Jordan Kahn

When Apple started pushing its “Mastered for iTunes” section of albums “specially tuned for higher fidelity sound,” it also published a white paper detailing new guidelines asking publishers to submit high-resolution 24-bit/96kHz files instead of the original CD masters for inclusion in the section. Many were under the impression that the 100 or so albums in the new section are sonically closer to the original CD source in comparison to your average AAC encode from iTunes. According to British mastering engineer Ian Shepherd, “null testing” proves that is simply not true. In fact, he proves a “vanilla” iTunes AAC encoding with default settings sounds closer to the original CD than songs that were specifically “Mastered for iTunes.” Shepherd explained:

the fact that the new Apple encoders can correctly handle high sample rates, and should make a better job on the conversion, STILL doesn’t mean that the files will sound ‘closer to CD’… In fact, since at the end of the day we’re still getting a lossy encode, it’s my opinion that the advantages of higher bit-depths and sample rates will be completely outweighed by the AAC encoding.

Make no mistake; Shepherd does not have a problem with Apple’s guidelines for engineers submitting 24-bit/96kHz files for Mastered for iTunes. In fact, he said, “People may well prefer the “Mastered for iTunes” versions, and there is absolutely no reason not to make a specific master for a particular release format.” However, the point is the master you are getting from Mastered for iTunes, at least in Shepherd’s tests, sounds different from the original CD versions. The test proves the best way to get an iTunes AAC encode that sounds closest to the CD is to simply buy the CD, and then rip it in iTunes.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XW5aEQzTcW0]

In a decision that will inevitably lead to similar cases in the future, Associated Press reported a judge in California awarded an iPhone user $850 in a small claims case filed against AT&T that found the carrier guilty of throttling data speeds on the iPhone 4’s unlimited data plan. According to the iPhone user, who was grandfathered in to the unlimited data plan, his data was throttled after reaching between 1.5GB to 2GB of data in any given billing cycle:

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Apple CEO Tim Cook is taking questions at the Apple shareholders meeting in Cupertino right now (via CNBC). With Twitter integrated deeper into OS X in the recent Mountain Lion developer preview, we got Cook’s view on the competitor when one shareholder asked him about Apple’s relationship with Facebook and his thoughts on integrating social networking in general:

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mmiWTKZzBLY]

Last week we told you about the ultimate collection of Steve Jobs videos on Chill, and today Adweek compiled all 84 iPhone ads created by ad agency TBWA\Media Arts Lab over the last five years. The collection starts with the “Hello” teaser ad aired during the Oscars in 2007 (above), and it ends with the Siri Road Trip ad that debuted earlier this month. The same agency was behind the 66 “Get a Mac” ads, aka “PC vs Mac”, that ran until October 2009. You can check out Apple’s iPhone TV Ads: The Complete Campaign on Adweek now.

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California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris announced today an agreement with Apple and five other tech companies including Google, Amazon, HP, RIM, and Microsoft that will see all companies implementing new standards for displaying privacy policies for apps that collect personal data. The press release described the agreement:

The agreement with the platforms is designed to ensure that mobile apps comply with the California Online Privacy Protection Act. The Act requires operators of commercial web sites and online services, including mobile apps, who collect personally identifiable information about Californians to conspicuously post a privacy policy.

The new agreement will force Apple and the other companies to implement a method of displaying a privacy policy to the user before an app is downloaded. The announcement noted all platforms would include the feature in a consistent place on the “application-download screen.” The news follows a FTC report criticizing privacy issues of mobile apps for children and lawmakers issuing a letter to Apple following privacy concerns over Path’s use of contacts in the iPhone’s address book. The Attorney General plans to meet with the companies in six months to assess the progress of the agreement, and we will wait to hear from Apple on exactly how developers and the App Store will carry out the privacy policies. The press release said a recent study found only  approximately 5 percent of all mobile apps have a privacy policy. Attorney General Harris talked about the agreement:

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Although were not exactly sure when it went live, Apple seems to be rolling out a “Mastered for iTunes” section on iTunes worldwide that is populated with albums “specially tuned for higher fidelity sound.” Yesterday Universal Music Group announced several new additions to the section. New albums from UMG added to Mastered for iTunes include Madonna’s “MDNA,” U2’s “Achtung Baby,” Paul McCartney’s “Kisses On The Bottom,” and other albums from Bon Jovi, John Coltrane, and classical guitarist Kaori Muraji. Apple also recently published a white paper detailing best practices for mastering music for iTunes, and released new “Apple Audio Mastering Tools”…

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Developer ZeptoLab UK Limited released a Mac App Store version of its physics puzzler Cut the Rope originally released by publisher Chillingo on iOS in October 2010. According to Chillingo, the iOS game reached over 1 million downloads in just nine days and the franchise has now hit over 100 million downloads. The Mac App Store version is the first full desktop release of the game and it was optimized for landscape orientation with “crisp images on monitors up to 2560×1440 resolution.”

