MacRumors

Late last month, we noted that Apple had apparently parted ways with longtime engineering design partner SurfaceInk over the consulting firm's recent efforts to create and design entire products for third parties. The final straw appears to have been a prototype tablet being shopped around by SurfaceInk, a move Apple viewed as a possible competitive threat.

Apple doesn't appear to be going without the services of a number of SurfaceInk's engineers, however, as a number of them appear to have recently moved over to be in the direct employment of Apple. While it has not been uncommon for SurfaceInk employees to make the transition directly to Apple over the years, there certainly appears to be a significant number of them making the move just as Apple drops its partnership with SurfaceInk itself.

According to LinkedIn profiles, we've identified four engineers from SurfaceInk who became Apple employees as of August 2010: Paul Yuan and Alex Yeung (Product Design Engineers), Jared Kole (Product Development Engineer), and Craig Leong (R&D, Mechanical Engineer). In addition, Josh Pong and Margie Duffy moved in August from SurfaceInk to become Product Development Engineers at Apple through staffing firm Ryzen Solutions, while William Yarak took a Consulting Product Design Engineer position with Apple just this month.

In total, we have documented at least seven former SurfaceInk employees who have reported moving to Apple in just the past few weeks, with several more appearing to have moved earlier this year. Consequently, it appears that Apple may have picked up for itself a substantial portion of the SurfaceInk expertise it had been relying upon for collaborations on engineering design for its products.

While claims continue to build regarding a release for a Verizon iPhone early next year, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg is continuing to play things close to the vest by once again refusing to acknowledge that any deal might be imminent. In fact, Seidenberg is going as far as to say that he hopes the carrier's 4G network that it is preparing to launch in the next few months will be the impetus to bring Apple on board.

Speaking to an investor conference Thursday, Seidenberg said nothing about an iPhone for the company's current network, but said he hopes Apple Inc. will come around and allow Verizon to sell the phone for a new network it's building. The "4G" network hasn't yet opened for service and won't be complete next year.

Seidenberg would of course not reveal any news regarding a Verizon iPhone launch prior to an official launch, which would presumably involve Apple and Steve Jobs in some manner. Consequently, it is difficult to take his comments at face value, as the companies are almost certainly working more closely together than he is suggesting in his comments.

The Verizon CEO has noted several times in the past that Verizon is interested in carrying the iPhone, claiming in October 2009 that the decision was "exclusively in Apple's court" and confirming for the first time back in April that the carrier had specifically requested the right to carry the iPhone.

Seidenberg is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at next January's CES 2011 conference, leading to speculation that an announcement regarding a Verizon iPhone could take place there.

Update: Seidenberg also noted that Verizon will shift to tiered pricing for cellular data access within the next four-to-six months, following in the footsteps of AT&T's shift made at the time of the iPhone 4 launch earlier this year. One report had pegged Verizon's change to tiered pricing as set to occur as early as this past July, but it has yet to make an appearance.

Update 2: All Things Digital offers an interesting direct quote from Seidenberg about Verizon's need to "earn" the right to offer the iPhone:

"We don't feel like we have an iPhone deficit. We would love to carry it, but we have to earn it. I can't speak for Apple."

Forbes has released its annual list of the 400 richest Americans, and Apple CEO Steve Jobs checks in in 42nd place with a net worth of approximately $6.1 billion. Jobs gained $1 billion in net worth over last year's calculations, but moved up only one position in the rankings.

In January he unveiled Apple's iPad tablet amid a media frenzy; the device has so far beaten the hype with more than 3 million sold since April. In May Apple's market cap overtook Microsoft's to become the most valuable tech company in the world. Despite a super-publicized antenna problem, Apple's latest iPhone sold 1.7 million units 3 days after launch. Majority of fortune comes from Disney; as largest shareholder owns about $4.4 billion of stock. Reed College dropout founded Apple 1976.

Jobs' new net worth of $6.1 billion appears to be his highest to-date after a brief dip last year from highs of $5.7 billion in the 2007 and 2008 surveys.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates remains at the top of the list for the 17th consecutive year with a net worth of $54 billion, up $4 billion from last year but still below his recent high of $59 billion in 2007. The report also notes that Gates has poured $28 billion into charity, primarily through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

As we noted earlier today, software updates released by Apple today indicated that the release of the company's new 27-inch LED Cinema Display appeared imminent. We can now push things one step further, as customers have begun receiving shipping notices for their orders, some with delivery set for as early as tomorrow.

