Edible Apple

Following a report that Apple will be sending out invitations to an iPad Mini special event on October 10th comes a more substantiated report from the Wall Street Journal claiming that mass production on the rumored new iPad device has already commenced.

Apple Inc.’s Asian component suppliers have started mass production of a new tablet computer smaller than the current iPad, people with knowledge of the situation said, as the Silicon Valley company tries to stay competitive against rivals such as Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.  that are offering smaller, less-expensive alternatives to the iPad.

As had previously been rumored, the Journal notes that the iPad Mini’s screen will not be a Retina Display, which makes sense given that Apple is looking to position the device as a lower cost alternative to the iPad.

While Apple continues to dominate the tablet landscape, competition is heating up. Rivals have found a sweet spot in the 7-inch form factor range as it allows for lower price-points and attracts consumers who aren’t necessarily willing to drop $300-400 on a tablet. The Google Nexus 7 has seemingly done well, along with Amazon’s Kindle Fire.

Rumored to start at just $199, Apple’s iPad Mini should make for an interesting addition to Apple’s lineup this holiday season.

MacRumors points us to a report regarding a deal Apple recently completed with an Australian company called Microlatch which specializes in fingerprint authentication, further lending credence to reports that Apple is keen on implementing said security feature for what very well may be NFC functionality in the future.

And this of course is in addition to Apple’s almost-done deal to acquire AuthenTec, yet another fingerprint software chip company.

The article relays information purported to come from David Murray, a lead investor in Microlatch.

Mr Murray said the company had an agreement with the notoriously secretive Apple to develop fingerprint technology for use in near-field communications applications.

Microlatch has patented fingerprint identification technology that meets banking security standards without the need for central processing or storage; a process Mr Murray described as “self-registering”.

Apple sure is up to something.

via MacRumors

Apple yesterday updated its investor relations page and disclosed that it will be issuing its earnings from the fourth fiscal quarter of 2012 on Thursday, October 25.

Last quarter, Apple recorded a hugely profitable three months, but the financials were slightly lower than what analysts were anticipating – a rare miss for a company that typically blows analyst expectations out of the water.

This time around, Apple has projected revenue of $34 billion and EPS of $7.65. It will be interesting to see how Apple’s strong iPhone 5 sales, perhaps, lift those numbers even higher. While Apple reported sales of 5 million iPhone 5s on launch weekend, many feel that the number was in fact higher due to an inordinate number of pre-orders which hadn’t yet arrived by the time Apple calculated its final tally.

In any event, we’ll keep you apprised of how the “experts” on Wall St. think Apple will do as they scramble to update their earnings guidance in the coming weeks.

Apple is diving head first into Maps. Yeah yeah, we all know about Apple’s missteps thus far and all the hard work they have to do. Hell, Tim Cook even issued a rare public apology to iPhone users, going so far as to recommend competing mapping applications for users thoroughly underwhelmed with Apple’s own offering.

Without a doubt, Apple’s own maps app will improve as the crowd-sourced data rolls in. So Apple’s foibles aside, let’s take a quick look at what Apple may have planned for Maps in the future.

To that end, AppleInsider reports that when users in iOS 6 share their location data with other iOS users, it points Mac and PC users to Google Maps. However, the origin URL is maps.apple.com which may tip us off that Apple may bring a desktop version of Maps, a’la Google’, to a desktop near you sometime in the future.

By using the URL maps.apple.com when sharing a location from iOS 6 Maps, Apple can automatically launch the native Maps application for other iOS 6 users. But for those on another device, like a Mac or Windows PC, maps.apple.com is currently inaccessible.

Instead, for those on traditional computers, links beginning with maps.apple.com automatically forward to maps.google.com. In fact, this works even with broken links: Visiting “maps.apple.com/test” automatically forwards to “maps.google.com/test”.

So who knows what Apple is up to, but one thing’s for sure – they need to really beef up their Mapping team to really tackle many of the shortcomings that have made the news thus far.

Indeed, BGR points out that Google has more than 7,000 employees working exclusively on Maps. Crowd sourcing data points and points of general interest will certainly help, but if Apple wants to fix this problem quickly, it really needs to go on a hiring spree of some sort.

