TechCrunch reports that Apple has settled a lawsuit brought by Sharing Sound, LLC over infringement of a patent essentially describing web-based distribution of digital music. The lawsuit, filed in May, targeted Apple, Microsoft, Napster, Rhapsody, and other companies, with Amazon, Netflix, and additional companies included in a similar suit filed around the same time.
The patent being contested - U.S. Patent Number 6,247,130, titled "Distribution of musical products by a website vendor over the Internet" - would essentially prevent all these companies from using any type of online store environment which allows them to provide song previews, a shopping cart or even a music player.
According to the report, most of the companies targeted in the lawsuits have already moved to settle their disputes, with Apple now joining the list as it seeks to avoid a court battle.
The application for the patent cited in the lawsuit was filed January 2000 and was based on a provisional patent application filed in January 1999. The inventor associated with the patent, Bernhard Fritsch, founded a short-lived digital music service known as MCY.com that launched in early 1999.
DigiTimes reports that Apple has received samples of large-size touch panels that would be used in a new touch-capable iMac. According to the report, Sintek Photronics is utilizing projected capacitance touch technology for the panels.
Projected capacitive touch panels are typically produced by placing touch sensors over the panel, and then a cover glass over the sensors. The conventional method is not only costly and complex, but affects display brightness.
The new iMac is rumored to have a good vertical and horizontal viewing angle, and its projected capacitive touch panel will adopt a one-glass solution, which integrates the touch sensor and cover glass, to reduce thickness and weight.
Rumors of a touchscreen iMac surfaced in January, with claims of a 22-inch model set to debut sometime during 2010. A second rumor made the rounds in June claiming that Apple would be holding a special event to introduce a touch-enabled iMac capable of running both Mac OS X and iOS within the following two months, although that event obviously failed to take place.
A recently-disclosed patent application has also fueled rumors for its discussion of how a desktop computer could use physical hinges and accelerometers to transition between a traditional mouse-driven desktop setup and a more horizontal touch-friendly orientation.
Given the report's claims that Apple is only just now receiving samples of the touch panels that would be used in such a device, it is extremely unlikely that Apple would be able to make a 2010 launch for the new iMac as had been previously rumored. It would indicate, however, that progress is being made toward a potential 2011 release.
The new Apple TV was successfully jailbroken tonight which opens the door to further customization. The process of "jailbreaking" involves gaining full access to the device that allows developers to add new functionality to the device. The iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad have all been successfully jailbroken over time and has allowed individuals to install unauthorized applications to their devices. The original iPhone jailbreak even allowed 3rd party applications to be developed well before Apple launched the App Store. Some successful App Store apps such as Labyrinth and Tap Tap Revenge had their origins in the Jailbreak scene.
This video shows that they have accessed the new Apple TV:
Despite this early step, we're still many steps away from easily installing 3rd party applications to the Apple TV. Apple is also likely to be considering an official App Store for the Apple TV, though they've yet to announce any official plans.
Apple has seeded a new version of Mac OS X 10.6.5 to developers this evening. Build 10H548 comes only two weeks after Build 10H542 which was seeded on September 14th. The seed notes appear relatively sparse with no known issues and the same "focus areas" as in other recent builds:
- 3D Graphics - iCal - Mail - QuickTime - Time Machine - USB Devices
Apple's 10.6.4 update was released back in June, 2010. The frequency of developer seeds seemed to have slowed surrounding the iOS 4.1 launch, and appears to be picking back up. A public release date for Mac OS X 10.6.5 remains unknown.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak appeared on CBS's The Big Bang Theory tonight. Woz appeared as himself in the show which made jokes about Steve Jobs and the early Apple II computer. The Big Bang Theory is an American sitcom that airs on CBS on Thursday nights.
Here's a rough capture of the scene with Wozniak:
Steve Wozniak, of course, is one of the original co-founders of Apple along with current CEO Steve Jobs.
Silicon Alley Insider reports that Facebook Chief Technology Officer Bret Taylor noted yesterday that he is "very confident" that his company will reach a deal with Apple for collaboration on the music-focused social networking platform built into iTunes 10.
At a dinner with New York media last night, Facebook CTO Bret Taylor said he is "very confident" Facebook and Apple will figure out a way to work together on Ping, Apple's music social network.
Apple and Facebook were reportedly locked in negotiations for at least 18 months before Apple launched Ping earlier this month. Ping debuted with Facebook Connect integration allowing users to find friends via their Facebook accounts, but the feature quickly disappeared. A subsequent report claimed that the two companies had been unable to reach a deal for the usage of Facebook Connect but that Apple had gone ahead and deployed the functionality anyway. After Facebook disabled Ping's access to Facebook Connect, Apple was forced to remove evidence of the functionality from the service entirely.
