MacRumors

In January 2009, both MacRumors and Daring Fireball's John Gruber began hearing rumors that Apple was working on a project code-named "Marble" that was believed to be an overhaul of the Mac OS X interface set to appear with Snow Leopard later that year.

As time went by, however, Gruber noted that "Marble" was unlikely to appear in Mac OS X Snow Leopard, and indeed the new operating system did not carry the significant overhaul many had been hoping for, leading to speculation that it could still appear in Mac OS X 10.7 whenever that sees the light of day.

Yesterday, Gruber revealed that "Marble" actually appears not to be a Mac OS X interface revamp but an overhaul of Xcode, Apple's developer tools for Mac OS X and iOS. A beta version of Xcode 4 was previewed at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference earlier this month, but with the sessions covered by non-disclosure agreements, it was taken some time for details on the update to come out. One of the major changes in Xcode 4 is the integration of Interface Builder into the larger Xcode application, creating a unified interface that comprises the "Marble" project.

Xcode 4 is still in beta, Apple doesn't have screenshots available, and what was shown at WWDC 2010 is covered by NDA. But if you have a developer account, you can get a tour of the new interface by watching the Developer Tools State of the Union session. It is, to say the least, a major overhaul - primarily focused on doing more within a single window, even going so far as to bake Interface Builder into Xcode itself. According to several informed sources at WWDC, that's the "Marble" project.

It is unknown when Xcode 4 will make its official debut, but it appears to promise a significantly enhanced development environment for creating and testing applications.

The iPhone 4 officially launches on Thursday. If you haven't already pre-ordered one, there's still a chance to get one on launch day, but you're going to need to be prepared to stand in line. We've heard reports that Wal-Marts, Radio Shacks and Best Buys are getting just a handful of units each, and those units are almost certainly spoken for already. So, if you want to get an iPhone 4 on day one, you're going to need to find an Apple Store which is likely to have a reasonable number of walk-in units. Those with pre-order reservations will be shuttled to their own line to pick up their new iPhones.

Lines have already started at Apple Stores in a few major cities. If you're looking for some company, we have a meetup forum that is organizing meetups in various cities. Search for your city here to find local individuals.

If you have pre-ordered the iPhone, some early deliveries started yesterday with many more expected today. We've started organizing threads that might be of use for those still deciding:

- First Impressions of iPhone 4
- Video Taken with iPhone 4
- Photos Taken with iPhone 4

The iPhone 4 comes with some specific new features and some early apps are starting to take advantage of the high-resolution Retina display as well as the Gyroscope. Some of these include:

- Real Racing (Gyroscope and Retina Display)
- Eliminate: Gun Range (Gyroscope and Retina Display)
- Sketchbook Mobile (Retina Display)
- Kindle for iPhone (Retina Display)

A list of more of these iPhone 4 capable apps will be posted to iPhone 4 Apps thread over time.

Please send line photos, unboxing photos, tips and more to tips@macrumors.com.

Early benchmarks of the iPhone 4 show it to be 31% faster than the iPhone 3GS according to the Geekbench 2 app. Geek Bench has been a popular benchmarking utility on the Mac that has recently made the jump over to the iPhone. As always, benchmarks are a bit of an artificial gauge of performance, but can be useful in head to head comparisons.

The iPhone 4 is known to use the same Apple A4 processor that is also found in the iPad, but Apple has never revealed the processor speed of the iPhone 4. The iPad is known to have a 1GHz processor. We looked at a few benchmarking utilities to see if we could determine if the iPhone 4's A4 processor was the same speed as the iPad's. Unfortunately, the state of benchmarking on iOS seems a bit primitive, and is further complicated by the fact that iOS 4.0 does not run on the iPad. GeekBench, for example, only runs on iOS 4, so we can't compare it directly to the iPhone 4's results. A couple of other benchmarking tools available produced some inconsistent results, so we can't be completely confident in them, but it appears that the iPhone 4 is indeed faster than the iPhone 3GS but slower than the iPad.

