MacRumors

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.

In a stark reversal from projections made just over two months ago, Bloomberg Businessweek reports that new predictions from research firm IDC peg Google as taking a whopping 59% share of the U.S. mobile advertising market for 2010 while Apple is expected to garner only 8.4% of the U.S. market with its own iAd program. IDC's earlier report had projected that Apple and Google would finish the year neck-and-neck, with each holding about 21% of the market.

The sudden change appears to come, however, not from Apple grossly underperforming earlier expectations but from IDC grossly underestimating the total size of the U.S. mobile advertising market and Google's share of it. The earlier report had cited a total market size of under $250 million for 2009, while the new report claims that 2009 saw a market of $368 million.

Earlier this year, IDC projected Google would lose market share this year. It revised estimates after Google's October announcement. "Google is a lot bigger than we thought," Weide says. "We rectified that, based on the numbers they provided in their last earnings call."

Those underestimations have led to a dramatic upward revision in Google's market share numbers for 2009 and 2010, with all of its competitors, including Apple, seeing corresponding significant decreases in their market share numbers. IDC's September report claimed that Google held a 27% share in 2009 when including data for AdMob, which it acquired late in the year, but the firm's new report claims that Google held 48.6% of the market on its own in 2009, with AdMob holding an additional 8.4% share for a total of 57% of the expanded market.

The revised projections for Apple show the company holding 8.4% of the market for 2010, good for second place in an industry it hadn't even entered in 2009. Quattro Wireless, which was acquired by Apple right around the beginning of 2010, held 5.4% of the market in 2009.

Apple is continuing to expand its iAd program, pushing out worldwide delivery of ads early last month and following that up with announcements that it would be adding programs for advertisers in Japan and Europe this month and early next year.

Update: A new report from Business Insider sheds some additional light on the discrepancies between the two reports. The September Bloomberg Businessweek article appears to have only been addressing mobile display ads and not the total market, which includes both display ads and search-based ads. As shown in the new Business Insider article, Google and Apple are still projected to be neck-and-neck in display ads for 2010, with Google projected to grab 19.0% of the market while Apple takes 18.8%.

The Bloomberg Businessweek report from last week encompassed the total display and search market without making a distinction from its September report, and with Google's dominance in search-based ads (91.4%), the company still holds a wide lead in the overall U.S. mobile advertising market.

All Things D reports that Apple and major magazine publishers have yet to reach agreements on plans for digital magazine subscriptions, with the two sides engaged in a stalemate over revenue sharing and subscriber information. The report reiterates earlier details of Apple's position, but notes that no major publishers have accepted the company's terms in the face of Apple's firm stand.

Publishers want the ability to sell the subscriptions themselves, or at least the opportunity to hang on to subscribers' personal data. And Steve Jobs won't let them.

Here's what Apple is offering publishers, according to publishing sources:

- The ability to sell app subscriptions through iTunes.
- 70 percent of the revenue from each sale.
- The ability to offer an opt-in form for subscribers, which would ask them for a limited amount of information: Name, address, e-mail address.

That offer has been on the table for a "couple months", I'm told, and so far none of the big publishers has gone for it.

As long ago as February, publishers were expressing the same concerns over Apple's proposals: an unwillingness to send 30% of revenue to Apple and a desire to have access to subscriber information for marketing and editorial purposes. Despite the fact that Amazon last month announced similar terms to Apple's proposal for magazine and newspaper publishers, it appears that the publishers have yet to come around to Apple's offer.

Apple has been rumored to be building support for periodical subscriptions and automatic content delivery into iOS 4.3, with a new digital news magazine from News Corp known as The Daily reportedly set to debut using the model either later this month or early next year.

Last month, we noted that UK carrier Orange was preparing to roll out subsidized iPad pricing for those customers willing to sign up for data contracts for the device. paidContent:UK now reports that Orange, Three and T-Mobile have all rolled out the subsidized sales today, offering the 16 GB Wi-Fi + 3G iPad model for £199 with a two-year data contract in the range of £25 per month. Orange and Three are also offering subsidized 32 GB and 64 GB models at £249 and £349 respectively.