The two companies have reportedly continued their negotiations, but no agreement has apparently yet been reached.
Customers swarm cashier stand in Apple's Sanlitun store in Beijing
The Wall Street Journal reports that the shortage of iPhone 4s in China has led to a booming market for scalpers, many of whom are selling their stocks of iPhones outside the company's flagship Sanlitun store in Beijing.
But as of Thursday morning, Apple's flagship store in Beijing's Sanlitun Village mall was sold out of the new smartphone. As a result, scalpers, who bought up iPhone 4s earlier in the week, are now lurking outside the store ready to pounce on anyone who walks out without merchandise.
"Want to buy an iPhone 4?" they say. "Come with us."
Working in groups, the scalpers lead willing customers to an empty stairway in the same mall, where their cohorts keep stacks of iPhone 4s in the original packaging. One scalper was offering the 16-gigabyte version of the device for 5,400 yuan, or about 795 dollars, a 10-percent mark-up over the sticker price.
According to M.I.C. gadget, however, the scalpers are continuing to snap up iPhones as quickly as the Apple store can be restocked, leading to heightened tensions and even a temporary closure of the store today as tempers flared.
According to sources, the real customers and the iPhone 4 scalpers had a fight in the Apple store. A gang of scalpers were cutting the queue and some customers were fed up with the scalpers for buying large quantities of iPhone 4 and resell them outside the store. The police and Apple's own security staff appeared to clean up the mess and due to the chaotic crowd, the store needs to be closed temporarily...
The report claims that the sudden rush of scalpers has been enabled by Apple now allowing customers to purchase unlimited numbers of iPhones at the Sanlitun store, whereas the company had previously limited sales to two-per-customer. And with China Unicom not offering contract-free phones and Apple not taking online orders in China, customers and scalpers alike are flocking to Apple's four retail stores in the country (two in Beijing and two in Shanghai) to compete for the limited supply of contract-free iPhone 4s.
Update: M.I.C. gadget has updated its report to note that all four Apple retail stores in China are now requiring customers to show identification when purchasing iPhones and imposing a limit of one-per-customer. Store employees will also open and activate the new iPhones on the spot, eliminating the ability for scalpers to resell unopened iPhones.
As noted by The Apple Press, Twitter user StealthBravo has confirmed that the new Apple TV can be mounted and restored in iTunes, easing the way for jailbreakers to bring new functionality to the set-top box.
This means that the jailbreak community may soon be able to offer us tools, as they currently do for other iOS devices, to save SHSH blobs, jailbreak the Apple TV, and install 3rd party software. Maybe an app store for Apple TV may come sooner than any of us may have expected after all.
The Apple TV offers a Micro-USB port to allow for service and support connectivity, but the port also offers a means for users to physically connect the device to their computers to employ the techniques required in order to jailbreak the operating system.
Apple TV's Micro-USB port
With yesterday's discovery that the Apple TV offers 8 GB of internal storage, there appears to be ample space available for the installation of additional software on jailbroken devices.
Market research firm ChangeWave has published the results of a new survey of its professional and early-adopter consumer audience, once again revealing nearly equal preference for the iPhone and Android devices among those planning to purchase a handset within the next three months.
The numbers show a return to the neck-and-neck race between the two platforms that saw the iPhone temporarily grab a 20-percentage-point advantage over Android back in June as customers awaited the launch of the iPhone 4.
Discounting the iPhone 4 blip seen in June, both Apple and Android appear to still be growing at the expense of their competitors, with preference for the iPhone moving from 29% to 38% between March and September while Android saw an increase from 30% from 37%. Interest in Research in Motion's BlackBerry operating system has been halved to 6%, while Windows Mobile has fallen from 5% to 1% and Palm has disappeared from the radar over the same timeframe.
The iPhone continues to top ChangeWave's user satisfaction ratings, with 74% of customers saying that they are "very satisfied" with their handset, a figure that has been relatively stable over the device's entire lifespan. That compares to 65% of Android customers registering as very satisfied, down slightly from some earlier editions of the survey but still much closer to the iPhone than to Palm, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile, which all find themselves in the 24-32% range for user satisfaction.
Hardmac reports that Apple's plans for a thorough overhaul of its Final Cut Studio have "suffered significant setbacks" that will see a release pushed back to 2011 from a rumored goal of a 2010 launch and result in significantly scaled-back changes to the professional-level video production software package.
