Apple

In February, the New York Observer ran a story saying that Apple was eyeing a Grand Central Station New York Apple Store, which would be the borough’s 5th.

Reliable sources tell The Observer that the maker of ubiquitous iGadgets—from computers to cell phones—hopes to open a store in the transportation and retail hub, though it has yet to begin the long approval process necessary for opening in a city landmark.

Within days, other sites ran with that info, “confirmed” that a deal had been reached for “Apple’s largest retail space in the world”, saying an announcement was forthcoming and the store would open this Fall.

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Although the previous generation iPod nano had curved glass (it wasn’t universally loved), the Samsung Nexus S was the first mainstream smartphone with curved glass.  If Digitimes is right, the iPhone 5 may be the second (and likely more popular).

…the latest being circulated around the supply chain in Taiwan is that Apple is going to adopt a curved cover glass for its next generation model, according to industry sources.

That would seem to fly in the face of recent reports that the iPhone 5 would be very similar to the iPhone 4 in appearance.  Digitimes has found what they think is anecdotal evidence.

However, in order to push forward the production of curved glass, Apple reportedly has purchased 200-300 glass cutting machines to be used by glass makers, said the sources.

The glass slicing machines are currently being stored at associated assembly plants and will be brought online once yield rates for the production of curved glass reaches a satisfactory level, the sources revealed.

Although Samsung is a competitor wrapped in lawsuits with Apple, it is also a major supplier and obviously has experience with curved glass screens.
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An Apple Store Manager relayed to us that the new iPad 2 displays are able to turn into “normal iPads” with a few swipes in secret combination.  To find out if true, I went to the Soho store and tried it out.  Yep, it works.  The button still doesn’t work so it is easy to get yourself stuck – like in Email Setup below:

I’m not going to post the gesture combination unless it hits the web but it does exist and Store managers know it.

Anyway, the moral of the story: Those are normal iPad 2s under the glass, even though they have different part numbers.
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If you’ve ever used Google Apps, you’ve seen what kind of power a collaborative, cross-platform word processor can have.  Today’s Apple iWork.com Web applications fall far short (though they look much prettier) in terms of functionality.  But don’t fret Apple fans!  Patently Apple today shows that Apple is heading Pages toward that same Cloud experience.

While it may or may not be “breakthrough” Apple clearly has plans to put its Pages App/Application into the Cloud.  The sooner (WWDC?), the better.

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We’re getting tips from our retail friends in the South Pacific that Snow Leopard boxes are running short and the channel inventory is drying up.  Apple resellers are literally unable to ge their hands on stock of Snow Leopard boxes.

Even Apple’s website is showing a week’s wait in both Australia and New Zealand.  These types of sporadic delays, which are frequently temporary, are usually an indication that the supply channel is changing and the boxes are no longer being made.

Obviously, this could point to an upcoming Lion release as early as next month at Apple’s WWDC, if not sooner.  The latest build, Lion Preview 3,  has been largely stable and there have been signs that Apple could even demonstrate Lion in Apple Stores next week as part of their Apple Store 2.0 initiative.

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Chip maker Intel had stressed they, not Apple, own all Thundebolt trademarks. Even though Apple and Intel collaborated on this high-speed I/O technology featured on the 2011 MacBook Pro and iMac families, the confusion arose when Patently Apple discovered that Apple filed for the Thunderbolt brand name trademark, their third since the technology debuted on the new MacBook Pro family in February of 2011. Few were convinced Apple owns the trademark, including Cult of Mac’s Ed Sutherland who asked, “Who the heck owns Thunderbolt, Intel or Apple?”

Deciding enough is enough, Intel has now made claims it owns the Thunderbolt trademark. Responding to an inquiry from Theo Valich over at Bright side of news, Intel’s senior communications manager Dave Salvator provided this statement:

As part of our collaboration with Apple, they did some of the initial trademark filings.  Intel has full rights to the Thunderbolt trademark now and into the future. The Thunderbolt name will be used going forward on all platforms, irrespective of operating system.

