9to5 Staff

Today’s highlights include: iPhone Q1 marketshare impacted as RIM, others engage in pre-3G model fight back, IDC explains; Adobe gets agile with Acrobat; Steve Jobs safe from options fall-out; Safari and Mac usage up; and Intel pushes WiMax and Centrino 2 at Computex. Oh yeah, Microsoft tells Windows users to avoid Safari, citing S.E.C.U.R.I.T.Y., because Windows is so incredibly secure without the Apple browser (yeah, right..).

iPhone Q1 marketshare

IDC reports Apple’s iPhone took 19.2 per cent of the US smartphone market in the first quarter, down from 26.7 per cent in the Christmas quarter of 2007. Research In Motion’s BlackBerry took 44.5 per cent in the first quarter, the analysts said. While being reported as some kind of tragedy, it’s pretty clear that most potential iPhone customers are now simply waiting for the 3G model, so we anticipate the marketshare equation will soon see change, it’s just a blip, we reckon.

Adobe Acrobat

Making another move to develop its online software-as-service platform/offering (AJAX, AIR, Flash et al.), Adobe’s introduced a new version of Acrobat that’s equipped with Flash support and other high-end design features. Boosting the software release, the company’s also opened up its Acrobat.com service, a free beta trial of PDF-based online collaboration, creation, storage, web conferncing and management tools as it keeps pushing the paperless office pipedream.

Steve Jobs – safe?

Well, according to Forbes, Apple CEO Steve Jobs now seems unlikely to be slammed with a US government lawsuit over stock options backdating irregularities at both Apple and Pixar. Seems SEC don’t want to take one of the most famous US businessmen down. Action has been taken against former Apple and Pixar execs, though.

Safari, Mac usage climbs

Safari usage online crossed 6 per cent for the first time last month as Mac use continues to climb online, says Net Applications. The figures? Mac OS takes 7.83 per cent, iPhone 0.16 per cent, iPod touch grabs 0.03 per cent while Safari achieves a record new 6.25 per cent marketshare.

Intel pushing WiMax

We know we’re possibly ahead of the curve in speculating Apple plans to push WiMax in future devices and computers, but with key partner Intel seemingly utterly determined to generate mass deployment of such devices and systems, we can’t believe the two firms don’t discuss it from time to time. This week, Intel will show Centrino 2 laptops equipped with WiMax support at Computex. It’s just a shame the Centrino 2 processor’s been delayed until later in the year.

Microsoft’s anti-Safari security salvo

This makes us laugh. Microsoft’s warning Windows users to avoid Apple’s Safari web browser on their platform. Why? Because a recently disclosed flaw can let attackers fill up a victim’s desktop with malicious .exe files. We reckon a safer bet for Windows users is to "ex-" Windows – and these days the market seems to agree…

IMAGE: We plan on using a picture of Award-winning artist, Adam Reeder ‘s sculpture, Pan With His iPod, which took first place in San Francisco Academy of Art University’s Annual Spring Show this year. Sculptor explains, "In mythology Pan played his flute and danced in the woods. In my sculpture, the flute is replaced with an iPod. The nature of Pan hasn’t changed, but the context in which he is seen has changed. The technology has changed what Pan is doing." (We’re just tinkering with the site at present, and images are a little troublesome…sorry…

No big surprise here…we’ve been telling you about this for months.  Today, however, the iPhone Movistar went official with a webpage and everything.  As per usual, no launch date, specifications or anything of interest.

One more week!

UPDATE: WOOPS!  Looks like someone jumped the gun.  The site is down, Movistar and Apple both quiet.  Ouchy

In addition to the mobileme.com as we reported on Friday, it looks like Apple is set to change the .Mac service to me.com as well.  MacRumors found some Apple names in the registration information of me.com which now point to snapsville.com – a social networking site.

Markmonitor is sure doing a poor job of hiding Apple’s domain ambitions.

As there is much code in the upcoming iPhone SDK linking to mobileme.com where .Mac used to exist, it is likely that the upgrade will be announced at WWDC with direct tie-ins with the new iPhone and iPhone software.

Why change from .Mac to me.com?  Very likely so that the service can become  Cross-platform. 