BenchTest: 3GS: 2.298, iPhone 4: 2.514, iPad: 3.667 - This benchmark only showed a small increase in speed with the iPhone 4, but some of the results seemed strange. All the "seconds" in the iPhone 4 results were listed at 0.00, though a score was still generated. It's hard to say if the results are entirely accurate.

Checkup: 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad - This also showed the trend of iPad > iPhone 4 > iPhone 3GS, but running the benchmark multiple times could result in a large variance.

iFixit has managed to obtain and post a tear down (in progress) of the new iPhone 4. The iPhone 4 isn't due for release until Thursday, June 24th, but many customers started receiving their orders as early as today. A few notes of interest:

- Storage capacity is not etched on the back
- iPhone OS 4, build 8A293
- 3.7V 1420 mAh Li-Polymer battery
- Screen is believed to use Corning Gorilla Glass
- A4 Part Numbers confirm 512MB of RAM rather than 256MB found in the prototypes

Aside from the hardware evidence, one reader sent us this screenshot from iPhone diagnostic app Checkup run on a new iPhone 4:

Checkup also shows that the iPhone 4 does have 512MB of RAM, but is unable to identify the speed of the processor.

Apple's embargo on iPhone 4 reviews has been lifted, and the big names in tech journalism have been rolling out their detailed thoughts on Apple's new device that is scheduled to officially launch on Thursday but has already made its way into the hands of a few lucky customers.

Here are a few choice snippets from some of the high-profile reviews coming out today:

Walt Mossberg / The Wall Street Journal:

I've been testing the iPhone 4 for more than a week. In both hardware and software, it is a major leap over its already-excellent predecessor, the iPhone 3GS.

It has some downsides and limitations - most important, the overwhelmed AT&T network in the U.S., which, in my tests, the new phone handled sometimes better and, unfortunately, sometimes worse than its predecessor. I'll get into that below. But, overall, Apple has delivered a big, well-designed update that, in my view, keeps it in the lead in the smartphone wars.

David Pogue / The New York Times:

Despite the strong initial, positive reaction, this must still be a nerve-racking time to be Apple; the iPhone is no longer the only worthy contender. Phones running Google's Android software are gaining rave reviews and packing in features that iPhone owners can only envy. The Android app store is ballooning, multiple phone makers are competing, and Google updates the software several times a year. Apple releases only one new model a year, so the new iPhone had better be pretty amazing to compete.

It is.

Ed Baig / USA Today:

The new iPhone 4 I've been testing for about a week and a half - along with the major refresh of the mobile operating system software at the core of recent models - demonstrates once again why Apple's handset is the one to beat, even as it faces fierce competition from phones based on Google's Android platform, among others.

Xeni Jardin / Boing Boing:

The fourth incarnation of Apple's iPhone is an incrementally improved, familiar device - not a new kind of device, as was the case with the recent introduction of iPad. Yes, the notable features with iPhone 4 - both the device and the iOS4, which came out yesterday in advance of the iPhone itself - are mostly tweaks. But what tweaks they are: Apple's focus on improvement is as much key to the quality of its products as innovation. But there's one flaw it can't completely eliminate: the unreliable quality of calls placed over AT&T, which remains the iPhone's only U.S. carrier.

Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:

We're not going to beat around the bush -- in our approximation, the iPhone 4 is the best smartphone on the market right now. The combination of gorgeous new hardware, that amazing display, upgraded cameras, and major improvements to the operating system make this an extremely formidable package. Yes, there are still pain points that we want to see Apple fix, and yes, there are some amazing alternatives to the iPhone 4 out there. But when it comes to the total package -- fit and finish in both software and hardware, performance, app selection, and all of the little details that make a device like this what it is -- we think it's the cream of the current crop.

Stay tuned over the next several days as we continue to cover the iPhone 4 launch and all of the latest developments.

