Tech Industry

We’ve gotten word from some readers that AT&T is moving forward and removing unlimited plans for users who jailbreak iPhones to tether or hotspot off of AT&T’s unlimited data plans (for those grandfathered):

I was just informed that as of Thursday August 11th 2011, if you use MyWi or any tethering on the phone or using the phone as a modem, AT&T will automatically change ur unlimited plan to a 2Gb tethering plan for 45 dollars without the customers consent. This is for those who received emails or texts about the use of tethering without an AT&T tethering plan.

An AT&T spokesperson has confirmed this, but not August 11th as a hard cutoff date, saying:

Earlier this year, we began sending letters, emails, and text messages to a small number of smartphone customers who use their devices for tethering but aren’t on our required tethering plan.  Our goal here is fairness for all of our customers.  (This impacts a only small percentage of our smartphone customer base.)

The letters outline three choices:

1) Stop tethering and keep their current plan (including grandfathered unlimited plan)

2) Proactively call AT&T or visit our stores and move to the required tethering plan

3) Do nothing and we’ll go ahead and add the tethering plan on their behalf — after the dated noted in their customer notification

Is this fair of AT&T?  Well, it is certainly fair that people pay for the data that they are using and unlimited tethering turns your iPhone into a data sucking monster.  AT&T’s service to others is obviously affected, so they have to do something about it and this seems like a reasonable solution.  The obvious retort is that some may have purchased their unlimited plans back when unlimited really meant unlimited, jailbroken or not.

The matter doesn’t appear up for debate however. MiWi users: get your free data this week and hope AT&T doesn’t decide to move you over early.
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Google Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond has written an open letter to Apple and others (namely Microsoft) for the latest trend of going after smartphone patents by buying up others companies patents. Drummond notes that Apple and Microsoft “have always been at each other’s throats” and “when they get into bed together you have to start wondering what’s going on.” Google’s Drummond is referring to the two technology heavyweights “banding” together to win the Novell and Nortel’s old smartphone related patents. As revealed just a few weeks ago, a Consortium of Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle payed $4.5 billion for the aforementioned Nortell patents.

Drummond outright calls this “a hostile, organized campaign against Android by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents.” Drummond also says that the approach to acquire patents and file patent lawsuits is Apple’s (and others’) way of showing that they “want to make it harder for manufacturers to sell Android devices.” He also says that Apple and others are going after these patents and filing complaints “instead of competing by building new features or devices.”

Drummond also says that Google feels that Apple and Microsoft’s take over of the Nortel patents is unlawful:

Fortunately, the law frowns on the accumulation of dubious patents for anti-competitive means — which means these deals are likely to draw regulatory scrutiny, and this patent bubble will pop.

Drummond ends by saying that Apple and Microsoft’s moves could potentially hurt Android and they are obviously looking into ways to stop this.

 Unless we act, consumers could face rising costs for Android devices — and fewer choices for their next phone.

The full letter is after the break:

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Apple’s new iCloud Web apps are built using the same SproutCore Javascript engine that was used throughout MobileMe.  If the favicon above doesn’t prove it, looking at the underlying code below seems to offer undeniable evidence.

SproutCore describes itself as an open-source framework for building blazingly fast, innovative user experiences on the web.

Here’s a nice interview with Charles Jolley, one of the founders of SproutCore and previous MobileMe Javascript Frameworks Manager.  He left Apple about a year ago to start Strobe – a device agnostic Web publishing engine based on…you guessed it, SproutCore.

Interestingly, SproutCore lists Strobe Inc. as its parent company.

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The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple has begun its search for executive Ron Johnson’s replacement by looking internationally. Johnson, who is currently Apple’s Senior Vice President of Retail, will be leaving the company on November 1st after his announcement in mid-June that he will become the CEO of JC Penney.

Although Apple has retail talent within the company, namely VP of Retail Jerry McDougal, the company is looking abroad for Johnson’s replacement. The move, in which CEO Steve Jobs was “extensively involved” with, makes sense given that Apple is focusing a chunk of their retail operations on improving and growing the Apple Store experience overseas.

In order to accomplish this task, Apple has hired search firm Egon Zehnder International, which is ranked as one of the top five global executive search firms.