We’ll see next week!

 Apple’s chief designer, Jonathan Ive, is going green, with a new home in the UK.

We make no secret that we love and respect the work and care Ive has put into his products over the years, and we welcome that he’s gone and invested £2.5 million in a brand new house in the UK.

He’s purchased a 10-bedroom Grade II listed manor house in the South West. This substantial pile has a 53-acre estate – quite befitting a man who has emerged to be one of the, if not the, leading product designers, a credit and inspiration to UK creative design. And, incidentally, one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Ive is retrofitting his lovely Georgian residence (a style of English architecture that dates from between 1720 and 1840, fact-fans) to be a green palace: it will be kitted-out with solar water heating, a biomass boiler to burn wood chips from the 17,000 trees being planted on the estate, and a reed-bed filtration system for waste water.

At present, Ive lives with his wife and two twin four-year-old sons in a two-bedroom house in Twin Peaks, California. He has a weak spot for Aston-Martins, which we imagine will look incredibly cool as he motors up the estate’s drive.

(By the way, the image isn’t the mansion in question and even if we knew we wouldn’t say where Ive’s new pad is situated, that’s his business.)

All this talk that .Mac’s set for a re-branding and service improvements sent us away to search for some more incidental information. Here’s what we’ve come up with:

– Apple filed an application for the Mobile Me trademark in January 2006. (Source, Daring Fireball).

– The Mobile Me URL was transferred to one of Apple’s favourite domain registrars, Mark Monitor, on 11 January, 2007. It was parked on 13 January, 2007.

– Mark Monitor serves up to half the Fortune 500 companies, and was last widely discussed in connection with Apple earlier this year when it purchased the following domains on behalf of Apple: MacBookAir.net, MacBookAir.org, MacBookAir.us, MacBookAir.info, MacBookAir.biz.

– These domains were registered on Apple’s behalf (as it turned out) by Mark Monitor just before the Macworld keynote this year, when Apple introduced the MacBook Air.

– Mark Monitor is also the registrant of record for Apple.com, iPhone.com and numerous additional Apple URLs.

– Today’s reports all claim Apple to have carefully hidden code within Mac OS X 10.5.3 that would enable the company to rename .Mac and its services with a subsequent update.

– Current rumours suggest .Mac is set to be revised with a host of new features, including ‘push’ email. It has also recently been claimed Apple will abandon its .Mac trademark in preference for a non-Mac-based mark in order to offer a version of its service to Windows users.

– Given Apple’s focus on mobile phones with iPhone, is it possible the company plans to finally enable portability of a user’s Home folder? If it does, will it make this a feature of .Mac, under the Mobile Me trademark?

Returning to the MobileMe trademark, here’s what it covers:

“Telecommunication services; electronic transmission and retrieval of data, images, audio, video and documents, including text, cards, letters, messages, mail, animations, and electronic mail, over local or global communications networks, including the internet, intranets, extranets, television, mobile communication, cellular and satellite networks; electronic transmission of computer software over local or global communications networks, including the internet, intranets, extranets, television, mobile communication, cellular, and satellite networks; electronic mail services; facsimile transmission; web site portal services; providing access to databases and local or global communications networks, including the internet, intranets, extranets, television, mobile communication, cellular, and satellite networks; internet service provider services; message transmission services, namely, electronic transmission of messages; telecommunication services for the dissemination of information by mobile telephone, namely the transmission of data to mobile telephones; mobile telephone communication services.” (Source, once again, Daring Fireball).

Oh, and if this isn’t enough…"MobileMe" has been found in a number of iPhone SDK files…

 Here in the land of Mac we’ve been gleefully wishing May out of the way as we wait in excitement for Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ keynote session at WWDC this year – we all hope the company will announce the next-generation iPhone during the event.

We still do.

However, we’ve just learned that Apple will not be holding an exclusive invite-only media event in London during the keynote session. And while the keynote is expected to be made available on video after the event, there will be no chance in Europe for people outside of Apple to watch what Jobs says as it happens.

This may mean nothing at all, but given Apple’s penchant in recent years for inviting select media to the BBC for a chance to watch a satellite feed of the Jobs-note, we’re beginning to wonder if there’s a reason the company doesn’t plan to invite them this time.