ZeptoLab also redesigned some of the game’s original levels for a smooth experience with mice and trackpads. Scoreloop is supported currently when it comes to online leaderboards, but the press release said there would be support for Game Center on OS X when it launches. The game is available on the Mac App Store now as a 133MB download and features 250 levels and 10 level boxes for $4.99 (requires Mac OS X 10.5 or higher). The full press release is after the break (via Reuters):

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Today The Beatles announced the band’s 27 United States and United Kingdom No. 1 hits are available as ringtones exclusively through iTunes (iTunes Link). The 30-second ringtones are downloadable now through iTunes on your iOS device and include hits such as “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “All You Need Is Love,” “Yesterday,” “Eleanor Rigby,” and 23 others. A full list of all 27 ringtones is after the break. If Steve were alive, these would undoubtedly be his ringtones of choice for his iPhone.

Jobs’ love for The Beatles is documented in Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography where we learned Jobs kept seven different albums from the band on his iPad. He even compared his creative process and business model to The Beatles describing the total being “greater than the sum of the parts.” That is probably a big part of the reason Apple fought so hard to ultimately secure exclusive rights to the band’s music that has lasted since Nov. 2010.

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Apple announced today the deadline for developers’ sandboxing their Mac App Store apps was extended from March 1 to June. The restriction coupled with the introduction of Apple’s Gatekeeper feature in Mountain Lion, which automatically prevents apps not signed by Apple recognized developers from running in 10.8, creates a much more controlled ecosystem for apps on OS X. Of course, Gatekeeper can at this point be easily bypassed to run non-Apple approved apps, and sandboxing is simply meant to limit an application’s control within the OS to prevent malicious activity. With tighter control over how apps run on Macs, some devs fear a more iOS-like environment for apps on OS X is on the way.

Related articles

• Mountain Lion isn’t a walled garden (yet), but it has a Gatekeeper (9to5mac.com)
• Mountain Lion available for download (9to5mac.com)

According to a forum post on tonymacx86, Apple’s latest release of Mountain Lion, the 10.8 developer preview, is able to natively support AMD Radeon HD 6950 and 6970 without the need for any tweaks or hacks. As for the 6950 and 6970 specifically, the reports originate from the netkas.org forums where several posters report a 6950 running Netkas EFI working natively in 10.8. One poster even reported the 6950 continues to be recognized in Lion with unmodified drivers after “warm booting back to Lion from Mountain Lion.”

There are still issues, as tonymacx86 posters pointed out: “It looks like the 69xx situation seems a bit immature and experimental at this point. Even in the new OS.” Another forum poster claimed NVIDIA 5xx cards also seem to run natively with mkchis claiming full support for the GTX 570 graphics card with no hacks or mods. He said it is “running at full res even smoother than a patched Lion. It’s like native.”

When it comes to booting from Mountain Lion to Lion with unmodified drivers, one poster warned it does not seem to work if you are connecting a display to the 6950. The good news is a prominent hackintosher informed us that Chimera was updated to run on both Lion and Mountain Lion with a dev release coming within days:

We’ve fixed Chimera to work with both LIon and Mtn. Lion- there was a small change necessary to boot 10.8. We’ll be releasing that in a day or 2 for devs.

As a side note for Mountain Lion support, Robservatory shared its method of getting VMware Tools to work when running Mountain Lion in VMware Fusion. According to the post, Mountain Lion “will kernel panic” when trying to install VMware Tools. Here is the fix:

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On the heels of improved iCloud integration in Mountain Lion, Microsoft made things a little more official today for its upcoming updated SkyDrive cloud service for Windows 8 and possibly OS X. The new service will include improved file management and synchronization, secure two-factor authentication for remote access to files not yet uploaded to Skydrive, and support for file uploads of 2GB. What makes things interesting are rumors of paid storage options and a Mac client originating from Gemind.com.br who posted (via ArsTechnica) screenshots from Windows Live of SkyDrive advertising clients for “PC or Mac”…

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PGKvRarc9Y&feature=player_embedded#!]

Adam Lashinsky, senior editor at large at Fortune and author of “Inside Apple” ($15-Amazon, Free Audio), has been doing many interviews since the release of his book detailing “How America’s Most Admired and Secretive Company Really Works.” He recently sat down to give a talk at the headquarters of online real estate company Zillow.

While the first half of the talk he discussed his motivation for writing ‘Inside Apple,” around the 7-minute mark he began to talk about life at Apple. He described Apple’s microscopic control over the message the company crafts “very carefully” in meetings, and he talked about how Steve Jobs had tight control over marketing—even after starting to hand parts of the company over to Tim Cook.

Lashinsky then told an anecdote from the book about Jobs emailing back and forth with a mid-level Apple employee responsible for writing an email to correspond with a keynote and product launch.
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You can see the area for solar has been cleared away in a picture taken earlier this week. Thanks PilotJohn!