And hey, whadya know, last week TechCrunch reported that Apple was actively seeking to hire mapping experts from none other than Google.

And for further reading highlighting the momentous challenge faced by Apple, check out David Talbot’s article detailing why fixing Apple’s Maps app may be more arduous than Apple assumes.

via AppleInsider

The iPhone 5 is now available in over 25 countries, but the cost users pay for the device is certainly not uniform across the globe. After taking into account factors such exchange rates and local taxes, Seeteb.it put together the chart above which maps how much users pay for the iPhone by country.

As it turns out, we get a pretty good deal here in the States.

via iClarified

Apple’s legal dance with Samsung just keeps on going.

In the latest development, Samsung filed a motion with the Court alleging that the iPhone 5 infringes upon a number of patents owned by Samsung. Specifically, Samsung alleges that the iPhone 5 infringes upon 2 standards-essential patents and 6 feature patents.

That Samsung is trying to include the iPhone 5 amongst its list of accused Apple products is no surprise at all given that the company all but promised that it  would do so the minute the iPhone 5 was released.

Samsung’s motion reads in part:

Samsung informed Apple that it expected to seek leave to amend its infringement contentions to add the iPhone 5 two days before the product was released for sale. Samsung has now confirmed that the iPhone 5 has the same accused functionality as the previously accused versions of the iPhone, and Samsung is not seeking to add any new patent claims, so proof of infringement by the iPhone 5 will be the same..

Keep in mind that the suit in question is wholly different from the suit which was just decided in California this past August. This particular suit, which covers smartphone models like the Galaxy Nexus, isn’t scheduled to go to trial until 2014.

One might have assumed that everything was all wrapped up when Apple was awarded a $1.05 billion judgement from Samsung, but that’s hardly the case. The two companies will continue duking it out in court until they exhaust all legal remedies or until they come to a settlement of some sort, which at this point doesn’t seem all that likely.

via Network World

You might have missed it if you blinked, but Tim Cook’s apology for Apple’s still ‘learning to walk’ Maps app wasn’t the extent of Apple’s about-face in the wake of an avalanche of criticism over its performance.

Believe it or not, but Apple ate even more humble pie this past weekend when it changed the description for its Maps app on its webpage to be, how shall we say, just a tad less boastful.

Before, the description called Apple’s Maps “the most beautiful, powerful mapping service ever.” Apple has since taken that line out and replaced it with the less glamorous, “All in a beautiful vector-based interface that scales and zooms with ease.”

via idaily.de

Now that the iPhone 5 launch is behind us, it’s high time that we turn our attention towards the rumored iPad Mini. Indeed, reports have been circulating for some time that Apple plans to launch a 7.85-inch version of the iPad sometime later this year, certainly before the busy and always lucrative holiday shopping season.

And now we have a date to work with, sort of.

Fortune is reporting, via a major Apple investor, that Apple will mail out invitations for an iPad Mini special event on October 10.

According to our source, who asked not be named, there appears to be some truth to the widespread rumors that Apple is preparing to launch a smaller and cheaper version of the iPad — often called the iPad mini or iPad air and usually described as having a 7.85-inch screen.

What our source adds is the specificity of a date: The press, he says, can expect invitations to go out on Oct. 10,

The report goes on to speculate that if the product is launched on October 17, a launch day of Friday, November 2 might be in the cards.

Of course, this is all highly speculative. After all, since when, or why, would a major Apple investor know when Apple is planning to send out invitations for a heretofore unofficial event?

Regardless, it does appear likely that Apple will release an iPad Mini type device sometime in 2012, and October serves as good a time as any for Apple to unveil it.

Highlighting Apple’s successful 2012, Apple CEO Tim Cook sent out an email to employees today stating that Thanksgiving vacation this year will be extended with pay. And when we say extended, we mean that they get the entire week off.

Not too bad Cook, not too bad at all.

The letter reads:

Team,

Apple is having another incredibly successful year, thanks to all of the hard work by you and your teams. Your focus and dedication to making the best products on earth is what makes Apple such an incredible place.

