Apple

With Apple currently allowing the Fair Labor Association to inspect the working conditions of its supply chains abroad, a new report from NPR profiled 25 of the 59 workers injured in an explosion at the Pegatron iPad factory in Shanghai, China last December (audio here – MP3). The explosion was attributed to a build-up of aluminum particles. According to Pegatron, it started in the machinery meant to collect the dust. Today’s report from NPR gives us a look into the conditions of the Shanghai plant before, during, and after the explosion from the eyes of workers.

A similar explosion months before in May at a Foxconn factory in Chengdu was the focus of The New York Times’ recent story sparking controversy over Apple’s suppliers. Zhang Qing explained to NPR that Apple inspected the Shanghai factory just hours before the explosion:

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=098wGRRCnOU]

Love this idea for controlling your Mac – especially for applications which don’t require you to be near your computer.  Apple has lots of patents on 3D gestures so it wouldn’t be absurd to see some of this at the OS level in the not-so-distant future.

Download here
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In a rare Q&A with the Evening Standard‘s Mark Prigg from the firm’s headquarters, Apple’s design guru talks about Apple’s design process and of course the competition.

When asked what made design different at Apple, Ive responded:

A: We struggle with the right words to describe the design process at Apple, but it is very much about designing and prototyping and making. When you separate those, I think the final result suffers. If something is going to be better, it is new, and if it’s new you are confronting problems and challenges you don’t have references for. To solve and address those requires a remarkable focus. There’s a sense of being inquisitive and optimistic, and you don’t see those in combination very often.

On the genesis of new products:

A: What I love about the creative process, and this may sound naive, is this idea that one day there is no idea, and no solution, but then the next day there is an idea. Where you see the most dramatic shift is when you transition from an abstract idea to a slightly more material conversation. But when you make a 3D model, however crude, you bring form to a nebulous idea and everything changes — the entire process shifts. It galvanises and brings focus from a broad group of people. It’s a remarkable process.

Apple’s goal when building a new product:

A: Our goals are very simple — to design and make better products. If we can’t make something that is better, we won’t do it.

Why is the competition seemingly unable to keep pace with Apple?:

A:Most of our competitors are interested in doing something different, or want to appear new — I think those are completely the wrong goals. A product has to be genuinely better. This requires real discipline, and that’s what drives us — a sincere, genuine appetite to do something that is better.

One particularly interesting comment regarded the praise Ive has for Apple’s iOS iPhoto team (which I do not believe Ive is involved with). He gushed, “The iPhoto app we created for the new iPad completely consumes you and you forget you are using an iPad.”

The entire interview is a great read.

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Bloomberg quotes a Gartner analyst:

“I don’t expect Apple to replace Samsung any time soon,” Gartner analyst Sandy Shen said in an interview. “China Telecom [story] is the nation’s smallest carrier, so the extent to which they can help Apple is quite limited.”

The 16.8 percentage-point gap in China between Cupertino, California-based Apple and Samsung almost doubled from the third quarter. While Samsung is No. 1 and Apple No. 5 in China, the global story is different: Worldwide, Apple passed its Suwon, South Korea-based competitor to become the biggest smartphone vendor in the fourth quarter, according to Gartner.

When you consider that the iPhone is not yet made for China’s dominant carrier, which holds two-thirds of a BILLION customers, the news that Samsung is gaining market share on Apple is not surprising (15 million iPhones ride on incompatible China Mobile).

I will be surprised, however, if Apple does not close the gap next year. The sixth-generation iPhone will almost certainly work on China Mobile’s network.
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Way back in November, CBS Chief Executive Officer Les Moonves told investors on an earnings call:

..the media company turned down a partnership with Apple for a streaming deal on the Apple TV. Moonves says that the deal was turned down because of the ad-split revenue that Apple was trying to reach an agreement over.

Fast forward to this weekend when the Hollywood Reporter caught up to Moonves at a FUCLA conference:

CBS CEO Leslie Moonves said Saturday that he was approached about a year ago by Steve Jobs to provide content for Apple’s long-rumored television service but he declined to participate.

Moonves told a conference audience that he met with Jobs, the late Apple CEO, and heard a pitch for what was billed as a subscription content service, but ultimately he said he wasn’t interested in providing CBS shows or films to the venture.