[UPDATE May 20, 2011 3:15am Pacific] Intel’s representative has contacted the publication with additional clarification. To make a long story short, Intel and Apple have agreed that the iPhone maker will transfer their Thunderbolt trademark to the semiconductor giant. Valich explains:

Apple filed for the original trademark and is now transferring that trademark to Intel. At the same time, Apple will continue to have unrestricted use of the technology. 3rd party implementations such as Sony’s desire to use USB Connector instead of DisplayPort and the eventual change of technology branding (Sony’s IEEE1394 a.k.a. Firewire implementation was named i.LINK) will have to be ironed out as the time passes by.

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Last Month, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo told an investor conference call that the Verizon iPhone would be a World phone.  The CFO was also the first to reveal the Verizon iPad.  Many think that the current Verizon iPhone’s inclusion of a worldphone-capable Gobi chip from Qualcomm is a preview into the future of the iPhone line.

Again, today  Shammo told the Reuters Global Technology Summit a bit more:

While Verizon has sold fewer iPhones than some analysts expected, Shammo said he was happy with sales of the “six-month-old phone” that only works in some countries.

When the next iPhone model launches Verizon will be able to offer it at the same time as AT&T. Verizon’s version will also work in as many countries as AT&T’s iPhone, which has global coverage, Shammo said.

Some customers held off on buying the first Verizon iPhone because they were waiting for a model that supports Verizon’s high-speed wireless service, which runs on a new technology called Long Term Evolution (LTE).

Shammo said that even if the next iPhone does not support LTE, Verizon will have enough high-speed alternatives to sell.

That’s a pretty good clue that the next iPhone won’t be LTE, which Apple CFO Tim Cook all but revealed himself at the last earnings call:

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640

The lawyers contend that AT&T is overbilling for data and they’ve run tests to confirm the data overcharges. Tests include buying a new iPhone, turning everything that would use data off and letting it sit for two weeks. They contend that 35 different data charges occurred during that time.

AT&T contends that the iPhone uses data without the customer knowing. Recently, Apple’s collection of anonymous location data, and subsequent exchange of tower signal strength knowledge was brought into the spotlight. Perhaps that system is a data usage issue – even when data services are turned off.

It will be interesting to see how this one turns out.

(Flash issues? Hit up MSNBC via The Loop)

Update: This looks like an update to an earlier lawsuit reported in February (thanks Seb!)

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As noted by TUAW, you can now trade-in your iOS devices via Amazon’s Electronics Trade-In program. If you wanna get rid off your aging iPhone, simply mail in the device to Amazon in exchange for some Amazon gift card credits.

A sampling of other iOS device trade-in prices includes up to $114 for iPod classics, $235 for first-gen 16 GB Wi-Fi iPads and $162 for an 8 GB iPhone 3GS. That’s definitely way more than you’ll get if you let your old iPhone rattle around in a desk drawer after upgrading to a new one.

The program, currently in beta, accepts other consumer electronics devices, not just Apple’s. Some product eligibility criteria applies…

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As expected, new MacBooks Airs are going into production later this month for a June or July launch month. The news from Digitimes says that Apple’s updated ultra-thin notebooks will pack Sandy Bridge processors – that recently launched in the new MacBook Pros and iMacs – in addition to Apple and Intel’s new Thunderbolt I/O platform. Apple’s current line of MacBooks Airs include both 11.6 and 13.3 inch models. Because the current design was released late last year, we believe that the new models will simply be an internal specification upgrade and nothing more.

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Patently Apple today reveals a trademark today by Apple for the word “Noteworthy” which they postulate is a new OCR app that could be released in iOS 5.  One use would be taking an image and turing it into a document like Google’s recent Docs app does.