Apple's shipping department is also gearing up to start pushing out the new Apple TVs as well, as we've heard from a number of customers who have seen their credit cards being charged for their orders, a sign that shipment should occur in the very near future.

Apple has issued version updates to their iPad productivity apps Keynote, Numbers, and Pages. The updates offer a number of bug fixes and improvements but also adds a number of new features. The new features are listed here:

Keynote
- Export presentations to Microsoft PowerPoint (.PPT) format.
- Copy presentations between Keynote and your MobileMe iDisk or a WebDAV service.
- Support for audio in builds when importing Keynote '09 presentations.
- Ability to group and ungroup objects.
- Add animated builds to grouped objects.
- Lens Flare, Spin and Wipe build animations.
- Revolving Door, Swoosh and Wipe slide transition animations.

Numbers
- Export spreadsheets to Microsoft Excel (.XLS) format.
- Copy spreadsheets between Numbers and your MobileMe iDisk or a WebDAV service.
- Ability to group and ungroup objects.
- Open CSV files from Mail and other apps.

Pages
- Copy documents between Pages and your MobileMe iDisk or a WebDAV service.
- Option to display the word count for your document.
- Support for opening .txt files from Mail.
- Ability to group and ungroup objects.
- Import and export existing footnotes, endnotes, sections and tables of contents.
- Import and export Pages '09 tables with image background fills in cells.

Each app is priced at $9.99 and is iPad-only.

Availability of Apple's new 27" LED Cinema Display appears imminent, as the company has just released several software updates to support the new display. The new display went on sale last Friday with estimated shipping times of 1-2 weeks, a timeframe that still holds for new orders as of today.

LED Cinema Display Software Update 1.0 weighs in at 75.79 MB and requires Mac OS X 10.6.4. According to a support document for the release, the update makes several tweaks to users' System Preferences options for the new display, including for ambient light sensor settings and for routing sound output to the display's speakers.

For Windows users, Apple has expanded its driver package for the Magic Trackpad to also include support for the new display. The update appears set to come in 32-bit and 64-bit versions, although all of Apple's pages have not yet been updated to properly reflect the revised version just now coming available.

Last week, we presented our belief that the new iOS-based Apple TV was designed to eventually accept third-party apps from its own App Store. Steve Jobs even suggested that Apple was poised to launch an Apple TV App Store when the time was right.

The launch of Apple TV-specific apps would make some sense as Apple continues to find itself competing against Google. Google's recently-announced Google TV offers developers an opportunity to deploy their own applications to that device. We don't expect the Apple TV App Store to allow customers to run existing iOS apps on the device, but instead to open the door to Apple TV-specific apps.

Adding a bit to the evidence is a LinkedIn profile showing a recent Apple intern describing their summer position as an "Apple TV Apps Engineer". While this could represent work on the built-in Apple-supplied functionality, the internal view that the Apple TV is simply a collection of apps seems to be in line with future third-party expansion.

Last month, we shared the story of one developer who participated in a trial of Apple's iAd for Developers program only to find that the experiment was not cost-effective for his 99-cent application given Apple's pricing structure for iAds.

The Los Angeles Times follows up with a more expansive look at the iAd for Developers program, finding that while many developers feel that the pricing leaves something to be desired, the financials are beginning to improve as the program matures.

"It's moderately successful, and cost effectiveness is increasing," Clive Downie, Ngmoco's vice president of marketing, said in a statement. "We use many advertising streams so finding the perfect place for iAd in the overall life cycle of a product is still an objective for us."

Still, nearly a dozen iAd developers who spoke with The Times said they were enthusiastic about the fledgling program.

According to Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris, 75% of developers participating in the iAd program either renew their trial period of increase spending commitment, suggesting at least some level of satisfaction with the performance.

"We're thrilled by the response to the iAd for Developers program, which is a great way for developers to advertise their own apps to millions of users," said Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris.

"It's fairly early to deem successful, but so far we've seen tremendous traction, and we do plan to continue running," said Tina Couch, spokeswoman for textbook rental service Chegg.com.

