier.

The shift comes just as AT&T approaches Verizon's subscriber base. AT&T announced yesterday that it had ridden the strength of the iPhone 4 to a net gain of 2.6 million subscribers during the third quarter, giving the company a total of 92.8 million subscribers. Verizon, meanwhile, added just under 1 million new subscribers to reach 93.4 million customers.

As we previously noted, Apple's new MacBook Air is shipping without Adobe's Flash plugin pre-installed, requiring users to manually install the software if they wish to view Flash content. Engadget now reports that Apple has issued an official statement on the matter, noting that it prefers that users download the software themselves in order to ensure that they are running the most up-to-date version.

We're happy to continue to support Flash on the Mac, and the best way for users to always have the most up to date and secure version is to download it directly from Adobe.

Apple spokesman Bill Evans also noted that the company is transitioning all of its Macs to ship without the Flash plugin pre-installed, although obviously plenty of units with Flash included remain in the company's distribution channels.

Apple has occasionally taken some flak for shipping outdated versions of Flash with its operating system updates and new hardware, and thus seems to believe that putting the onus of initial installation on the user will ensure that they receive the latest version and make Adobe responsible for alerting users to future updates.

The perspective is very similar to that shared by Steve Jobs just yesterday regarding the discontinuation of Apple's own Java distribution, in which he pointed to Apple always being "a version behind" the official releases from Sun/Oracle. By shifting the burden for updates back to Oracle, users can be sure to receive the most up-to-date versions.

Apple is set to open its new Lincoln Park retail store in Chicago tomorrow at 10:00 AM, an event that will mark the debut of a yet another of Apple's "significant" stores that are meant to provide an iconic presence for the company. ChicagoNow and ifoAppleStore offer a sneak peek at the new store and the unique arrangement that has seen Apple construct a public plaza and refurbish a run-down subway station next door to the tune of nearly $4 million.

As ChicagoNow notes, the new Lincoln Park store offers three entrances, suiting the building's siting on a triangle of land.

At the North Avenue entrance - conveniently on the north side of the building, it's all about retail. That's where you go in to see every single product Apple sells. The south entrance is the Clybourn entrance, and it's there you go to learn via One To One or a workshop. And then there's the center entrance facing the CTA station and new public space which features a courtyard with tables, benches, a fountain and Wi-Fi.

ifoAppleStore points out that the store offers a few hidden elements, including stockroom and other support functions being hidden away in a basement, along with a green roof.

The building has a green roof that helps keep the interior cooler and generates a little oxygen for Chicago. The roof also serves another purpose: it collects rainwater that is used to water the landscaping in the plaza. Signs within the plantings warn visitors not to drink the runoff.

As for the train station next door, Apple has paid to spruce up the 1940s-era building inside and out, refocusing the station's pedestrian flow to bring riders through the public plaza between the station and Apple store. In exchange for its contribution to the station's renovation, Apple has advertising rights within the station and on the platform, along with the right of first refusal should the Chicago Transit Authority decide in the future to sell naming rights to its stations.

DigiTimes reports on an article from the Chinese-language newspaper Commercial Times citing Concord Securities analyst Mingchi Kuo as predicting MacBook Air sales of approximately 700,000 for the quarter.

Apple's MacBook Air shipments in fourth quarter of 2010 are expected to reach about 700,000 units, accounting for more than 17% share of the company's 4.1 million Mac shipments, while the 11.6-inch model will account for 60% of the total MacBook Air sales due to its low price, according a Chinese-language Commercial Times report citing vice president of Concord Securities research department, Mingchi Kuo.

Kuo reports that the release of Mac OS X Lion next year should increase the attractiveness of the MacBook Air as a second machine for users, although it is unclear what specific features of Lion Kuo expects to boost that draw. In addition, Lion's projected release date of "summer" 2011 means that any such effects would occur in the relatively distant future.

Kuo was previously an analyst with DigiTimes' own research arm and was the first to reveal Apple's plans for an 11.6-inch MacBook Air back in mid-July.

As noted by 9 to 5 Mac, Apple yesterday seeded a new version of Mac OS X 10.6.5, termed Build 10H562, to developers. The new version comes only one week after the release of Build 10H555, but even so marks a rapid increment of seven build numbers.

According to reports, the latest build of Mac OS X 10.6.5 continues to cite no documented known issues and once again asks developers to focus their testing on 3D Graphics, Printing, QuickTime, Time Machine, and USB Devices.

Apple initially seeded Mac OS X 10.6.5 builds at approximately one-week intervals beginning in mid-August, but switched to two-week intervals in early September and used that schedule for the previous three seeds. The switch to back to a one-week interval suggests that Apple may be putting the final touches on the release in advance of a public release to support iOS 4.2 when that update launches next month.

In a brief piece outlining some of his thoughts on how the new MacBook Air may play into Apple's strategy for cloud-based media storage, All Things Digital's John Paczkowski notes in passing that he has heard that Apple is already considering doubling the size of its massive North Carolina data center to one million square feet, despite that fact that it hasn't even officially opened yet.

Steve Jobs says the MacBook Air is the future of the MacBook and the future of the notebook as well. But if that's to be the case, the machine - and Apple's ecosystem - needs to evolve a bit more to appeal to that strata of user tethered to the high capacity hard drives that the Air has summarily dispatched.

This being Apple we're talking about, that evolution is likely already well underway and perhaps - perhaps - being engineered at the company's massive new North Carolina data center. With its 500,000 square feet of data center space (currently, sources tell me that Apple is considering doubling that) that facility has been built for something. And what better use to put it to than the cloud services that might completely eliminate the need for high capacity hard drives and give the Air storage to match its performance characteristics.