Apple has just published its 2012 Facilities Report and Environmental Update detailing Apple’s environmental footprint, contributions, and energy savings throughout Apple retail stores, R&D buildings, and its data centers. Apple said in 2011 it recorded energy savings of 5 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) in Cupertino, and “dramatic reductions” in overall energy use. The report also detailed Apple’s Maiden, North Carolina data center as an example of the company’s “commitment to reduce the environmental impact of our facilities through energy efficient, green building design.”

In the report we learn a few things about the Maiden, North Carolina data center, which features a “white cool-roof” for increased solar reflectivity. Surrounding the facility will be the largest end user–owned, onsite solar array in the US consisting of a 100-acre, 20-megawatt facility that will provide approximately “42 million kWh of clean, renewable energy” each year.

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Despite reports from Reuters earlier this week profiling Fair Labor Association CEO Auret van Heerden’s positive reaction to the early inspections of Apple’s suppliers in Shenzhen, China, Bloomberg announced today van Heerden’s comments actually “reflected his previous interactions with Foxconn.” In contrast to Reuters original article, during a phone interview with Bloomberg, van Heerden said, “We’re finding tons of issues.”:

“We’re finding tons of issues. I believe we’re going to see some very significant announcements in the near future.”

Bloomberg explained van Heerden’s initial comments to Reuters, where he claimed iPad plants are “far better” than most other factories in the country, were based upon his reflections from earlier experiences with Foxconn and Apple:

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Apple’s merging of iOS with OS X continues today with our first glimpse at 10.8 Mountain Lion, the next major OS release for Macs. Of course, in the process of bringing the best of both worlds together, some things win out. In the case of Mountain Lion, several apps and features were replaced with their iOS counterparts. Here is everything from past OS X releases that died today at the hand of Apple’s iOS-ifying of Mountain Lion:

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The introduction of Mountain Lion brought OS X undeniably closer to merging with iOS. The majority of the update focuses on features originally designed for our iOS devices, and one of the most notable features is a Notification Center almost identical to the iOS 5 version.

The first things you will notice are small pop up notifications in the upper right corner of your screen. These are comparably to what you would have in popular open-source notification utility Growl, and they disappear after a few seconds if you choose not to click them. Like iOS, Apple also gives you the option of a notification that remains visible until you select either “Close” or “Snooze.” You can decide which of the two notification types you want for each individual app…

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With the consistent iOS-ifying of Mac OS X, and the introduction of Apple’s Mac App Store last year modeling the iOS App Store’s Apple-controlled distribution platform, some have questioned whether OS X will soon resemble the iOS ecosystem. That is, will Apple attempt to mirror the so-called “walled garden” approach of the App Store by requiring users to only run software specifically approved by Apple for use on Macs?

The good news is Apple’s OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion developer preview does not impose that restriction. Instead, Apple introduced “Gatekeeper,” a new system for developers to sign their apps, and a new method within System Preferences for users to better control which apps have access to their Mac. While claiming malware is “hardly an issue on a Mac,” Apple said Gatekeeper would improve security and help users avoid malicious software. By default, the feature only allows apps from the Mac App Store or those singed by identified Apple developers…

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To go with Apple’s announcement of the Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion developer preview, Apple CEO Tim Cook and worldwide marketing head Phil Schiller sat down for interviews with The Wall Street Journal at Apple headquarters in Cupertino. During the interview, Cook noted laptops will continue to exist alongside the tablet market, but merging the two products, and the different chips various Apple devices use, is a possibility the company is considering. Cook said, “We think about everything. We don’t close things off,” but he also noted the Mac is still “incredibly important.” He continued:
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As pointed out by @nickbilton of The New York Times on Twitter, a pretty extensive collection of Steve Jobs’ interviews, keynotes, product demos, and rare company video was compiled by Scott Hurf on the video sharing website Chill. Head over to the site now to check out the full collection.

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Do you remember when we told you Apple has an AirPlay Mirroring application for Mac OS X in development? It would allow you to wirelessly mirror what is on your Mac’s display to an Apple TV and a connected HDTV. While we are unsure if Apple plans to release the app, thanks to “AirParrot” we might have a half decent solution in the meantime. AirParrot is available now for $9.99, and it allows a user to mirror a Mac’s screen (OS X 10.6+) to a television through an Apple TV. Unfortunately, it is not a perfect solution yet…

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Despite Kodak filing for bankruptcy and planning to sell its digital camera business, Bloomberg reported that Apple asked permission from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to sue Kodak over patent infringement related to digital cameras, printers, and digital picture frames. Apple will also file a lawsuit in Manhattan with the U.S. District Court and a complaint with the International Trade Commission. If Apple is allowed to continue with the suit, it could request a block on the majority of products Kodak plans to focus on after closing its camera business:

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