“I told Steve, ‘You know more than me about 99 percent of things but I know more about the television business,’ ” Moonves said, citing his concerns about providing content to a service that could disrupt CBS’ existing revenue streams. Moonves said Jobs, in characteristic fashion, strongly disagreed with his assessment.

Yeah, that is not much new, but the point is that CBS still is not going to be partnering with Apple any time soon.

However, streaming is pretty much dead anyway except for live TV, news, weather, and sports. Everything else worth watching is downloadable or already in a Hulu/Netflix/Amazon Cloud.

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Ship times for Apple’s new iPad slipped again this evening to two to three weeks in the United States, which was previously March 19 across the board. Many European Stores have been at two to three weeks for a few days now.

Meanwhile, Apple told USA Today:

“Customer response to the new iPad has been off the charts and the quantity available for pre-order has been purchased,” Apple said in a statement. “Customers can continue to order online and receive an estimated delivery date.”

Remember, those “charts” are the iPad 2 charts, and that thing was already a big success. Apple sells a new iPad once a year and keeps its price controls consistent. Many consumers (present company included), who know the same model iPad will cost the exact same as it costs now in another 360 days, always buy Apple products right when they are released. That is bound to cause a bit of a spike.

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We are all familiar with the intricacies of the Best Buy inventory system’s loose lips. Sure, sometimes it is just employees playing pranks, but other times it reveals honest to goodness new stuff.

On that note, Sprint 4G (“new”) iPads have appeared in this system, and they were screen-grabbed for all to see. This one makes some sense for a few reasons:

1. Sprint and Apple are now partners with the iPhone 4S, so the relationship is already in place.

2. Sprint is building a LTE network that will be compatible with the iPad, but it has not released even one device on that network yet, including the LTE Galaxy Nexus that it already announced. Apple likes to release on finished products.

3. Apple would not pre-announce something months away when people could buy something now on AT&T or Verizon (or in a few days).

4. We heard about Sprint testing iPads.

If you are a die-hard Sprint customer, you might have an iPad option in the near future.

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Image via Flickr user Glen Engel-Cox

Apple may not be hosting a temporary store this year at SXSW in Austin, Texas, but it is investing $304 million to increase its presence in the state by up to 3,600 employees. According to a statement from the State of Texas and Gov. Rick Perry, Apple’s new Austin campus will “double the size of Apple’s workforce” in the state for customer support and other administrative positions over the next decade. In exchange, cash-strapped Apple will benefit from $21 million over 10 years through the Texas Enterprise Fund. While it is mainly administrative positions mentioned in the statement, we reported in December that Samsung’s new $3.6 billion factory in Austin is now producing almost only Apple’s A5 chip for iPhone 4S and iPad 2. Gov. Perry said the following about today’s announcement:

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Yesterday, we told you the iPad 2 was discounted by $100, as announced by Apple during the new iPad unveiling, through a number of retailers including BestBuy and RadioShack. According to one tipster, Apple retail stores are also offering the discounted iPad 2. However, in the case of the West Farms Apple Store in Connecticut, Apple discounted at least one Wi-Fi + 3G 32GB iPad 2 (White, AT&T) by $200. As you can see from the receipt above, store employees mistakenly added an extra $100 discount to the already discounted iPad 2.

The 32GB iPad 2 presumably dropped from $729 to $629 following Apple’s announcement, but it sold for $529 (the new price of the entry level 16GB Wi-Fi + 3G iPad 2) to at least one surprised customer. It was likely a mistake on Apple’s part due to an employee not noticing the discount had already been applied.

However, is it possible Apple is offering a special promotion on Wi-Fi + 3G iPad 2 models (other than the 16GB model) leading up to the new iPad launch on March 16? Apple never mentioned the 32 or 64GB iPad 2 during its event.

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image via M.I.C. Gadget

Sina Tech reports that CDMA iPhone 4S’s are being snapped up by its 130 million mobile subscribers today after the No. 2 player in the world’s largest mobile market recieved 200,000 pre-orders (and counting) starting last week.