With the first iPhone 4s being delivered today, Apple fans are anxious to learn more about the device as users begin to get their hands on it. One of the major new features in iPhone 4 is the rear camera's ability to shoot high-definition 720p video, and while some sample footage popped up in the Czech Republic last week, people are clamoring for more.

One user who received his iPhone 4 today has put together a blog post with some sample images and HD video shot with the new device.

One of the videos taken by the user has been made available both on YouTube and in the raw video format, and we're mirroring the raw video here. [Link to Raw Video, 38.8 MB]

While Apple contacted a number of iPhone 4 pre-order customers to notify them that their shipments would be arriving tomorrow, a day ahead of the official launch, a number of customers today began noticing that their tracking information was showing packages out for delivery today.

Sure enough, MacRumors readers are reporting that they already received their shipments and have been posting pictures of the unpacking process.

Users receiving their iPhone 4 orders today are asked to send photos and impressions of the new device to tips@macrumors.com as they receive them.

Update: We've received a brief video recorded with a new iPhone 4 received by one of our readers. [Link to Raw Video]

AT&T today announced that it will not be offering walk-in sales of iPhone 4 in its retail stores until June 29th as the company seeks to meet pre-order demand for the popular device.

Here are a few guidelines for customers buying iPhone 4 from AT&T:

Preordered for home or business delivery: iPhone 4 will begin arriving this week for customers who preordered. We'll send an email when each order has shipped.

Preordered for store delivery: AT&T retail representatives will begin calling customers this week to let them know their iPhone 4 is available for pick up in store.

Retail purchase (no preorder): AT&T plans to have iPhone 4 inventory - available on a first-come, first-served basis while supplies last - on June 29 in its retail locations, at www.att.com, and in business sales channels. As inventory sells out, AT&T will offer the convenient option of purchasing iPhone 4 and having it delivered to a home or business or an AT&T store. As always, customers will receive an email once their order is placed, and again when it ships.

AT&T is also posting information and a series of videos to its Facebook page to assist customers looking to obtain iPhone 4.

AT&T's server problems brought U.S. pre-orders for iPhone 4 to a grinding halt when they went live on June 15th. But even with the difficulties, AT&T by the end of the day had suspended all new pre-orders and will apparently not be re-instituting them, as the company will be working to fulfill existing pre-orders right up until in-store availability launches on the 29th.

Apple's own retail stores are expected, however, to have walk-in sales available on Thursday, although quantities are currently unknown and there are likely to be long lines with customers camping out well before the stores open at 7:00 AM in order to increase their chances of being able to purchase an iPhone 4.

Apple today announced that it has sold three million iPads in the 80 days since the device launched in the United States with Wi-Fi-only models on April 3rd.

Apple today announced that it sold its three millionth iPad yesterday, just 80 days after its introduction in the US. iPad is a revolutionary and magical product that allows users to connect with their apps, content and the Internet in a more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before.

"People are loving iPad as it becomes a part of their daily lives," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We're working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more people around the world, including those in nine more countries next month."

The press release also cites over 11,000 iPad-specific applications now available in the App Store.

Apple just three weeks ago announced that it had crossed the two-million threshold for iPad sales. The company is also gearing up for its next round of international iPad launches set for next month, with the device set to go on sale in Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore. Pricing and pre-order information for those countries is yet to be announced.

As has been widely discussed, while the iPhone 3G and second-generation iPod touch are compatible with Apple's iOS 4 released yesterday, they do not support all of the features of the updating operating system. Multitasking has been the highest-profile feature unsupported by these older devices, but Apple has also noted (iPhone, iPod touch) three other unsupported features: Bluetooth keyboard support, home screen wallpapers, and data protection.

The inclusion of custom home screen wallpapers has been questioned by a number of users, as it does not initially appear that the feature should require particularly advanced hardware. Gizmodo reports that one user emailed Apple CEO Steve Jobs to ask about the issue, and received a response noting that unsatisfactory performance of icon animations on top of the custom wallpapers was the reason for the omission.

The icon animation with backgrounds didn't perform well enough.