We all anticipate Apple will introduce the 3G iPhone at the show, but Apple has previously only said it intends the keynote to focus on Mac OS X and iPhone software development. What if it meant what it said?

What if the lack of an as it happens satellite feed to European media in London means the 3G iPhone won’t be announced at the show?

In brief we’re saying: There will be no live satellite feed going out from WWDC 2008 to European media. We speculate this could mean the keynote speech will be 100 per cent focused on developers. Makes sense, it’s a developer’s event. We want your opinion on this, drop them into the comments below.

Around the Web it’s kind of quiet really, essentially what’s emerging today includes: Apple prepares to upgrade .Mac; Steve Jobs is an iPhone inventor; a series of sync solutions for Macs and various devices have appeared; some Web sites think Apple may have filmed an iPhone commercial in a New York retail store; and Apple plans its biggest ever student promotion in the US.

Apple preps .Mac upgrade

We hoped for it, we dreamed of it, we even chanted ourselves silly so one day Apple would make .Mac worth paying for. Well, looks like our hopes may be answered, with news of a re-branding of the service. A name change just won’t be enough, so we rather hope for new features, too.

Steve Jobs iPhone

He invented the iPhone, you know, it says so right here. And the device will offer video conferencing and GPS, video recording and a blogging app. Yippee!!

Sync solutions

Could the wave of syncronisation solutions reaching the Mac be connected to work completed in preparation for the mooted .Mac upgrade? We’d ask the developers, but they won’t break an NDA. Check these apps:

MarkSpace – Missing Sync for Windows/Palm 

Nova – FoneLink 2.0 for Macs.

Filming the commercials

Apple seen filming commercial at New York Fifth Avenue Store. We see no sense repeating this, when those enthusiastic eagle-eyed watchers at The iLife have a live blog, pictures and everything. Rumour has it Apple was filming a commercial for the new 3G iPhone. (Oh yeah, the iLife servers are being hammered right now, expect slow loads etc., etc..)

Knowledge is power

“Education is in our DNA,” Apple executives are prone to say, and with the company now being the biggest laptop seller to US education – bigger than those fraudulent, deceptive and false advertising types over there at Dell – then it’s pretty clear Apple’s preparing to up the ante to consolidate its place in the market. The company will next week launch a promotion to those eligible under its student discount scheme, offering the best set of incentives yet to stimulate sales. A little bird told us that some think an iPod touch may be part of the tantalizing temptation, as Apple weaves together another slice of its wireless ecosystem.

 We thought while you were waiting you may enjoy this video of Japanese researchers playing a game they apparently built in an hour, Multiplayer Pong.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LdpmxHE7VU&hl=en]

Thanks to TUAW for the heads-up.

 First signs that investors are beginning to chase the potential gravy train that is iPhone application development emerges in force today with news that New York’s Pinch Media has attracted initial funding from Union Square Ventures, First Round Capital and a few other investors.

Founded in April by Greg Yardley and Jesse Rohland, the company today introduced its first product. Aimed at iPhone application developers, Pinch Analytics is a free hosted analytics service that lets iPhone developers track how their applications are used. Developers must integrate the software within their iPhone SDK application, once it is it will track handy statistics such as the number of unique, active users, the length of time your application is being used, and if enabled, the geographic location of your users. The software should help developers understand how many people actually use their applications.

“We’re ridiculously pleased to get this out to developers, so we can see how it performs on a wide variety of applications. If you’re building something with the SDK, check us out – we’d love your feedback. We’re already working on our next iteration of Pinch Analytics and our additional products for iPhone apps, and getting ready for WWDC in early June,” the company said.

Pinch Media wouldn’t exist without the revolutionary nature of the iPhone and its software development kit – for the first time, mobile is moving unambiguously from a medium that does less than the desktop to one that does more, with the iPhone leading and forcing change throughout the entire market. “We’ll be discussing the implications of the iPhone and its SDK here in much more detail in the weeks ahead,” they explained.

 Apple’s 3G iPhone launch plans may have seen a slight delay, at least, reading between the lines of today’s profit warning from mooted chip supplier, Infineon.