We previously noted that the iPhone 4S on China Telecom would be available in every configuration: 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB. The phone will start at “free” with a contract. China Telecom received its license to sell the iPhone in January. China Telecom officially announced it would begin selling the iPhone 4S last month.

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From 9to5Toys.com:

Today only, Amazon offers the Kensington KeyFolio Pro  Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard for $39.99 with free shipping.  That’s 60% off of list and the lowest price we could find for this 4-star rated keyboard for iPad 2. It offers both landscape and portrait use.

This will likely also work with Apple’s new 3rd Generation iPad as well (though Bluetooth 4.0 Keyboards could start showing up soon)

We haven’t tested this model but we’re fans of the similar Zagg Keyfolio keyboard case, although it is over double the price. 
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The Wall Street Journal reports that the United States Justice Department threatened to launch an antitrust lawsuit against Apple and five of the nation’s biggest book publishers over an alleged price-fixing that has resulted in higher prices of e-books.

Several of the parties have held talks to settle the antitrust case and head off a potentially damaging court battle. If successful, such a settlement could have wide-ranging repercussions for the industry, potentially leading to cheaper e-books for consumers. However, not every publisher is in settlement discussions.

The government is specifically aiming to probe CBS Corp.’s Simon & Schuster Inc., Lagardere SCA’s Hachette Book Group, Pearson PLC’s Penguin Group (USA), Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH, and HarperCollins Publishers Inc., a unit of News Corp. that also owns The Wall Street Journal.

At question: The so-called agency model where publishers freely set prices of their titles on Apple’s iBookstore before the Cupertino company reaps 30 percent of the proceeds. The freedom to pick the price has led most—if not all— publishers to allegedly raise prices of e-books across the board as they feared customers would get accustomed to inexpensive $9.99 Kindle books from Amazon.

Barnes & Noble CEO William Lynch already gave a deposition to the U.S. Justice Department. He said abandoning the agency model would allow a single party to achieve dominance in the marketplace, alluding to Amazon. According to the people familiar with the matter, the U.S. Justice Department believes that Apple and the publishers “acted in concert to raise prices across the industry, and is prepared to sue them for violating federal antitrust laws.”

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So about two weeks ago we got a tip from a reliable source that Apple was going to call the iPhone 5 (or whatever)- the new “iPhone”.

That seemed a little nuts at the time but what a difference a Keynote makes. As Christian explained, Apple chopped the suffix off if the iPad as part of a branding makeover that will likely expand.  Just like iMac is not called iMac 1,2,3 it looks like Apple won’t be doing the numbering on iOS devices (though it never did with the iPod touch).

So that tip –That the next iPhone is simply the new “iPhone” – seems a lot more plausible now.

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Apple demoed quite an impressive iPhoto app today during the new iPad unveiling, and the app is now officially live on the App Store for $4.99 [iTunes]. In case you did not know, the app is a universal download for both iPhone and iPad. You can grab iPhoto for iOS now (iTunes link). Apple also boasted updated versions of iMovie and GarageBand today that you can already get on the App Store here and here for $4.99 each (free update for current owners). The updated GarageBand app features a Note Editor, Smart Strings orchestra feature, and Jam Sessions for realtime playing and recording with up to three other iOS devices.  You can read our full break down of the new iPhoto app here.

In addition Apple updated iBooks Author today to “take advantage of the Retina display on the new iPad” and did the same for the iTunes U app. The updates also include the usual stability and performance improvements.

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Get yours via Software Update or here.  Included is the ability to play 1080P iTunes and improvements for iTunes Match.

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Apple said today at the new iPad unveiling that the device runs iOS 5.1, which is an unreleased version of its mobile operating system featuring Siri in Japanese, several camera app tweaks, and other little nice-to-haves. Interesting, this update also “addresses bugs affecting battery life.” Other features include new podcast controls for playback speed on iPad, the redesigned camera app on iPads, the always-visible camera shortcut on the lock screen, updated AT&T network indicator, Genius Mixes and Genius playlist for iTunes Match subscribers and more. We are guessing iCloud users will appreciate that they can finally remove photos from their Photo Stream directly on the device without having to go to iCloud.com on their computer.