Update: Apple has a Font named Noteworthy which is likely the reason for registration
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Computer maker Hewlett-Packard isn’t impressed with Thunderbolt, a high-speed I/O technology Apple and Intel co-developed as a new industry standard meant to replace a plethora of slow and incompatible connection standards in use today. Speaking to PCWorld yesterday, HP’s worldwide marketing manager for desktops Xavier Lauwaert said the company did look into the technology but walked away unimpressed.

We did look at Thunderbolt. Were still looking into it. Haven’t found a value proposition yet. On the PC side, everybody seems to be content with the expansion of USB 3.0. Do we need to go into more fancy solutions? Not convinced yet.

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Image via Sean Percival

Our spidey sense has been tingling over the past few weeks on this “Late May, 10th anniversary meeting”  we’ve been hearing much about.  Today BGR lays the groundwork for such an event:

• There’s an overnight shift planned for around 10-15 individuals at each Apple Store to work from late Saturday all the way through mid-Sunday.
• During the overnight shift, it’s going to be required that employees lock cell phones in the main office. They will also have to sign an NDA with Apple.
• There are a wide variety of roles, we’re told, for the overnight shift. This includes all visuals staff, a manager, a business team member, a few Genius team members, one back-of-house employee, and a few generic Apple specialists.
• Apple stores have apparently already received hardware to install, and are expecting more hardware to come on Friday or Saturday. All materials that Apple stores have received have been instructed to be under lock and key until after close on Saturday night.
• Apple employees will be putting up black curtains at all stores so that people walking outside cannot see inside.
• Employees have had to download gigabytes of data from Apple corporate labeled, “training” in a password-protected zipped folder that won’t accessible to managers or anyone else until Saturday afternoon.
• Lastly, all Apple retail stores have mandatory meetings on Sunday, May 22nd. Most meeting are scheduled for the morning, but there are evening meetings as well.

Additionally, MacStories is reporting that the normal Sunday evening meeting has been moved to the morning.
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Depending who you ask, the Tyson’s Corner Virginia or Glendale Galleria California Apple stores were the first and second Apple stores to open and have gained landmark status as a result.  This week, the LATimes is reported that Apple is opening an Apple Store right across the street from the original Glendale Galleria Store at the new Americana at Brand shopping center.  This is notable for at least one of the following two reasons:

1. It will be the first time Apple has opened a Store across the street from another Apple Store, which will surely be compared to the absurd density of some Starbucks locations.
2. If Apple is instead moving/relocating across the street, it will mean one of Apple’s original Stores will be closed down.  That would be especially tragic since many people view the Glendale Galleria Apple Store as the original.

Though the LA Times frames the situation as “An additional Store”, the second option is given some weight as the Nordstom at the Glendale Galleria is closing up shop and moving across the street.  Apple is already hiring for positions at the new store…
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via some Dutch Dude who didn’t have any issues installing an SSD in the Hard drive Bay

According to a blog post at OWC, the new iMacs have a temperature sensor in their hard drives which will restrict replacing with non-Apple hard drives.

For the main 3.5″ SATA hard drive bay in the new 2011 machines, Apple has altered the SATA power connector itself from a standard 4-pin power configuration to a 7-pin configuration. Hard drive temperature control is regulated by a combination of this cable and Apple proprietary firmware on the hard drive itself. From our testing, we’ve found that removing this drive from the system, or even from that bay itself, causes the machine’s hard drive fans to spin at maximum speed and replacing the drive with any non-Apple original drive will result in the iMac failing the Apple Hardware Test (AHT).

Here’s the thing though:  What if you order an iMac without a hard drive?  One iMac option is just the SSD which is mounted on the optical drive?  Perhaps there is a way to disable fans altogether and thats what ships with SSD-only iMacs?

Clearly some more investigative work is necessary.

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Apple has just pushed out a software update to the Apple TV and it’s version 4.2.2 build number 8F305. The update is likely bug fix related and we’ll update with more details when they are available.

Here’s the direct download link.

