MacRumors

PCWorld reports on the results of its recent 13-city performance tests of wireless carriers in the United States, and Apple's iPhone partner AT&T came out well ahead of the pack in both upload and download speeds while also faring well in reliability.

After registering the lowest average download speeds in our 3G performance tests last spring, AT&T's network turned in download speeds that were 84 percent better than the numbers from eight months ago; in our latest tests, AT&T's download speeds were 67 percent faster on average than those of the other three largest U.S. wireless providers--Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon.

In looking specifically at the iPhone, AT&T again fared well compared to flagship handsets on other carriers, offering significantly higher download and upload speeds with 91% reliability, only marginally lower than the G1 on T-Mobile and the HTC Hero on Sprint.

AT&T's efforts to address performance issues in the New York City and San Francisco markets also appear to be paying off, with PCWorld's testing revealing average download speeds tripling over a previous survey in New York City and jumping 40% in San Francisco.

Overall reliability also improved for AT&T, with successful connections achieved on 94% of attempts, up from only 68% on the previous survey and on par with results for Sprint and ahead of T-Mobile and Verizon on an overall basis. PCWorld's testing did, however, reveal significant reliability weaknesses in San Francisco, with only 55% of connections being successful in its smartphone testing.

Complete data and analysis is available in the article, which covers results from twenty locations in each of thirteen cities: Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver, New Orleans, New York City, Orlando, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle.

Earlier this month, research firm IDC released sales figures for 2009 showing Apple holding 14.4% of the smartphone market for the year on nearly 82% sales growth over 2008, with the company grabbing third place among smartphone vendors behind Nokia and Research in Motion.

Gartner today released similar results taking a slightly different look at its data by opting to rank smartphone sales by operating system rather than handset manufacturer. Gartner's data for Apple is consistent with IDC's for 2009, showing the iPhone OS holding third place with a 14.4% share, but Gartner's data more clearly shows the significant-but-slipping lead held by Symbian OS, as well as the iPhone's surge past a slumping Windows Mobile. The data also reveals tremendous growth from Android in 2009, surging more than tenfold in unit sales to grab nearly 4% of the smartphone market.

Gartner also presented data for worldwide sales of all mobile phones for 2009, which came in at over 1.2 billion, down slightly from 2008. But with smartphone sales accounting for only 14% of the total market and the iPhone holding only 14% of that smaller market, Apple was unable to break into the top five total mobile phone vendors.

In research note released this morning, RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky shares the results of a ChangeWave survey of over 3,200 respondents earlier this month revealing pent-up demand for Apple's forthcoming iPad, with demand even exceeding that for the original iPhone in 2007. According to the survey, 13% of respondents are either somewhat or very likely to purchase an iPad, compared to only 9% in a similar survey conducted prior to the launch of the original iPhone.

The survey also provides an interesting glimpse at model preferences for potential iPad buyers, with the highest percentages of buyers planning to purchase the low-end 16 GB Wi-Fi-only model at $499 and the high-end 64 GB Wi-Fi + 3G model at $829. Demand for the various capacities among the two iPad lines clearly shows opposing relationships, with budget-conscious customers focused on the Wi-Fi-only model opting for only 16 GB of storage while those springing for the added 3G connectivity are also preferring to max out on storage at 64 GB.

The report also notes that only 8% of customers have balked at iPad pricing, significantly lower than the 28% who were unwilling to pay Apple's prices for the original iPhone prior to its launch.

In examining probable cannibalization of existing Apple products, the RBC/ChangeWave survey found 25% of respondents planning to delay purchasing one or more other Apple products in favor of obtaining an iPad, with the iPhone, iPod, and Mac notebooks all seeing potential hits in the 9-10% range. Cannibalization appears significantly lower for Mac desktop machines and the Apple TV.

While the survey results suggest possible strong early adoption of the iPad and upside compared to previously-estimated customer purchasing plans, RBC continues to predict a base case of five million iPads sold for calendar year 2010, adding $2.4 billion in revenue and an additional $0.33 per share of earnings to Apple's bottom line.

ThesMac.gr (translation) claims that they have spotted evidence of new memory modules marketed for the upcoming "MacBook Pro 2010".

The site doesn't list the source for the image, though a quick search shows a site called Adl.it listing the same part. The same parts were spotted at Kingston last week but were not labeled as "MacBook Pro 2010" modules at the time. The "MB" part numbers, however, do match up with Kingston's other MacBook RAM parts.