Apple announced in July that the new facility, which is already five times the size of its existing one in Newark, California, will open by the end of this year, and the company made a hiring push earlier this month signaling that the company appears to still be on track.

Apple's announcement that they would be ceasing future development of their version of Java for the Mac has generated concern amongst Java developers. Apple posted developer documentation Thursday stating that they would not be supporting Java for Mac OS X in the future:

As of the release of Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 3, the version of Java that is ported by Apple, and that ships with Mac OS X, is deprecated.

This means that the Apple-produced runtime will not be maintained at the same level, and may be removed from future versions of Mac OS X. The Java runtime shipping in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, will continue to be supported and maintained through the standard support cycles of those products.

One concerned Java developer from Portico Systems emailed Steve Jobs asking about Apple's future plans for the Java programming language and platform on Mac OS X. Jobs' reply was:

Sun (now Oracle) supplies Java for all other platforms. They have their own release schedules, which are almost always different than ours, so the Java we ship is always a version behind. This may not be the best way to do it.

Oracle supplies Java for all other platforms except for the Mac. Due to differences in release schedules, Apple's implementation of Java is always a version behind. Jobs indicates "This may not be the best way to do it." He stops short of saying that Oracle will be stepping up to fill the void, but suggests that would be a better solution. Oracle has made no public announcements about their plans.

Silicon Alley Insider briefly reported earlier today that President Barack Obama was scheduled for a one-on-one meeting with Apple CEO Steve Jobs today following Obama's arrival in the Bay Area for a fundraising visit.

He's speaking at Google exec Marissa Mayer's house in Palo Alto this evening.

Before that, says a source familiar with the details, he may have a one-on-one meeting with Steve Jobs.

Bloomberg now follows up, noting that the two are scheduled to meet at a San Francisco hotel for about 45 minutes to discuss several topics, including issues related to technology and the economy.

Obama and Jobs are scheduled to meet for about 45 minutes at a San Francisco hotel for a discussion on the economy and technology issues, Gibbs said.

"This is a meeting the president was interested in having," Gibbs told reporters traveling with Obama. "He's eager to talk to him about the economy, innovation and technology, education."

According to the report, Jobs and Obama last met in 2008 during the presidential campaign.

Note: Due to the inevitable political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

iFixit has wasted no time in getting its hands on a new 11.6-inch MacBook Air and beginning to disassemble it to see what's inside. While the leaked prototype image offered an idea of what the innards would look like, iFixit will almost certainly find some additional tidbits of information.

Some notes of interest:

- The case is screwed shut with 5-point Security Torx screws, suggesting that Apple does not want consumers disassembling the machine.
- The battery consists of six separate cells offering a total of 35 watt-hours of power.
- The machine's 64 GB of flash storage is composed of four 16 GB Toshiba chips together with a controller chip on a custom removable board. The SSD weighs in at 10 grams, down from 45 grams for the hard drive used in the previous generation. The new drive is also less than half the thickness of the platter-based hard drive.
- The new MacBook Air uses the same Broadcom Wi-Fi/Bluetooth chip as in the current MacBook Pro.
- RAM is soldered onto the logic board and thus not user-upgradeable.
- iFixit gives the new MacBook Air a repairability score of 4 out of 10, with the low score due to the difficulty of opening the machine and the proprietary nature of the components inside.

Gear Live confirms that Apple's new iLife '11 suite retains the 32-bit codebase found in earlier versions, squashing hopes that the company would make the transition to 64-bit code for the release.

So we figured that one unannounced "feature" would likely be that the iLife suite had been converted to 64 bit. After all, Snow Leopard has had more than enough time to mature out in the wild, and it seems that developers left and right have jumped onto the 64 bit bandwagon. That's why we were sorely disappointed when we launched Activity Monitor and found that, unlike just about every other process and application we are running on the Mac Pro, the iLife apps are still labeled as "Intel" rather than "Intel 64 bit."

While speculation regarding a shift to 64-bit for iLife has floated around for some time, the first specific claims of the change surfaced in July alongside claims that the release would ship in August for $79 and would see a revamp of iWeb, the disappearance of iDVD, and a new "mystery" application, none of which came to pass.

The claims were fed earlier this month by the appearance of listings for new iLife '11 books on Amazon's German site, although we noted at the time that the relevant book description appeared to be taken almost point-by-point from the earlier rumors rather than from any inside knowledge.

As related by MacNotes.de, Apple's new FaceTime for Mac beta application contains several security issues that could easily result in a user's Apple ID and iTunes Store account being compromised by individuals with physical access to the user's machine.

The primary issue appears to be FaceTime for Mac's display of account information, which reveals the user's date of birth and security question and answer for their account once signed in with their Apple ID, with no secondary request for password authentication. Consequently, anyone with physical access to a user's machine could view that information, which can then be used to reset the password for the account without requiring any email or other confirmation. The password can also be reset directly within the FaceTime application without a requirement that the current password be entered.

And while a user should in theory be able to address this issue by signing out of their account in FaceTime, the application automatically remembers the account details for the last-used account and pre-populates them the next time the application is opened or a sign-in is attempted.

Obviously there are any number of ways that sensitive information could be viewed or compromised by individuals with physical access to a user's machine, but the FaceTime application seems to make such actions remarkably easy, making private account reset information plainly visible at any point after initial log-in to the service.

Update: Apple appears to have addressed the issue on its end, as users are reporting that attempting to select the "View Account" option in FaceTime for Mac's preferences now briefly takes them to a blank window before bouncing them back to the selection page and offering no ability to view the account information.