While the device pricing is the same across the three carriers and a significant discount from the standalone prices of £529/£599/£699, the data plans offered by the carriers do differ in their features:

- For £25/month, Three offers it bundled with 15GB of data per month. WiFi is not included.

- Orange offers 1GB of data at peak times and 1GB of "quiet time" data (between midnight and 4pm) and 3GB of WiFi usage using BT (NYSE: BT) Openzone, at a price of £25 for current customers or £27 for new customers.

- Meanwhile, T-Mobile is also offering 1GB of data at peak times and 1GB at "quiet time" (which in their case is midnight to 10am) but no WiFi hotspot usage, also for the same price as Orange. T-Mobile's overage, however, is a bit more lenient in that the operator doesn't charge you but then reserve the right to restrict your bandwidth in future.

Customers who expect to maintain cellular data access for their iPads will likely find the new deals enticing, while those who plan to utilize 3G data only occasionally will likely prefer to purchase an unsubsidized iPad and purchase one of the many contract-free data packages offered by the carriers when necessary:

Apple yesterday published a series of three updates for Mac App Store developers to its news and announcements page, offering several tips for those preparing their applications for submission to the forthcoming store.

The most important update for general users addresses demo, trial, and beta versions of software intended for distribution through the Mac App Store. Apple notes that developers should not submit these versions for inclusion in the Mac App Store and should instead distribute them through their own sites while limiting Mac App Store distribution to full retail versions of their applications.

Your website is the best place to provide demos, trial versions, or betas of your software for customers to explore. The apps you submit to be reviewed for the Mac App Store should be fully functional, retail versions of your apps.

Apple's other two updates point to sections of Apple's developer-only documentation, reminding those working on applications where to find resources for developing custom interface control elements that comply with Apple's interface guidelines and to make sure that they are properly utilizing the Mac OS X file system to store files related to their applications in appropriate locations on users' computers.

Apple announced at its October 20th media event that the Mac App Store would debut for users of Mac OS X Snow Leopard within 90 days, meaning that a launch would be expected to occur by mid-January.

The company began accepting submissions for the Mac App Store one month ago and appears to be preparing Mac OS X 10.6.6 to support the store.

Apple today seeded a new version of Mac OS X 10.6.6, known as Build 10J537, to developers. The update comes four weeks after the initial developer build was seeded to developers even before Mac OS X 10.6.5 saw its public release.

Interestingly, we've been told that the new build is being listed as a golden master version for those accessing it through the Mac App Store developer program. The designation would suggest that Apple is preparing to release this version to the public in the near future. The listing for regular Mac developers not participating in the Mac App Store aspect of the program appears, however, to not carry any mention of it being a golden master build.

Mac OS X 10.6.6 Build 10J537 offers "developer support for fetching and renewing App Store receipts" and the seed notes ask developers to focus their testing efforts on Bonjour, Dock, OpenGL, Printing and Spotlight. The build weighs in at 1000 MB as a combo update.

Apple this week updated its Universal Dock package, which offers a convenient charging and syncing solution for a variety of iPhone and iPod models, as well as a means to connect those devices to stereos or TVs. While the dock itself remains the same, Apple has updated the package to include the company's now-standard aluminum remote instead of the previous white remote.

The new dock package also includes a USB power adapter and a USB cable to aid in connectivity, accessories that had previously been sold separately. Consequently, Apple has raised the price of the package from $49 to $59.

The package also contains a revised set of five dock adapters offering compatibility with the iPhone 4/3GS/3G, second-, third-, and fourth-generation iPod touch, and the fifth-generation iPod nano. Adapters for other iPod and iPhone models can be purchased separately.