While new MacBook Pros are expected, there are a few inconsistencies in the listings that make them hard to take at face value. The photo above labels the processor as the outdated Core 2 Duo. Also, the bus speed of 1333MHz doesn't really match up with the expected processors to be found in the MacBook Pro. Still, the part numbers seem real and have been propagated to other resellers.

Apple is widely expected to launch new MacBook Pros any day now.

The NY Times reports on Apple's new policy blocking overtly sexual apps. Apple's head of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller explained the reasoning behind the decision, citing an increasing number of apps with objectionable content:

"It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see," Mr. Schiller said.

When asked about the needs of the developers who were affected by the policy shift, Schiller said that while they cared about developers, in the end "have to put then needs of the kids and parents first". Analysts suspect the upcoming iPad was in part a reason for the policy change. The iPad is expected to be popular amongst families and schools which could object to such applications.

Schiller does explain that well established brands are given a pass such as Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit app or Playboy's app:

"The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format"

Computerworld points to an Apple job listing posted last week which suggests that Apple is looking to expand the iPhone OS beyond the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad to additional platforms. The position, entitled "Engineering Manager (Platform Bring-Up)", requires that the employee lead a team of software engineers working with hardware and "custom silicon" teams on new platforms and protoypes.

The Core Platform team within Apple's Core OS organization is looking for a talented and inspired manager to lead a team focused on bring-up of iPhone OS on new platforms. The team is responsible for low level platform architecture, firmware, core drivers and bring-up of new hardware platforms. The team consists of talented engineers with experience in hardware, firmware, IOKit drivers, security and platform architecture.

The report suggests a number of products, both existing and merely envisioned, that could benefit from an ARM-based architecture and iPhone OS, including Apple TV, MacBook Air, enterprise-class Time Capsule micro-server offerings and others.

Two years down the road, other low ends of the Apple Mac line might get eaten up by the Apple processor/iPhone OS. Mac Mini and Mac Book, I am looking directly at you. Once there is an iPhone OS running the TV and the MacBook Air segments, it isn't a great leap to expect to see it in low end Macs.

Obviously any such suggested offerings are based purely on speculation, but it seems clear that Apple is interested in leveraging iPhone OS and its hefty investment in ARM architecture for future products.

In an article from The New York Times, the cost for a company like Apple to develop an ARM-based mobile chip such as the A4 used in its forthcoming iPad tablet is estimated at approximately $1 billion, even without the need to invest in manufacturing facilities for the chips due to agreements with existing chip foundries for production.

At the same time, Apple, Nvidia and Qualcomm are designing their own takes on ARM-based mobile chips that will be made by the contract foundries. Even without the direct investment of a factory, it can cost these companies about $1 billion to create a smartphone chip from scratch.

Chip industry expert Fred Weber notes in the report that Apple's iPhone was the first "really aspirational device" not based on Intel chips, demonstrating the power and versatility of ARM-based chip designs. The iPhone's success has consequently driven a surge of interest in the platform from other mobile vendors and even more traditional notebook vendors like HP and Lenovo looking to incorporate the power-saving yet capable chips into their products.

"Apple was the first company to make a really aspirational device that wasn't based on Intel chips and Microsoft's Windows," said Fred Weber, a chip industry veteran. "The iPhone broke some psychological barriers people had about trying new products and helped drive this consumer electronics push."

Apple acquired chip design firm P.A. Semi in early 2008, reportedly enabling Apple to pursue in-house ARM-based designs for system-on-chip platforms for the iPad and iPhone.

The New York Times reports that television networks are continuing to resist Apple's push to lower episode pricing for their shows to $0.99, down from the current $1.99 price point for standard definition content. The networks reportedly continue to be skeptical of the value of such price cuts, despite claims that some of them have agreed to participate in a trial of the lower pricing to coincide with the launch of Apple's iPad.

Television production is expensive, and the networks are wary of selling shows for less. They are equally wary of harming their far more lucrative deals with affiliates and cable distributors, who may feel threatened by online storefronts like Apple's and those operated by Amazon, Microsoft and Sony.

But the networks do not want to ignore the 125 million customers with credit cards who have iTunes accounts, either. "We're willing to try anything, but the key word is 'try,' " said a TV network executive who requested anonymity because his company had declined to comment publicly on talks with Apple.

Comments from CBS CEO Leslie Moonves suggested that his company is talking with Apple about participating in the trial, and today's report notes that PBS is currently running a three-week experiment with reduced pricing on several of its children's shows.

Apple has also been said to be pushing for a television subscription service that would allow users to replace their cable television service with a package of popular TV shows distributed through iTunes for $30 per month. While networks have also been reluctant to consider such an offering, sources indicate that the possibility remains under discussion.