In a little over six months we’ve launched outstanding new products in each of our major categories, starting with the new iPad this spring. The response was incredible, and continued to show Apple’s unrivaled leadership in this post-PC era. Over the summer we introduced the radically thin and light 15″ MacBook Pro with Retina display, and shipped  Mountain Lion, the fastest-selling update to OS X ever. Today, iPhone 5 is taking the world by storm. And in the next few weeks we’ll ship the new iPod touch and completely redesigned iPod nano with innovative designs that our customers are going to love this holiday season.

To recognize the efforts that made this amazing year possible, I’m happy to announce that we’re extending the Thanksgiving holiday once again this year. We will shut down with pay on November 19, 20 and 21 so our teams can spend the whole week with their loved ones.

Retail and some other teams will need to work that week so we can continue to serve our customers, but please check with your manager about taking time off at a later date. Our international teams will also get an extra three days off during this quarter, scheduled at a time that’s best for them. Details will be available on AppleWeb.

Thank you for everything you do for Apple and please enjoy this much deserved break.

via 9to5Mac

9to5Mac reports that Apple will soon be releasing an update to iPhoto that will fix some bugs users have experienced relating to syncing photos to their iOS devices and abrupt system and app crashing.

The updated app, version 9.4.1 will reportedly include the following:

-Improves the reliability of syncing to iOS devices via iTunes.

-Fixes an issue that could cause iPhoto to quit unexpectedly when using the Export command.

-Addresses an issue that could cause iPhoto to quit unexpectedly when upgrading calendars, multiple books, and cards.

-Resolves an issue with viewing and downloading photos synced via Facebook albums.

Be on the look out.

While at the South Florida Technology Alliance recently, former Apple CEO John Scully – who famously had Steve Jobs booted from Apple – explained how the Newton MessagePad and the ARM Processor came to be. Recall that the Newton MessagePad back in the day sported the first series of ARM 610 RISC processors. Also fun factoid, the processor was developed jointly between Apple, Acorn Computers and VLSI.

“No microprocessor existed that would allow you to do graphics-based software,” says Sculley, talking about the origins of the ARM project. Larry Tessler was the one who came up with the plan for Apple to design its own microprocessor, something that it is still doing today with the iPhone 5′s custom-designed A6 processor with manually laid out cores.

The Newton, beloved by many, was also the source of some laughs at Apple’s expense when it first came out due to its less than stellar handwrigint recognition. To that end, Sculley explained that the device was never developed with the intention of having handwriting recognition being a huge feature.

“Handwriting was never intended to be a very important aspect of it,” explained. “It was really much more about the fact that you could hold this thing in your hand and it would do a lot of the graphics that you would see on the Macintosh.”

via NextWeb

Recently, it came to the attention of iPhone 5 users on Verizon that they were being charged for data usage even while they were downloading data via Wi-Fi. While that may not be a big deal if you’re on an unlimited plan with a carrier with Sprint, that type of glitch can cause huge bills for Verizon customers.

Apple this past Sunday issued an iPhone 5 update for Verizon users to fix the issue.

This carrier settings update resolves an issue in which, under certain circumstances, iPhone 5 may use Verizon cellular data while the phone is connected to a Wi-Fi network. Follow these instructions to install the update.

1. Tap Settings > General > About.
2. Wait for the following alert to appear: (top right)
3. Tap OK to install the update.
4. Hold the Sleep/Wake button down until you see “slide to power off”.
5. Slide to power off.
6. After the device powers off, hold the Sleep/Wake button to turn your phone back on.

Note: To finish the installation of the update, your iPhone 5 must be turned off and then on again. After your iPhone restarts, tap Settings > General > About, then scroll down to Carrier and verify that “Verizon 13.1” is displayed.

That’s all well and good, but what about if you’ve already been charged, if the damage has already been done?

Well fear not. Verizon this morning gave a statement to Jim Darlymple explaining that affected customers will not be charged for data consumed while on Wi-Fi.

The statement reads: “Under certain circumstances, iPhone 5 may use Verizon cellular data while the phone is connected to a Wi-Fi network. Apple has a fix that is being delivered to Verizon customers right on their iPhone 5. Verizon Wireless customers will not be charged for any unwarranted cellular data usage.”

via The Loop