Update: Here are the updates:

Jailbreakers might want to hold off.  Via MuscleNerd: (thanks commenter)

Apple just pushed out a lone AppleTV2G update…stay away from that if you’re currently untethered on ATV2G

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Update: we just got the following unverified account:

According to my friend who was at the Sanlitun Apple Store when the incident took place, there were dozens of resellers outside the store trying to get the white iPhone 4, they were told to wait in line and was not allowed to go inside. Resellers got pissed and smashed the glass door, which costs about 300,000RMB or 46,000USD, according to an apple employee at the store. Then a foreign(non-Chinese) employee came out from the store with a metal club and hit 4 people, including 2 young men and 2 middle age women. All 4 people are hospitalized right now and no money was paid by apple for medical purposes.

Pictures are just coming in but it appears that there was some sort of incident between “foreign Apple Store Employees” and some locals during the iPad 2 launch.  One account:

The afternoon of May 7, Beijing SanLiTun store Apple, crowds queued to buy the iPhone4 conflict with in-store staff. One stands more than 1.9 metres for expatriate staff armed with iron rods Brawl wounded four customers. A glass door of the store were hit and destroyed by excited crowds. Are 4-bit the injured have been admitted to hospital

Another account has another poorly translated view:

Sanlitun Apple Store bloodshed, because too many people queuing waiting suddenly closed shop, where the weather is so hot multi-line Burongyia, Apple stunned party to a foreigner and a Chinese man actually hands-on, people with the scene confirmed the man was wounded also the guests lined up to buy Apple products.We look at the quality of foreigners, but also that, to earn the money we have in China is also the name of our people.

We’re not sure exactly what went down but it doesn’t look too good.

In other Apple Store glass smashing news, the Westlake Cleveland Apple store was robbed.  24 MacBook and 1 iPod stolen.  Perpetrators were last seen heading east (1999?)

More pictures of bloodied people and one final account below:

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…in fact, if Apple turned on the HSPA part of the Gobi 14.4 chips in its Verizon iPad and iPhone, they’d already be 4G, at least according to AT&T.

Chris Ziegler noticed today that AT&T has started calling regular old 14.4Mbps HSPA devices 4G in its latest marketing materials.  Until recently, the pseudo ‘4G’ was reserved for HSPA+ on T-Mobile which tops out at 21Mbps.  However, with the release of the HPalm Veer 4G, HTC Inspire 4G and  Motorola Atrix 4G, AT&T has extended the ‘4G’ down to speeds of  14.4 Mbps, the same speed as those Qualcomm chips that Apple loves.

Most industry watchers expect the next iPhone to run on some version of the Qualcomm chip that the Verizon has which would let it do double radio duty and be operable on all US networks.

As Ziegler notes, AT&T is paving the way to charge extra for the benefit of using the newly branded ‘4G’ which doesn’t sound good to us.
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Apple has long used the proxy of iTunes to push updates to its iOS devices: when a new software update is available, users need to plug their device in via USB, click update, and the new software version is downloaded and installed.

Smartphone competitors have long offered a different, more direct method for software updates that happens over-the-air. Specifically, when an update to Google’s Android operating system or HP/Palm’s webOS is released, users are provided an update notification and can update the software right on their phone. No computer required.

Now, Apple wants to provide the same convenience to their iPhone users and is preparing to provide over-the-air iOS updates, starting this fall.

Multiple sources (one as far back as March) say the new feature will debut in iOS 5, meaning iOS 5 will not come over-the-air but following point updates to it will. Just like tethering in iOS 3, Apple has the technology but cannot just unleash it everywhere. Apple and Verizon Wireless are said to have been in talks over these wireless software updates since early this year. Sources could not comment on whether or not Apple is negotiating similar deals with AT&T or international iPhone carriers.

The iOS-based AppleTV has been able to update itself without iTunes intervention so the hooks are obviously in iOS.  Two things to note:

1. Updates are now over 600MB.  Apple would have to make these smaller to get the carriers to agree to push these things as they are.  We believe that Apple will make the updates much smaller by using incremental patches rather than full OS downloads
2. iTunes provides the backup to the iOS device so a failed update would need some sort of backup.  We think there will be a Cloud-based backup system.

