Apple

Bloomberg has a lengthy piece illustrating just how great a challenge it is for Apple and other multinational companies to ensure the fair treatment of workers in complex supply chains.

When one of Apple’s suppliers like Flextronics wins a new contract, it needs to take on additional workers – lots of them, and fast. Those workers are recruited through employment brokers, which are required to adhere to Apple’s rules. But many of them are brought in from other countries, like Malaysia and Nepal.

Alok Taparia, the managing director of Transworld Manpower, another of the four Nepalese brokers retained for that drive, says he was given clear instructions: Workers shouldn’t be charged; Flextronics would pay the brokers. But Taparia and the other Nepalese brokers say Flextronics demanded so many men so quickly that there was no way to do it without tapping the country’s network of subagents, stretching into Himalayan villages reachable only by foot. As Apple itself has described in reports on its supply chain, the subagents always charge…

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iWatch concept by Stephen Olmstead

An Apple patent filing filed today suggests that Apple may be working on a way to make its long-rumored iWatch slimmer than existing offerings by reducing the size of the battery required.

One of the barriers to widespread adoption of smartwatches is that existing models are not exactly sleek. Technology lovers might be willing to put function ahead of form and put up with chunky devices, but the wider market buys on style first, technology second.

While the Bluetooth LE protocol used by existing smartwatches uses around half the power of classic Bluetooth (peaking at 15mA instead of 30mA), a constant connection in a device you won’t want to charge daily still requires a reasonably chunky battery. What Apple’s patent proposes is for an on-demand creation of a Bluetooth connection between two devices, one with radio capabilities (aka an iPhone), one without … 
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iPhone 5s Teardown via <a href="http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+5s+Teardown/17383">iFixit</a>

Apple is gearing up to soon begin hardware repairs for the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c in its chain of retail stores, according to sources with knowledge of the upcoming initiative. These sources say that Apple Stores will be able to replace several parts of the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c on-site, meaning that Apple will no-longer need to fully replace iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c units with damage or other problems…

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Apple has seeded two software upgrades for OS X Mavericks internally, according to a source with knowledge of the upcoming updates. This person says that the updates are labeled as OS X 10.9.1 and OS X 10.9.2. The first update is expected to be released later this month, and it will serve as an update to squash bugs that accompanied the OS X 10.9.0 release of Mavericks last month. Many users have complained about issues relating to the Mail and iBooks applications, and Apple is preparing to release individual bug-fix updates for those apps in the coming days…

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The handy Apple Tracker site that allowed people to check Apple Store availability for new products has closed its doors after receiving a DMCA takedown notice from Apple.

I’ve decided to turn off the site. I’m not doing this because I want to, but rather because I received a DMCA takedown notice (you can see the full text below) from Apple. I’m not really interested in picking a fight with apple so … I guess it time to just say good bye … 
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Apple’s share of the U.S. smartphone market grew by 0.7 percent in the last quarter to reach 40.6 percent, according to comScore data.

Sales of low-cost handsets mean that Android’s position as leading mobile platform is safe, with a marginal drop to 51.8 percent of the market, but Apple remained top of the vendor rankings …

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In light of the recent reporting in regards to the NSA and governments across the world and their connection to the data that technology companies hold on their customers, Apple has published a lengthy document detailing its customer privacy policies.

Additionally, the company has published charts that detail how many customer data requests it has received Between the beginning of January and end of June this year from governments.

Breakdown of important details:

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyX8FfSKg04

Knock uses a combination of an iPhone app (currently offered at an introductory price of $3.99)  and a Mac app (available for free at Knock’s website) to enable unlocking of your Mac, wirelessly, by just knocking the back of your iPhone.

It’s a surreal experience. After a couple of minutes of initial setup, you lock your Mac and rap the back of your paired iPhone twice. Your Mac unlocks. The app doesn’t even have to be forefront on your phone, although it does have to be ‘open’ in the multitasking tray. In fact, your phone doesn’t even have to be unlocked. When it senses the Mac is near, a notification appears on the lock screen instructing you to knock. There are some nice UI touches too. For instance, echoes of the ‘sound wave’ appear on OS X’s lock screen in real time as you knock. It’s a subtle visual indicator that the system is actually working.

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Low-energy Bluetooth is really starting to take-off in a big way, with seemingly every other product on the main crowdsourced-funding sites using it. One product that actually exists, though, is the Elgato Smart Key – which appears good value at just $40.