Depending on your location, the update might not have hit iTunes, but you can always download the right firmware for your device using direct links here. Of course, you can also bring your device up to date over-the-air by hitting Software Update under the General section of the Settings app.

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In what many might call a long overdue move, Apple finally ported the photo management application iPhoto to iPad. The release of the software completes a trio of the most important iLife apps that are now available on the iPad: iMovie, GarageBand, and now iPhoto. The app supports images up to 19-megapixels. It also sports many familiar and popular features, including the auto-enhance tool, social sharing through Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, email, and more.

The iPhoto app is aimed at people who “want to do more with your photos.” One aspect immediately becomes clear: iPhoto for iPad is gestures-heavy (per an extensive live demo Apple’s Chief Architect for Photo and Video Randy Ubillos gave on stage).

You can use the new bezel gesture —a first for an Apple-made iPad app— to swipe from the left side of the screen to look at other images in the album. From there, just tap on an image to bring the editing interface up. When you want to bring in the thumbnail view, just swipe from the side again.

Another cool feature: Double-tapping a single image tells iPhoto to scan your entire library and compare all the images to find the ones that look similar. You can also beam photos between devices over-the-air, tap a specific area to adjust it, touch, and drag to brighten or tweak saturation, and more.

However, when it comes down to heavy image editing, the iPhoto app does not disappoint. For example, brush palettes include tools such as red-eye, saturation, and lighten. Other notables include sharpen, soften, darken, and a general repair tool. Meanwhile, the effects gallery includes black and white, vignette, tilt-shift, watercolor, and more.

More information is available below.

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Apple just finished the new iPad presentation at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Now we have full tech specs, and the new Retina Display is its defining feature, but what about the little things? Per pre-event rumors and whispers, the new iPad is a tad heavier and thicker than its predecessor is.

The new iPad is 9.4mm thin and weighs 1.4lbs. As for the iPad 2, it is 8.8mm deep and weighs 1.33lbs (Wi-Fi model). This makes the new iPad 0.6mm thicker and 0.07lbs heavier. However, we somehow doubt anyone other than the most eagle-eyed fans will notice the difference.

As for its battery, the new iPad maintains the same 10-hour battery life as both the original iPad and iPad 2. Steve Jobs highlighted battery performance at the iPad 2 unveiling by underscoring how iPad 2 features the same “legendary” battery as the original model. “We don’t want to give that up,” he said, “This has been tried and tested by many reviewers.”

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Image courtesy of the Los Angeles Times

From the beginning of today’s iPad launch event at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Apple executives referred to the new iPad simply as “the new iPad” slide after slide. No “iPad 3” moniker or “iPad HD,” as the bloggers called it. So, what fancy new name did Apple come up with this time?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g88ufDHEYpY]

The truth is but a click away.

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Apple just announced at a media event occurring in San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts that an updated Apple TV set-top box is capable of 1080p video output. Of course, 9to5Mac was the first to call that one. What is better: iCloud now streams movies in 1080p—an upgrade from the previous and often criticized 720p video resolution. Even more importantly, you can now access purchased movies in iCloud any time you want, just like with music and television shows.

Also updated is the Apple TV’s user interface. It is now more streamlined and taking advantage of the full 1080p video resolution. The new interface takes clues from iOS with its shiny new icons and the beautiful Cover Flow view. The new Apple TV has the same low price of just $99 and is available for pre-order today with shipments beginning March 16. In addition to the new Apple TV, Apple has tweaked its pricing matrix for movies and television shows on iTunes to reflect 1080p content. More on that below.

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Apple is having a media event underway at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco to unveil its third-generation iPad tablet. The company’s CEO Tim Cook just took the stage to share news about the new iPad. The executive noted that Apple has three post-PC products: The iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad.

“Now any company would be thrilled to have just one of these devices,” he said. “At Apple we’re fortunate to have all three.”

In total, 172 million post-PC devices were sold last year, accounting for 76 percent of Apple’s revenue. He remarked:

We have our feet firmly planted in the post PC future.

Apple now has 362 retail stores that greeted 110 million visitors just during the holiday quarter of last year alone. The company sold a whopping 62 million iOS devices last quarter and 315 million in total—the same numbers Apple shared while announcing the winner of the 25 billionth App Store download.

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