Obviously, if this is a feature in iOS 5, it should conceivably make its way to iPad and iPod touches as well.  That means  iTunes may no longer be a needed conduit for updating iOS devices in the future.  It would also mean that the iPad could finally be a stand alone device.

Mockup below

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Previous-generation iMacs were able to drive both the internal and an external display at the same time, but the newly released iMacs are capable of driving two external displays simultaneously – in addition to the built-in display – thanks to the inclusion of Thunderbolt ports. Apple confirmed to GigaOM’s Darrell Etherington that the new 27-inchers’ two Thunderbolt ports (21.5-inch models only have one) can drive a dual external display setup.

Now, using two Mini DisplayPort adapters plugged in to the 27-inch iMacs Thunderbolt ports, users can simultaneously output to two monitors in addition to the main built-in screen of the iMac. It won’t necessarily clog up your Thunderbolt ports, either, since the tech supports daisy-chaining. That means you should be able to connect to Thunderbolt-compatible storage and then on to a display after that, too, without any loss of quality.

Macrumors was able to verify that the Thunderbolt ports can still make the iMac an external display for Blu-ray or video gaming or a cable box.

An Apple sales representative has confirmed to us that the new 27-inch models do continue to support the feature through the new Thunderbolt ports.

Engadget tested out a dual external monitor setup, seen below.

Apple also offers touchpad options allowing you to replace the included MagicMouse with either a Magic Trackpad or a wired Apple Mouse or go with both wireless MagicMouse and Magic Trackpad for $69 extra.

Also, MacStories explain that you can order a solid state drive in the second drive bay that will boot your operating system.

If you configure your iMac with both the solid-state drive and a Serial ATA hard drive, it will come preformatted with Mac OS X and all your applications on the solid-state drive. Then you can use the hard drive for videos, photos, and other files.

(we’re doubting Apple is supporting symbolic links to the hard drive for media – but maybe in Lion?)

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After weeks of rumor mongering and days of dried up channel inventory, Apple on Tuesday finally refreshed its iMac family. The signature aluminum and glass design remained unchanged, but a look under the hood reveals the latest Intel Sandy Bridge Core i5 and i7 processors from Intel, the new high-speed Thunderbolt I/O interface developed in co-operation with Intel, a FaceTime HD camera and storage upgrades across the board.

• Apple iMac Core i5 Quad 2.5GHz 21.5″ Desktop for $1,199
• Apple iMac Core i5 Quad 2.7GHz 21.5″ Desktop for $1,499
• Apple iMac Core i5 Quad 2.7GHz 27″ Desktop for $1,699
• Apple iMac Core i5 Quad 3.1GHz 27″ Desktop for $1,999

The 21.5-inch models have one Thunderbolt port and 27-inchers have two. Apple says the new processors deliver up to 70 percent faster performance while AMD graphics with “a powerful new media engine for high-performance video encoding and decoding” is responsible for a threefold jump in performance over the previous generation.

The release quoted Apple’s marketing honcho Phil Schiller:

Our customers love the iMac’s aluminum enclosure, gorgeous display and all-in-one design. With next generation quad-core processors, powerful new graphics, Thunderbolt technology and a FaceTime HD camera, we’ve made the world’s best desktop even better.

The new FaceTime HD camera supports high-def video calling between all FaceTime HD-enabled Macs and standard-resolution calls with iPad 2, iPhone 4, the current-generation iPod touch and other Intel-based Macs. This refresh has brought the quad-core performance of the Intel Core i5 processors to the entire family, with an option to upgrade to a Core i7 chip up to 3.4GHz.

Four new SKUs have replaced the previous models with two 21.5-inch and two 27-inc computers, beginning with the $1,199 entry-level 2.5GHz 21.5-incher and all the way up to the flagship $1,999 27-inch iMac with a 3.1GHz processors. More information and the official press release right after the break.

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