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In January of 2010, Kodak sued  Apple and RIM for infringing on their patent to preview photographs. The lawsuit is still going on, but today Wall Street Journal is reporting that Kodak is currently looking to sell 10% of their patent portfolio, which includes the patent Apple and RIM are bring sued for.

The 1,100 patents include patents covering  capturing, storing, organizing and sharing digital image. WSJ credits the sale to Kodak’s loss in profit over the last two quarters.

Chief Executive Antonio Perez has been using Kodak’s intellectual property as a means of funding the company’s long and expensive transformation. In 2008, Mr. Perez put forth a goal to generate between $250 million and $350 million a year from Kodak’s patent portfolio.

Google is fresh off acquiring 1,000 patents from IBM and is likely still in a buying mood as it battles everyone from Oracle to Microsoft to Apple-by-proxy in the courts.  Apple, who outbid Google for the Nortel patent portfolio at $4.5B  is obviously on the offensive.

Kodak’s decision to sell its patents follows a $4.5 billion patent sale by Nortel Networks Corp. Kodak has retained Lazard as an adviser for the sale. Lazard also advised Nortel on its sale.

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Cross posted from 9to5Google.com

If you are a mainstream Chrome user, the first stable version of Chrome 13 is now available for auto upgrade.  Why upgrade?

Google Instant Pages prefetches links so that page load times increase dramatically.

This means that sometimes when you click a Google search result in Chrome, the page will appear to load much faster than before. How much faster? In the video below, you can see a side by side comparison of Chrome with and without Instant Pages enabled.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jn93FDx9oI]

Also, the omnibox, Chrome’s combination search box and address bar, has gotten much smarter in the latest release, making it even easier for you to get back to pages you’ve visited before. Just type part of the page’s address or title and look in the dropdown for matching pages from your history.

To manually upgrade, go to ‘About Chrome’ and hit the upgrade button (below):
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Adobe today released its “Flash for HTML5” web design tool Edge into Beta.

Adobe® Edge is a new web motion and interaction design tool that allows designers to bring animated content to websites, using web standards like HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS3.

This version of Edge focuses primarily on adding rich motion design to new or existing HTML projects, that runs beautifully on devices and desktops.

• Create new compositions with Edge’s drawing and text tools.
• Import popular web graphics such as SVG, PNG, JPG or GIF files.
• Easily choreograph animation with the timeline editor. Animate position, size, color, shape, rotation and more at the property level.
• Energize existing HTML files with motion, while preserving the integrity of CSS-based HTML layouts.
• Copy and paste transitions, invert them, and choose from over 25 built-in easing effects for added creativity.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FnNtX73v8k]

Two example videos and feature breakdown below (Via The Loop):
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Apple filed a complaint in late May with the World Intellectual Property Organization to gain control of iPods.com. Fusible is reporting that Apple has been awarded the domain as of late Friday, and the domain will soon be transferred over to Apple’s ownership. Full details haven’t been disclosed.

Apple is known for paying in the millions for domains, like when they reportedly paid $4.5 million for iCloud.com. When Apple follows the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, like they did in this case, they end up paying thousands, rather than millions. Will Apple continue on to gain control of domains like iPhone5.com, iPad.com, and Macs.com?

Full policy below:

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Foxconn’s founder and chariman Terry Gou said the company will replace an unspecified amount workers with one million robots in three years. Foxconn is the Asian manufacturer that is responsible for many components inside of Apple, Sony, and Nokia’s devices. Currently, the company has 10,000 robots and will expand to 300,000 next year, gradually opening the door to a total of one million robots in three years.

One interesting aspect of a robotized workforce is that it makes places with more expensive workers more competitive.

The robots will be used to accomplish basic tasks like spraying, wielding, and assembling. Foxconn currently employs 1.2 million people, therefore one million robots could potentially be a big hit on employment in China.
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As we reported yesterday: October 1st, top 5% of AT&T users will see reduced speeds.

A new change for AT&T Wireless’ Unlimited Data subscribers will soon be taking place. Rumored to be starting in the first week of October, we’ve heard that AT&T will start throttling the data speeds of the network’s top data hogs.  As Verizon (PDF) and Virgin have recently done, AT&T will be adopting a similar plan to try to curb the problem of data congestion and overall network issues that have hurt its 3G network’s performance since the onset of the iPhone.