Custom wallpapers have obviously been supported on jailbroken iPhones and iPod touches for quite some time, so it is not obvious just how Apple's implementation differs, but it seems clear that Apple's implementation of custom wallpapers simply didn't reach the company's standards for performance during the development and testing process.

Engadget posts a photo of the iPhone 4 retail packaging that has been delivered to Walmart. Despite the early arrival, Apple is restricting retailers from selling the device before the official launch day: June 24th.

However, Apple has been emailing out those who have pre-ordered the device and confirmed that many will receive their iPhone 4s on June 23rd -- a day before the official launch day. We're not sure why. It's uncharacteristic of Apple to deliver ahead of their scheduled launch day. Here is a copy of the email sent:

Dear Apple Store Customer,

You recently received a Shipment Notification email from Apple advising you that your iPhone has shipped.

This email is to confirm that your delivery will occur on June 23rd. Although Apple and FedEx tracking information may currently indicate a later date, you can check the FedEx website the morning of the June 23rd to track your package to your doorstep.

In the event that you will not be available to accept delivery on June 23rd, it may be more convenient to use our pre-sign delivery option by visiting our Order Status website at http://www.apple.com/orderstatus.

Sincerely,

A day early delivery of the a larger number of the 600,000 pre-orders could help mitigate the traffic burden on Apple's and AT&T's activation services.

Earlier today, we noted that Apple had updated its iTunes Store terms to include information on the company's forthcoming iAd mobile advertising platform and steps users could take to opt out of the collection and sharing of personal data for the purposes of serving targeted and more relevant ads.

The Los Angeles Times points to a somewhat-related change in Apple's privacy policy included in the revised iTunes Store terms which specifies that Apple may collect "precise," "real-time geographic location" data for users of its products. Under the updated privacy policy, the data may be used by Apple and unspecified "partners and licensees" in order to improve services and advertising.

The company says the data is anonymous and does not personally identify users. Analysts have shown, however, that large, specific data sets can be used to identify people based on behavior patterns.

The report notes that the new privacy policy does not specify which third parties may receive access to the collected data, nor does it mention how long Apple may keep the data. The report also quotes the relevant passage of the updated terms:

To provide location-based services on Apple products, Apple and our partners and licensees may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device. This location data is collected anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you and is used by Apple and our partners and licensees to provide and improve location-based products and services. For example, we may share geographic location with application providers when you opt in to their location services.

Some location-based services offered by Apple, such as the MobileMe "Find My iPhone" feature, require your personal information for the feature to work.

The specific change to Apple's policy regarding location-based services and data collection is part of a much broader overhaul of the company's privacy policy involving a restructuring of the document while expanding certain areas and simplifying others. The changes appear to represent the first significant change to the company's privacy in three years, and with location-services and other mobile technologies having seen tremendous advancement during that time, Apple has had to update its documentation to reflect the new reality.

Apple has posted a new support document outlining the security content of iOS 4, released earlier today. The document covers well over 60 security vulnerabilities addressed with the new release for the operating system behind Apple's mobile devices. Fifty of the security issues addressed involve WebKit, the engine behind Apple's mobile Safari browser included on all iOS devices, while a handful of other issues affect the specific Safari implementation of WebKit in iOS.

One issue addressed in iOS 4 involves the ability of third-party applications to access a user's photo library, indirectly allowing the applications to infer a user's location without explicit authorization via the geolocation information. iOS 4 addresses the issue by modifying the Application Sandbox to prevent direct access to the photo library.

Four of the fixed vulnerabilities affect the operating system's ImageIO framework and could have allowed maliciously crafted BMP, TIFF or JPEG images to lead to security breaches. iOS 4 also addresses a pair of flaws in the Passcode Lock system in which remote locking via MobileMe could result in the password already being entered at the next unlock or unauthorized pairing of a locked device to a computer could occur soon after initial booting following a shutdown in an unlocked state.

iOS 4 also addresses an issue with the Settings application in which a device connected to a hidden Wi-Fi network could incorrectly indicate that is connected to a different network. Finally, an assortment of other issues primarily involving overflow conditions that could lead to crashes or arbitrary code execution have also been fixed in CFNetwork, LibSystem, and libxml.