What has occurred? Infineon today warned its profits and sales would be impacted by a delay in a project to supply components to Nokia. The company also said Infineon had also received lower orders than expected for a project to supply HSDPA chips for high-speed internet phones. This immediately generated analyst speculation Apple’s new iPhone would “launch at lower volumes”.

"In our view the profit warning has been caused by ramp changes of next generation iPhone," UBS analyst Nicolas Gaudouis said as reported by Reuters.

JP Morgan analyst Sandeep Deshpande also speculated on a change in Apple’s iPhone launch plan, saying: "It could be possible that the lower volumes in the certain platform ramp cited could be Apple reducing the initial launch volume."

It’s all speculation, of course, as Infineon has never confirmed it will supply chips for the iPhone – but code indicating deployment of one of its chips was found within the iPhone SDK last month. A later report indicated United Microelectronics Corporation had been contracted to produce the chips for Infineon for use in the iPhone. 

This news follows recent “rumours of a rumour” that the 3G iPhone release has been delayed, but the veracity of those claims remains extremely dubious.

Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. was claimed to have secured the manufacturing deal for the 3G iPhone in March.

 Impatient Mac users in the UK have been complaining that while the BBC streams shows to their platform using iPlayer, it doesn’t yet allow them to download shows for offline viewing, a feature Windows users already enjoy.

Things have changed.

Developer wizard_drongo has released an application called iPlayer Downloader which enables Mac users to download shows from iPlayer in the QuickTime format. It’s not a legal tool, as the software also eradicates and DRM on iPlayer shows, meaning episodes can be transferred to other devices, encoded into different media, and watched beyond the BBC’s permitted window for using such content.

It’s highly probable the BBC will move fast to undermine the hack used in the software in order to protect its service and its content suppliers, but meanwhile Mac users with a penchant for Doctor Who can build their unofficial collection of digital recordings.

The move is likely to increase the pressure on the BBC to enable show downloads for Mac users, the company has promised to make such features available later this year. This will only allow Mac users to watch content for a defined period, after which downloaded files will cease to work.

 The New York Attorney General’s office is urging customers who believe they have been victims of Dell’s deceptive and negligent business practices to get in touch in order to claim compensation.

The Attorney General has launched a website through which customers affected by Dell’s dubious dealings can register their complaints in an attempt to seek compensation.

The move follows this week’s judgment against the computer company in which New York State Supreme Court Judge Joseph Teresi declared Dell had engaged in fraud, false advertising, deceptive business and abusive debt collection practices. The company was also found guilty of a sustained pattern of depriving customers of tech support.

The new website explains itself to be: “Dedicated exclusively to your complaints against Dell and/or Dell Financial Services. To file your complaint, you may complete the Form made available to you online. Additionally, please download your copy of the completed printable Complaint Form, sign and mail it with any related documentation.” 

The site also offers a couple of examples of Dell’s abusive practices, one being particularly telling: “When 67-year-old Barbara Williams, President of the Crochet Sewing Guild, bought a Dell computer, she also purchased 3 years “on site service.” When Ms. Williams’ computer crashed, she called Dell’s technical support. Ms. Williams says Dell simply abandoned her for 2 months before agreeing to send a technician to her home.”

In another stated example, a customer was convinced to purchase a Dell computer using Dell’s own finance scheme. While offered a good rate, the customer was then switched to a different plan with a 29 per cent interest rate – this customer’s regular credit card would have charged no more than 8 per cent.

Dell shares are currently trading at $21.69 with the company scheduled to reveal its Q1 earnings today. Should company founder and now CEO Michael Dell simply sell the company and return the money to company shareholders?

Image: Thanks to Gizmodo, image illustrates a Dell laptop bursting into flames at a conference in Japan in 2006.

 Apple has reached a deal to bring the iPhone to Hong Kong and Macau, the latest in a plethora of agreements to widen the addressable market for the next-generation of the product.

The company will offer the iPhone in Hong Kong and Macau through Hutchison Telecommunications International. More details regarding availability and pricing will be revealed at a later juncture, Bloomberg explains. The device is expected to ship in the new territories later this year. The report observes Apple to also be discussing iPhone launches in China and Japan, through China Mobile and NTT DoCoMo, respectively.