If you can’t remember where you last saw your keys, the Elgato Smart Key iPhone app will tell you the GPS location of where the two devices were last in contact. Through the app you’ll also be able to make the Smart Key play a sound to help you find your keys when they are down the back of the sofa. Not only that, but attach them to your keys and your iPhone will alert you when you walk off and leave them somewhere. Leave one in the glove compartment of your car, and the app will show you were you parked a if you need reminding … 
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Research firm IHS, which previously dismantled the iPhone 5s and 5c to calculate component costs, has now done the same with the iPad Air.

It concludes that while the technology in the iPad Air is significantly more advanced than in the iPad 3 (for some reason the company skipped the iPad 4), the total production cost is actually lower, reports AllThingsD.

The firm says Apple’s iPad Air […] costs between $274 and $361 to build depending on model. The […] total component cost of the base model, at $274, is still $42 cheaper than the entry-level third-generation iPad …

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Introduced by Apple at the September 10 iPhone 5s event, Nike has launched its Nike+ Move application for the iPhone 5s. The app was originally scheduled to arrive on November 6th alongside the new FuelBand SE hardware, but it appears that Nike unleashed the program a bit early.

The application requires an iPhone 5s as it is completely based off of the new iPhone’s M7 motion co-processor chipset. The M7 chip, which Apple plans to integrate with its own mapping software next year, works with the iPhone’s motion sensors (like the compass and accelerometer) to provide by reliable data while simultaneously improving the phone battery’s overall efficiency.

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In addition to the incoming OS X Mavericks Mail Update that we reported on previously, sources say that Apple is readying a slew of performance and bug fix updates for several other OS X Mavericks applications. According to the updates seeded today to Apple employees, Apple is preparing updates for iBooks, Safari, and the Remote Desktop Client apps:

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Update: It appears this may be a function of the 1TB drives fitted to both 13- and 15-inch models. The reason for this isn’t yet clear: it may be the drives used offer greater bandwidth.

Benchmark tests by French site Mac4Ever show that the latest MacBook Pro 15 is delivering SSD read and write speeds in excess of 1GB per second. The site repeatedly achieved these speeds when Apple claims only “up to 775MB per second.”

The MBP 15 is able to achieve these speeds because it has a 4-channel PCIe connection to the SSD, in contrast to the 2-channel link on the MBP 13 and MacBook Air models, though from some reader reports this may be the case only on models fitted with 1TB drives …

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Tracking data from Fiksu suggests that iPad Air adoption may be outpacing both the iPad 4 and the iPad Mini by around four to one. The numbers are as yet very small, but three days in, iPad Air usage hit 0.8 percent of active devices versus less than 0.2 percent for the iPad 4 by the same time …

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Henri Lamiraux, Apple’s top Vice President of Engineering for the iOS iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch operating system has left the company, according to a source and corroborated by his LinkedIn profile.

Lamiraux confirmed his departure to me via email. He says that he retired from Apple a “couple of weeks” ago, following the release of iOS 7.0.3. Lamiraux decided a “little while ago” that iOS 7 would be his last release…

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Update: In a back and forth with a reporter over Twitter last night (below), Legere confirmed what many of us had found out through the website and online: You need to be a T-Mobile customer to get the 200mb of free data.

Back on the announcement date of the new iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display, many potential iPad with Cellular users were excited to see that “un-carrier” T-Mobile USA would be offering 200MB of data per month at no charge.

However, several readers and tipsters today noted that when trying to purchase a T-Mobile-optimized iPad Air, the carrier would actually charge $10 per month for that 200MB of data. The exception was apparently for subscribers to voice smartphone plans on T-Mobile; these customers would be credited back the $10 of data each month.

Now, T-Mobile CEO John Legere has responded to this mixup by noting that there are “no strings attached.” He calls the charges an “executional mistake” and notes that the situation will be corrected…

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As it has been known to do for recent Apple product launches, Walmart announced last week that it would be offering a $20 discount on Apple’s new entry-level 16GB iPad Air starting as soon as the device launches tomorrow on November 1. Now, on launch day of the device in the US, we’ve confirmed that both Apple and Best Buy will be price matching the $479 deal in at least its retail stores. Staples has also decided to join in the day-one iPad Air discount and is currently listing the $479 price point on its website. 
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