A few months ago we told you that Apple were hoping to release a new version of their Final Cut Studio suite in 2010. It now seems likely that this target has been missed according to one of our sources. The development of this software suite has suffered significant setbacks and it will be necessary to wait until 2011 to see its release; furthermore, the scope of the project has been reduced.
According to the report, Apple has temporarily abandoned plans to bring a single interface to the Final Cut package as internal development teams have been unable to reach agreement on how the interface should be implemented. The interface overhaul has now been said to be pushed back to the following release of Final Cut, tentatively scheduled for a 2013 release.
Additionally, the report claims that the Final Cut team's progress has been slowed as Apple has reassigned engineers to work on projects for the company's iOS devices.
Concern over the future of Apple's Final Cut offerings arose in February, when it was revealed that Apple had laid off 40 members of the project team. Several months later, a report claimed that Apple was looking to transition Final Cut Pro Pro from a strictly professional product to more of a "prosumer" offering, but Apple CEO Steve Jobs dismissed those concerns, stating that the next release of Final Cut Pro "will be awesome" and that the earlier job layoffs had been in support and not engineering. The following day, Apple issued an official statement similarly noting that the next version of Final Cut Pro will be "awesome".
The latest iPad iOS 4.2 Beta 2 released yesterday appears to include new tethering options in the settings (pic via Paulgrav). According to 9to5Mac, the options only appear on European carriers and do not yet appear on AT&T devices.
As best we can tell, these settings might allow you to tether your iPad 3G's internet connection to another device, such as a laptop. This means you will be able to share your iPad 3G connection with your laptop (via a USB cable). You can similarly share your iPhone's 3G connection in the same manner, though AT&T charges an additional fee to enable this service. Unfortunately for iPhone owners, this still doesn't allow you to share your iPhone's 3G with the iPad.
Several MacRumors readers have forwarded us emails they received earlier today notifying them of a proposed class-action settlement for customers who purchased certain MacBook Pro models or other Dell and HP notebooks and have been experiencing failures of their graphics chips.
A settlement of a class action lawsuit (The NVIDIA GPU Litigation, Case No. 08-cv-04312-JW) relates to the NVIDIA chips inside certain Dell, Hewlett-Packard ("HP"), and Apple notebook computers. The lawsuit claims that NVIDIA sold defective Graphics Processing Units ("GPU") and Media and Communications Processors ("MCP") that affected the performance of some of the notebook computers in which they were incorporated. NVIDIA denies all allegations of wrongdoing and has asserted many defenses. The settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing.
For MacBook Pro customers, only those who have experienced the following issues on the covered machines are eligible for compensation:
- Distorted or scrambled video on the notebook computer screen - No video on the notebook computer screen even when the notebook computer is on
Users who qualify for compensation may be eligible to receive either free replacement of the faulty chip or reimbursement for repairs previously paid-for by the customer to address the problem.
It is unclear exactly what effect the proposed settlement will have on Apple customers in practice, as Apple itself has already stepped up to cover affected machines. After initially covering the machines for the specific issue for two years from date of purchase, Apple in June 2009 increased the coverage to three years. According to the tech note on the topic, Apple in June 2010 again extended the coverage limits to four years, meaning that customers are covered by Apple until at least May 2011. Similar to the NVIDIA settlement, Apple is offering free repairs or refunds for previously paid-for repairs for affected customers.
MacRumors readers are beginning to report in our forums that they have received their new Apple TVs today, with a number of others reporting that online tracking is showing their orders out for delivery.
While a few mediareviewers have already published their initial impressions of the new device, customers are invited to share their thoughts and questions on the new device in our Apple TV and Home Theater forum.
Those still looking to get their hands on a new Apple TV may have to wait awhile, however, as Apple's online stores are currently quoting shipping estimates of 2-3 weeks. Several forum members have also reported contacting their local Apple retail stores to inquire about availability, only to be told that the stores do not have an estimated date of availability.
Update: Engadget has now posted a thorough review of the new Apple TV, touching on many of its features. The report finds solid video quality and nearly seamless audio integration with other iOS devices, but laments some of the lack of choice in and studio control over available video rental content, as well as awkward text entry using the standard remote.
Also noted is that fact that AirPlay is currently audio-only, even for customers running iOS 4.2 betas on their iPads and hoping to push video to the new device. Full AirPlay implementation won't be available until November, when iOS 4.2 sees its public launch.
Update: We're hearing that some Apple retail stores did receive very limited stocks of the new Apple TV today, but that they sold out very quickly.
Yesterday, we noted that users digging through the Apple TV firmware discovered that the operating system's interface application, known as "Lowtide", carries hidden settings indicating compatibility with the iPad. The discovery naturally led to speculation that some of the Apple TV's features, such as the ability to accept streaming video input via AirPlay, could make their way to the iPad.