This month MacRumors held an avatar contest in celebration of its ten millionth forum post on May 29, 2010. Forum members showed their creativity, humor, and graphics skill as they competed in four categories. Many contest entries made creative use of the MacRumors logo while others presented humorous takes on Steve Jobs and the controversy over the lack of iOS support for Adobe Flash.

Chosen by public polls, the winners of the Ten Million Post Avatar Contest are

• User harry*333 for "iEvolved" (Best Static Avatar, General Theme)
• User Tilpots for "McRumors" (Best Static Avatar, MacRumors or Ten Million Theme)
• User ComputersaysNo for "1995 - 2010 goodbye flash" (Best Animated Avatar, General Theme)
• User TheSlush for "Applause" (Best Animated Avatar, MacRumors or Ten Million Theme)

You can see the other contest entries in the Avatar Contest Gallery. Congratulations to the winners and all of the forum members who participated!

MacRumors' other recent community event, the first-ever MacRumors Blood Drive, has maintained a pace of over 1 donated unit a day, with the Honor Roll showing 65 units donated in the 53 days so far, with a little over a week to go. Please join our efforts to increase the number of blood donations by those in our online community.

Finally, forum users in the London area are reminded that the fifth annual London Picnic, organized by forum members, will take place on Saturday, 3 July 2010.

Today's release of iOS 4 marks a major upgrade to Apple's iPhone and iPod touch devices. High demand for the software update has caused a strain on Apple's servers resulting in slow downloads for many customers. For those who are able to get the software downloaded and installed, here are a few walkthroughs that go over the major features found in the new iOS.

- iLounge: Apple iOS 4.0
- ArsTechnica: iOS 4: what's new, notable, and what needs work
- Macworld: Exploring iOS 4's multimedia features
- TiPb: iOS4 Walkthrough
- Gizmodo: Hidden Secrets of iOS 4

From a casual user standpoint, the biggest features will include:

- Folders - With the explosion of the App Store, App management has been a major issue. The introduction of Folders allows users to simply drag and drop icons on top of each other to create a custom folder of Apps. Tapping on the folder brings up a display of all the enclosed icons.
- MultiTasking / Fast App Switching - Exiting an App will now place it into a suspended mode that allows you to return to it quickly... at least for those apps that support it. Meanwhile, Apps with more sophisticated needs such as Pandora Radio can continue to play streaming music after you've left the app. Double tapping on the home button gives you a display of most recent apps that you've used and also gives you quick access to the iPod/Music controls if you swipe right on the icon bar.

Note that Apple's Game Center is not yet live. While an early version was provided to developers, Apple does not plan to launch the social gaming service until later this year.

Late last week, Valve Software alerted users of its Steam game distribution platform that Apple's Mac OS X 10.6.4 released last Tuesday appears to be causing performance issues for players of high-end games on Macs with NVIDIA graphics cards. As a result, Valve recommends that users for whom this might be an issue hold off from updating their systems.

The recent 10.6.4 update from Apple has noticeable performance issues for NVidia graphic chip owners running high performance games.

If you wish to avoid this, you should consider waiting to install the 10.6.4 update until Apple has had the opportunity to address this issue.

Valve made a splash earlier this year when it brought its popular Steam platform to Mac OS X and began releasing titles in its own game library for the Mac. While Mac users of Steam have reportedly been enjoying relatively good stability compared to Windows users, they have also been experiencing lower framerates, degrading the gaming experience somewhat.

We noted last week that Valve is working with Apple, as well as graphics card manufacturers NVIDIA and ATI, to improve drivers and make other changes that should improve the gaming experience on the Mac platform. In the meantime, however, Mac OS X 10.6.4 appears to be a step backward, at least for high-performance games, and it is unknown when Apple will address the issue.