Today AT&T made it official. Full statement below the fold:
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Illustration via profile pictures on IEEE’s Facebook page

The IEEE standards body that oversees the development of WiFi technology announced today a next-generation WiFi 802.22 technology designed to facilitate wireless data transfer up to 22Mbps over great distances up to 60 miles, or a hundred kilometers. The interesting thing is, the new technology is utilizing television bands without interfering with reception of existing TV broadcast stations:

This new standard for Wireless Regional Area Networks (WRANs) takes advantage of the favorable transmission characteristics of the VHF and UHF TV bands to provide broadband wireless access over a large area up to 100 km from the transmitter. Each WRAN will deliver up to 22 Mbps per channel without interfering with reception of existing TV broadcast stations, using the so-called white spaces between the occupied TV channels.

The technology will be great in rural areas and developing countries with vacant TV channels, IEEE says. In our view, this could also knock out any rationale for the much talked-about AT&T/T-Mobile merger. For example, why use pricey cellular data if your phone is within the range of a 802.22 hotspot? Apple is one of the leading backers of WiFi and has long ago incorporated wireless capabilities to all their products. As of recently, Apple ships its Macs with souped up WiFi capable of hitting 450Mbps over wireless networks, even though they aren’t advertising this as a feature.

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Since we posted photos last week of a white front panel for an iPod touch, more white iPod touch parts have emerged. Our first part photographs were taken in Asia, close to Apple’s manufacturing plants, and now these parts have begun to appear in the United States. Reader Lafayette from the East Coast of the United States has managed to obtain his own set of white iPod touch parts.These parts were marketed as being for the fourth generation iPod touch, and appear to fit perfectly based on this photo and the ones after the break. These white iPod touch parts started emerging this month, just weeks ahead of Apple’s annual iPod-focused event. With a typically credible analyst’s report claiming that the next iPod touch will not feature any external changes, one could assume that the white iPod touch parts we have seen are for a fifth-generation iPod touch with no external changes – other than the color. This would obviously allow them to fit on the current iPod touch model, too.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2gyvVtI2As]

We cannot vouch for the origin of the above white iPod touch part or the part our source got its hands on last week, but our friends at the iFixYouri iPhone repair shop – with proven sources within Apple’s supply chain – have heard some whispers about white iPod touch OEM (original equipment manufacturer) parts floating around. On the other hand, the iPhone repair shop stresses that there is no OEM white iPod touch glass physically obtainable at this point in time and there might never be. Although this is true, it is undeniably interesting that these white parts are floating around just weeks ahead of Apple’s event. Additionally, Japanese site Macotakara got its hands on a white iPod touch part and they have made a video as you can see above. Be sure to check out our other new white iPod touch images after the break. Although these parts are surfacing, we obviously cannot confirm with certainty that Apple’s next iPod touch line will feature a white option. More images:

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Update: AT&T has officially verified this information.

Frankly, throttling isn’t so bad if done fairly.  It is a good way to penalize heavy users but without them having to worry about overage charges.  For high end users, however, it wold make sense for AT&T to add the ability to buy more regular speed data like they do now…
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Lake Minneloa, a school in Central Florida, is outfitting its students with over half a million dollars worth of iPads. Every student will be able to use their iPad at school and take it home with them for ‘homework’ at night (KIDS THESE DAYS!*shakes fist*)..

The school says this is an effort to save money on text books and bring a new type of learning to students.

The final cost was $700,000 dollars, which brought the school 1,750 iPads (which means they are getting a healthy discount at $400 each). Why isn’t every school doing this? (Schools in El Paso are as well)

“Students learn differently now because of the technology,” said Kathy Halbig, innovative learning manager for the Lake school district who is overseeing the project. “Students are used to having multiple sources and being able to have more social collaboration in their learning process rather than just doing it sitting quietly and reading.”

via Orlando Sentinel
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According to a report (via MR) from The China Times, the iPhone 5 will launch the second week of September (6-15), and the iPad 3 launch will be delayed until Thanksgiving due to component issues. This iPhone 5 report lines up nicely with reports from Reuters regarding a September launch and an earlier report saying right after Labor day (Sept 5th).