TUAW now points to a YouTube video showing the Lowtide application running on a fourth-generation iPod touch. While porting Lowtide to the iPod touch involved a fair amount of work and is not something that the vast majority of users would likely want to or even should attempt, especially given the fact that the result is essentially a non-functional implementation of the Apple TV, it does serve as an interesting example of how some of the new Apple TV's features could make the transition to Apple's other iOS devices relatively easily.
IDG News Service reports that China Unicom has sold out of its initial shipment of nearly 100,000 iPhone 4s in the four days since the device launched in that country. With the company having taken 200,000 pre-orders for the iPhone 4, the carrier has been unable to meet demand and has stopped taking new online reservations as it awaits a second shipment due to arrive by the end of the week.
The massive demand for the product outpaces last year's official launch of the iPhone 3G and 3GS in China. During that period, it had taken over a month before China Unicom had announced it sold 100,000 iPhone units.
The iPhone 4 was officially launched in China last Saturday, with the popularity of the device causing retail outlets in the country to sell out of the product.
While a launch performance of 100,000 units is far short of the 1.7 million handsets shipped on the iPhone 4's initial launch weekend in the U.S. and four other countries in late June, it still marks a substantial improvement over earlier launches in the country.
The report also notes that China Unicom has announced that it has 10 million 3G users, compared to 150 million subscribers on its 2G network. That data indicates that China Unicom's customers are only beginning to move to the more advanced 3G network and handsets such as the iPhone, but with its 3G subscriber base growing by nearly 12% in August alone, China Unicom appears poised to experience an explosion in the adoption of the iPhone and other data-intensive smartphones.
The Wall Street Journal reports on an interview it conducted with Dell executive Amit Midha, who revealed that the company plans to launch a new 7-inch tablet device within "the next few weeks", with a 10-inch model set to follow in 6-12 months. The company also plans additional devices in the 3-inch and 4-inch range, all set to join the company's recently-launched 5-inch Streak tablet.
He said Dell will launch "a whole slew" of new products in the next 6-12 months, including additional three-inch, four-inch and 10-inch devices.
"In fact, very much in the near future we'll be launching the seven-inch tablet as well as the additional three-inch product," he said.
According to Midha, Dell's 7-inch tablet will run Android, with other models planned to offer Microsoft Windows and the company considering whether to adopt Chrome OS as a third platform.
Coming on the heels of Research in Motion's introduction of its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet device earlier this week, Dell's plans reveal that high-profile companies are finally gearing up to compete head-to-head with Apple's iPad, which has essentially had free rein over the tablet market since its launch earlier this year. Most of the larger tablets from competitors are not set to launch, however, until sometime next year, meaning that they will be competing against the second-generation of the iPad rather than the current model, making feature comparisons somewhat difficult at this time.
With several announced tablet devices such as the BlackBerry PlayBook, the Samsung Galaxy Tab, and now Dell's new offering all set to come in with 7-inch displays, Apple's iPad appears set to continue to stand out in at least the size department for the time being. Apple has been rumored, however, to be preparing a 7-inch tablet of its own.
The teardown experts at iFixit have gotten their hands on the new Apple TV and have already begun opening the device up to have a look at what's inside. Regarding the most crucial piece of information, iFixit has already discovered that the device carries 8 GB of onboard NAND flash storage, an important piece of data that Apple has chosen not to speak about publicly, as the device's focus is on streaming rather than storing content. The new Apple TV also offers 256 MB of RAM, the same as the iPad and iPod touch but less than the iPhone 4's 512 MB.
The Apple TV's onboard storage is notable in part for those who are seeking to bring new functionality to the iOS-based device through the jailbreaking process. And with Steve Jobs having noted that Apple could launch an App Store for the Apple TV when the time is right, limited onboard storage will obviously play a role in determining what types of applications could make their way to the device.
Update: Some other interesting items of note from the teardown:
- The new Apple TV's core internals seem to bear the most similarity to the iPad, including the same A4 system-on-chip package and Broadcom Wi-Fi chip.
- There is an empty spot next to the 8 GB NAND flash chip, possibly designed to accommodate a second chip had Apple decided to offer significantly more storage.
- The power supply rating comes in at a minuscule 5.95 watts.
PCMag has posted a review, hands on video and unboxing slideshow of the new Apple TV which should be arriving in customer's hands this week.
Their hands on video shows the new Apple TV's interface which looks much like the existing previous model. It shows the speed of renting movies and TV shows, flickr, as well as the Netflix interface:
In the end they describe the new Apple TV as an "excellent option" for iTunes and Netflix users.