While Apple is said to charge traditional advertisers per-impression fees as well as $2 per click for their interactive ads, the iAd for Developers program offers a simpler interface and a more budget-conscious alternative for iOS developers, with pricing reportedly set at a flat 25 cents per click.

Reuters reports on comments from NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker suggesting that the studio is not interested in joining Apple's new 99-cent TV show rental program, citing concerns over pricing.

Offering NBC's shows for that price on the Apple TV service would undermine the value of their shows, he said.

"We do not think 99 cents is the right price point for our content. ... We thought it would devalue our content," Zucker said at a Goldman Sachs investor conference.

He pointed to the fact NBC shows are already available for $1.99 for download on Apple's iTunes service.

Zucker's concerns over Apple's pricing proposition echo those of Time Warner CEO Barry Meyer shared in comments made late last week.

For the time being, Apple's TV show rental program includes only shows from ABC and Fox. Chase Carey, President of Fox parent News Corp, also confirmed earlier reports that the current rental program is only a "short-term test" before the companies involved decided whether to commit fully to the venture.

Apple subsidiary Filemaker today announced substantial updates to its Filemaker Go and Filemaker Go for iPad applications in the App Store, adding a number of new features that had been highly requested by users.

Several of the primary enhancements are related to new tools for enhanced sharing possibilities. Users can now create PDFs of their databases directly within Filemaker Go and store them on their mobile devices or email them to others. The new feature offers simple creation of reports and invoices while on the go. Users can now also save complete copies of their databases and share them with others via email, eliminating the need to sync with a computer for direct database transfer.

The new updates also bring tools for working with photos and other media:

The update also delivers new ways to work more efficiently with photos and other media and information. FileMaker Go users can capture photos on an iPhone, or take photos that are already in the photo library of an iPhone or iPad, and insert them directly into a FileMaker Go database. Photos stored in a database can be emailed out later using FileMaker Go.

Additional enhancements include the ability to import records from other databases using script steps and support for a newly-enhanced Filemaker URL protocol that developers of other iOS applications can use to interface with Filemaker Go.

Filemaker Go for iPhone and iPod touch is priced at $19.99 while Filemaker Go for iPad is priced at $39.99. The new updates are of course free for existing users.

The Wall Street Journal reports on comments from Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen made during the company's earnings conference call indicating that Apple's recent decision to relax restrictions on third-party development tools for iOS app creation has had only a "muted" effect on Adobe product sales.

Narayen said in June the public squabble with Apple had not hurt sales of the company's software packages. But there was no denying that it had hurt the company's share price, which started the year around $37 but in June dropped below $27.

Earlier this month, Apple relaxed restrictions on developers of applications for its iPhones and iPads, opening up its popular App Store to products written in Flash.

However, the short-term impact of the change on product sales "was muted," Narayen said.

Adobe included in its new Flash Professional CS5 a feature known as "Packager for iPhone" that allowed developers to export Flash content in an iOS-compatible format to allow them to easily port their Flash apps for submission to the App Store. Just prior to the Adobe's product release, however, Apple modified its developer terms to ban such third-party development tools from being used for App Store submissions.

With Apple now lifting the restrictions, developers are free to use the existing Packager for iPhone feature and Adobe has said that it will resume work on the feature for future updates.

Despite strong performance during the previous quarter, Adobe's earnings guidance for the upcoming quarter fell below analysts' and investors' expectations, and the stock is down 20% today in response.

AppleInsider reports on a research note from Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Jeffrey Fidacaro, who claims that checks with Apple's suppliers indicate that the company is gearing up for an initial production run of 3 million CDMA iPhones in December of this year. The assertion concurs with a report from last month claiming that Apple had ordered CDMA chips for just such a December production run.

The CDMA phones would allow Apple to extend the iPhone to carriers such as Verizon in the United States that run on the alternative cellular technology to the GSM standard used by all of the company's existing iPhone partners. Reports have claimed that Apple is looking to launch a Verizon iPhone in January 2011.

Analyst Jeffrey Fidacaro with Susquehanna Financial Group said in a note to investors on Wednesday that checks with overseas suppliers indicated Apple is prepared to build 3 million CDMA iPhones in December, keeping the device on track for an early 2011 launch. That would put total GSM and CDMA iPhone production for the quarter at between 21 million and 22 million.