This week it was revealed the company will introduce iPhone in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia through TeliaSonera AB, while Royal KPN NV has confirmed it is also in talks with Apple to sell the iPhone in the Netherlands.

Vodafone will sell the iPhone in India, Australia, and New Zealand, while SingTel and its affiliates will offer the device in Singapore, India, the Philippines and Australia.

With deals for Canada (Rogers Telecom), South America (America Movil) and numerous destinations in Africa and Europe already on the table, the only major country so far not to reveal any launch plan is Russia. We have a list of countries claimed so far just here.

 Apple is preparing to announce film download and rental services through iTunes in the UK and Canada.

The company is understood to have reached deals with Disney, Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Lions Gate and MGM under which iTunes in both named countries will begin offering popular films for purchase and rental using Apple’s service. The move is likely to help boost Apple TV sales, and to improve the utility of iPod and iPhones.

Despite the lack of costs of manufacture or distribution of physical product, the studios have insisted they don’t want to undercut DVD prices with the move, suggesting prices for films will be set between £6 and £25, depending on the title, according to a report in The Times. The eternal refuseniks, Sony Pictures and Universal Studios have refused to agree the new deal at this point, the report claims.

Disney CEO Bob Iger last year explained his company has sold four million films and 40-50 million videos through iTunes since making its media available through the service in 2006.

In the US, Apple has reached deals to offer films through iTunes on the same day they ship on DVD.

Apple has introduced the sixth version of its iPhone SDK, saying it includes support for the ‘latest iPhone software’.

The new release also requires that Mac OS X 10.5.3 be installed, the company said, revealing the SDK won’t work with previous operating systems.

The  1.19GB download is available from the iPhone Dev Center and includes a complete set of tools, compilers, frameworks, and documentation, including an iPhone Simulator for testing. 

Release notes detailing the new version are available here. 

One new feature within the recent Mac OS X 10.5.3 upgrade saw better support for Google. The Address Book application in Mac OS X 10.5.3 now lets iPhone users sync their Address Book with Google Contacts. To try it, go to the Address Book menu, choose Preferences, and then check Synchronize with Google. It’ll ask for your Google account and password, then automatically update your contacts every time you sync your iPhone, reveals Google.

 Bonjour mes braves. French Mac news website, MacGeneration, has the skinny – TV shows are on the way to iTunes Store France.

Why do they know? Because they’ve spotted that searching Apple’s digital media service for specific shows (Desperate Housewives, for example) yields results. DP (Desperate Housewives) series one costs €51.99 for the entire series of 24 episodes, while DP2 (23 shows) costs €49.99, so shows set you back €2.49 each ($3.89, £1.97). They’ve spotted more – South Park, Sponge Bob Square Pants and other US, erm, shows, are also mentioned (according to our fairly flawed French-reading abilities)…Vive La France, gens…

These things are difficult to achieve on account of rights clearance, so we don’t expect TV shows immediately in the event Apple should manage to roll out iTunes Store coverage globally when the iPhone launches worldwide. Though that last part’s pure speculation, of course. 

Weighing in at a hefty 420 MB for newer MacBook Pros, Leopard 10.5.3 was released today.  All going well for you out there?  Oh and once you are done with the huge upgrade you can tax your ISP some more with the iPhone SDK Beta 6.

 Another in our series of re-runs, in homage to Ballmer’s appearance at the D: All Things Digital event last night – here’s an old commercial for Windows. Enjoy…(Thanks to ‘9 to 5 Newb’ for the link).

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL4hyATkQ74&hl=en]

Samsung has switched to Apple’s Safari browser in its latest Symbian-powered smartphone, the Samsung L870.

The new device was introduced today at Barcelona’s S60 trade show. It runs Symbian v9.3 and S60 third Edition Feature Pack 2, but it’s the alleged use of the Safari browser that’s most likely to raise a stir, as it’s the same browser as used on the iPod touch and iPhone.