If a September launch were to be the case, we assume the iPhone 5 would be announced at Apple’s annual music event in September. Obviously, iOS 5 would accompany it. The China Times’ report regarding a fall launch for the iPad 3 trails behind with what we’ve already heard.

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Yesterday, a purported case mold schematic for the fifth-generation iPhone emerged, pointing to a complete re-design for Apple’s handset. This mold points to a larger display, a larger home button, and a thinner profile for the next iPhone. The original reporting of this schematic also includes a mockup of such an iPhone 5 case. Now, we have been able to secure an actual purported fifth-generation iPhone case from a source, not just a mockup. This source is similar to the source who provided us with impeccably accurate design schematics for the iPad 2. In addition, we can independently confirm, Asian case manufacturers are now shopping case designs to case sellers across the globe for their own branding.

We can’t tell you that the information used to build the case, that we have gotten our hands on, is different than the information revealed yesterday, but given that these cases have actually been built, and given that case manufactures are willing to spend millions of dollars on quality intelligence to maximize on the iPhone 5 launch, we have reason to believe that this iPhone 5 case is indicative of the next-generation iPhone’s design. Or at least a design that touched Apple’s Asia-based manufacturing plants for prototyping… more after the break:

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Today isn’t a particularly heavy newsday so we thought we’d bring in some small stuff from around the web.  First up is Canon’s new calculator mouse.  I’m not sure I’d use the calculator enough to warrant a switch from my Apple hardware.  Maybe during tax season.

Next up, use an iPhone and brain waves to shift gears on a bike…
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Every once in awhile, signs like this remind us why we are Mac users. Via @smalera
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaL90WROdTI]

Since the original breaking of the Chinese fake Apple Stores news last week, there has been a flurry of activity.  Chinese authorities began investigating the stores over the weekend.  Chinese customers demanded refunds even though they products were real.

Today, Bloomberg is reporting that two of the five stores investigated have been shut down.

Chinese authorities shut two stores in Kunming that used Apple Inc.’s logo without the company’s permission because they lacked the proper business licenses, a newspaper run by the southwestern city’s government reported.

Three separate unauthorized Apple stores, which were also investigated, had operating licenses, according to the Dushi Shibao newspaper report, which was posted on the Kunming city government’s website. Officials inspected more than 300 vendors of electronic products in the city, Dushi reported.

Apple currently has four stores in China.  While that number will increase greatly over the next year, it isn’t surprising to see local businesses trying to fill the void in the interim.
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For reasons yet undefined, Google Books has been removed from the iTunes App Store.  We noticed the App was gone earlier this week but thought it might have been just a blip.  Now it has been awhile.

Google Books was just updated in April with new 3D page turning, landscape mode and search so it is unlikely that Google decided to orphan it.  Google launched its Books initiative in December of this year as a competitor to Amazon and Apple’s eBookstores.

So why is it gone now?  The timing with Apple’s new, controversial Terms of Service would seem like the most obvious explanation.

Was Google in violation of Apple’s new in-app purchase terms of service? Or, is this because Harry Potter is coming out on Google Books?

We’ve reached out to Google and Apple for answers.

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We’ve received photos of a purported white iPod touch front panel. Specifically, this panel is the digitizer component, according to the iFixYouri iPhone repair shop. We obviously cannot confirm the legitimacy of these photos but according to iFixYouri, they fall in line with the fourth generation iPod touch’s build. Knowing this, these can either be photos of a scrapped white iPod touch 4 in white or (hopefully) photos of the fifth-generation iPod touch’s front panel in white.

Although we have been hearing some whispers of a new form-factor for the fifth-generation iPod touch, the previously accurate Ming-Chi Kuo has reported that the fifth-generation iPod touch will, in fact, come in white and will feature an overall design that is akin to that of the fourth-generation iPod touch. Additionally, iOS SDK data reveals that the iPod 4,2 (possibly the fifth-gen iPod touch) will be more about internal changes. On that note, we’ll likely see the dual-core A5 processor to move the iPod touch ahead in the growing mobile gaming industry, and maybe some better cameras. More info and a few more high-resolution pictures of the white panel are after the break…

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