Fidacaro also weighed in on Apple's production for several other products this quarter, including the iPad, MacBook, iPod, and new Apple TV. According to Fidacaro, Apple will likely see production of 7 million iPads this quarter, shipping about 4.75 million of them to customers while the rest are used to fill sales channels that have remained essentially empty as company has struggled to meet demand.

MacBook production rates are said to be above 3 million units for the quarter, which seems rather high considering that Apple sold just under 2.5 million units of all of its portable computers last quarter. While Apple did see 29% quarter-to-quarter growth in portables during the same time last year, which would result in 3.2 million portables sold this quarter if the performance was repeated, only a fraction of those sales would be MacBooks. It is possible, however, that Fidacaro's "MacBook" reference was meant to imply the entire line of portables.

The report also shares expectations of a record 11.6 million iPhones sold during the quarter, along with production of 12 million iPods, although some of that will also be dedicated to channel fill of the new models. Finally, the report claims production of several hundred thousand units of the new Apple TV at launch, increasing to a million in December.

Reuters reports on comments from AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson claiming that the U.S. carrier has seen about 500,000 iPad customers connect to its network. While the total number of 3G-capable iPads sold in the U.S. is unknown because Apple does not break down sales reports by model or country, at least one analyst thinks the number appears low considering Apple's overall sales of 3.27 million iPads last quarter and almost another entire quarter under the company's belt.

Pacific Crest analyst Steve Clement said this could indicate that many iPad purchasers aren't bothering to connect the device to the Internet using the AT&T network.

Since operators such as AT&T are expecting strong growth from gadgets such as tablet computers, this trend could mean the device category will represent less business than expected.

"Half a million at this point would seem low," Clement said.

While the 3G-capable iPad models carry a $130 price premium over their Wi-Fi-only counterparts, some customers may simply be finding that they do not take their iPads out of the home as often as they had originally thought, while others may simply have not planned to activate the service initially but purchased 3G-capable models anyway in order to "future proof" themselves should they find their plans at a later date. AT&T's contract-free iPad data plans allow customers to simply sign up for the service when needed.

Update: We've been reminded that AT&T announced 400-500,000 iPad activations back in July, so it seems that Stephenson may have been sharing old data in his recent comments.

Update 2: We've now heard from an AT&T representative that Stephenson was in fact simply repeating the number from the 2Q 2010 earnings release discussion, rounding the figure up to the higher end of the original range.

Silicon Alley Insider reports that Apple and Facebook were in negotiations for at least 18 months about a music-focused social networking service, but that the two companies were unable to strike a deal before Apple decided to launch Ping as part of iTunes 10 earlier this month.

Before Apple launched Ping, its iTunes team was in talks with Facebook for 18 months or more, a source with knowledge of the talks tells us.

While we don't know the details of their discussions, it makes sense that Apple may have wanted to build Ping as a music-tracking and sales service on top of Facebook's social graph. This could have allowed Apple to get what it wanted out of the relationship -- more iTunes and iPod sales -- without having to build a social network from scratch.

When Ping first launched, it offered users the option of using Facebook Connect to find friends who had already signed up for Apple's new music-focused service. The feature quickly disappeared, and Apple CEO Steve Jobs noted that the two companies had been unable to reach a deal due to "onerous terms" imposed by Facebook that Apple could not agree to.

A follow-up report claimed that Apple's initial usage of the normally-open Facebook Connect API was unauthorized due to the volume of traffic it was intended to generate, and Facebook consequently disabled Ping's access to the service. Apple was then forced to remove all signs of the functionality from the site, although the two companies have been said to still be in discussions about Facebook Connect connectivity for Ping.

The Hollywood Reporter claims that DVDs-by-mail and streaming service Netflix is set to make its first foray outside the United States tomorrow by announcing that it will bring streaming video content to Canada.

Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings will be in Toronto Wednesday to launch an online video subscription service that allows Canadians to download their favorite flicks and TV shows for a monthly fee.

Netflix entering the Canadian market, its first foreign expansion, has local video distribution players girding for cutthroat competition as still more Internet content-streaming behemoths like Apple TV and Boxee get set to launch north of the border.