In Bloomberg BusinessWeek's fourth annual customer service rankings released late last week, Apple placed third behind catalog retail site L.L. Bean and insurance company USAA, a new high for the company. According to the report, which combined data from consumer satisfaction firm J.D. Power with survey results from over 1,000 of the magazine's own readers, Apple scored A+ ratings for both "quality of staff" and "efficiency of service".

The company's sleek devices and user-friendly software aren't its only innovations. Appointments at Apple's (AAPL) "Genius Bars" and its roving in-store checkout clerks are just two ways the company has pioneered new approaches to customer service. The iPhone maker is likely got a bump this year as more companies created customer-friendly apps for their own services, helping to burnish Apple's customer service brand.

Other metrics included in the survey were the percentage of survey respondents who would "definitely recommend" the Apple brand (66%) and "definitely repurchase" from Apple (58%). The only other computer manufacturer to make the list of top 25 companies was Dell, which checked in at #23.

Apple improved from 20th place in last year's study on the basis of strong improvement in the "quality of staff" category. Apple had ranked 21st in 2008 and 18th in 2007.

We're planning on writing this one off as a web-blunder, but one reader points out that Apple seems to have reverted their iPad promotional video back to one which renders the NYTimes Flash content correctly.

The iPad promotional video caused a lot of buzz when it was discovered that it depicted properly working Flash content on NYTimes' website. As it turns out, the videos are essentially mock-ups and were never purposefully intended to depict the iPad running Flash. Apple was even quick to post a new version of the video properly showing a broken Flash plug-in in the place of the video content. The incident even generated an FTC complaint against Apple for false advertising. So, why would Apple change it back now?

The easiest explanation is that either Apple or Akamai made a mistake this weekend and republished the original video. Meanwhile, an absurd and essentially impossible alternative given Steve Jobs' comments about Flash is that the iPad will support Flash. If this was a purposeful switch back, perhaps the NYTimes may plan on offering HTML5 content (which does play on the iPad) for their video content, much like YouTube and Vimeo have started doing.

Chances are, however, the video will again be corrected in the near future.

Update: Apple has changed it back to showing a broken Flash icon.

Late last week, the news broke that Apple was removing "overtly sexual" applications from the App Store. The list of applications that have been removed have not only included novelty apps and adult themed slideshow apps, but also a number of games including Daisy Mae's Alien Buffet. This graph provided by AppShopper.com shows that on a typical day, about 100 apps are removed from the U.S. App Store. This includes forcible removals by Apple as well as instances where a developer has chosen to remove an application from sale.

On Wednesday, February 17th, however, this number shot up to 932 removals and peaked at nearly 4000 removals on Thursday, February 18th. The high number of removals has continued over the weekend as Apple continues to clear out these newly blocked apps. In speaking with Apple, ChilliFresh found out that over 5000 apps were affected, which corresponds to AppShopper's stats as of Saturday, though the higher than normal rate of removals seem to be continuing. So far, the removals represent about 3% of the total number of apps in the App Store.

While the merit of Apple's new policy remains an ongoing debate, the new policy may slightly improve some of the clutter found in the App Store as the most prolific "sexy app" developer had published nearly 500 variants of their bikini photobooks.

AppAdvice claims that the iPad pre-orders could start as early as February 25th. The pre-orders are said to be for the U.S. Wi-Fi model initially. It's really not much to go on, but Apple hasn't given any indication about their launch plans for the iPad. During their press event, Jobs simply said that the Wi-Fi version would be shipping in 60 days, which places it into the last week of March.

While Apple did allow for pre-orders for the iPhone 3GS, the original iPhone launch was on a first-come first-serve basis at retail stores. The Wi-Fi iPad, however, does not require any long term contracts to be set up, making pre-orders more likely a possibility. Apple would have to get FCC approval for the device before being able to place it on sale. AppAdvice, however, isn't a particularly reliable source of rumors as they previously claimed the iPhone 3GS would have an OLED screen and FM transmitter (both of which were not true).

As the actual launch approaches, many are hoping and speculating that there may be some unannounced software features for the iPad that might not have been finished at the time of the media event. It's not without precedent, as Apple did announce YouTube support for the original iPhone just 9 days before its actual launch.

Kevin Fox had noted that several of the iPhone/iPod Touch minor applications were missing from the iPad. These include Stocks, Weather, Voice Memo, Clock, and Calculator. He goes on to suggest that these minor apps could return as some sort of Dashboard-like widget system.