In addition to the new Universal Dock, AppleInsider notes that Apple has discontinued its compact wired aluminum keyboard. The company had previously offered the compact keyboard in both wired and wireless versions, and continues to offer the extended wired keyboard that includes a number keypad to the right of the main keyboard area.

Update: Apple has also updated its Composite AV Cable and Component AV Cable offerings, reducing the price of each by $10 to $39 and no longer including the USB power adapter. It appears that Apple has reorganized its offerings to recognize that the power adapter should be included with the basic dock package and not with the cable accessories, as users in the past might have purchased both types of cables and found themselves with two power adapters for one dock.

As noted by Mashable, Apple's "Ping" music-focused social networking service within iTunes has scored its first major exclusive, premiering a new posthumously-released track from Michael Jackson. The track, "Much Too Soon", is being streamed exclusively through Jackson's Ping profile page for the next week.

The entry and press release note that "Much Too Soon" was recorded at the time of Jackson's blockbuster "Thriller" album (released in 1982) but was never included on any of his albums.

The song "Much Too Soon" was written at the time of Thriller. Michael always liked the song and would pull it back out of the vaults for each subsequent album project but never found the right home for it; on the new album it finds its place as the bittersweet closing to the stellar collection. The song was written by Michael Jackson and produced by Michael Jackson and John McClain. David Campbell is featured on the strings.

Ping launched in iTunes 10 in early September, but has yet to catch on with many users. Apple has, however, continued to push forward with new features for the service, including Twitter integration and iPad access being added in just the past few weeks.

Algoriddim, the developer of the popular djay application for Mac, has released djay for iPad today. As we reported last month, the app takes advantage of new audio features that only recently came to the iPad with the release of iOS 4.2.

The app provides a virtual turntable interface that allows scratching and multiple controls as well as full access to the iPod music library stored on the iPad. It is optimized for iOS 4.2 with multitasking and background operation capabilities.

Algoriddim has created a promotional video highlighting the app's capabilities.

The app's features include:

- Realistic low-latency turntable interface
- Automix mode with automatic transition control (Fade, Backspin, Reverse, Brake, Random)
- Live Recording (with builtin organizer for recorded performances)
- Seamless AirPlay integration (wirelessly transmit your mix to Apple TV or AirPort Express station)
- PreCueing (with optional headphones adapter)
- BPM analysis with automatic beat and tempo matching
- Full visual waveform with beatsynchronized scrubbing
- Highquality scratching
- Mixer, Tempo and EQ controls
- PitchBend
- Cue Point Trigger

djay for iPad is available in the App Store for $19.99.

Just over a year ago, Apple began rolling out an iPod-based checkout system known as "EasyPay" in its retail stores. A few months later, it was reported that Apple was considering commercializing the system. The system has been marketed for some time now as Linea Pro by its creators, Infinite Peripherals, who offer it as a $499 accessory for the second- and third-generation iPod touch.

It is unclear how many other customers Infinite Peripherals has been able to sign on to the technology, but 9 to 5 Mac reports that The Gap's Old Navy retail store chain has been piloting usage of the system, known there as "ZipCheck", in a few of its stores. According to the report, Old Navy is piloting one ZipCheck system per store, with some employees also carrying small wireless printers on their belts to quickly provide customers with receipts for purchases made through the device.

One of the hottest gadgets over the past month has been Microsoft's Kinect, a controller-free gaming interface for the company's Xbox 360 gaming system that senses users' body movements and voice commands for interacting with gaming and entertainment content.

As noted by InformationWeek, Apple has expressed interest in using somewhat similar technologies, as well as its own multi-touch gesture control, for interacting with such devices as kitchen appliances and vehicles. The revelation comes from a patent assignment in which inventor Timothy Pryor transferred his interest in three patents and ten pending patent applications to Apple, an assignment that was made in March of this year.

The various patents and patent applications have to do with the control of machines, specifically through a combination of touch screens and video sensing. They include titles like "Man Machine Interfaces For Entering Data Into A Computer" and "Programmable Tactile Touch Screen Displays And Man-Machine Interfaces For Improved Vehicle Instrumentation And Telematics."