The service will initially be streaming-only, although the DVDs-by-mail service could obviously be added in the future.

Earlier this month, Apple introduced a revamped Apple TV device that supports Netflix streaming, although the device is not scheduled to begin shipping until around the end of this month, with new orders currently seeing shipping estimates of 2-3 weeks. We will likely have to wait until Netflix's official announcement tomorrow for confirmation, but it seems likely that the new Apple TV will support Netflix in Canada as soon as the service launches there.

Update: Netflix has officially announced the streaming-only service for Canada, launching immediately at a price point of $7.99 per month. The company also announced that Apple's iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch will be compatible with the service and that the new Apple TV will also offer Netflix streaming once the device becomes available.

The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ASCI) today released new data on the personal computer industry, showing consumers awarding Apple the highest scores for the seventh straight year with a record satisfaction score of 86. Nearly all other computer manufacturers came in with scores of 77, with HP's Compaq brand bringing up the rear with a 74.

CNBC spoke with ASCI about the survey and learned that, while customers continue to like Apple's products and retail store experience, much of Apple's two-point gain from last year's results appears to be driven by the inclusion of the iPad, Apple's highest-scoring product, in the numbers.

I called David VanAmburg, managing director of ACSI, to get a sense for what's behind the scores. He told me Apple's overall score was up slightly because people like its computers and the retail support experience - but he also mentioned that the numbers included the iPad for the first time.

He told me that the iPad, even at this early stage, pulled up Apple's overall numbers - which makes it the highest-scoring product Apple has, and therefore the highest-scoring product ACSI has ever tracked.

Apple's nine-point lead over its nearest competitors is the largest for any industry tracked by ASCI and matches last year's margin over second-place Dell. Apple's largest margin over its competitors came in 2008, when it held a ten-point lead over second-place Dell in a year where most Windows PC manufacturers saw significant declines in customer satisfaction, reportedly due in large part to complaints about Windows Vista.

Fortune reports on a new research note from Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley which compares Apple's performance in the mobile phone industry to that of some of the other major players for the first half of 2010. According to the report, Apple sold 17 million iPhones during the first half of the year, a minuscule fraction of the 400 million handsets sold by top manufacturers Nokia, Samsung, and LG combined. But when looking at industry profits, Apple snagged 39% of the pie while the other three companies combined to take only 32%.

We are also impressed with Apple's ability to monetize its innovative products through selling high-margin consumer products that drive strong earnings results and growth trends for Apple shareholders. A case in point is the mobile phone market, where most handset OEMs struggle to post a profit or even 10% operating margins (except RIM and recently HTC), while we estimate Apple boasts roughly 50% gross margin and 30%+ operating margin for its iPhone products.

Walkley goes on to note that Apple "leads the industry in every metric except for unit share".

The data points to a continuation of a long-standing trend in the mobile phone industry that saw Apple taking 20% of profits in 2008 and 32% of profits in the first half of 2009.

Credit Suisse yesterday released the results of a customer survey examining what current customers are likely to do once AT&T loses its exclusivity for the iPhone in the United States. Silicon Alley Insider shares some of the charts from the presentation, which suggests that 23% of AT&T's iPhone customers could defect to Verizon if the phone were to launch on the carrier early next year.

A new survey from Credit Suisse says 63% of iPhone owners will stick with AT&T, even if it loses the exclusive right to sell the phone.

Where would AT&T iPhone owners go if given the chance? 23% will join Verizon, while 3% will go to Sprint, and 2% will go to T-Mobile.

Credit Suisse views AT&T's surveyed retention rate of 63% as a positive, calling fears of the effect of the loss of iPhone exclusivity for AT&T overblown.

Following the same rationale as that used by Morgan Stanley earlier this year, Credit Suisse estimates that approximately 8 million current Verizon customers would move to the iPhone should it become available on the carrier. That figure is calculated by using the internal iPhone adoption rate for AT&T of 16%, multiplying it by Verizon's customer base of 82.5 million, and accounting for nearly 5 million former Verizon customers who have already moved to AT&T for the iPhone.

Finally, Credit Suisse's data predicts that AT&T will have 18 million iPhone subscribers by the end of this year, up from nearly 13 million at the end of 2009 and 6.6 million at the end of 2008.