That consumer electronic powerhouse Samsung has chosen to adopt Apple’s world class browser for its new device underlines the success of the iPhone. It also reflects the strong relationship between the two firms – Samsung provides much of Apple’s flash memory, for example, and Apple made a $100 million tactical investment in the company for display production in 1999.

Aimed at business users, the 50-x-102-x-13.5mm Samsung L870 has a 2.4-inch colour TFT screen (display resolution 240-x-320). The tri-band L870 also carries an FM tuner, microphone, speaker, and a 3.1-megapixel camera.

L870’s pre-installed applications include an advanced task manager Checkit, PIMs (Personal information manager) homescreen, Team manager and business card recognition function.

"We are happy to compliment our product portfolio with yet another appealing S60 mobile, Samsung L870 that is fully customized with style, performance and user interface," said Jongin Kim, Vice President of Mobile Communication Division of Samsung Electronics. "With S60, we can successfully deliver the latest mobile technology with fully customizable applications and intuitive user interfaces."

The Samsung SGH-L870 will be available in Europe around August this year.

Should other phone manufacturers migrate to Safari, the move may call into question the future for Windows Mobile, though Apple is unlikely to license OS X Mobile for smartphones to other manufacturers, at least, on previous form.

 On strength of the multiplicity of soon-available applications, Apple will sell 20 million iPhones by the end of 2009, selling another 10 million in 2010, says Goldman Sachs.

"Third-party applications will differentiate the iPhone from a growing number of its smartphone competitors,” analyst David Bailey told The Financial Post. The analyst pointed out that deployment of Mac OS X on the device offers a “more robust” application development environment for developers, with the App Store promising a much better user experience, likely to sell more applications than existing smartphone application purchasing systems.

The analyst predicts applications will cost between 99-cents and $29.99, depending on how sophisticated the apps are, he also anticipates some smaller software solutions will be made available at no charge to iPhone users.

Predicting a huge number of applications for the device, the analyst pointed out, “Apple’s expanding addressable market for iPhone applications, in turn, should attract software developers’ interest and development resources, leading to a broader selection of third-party applications available at the App Store.”

Meanwhile, the pre-release hype for the next-generation device and continued anticipation for the upcoming iPhone Software 2.0 remains. The existing model is in ever-shorter supply worldwide, prompting Roger Entner, senior vice president at market research firm IAG Nielsen to observe Apple to be managing supply to prevent disappointing customers. “You can say what you want about Steve Jobs, but he’s learning from his mistakes. They are cleaning out the supply channel.”

A wave of recent deals with mobile telecoms firms suggests Apple hopes to sell millions of units of the device within weeks of its debut, with the only major countries without an iPhone distribution agreement at present being Japan, Russia and China. Apple has otherwise inked deals that mean the iPhone will be available to over 600 million mobile phone users worldwide (estimated). At present, the device, which has sold just over five million units, is available to a potential 153 million users.

Mobile networks now concede iPhone users are colossal consumers of data bandwidth – mainly because the device actually lets them use such connectivity in a useful and approachable way. T-Mobile iPhone customers consume 30 times more data than its other wireless customers, the New York Times claims.

 New York State Supreme Court Judge Joseph Teresi ruled against Dell yesterday, declaring the company had engaged in fraud, false advertising, deceptive business and abusive debt collection practices.

The judge slammed the company for luring customers with ads that offered "no interest" or "no payment" financing options, but its financing arm would charge customers higher rates than those promised.

The company was also slammed for a sustained pattern in which Dell deprived customers of technical support that they bought or were eligible for under warranty. Cited cases included extremely long waits for tech support to answer calls, repeated transfers of calls and frequent disconnections of support calls.

Dell also often failed to provide onsite repairs for customers who bought contracts for such support and often blamed software when hardware was actually the problem, the court found, IDG News Service reports.

In a final flourish, the court also found users who complained of technical problems with their products before the expiration of their free tech support period would then not be offered any succour once their warranties expired.

The courts will now decide just how much Dell will have to pay its customers in compensation, and just how much cash the company must hand over to the State of New York, an amount which must equate to the profits it made through these practices.

That Dell engaged in these dubious acts suggests just how bad a deal consumers in the sub-$1,000 PC segment actually receive.