While the oldest of the patents included in the transfer was filed over fifteen years, ago, the ten patent applications have all been filed since August 2007.

One patent application in particular, entitled "Control of Appliances, Kitchen and Home", describes how a rear-projection display and sensing array could be used on a kitchen countertop or directly on appliances or other surfaces to detect the user's motions and assist with food preparation while also providing access to other home automation and Internet-related functionality directly from the countertop.

"Machine vision sensing, coupled with suitable computer software, can also, as disclosed in my referenced applications, determine gesture commands in space made by a person, and can determine various features of the person or objects they are working with, or in some cases their movements and action," the patent application says.

Pryor's patent application proposes touch-enabled appliance surfaces that can control a multitude of appliances and "can ease kitchen and house work, while allowing the user to share time for home functions with Internet shopping, social networking and the like."

Obviously, it is unclear exactly what, if anything, Apple plans to do with the intellectual property it acquired from Pryor. It seems possible that Apple may simply have been moving to lock in ownership of some aspects of the inventions that relate in some way to the company's vision of implementations for multi-touch functionality in general, but clearly Apple has a significant interest in Pryor's work given its acquisition of a significant number of patents and patent applications.

Apple yesterday released a new iPad commercial entitled "iPad is Amazing", airing the ad on primetime television and posting it to the company's iPad site and YouTube page to show off a number of new features available in iOS 4.2.

The new commercial offers the same soundtrack as several earlier ads and follows the same of theme of displaying a series of quick shots of the iPad's capabilities interspersed with corresponding single-word descriptions relevant to the "iPad is..." theme: "creating" (Pages), "printing" (AirPrint), "vital" (AirStrip), "ideas" (TED), "multi-tasking" (Mail and Calendar), "facts" (Solar Walk), "figures" (Numbers), and "amazing" (AirPlay).

In mid-May, Apple released its "What is iPad" commercial, harkening back to an earlier ad for the Newton nearly twenty years ago. Apple then shifted gears, however, releasing the current string of iPads with "iPad is Delicious" in mid-August, "iPad is Musical" in early September, and "iPad is Electric" early last month.

Verizon Wireless today announced that it will be launching the first large-scale LTE (4G) cellular network on Sunday, December 5th, bringing service to 38 metropolitan areas and 60 airports in the United States. The network is launching with only broadband data plans for USB modems, as handsets utilizing the technology are not expected until mid-2011.

Verizon Wireless customers can choose from two 4G LTE Mobile Broadband data plans: $50 monthly access for 5 GB monthly allowance or $80 monthly access for 10 GB monthly allowance, both with $10/GB overage. For laptop connectivity, two 4G LTE USB modems will be initially available: the LG VL600 is available at launch and the Pantech UML290 will be available soon, each $99.99 after $50 rebate with a new two-year agreement. Both USB modems provide backward-compatibility with Verizon Wireless' 3G network. If laptop users travel outside of a 4G LTE coverage area, they will automatically stay connected on the company's 3G network.

Multiple mainstream news sources have reported that Apple is set to release a Verizon-compatible version of the iPhone as early as January 2011, although that model is not expected to support Verizon's new 4G network. In fact, rumors have suggested that the next major revision to the iPhone, likely set for launch in June or July of next year, also will not support 4G. Such a move would follow the precedent set by Apple with the original iPhone, which did not offer 3G compatibility despite AT&T offering a 3G network at that time, with Apple opting to wait to adopt the technology until the following year when it had matured and availability expanded to more markets.

Rumors have also suggested that Verizon may be testing LTE-compatible iPads, although the information appears to be unconfirmed.

AT&T has been said to be on track to roll out its own 4G LTE network in mid-2011 as it continues to upgrade its 3G service to faster speeds to support current users and to serve as a fallback during the full roll-out of 4G service in the future.