MacRumors

Apple announced CarPlay earlier this week at the Geneva Auto Show, bringing Siri-powered messaging, voice calling and streaming music to the car dashboard. Brian Lakamp, president of Digital for Clear Channel Media and Entertainment, talked with Michael Grothaus of Fast Company about iHeartRadio's experience as an early adopter of Apple's new in-car technology.

iHeartRadio is an internet radio service that pulls music programming from 800 Clear Channel radio stations across the US along with other sources. It was one of only four streaming music products that Apple selected as a launch partner for its CarPlay service.

"Apple is pretty selective about how they disclose information," says Lakamp. "Apple made us aware of the opportunity. We were enthusiastic to participate and then worked closely with them to build the demo that they just demoed in Geneva."

iHeartRadio, along with the other launch partners, had early access to Apple's private CarPlay API. Lakamp didn't provide a timeframe for how long it took the company to add CarPlay integration to its app, but did confirm the process was "fairly quick." He also noted that it could add CarPlay to its existing iOS app without having to create a new app dedicated to the Apple technology.

"The way that Apple constructed this is a relatively thin layer that we need to build to copy existing apps that move some of the control and command structure to the console," Lakamp says. "Then the console simply acts as a remote control to your app. It was a relatively light integration." [...]

"Apple provided twin lanes for the UI and a framework for the UI to operate within, and so made that part of it relatively easy as well. It's a relatively straightforward directory structure and a player structure that has a limited set of controls, or limited set of things you can do. They've got a consistency of feel on the platform, as you might expect from Apple, and a simplicity around how you browse through a menu of choices," says Lakamp.

Clear Channel, which owns and operates terrestrial AM and FM media stations, is not afraid of the competition presented by Apple, even if CarPlay does provide "a simple, clean, elegant approach" to connecting an iPhone to an automobile. These new technologies are "additive, and they've extended the opportunity."

Apple's CarPlay initiative is supported by several major automobile manufacturers, including Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, BMW, Ford, GM, Honda, Hyundai and others. It will debut in select 2014 models and will work with any iOS device that has a Lightning port, including the iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c and iPhone 5.

Apple may be rushing to make changes to its App Store in order to comply with an earlier FTC agreement that requires it to modify its in-app billing system, reports ZDNet. Apple has until March 31 to make the changes required by the FTC and may be trying to roll them out in the company's forthcoming iOS 7.1 update.

As part of this FTC settlement, Apple must modify its billing practices to obtain consumers' express consent before billing them for an in-app purchase. Apple also must provide customers with a way to easily withdraw this consent for future purchases.

While it might sound trivial, changing the App Store to obtain "consumers’ express, informed consent" before billing them is a significant change. It involves fundamental changes to the App Store order flow and there are a lot of dependencies involved.

One source I spoke to says that it's taking Apple longer than expected to make the required changes. In order to meet the government's second criteria (the option to withdraw their consent at any time) Apple must require a password for all IAPs by default, and perhaps make a no-password window an option via settings.

These requirements likely necessitate some changes to Apple's iTunes payment processing system, which now needs to verify that consent was given before processing a payment. It may also require some modifications to iOS 7, including its Restrictions feature that already provides limits on in-app purchases by children, although some aspects of the update may be able to be deployed remotely.

These new in-app purchasing requirements have not been spotted in any iOS 7.1 beta releases, suggesting Apple is still implementing any necessary changes on the operating system side. ZDNet's source says the company would like to roll out the changes as part of iOS 7.1, but given word that iOS 7.1 is due "any day now" in order to support streaming of next week's SXSW iTunes Festival, it is possible that the in-app purchase changes could be pushed back to another minor iOS update before the end of the month if required.

Earlier this week, Apple announced its new CarPlay technology, which opens the door for easier hands-free calling, text messaging and navigation while driving. Consumers may be enthusiastic about this in-car technology, but auto safety experts are concerned about its contribution to distracted driving, reports CNN Money.

"The idea that people want to be on their phones, and therefore let's give them a way to do that -- that's not putting safety first, that's putting convenience and the desire to be in touch first," said Bruce Hamilton, manager of research and communications at the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety."

Siri may allow for hands- and eyes-free interaction with a phone, but experts argue it still contributes to "cognitive distraction," which moves a driver's attention away from their driving and onto their phone. Recent studies have shown that the voice-to-text features included in personal assistant software such as Siri carry an "extensive risk" of distracted driving and have the potential to double driver reaction times.

Apple is aware of these distracted driving concerns and notes in a press release that Siri minimizes distraction by allowing drivers to keep their eyes on the road.

“CarPlay has been designed from the ground up to provide drivers with an incredible experience using their iPhone in the car,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of iPhone and iOS Product Marketing. “iPhone users always want their content at their fingertips and CarPlay lets drivers use their iPhone in the car with minimized distraction."

Apple's CarPlay technology is similar to existing in-dash smartphone systems in terms of driver attention, but these concerns over distracted driving are getting renewed attention because of Apple's high-profile launch.

Apple's CarPlay will be available as an update to iOS 7 for iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c and iPhone 5 owners. It will debut in 2014 models from major automobile manufacturers such as Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, BMW, Ford, GM, Honda, Hyundai and others.

Apple plans to introduce full-screen video iAds for apps on the iPhone and the iPad later this year, reports AdAge. The new ads, described as "interstitials," will allow developers to opt into ads that play in between levels within a game or in between articles in a news-style app.

Full screen ads will mark a departure from Apple's typical advertising style, which has limited iPhone iAds within the App Store and iTunes Radio to less obtrusive banners that must be clicked for a video ad to be played. iTunes Radio also features audio ads, but full video ads within apps are arguably more interruptive.

Some free-to-play apps already feature full-screen third-party video ads. Zynga's Draw Something on iPad, for example, requires users to watch a video ad before allowing them to move on to the next level, a task that takes several seconds away from gameplay. Apple currently permits full-screen video iAd advertisements within some iPad apps, but today's report suggests the ads could also be extended to other iOS devices.

Since its 2010 introduction as a way for developers to make money on the iOS platform, iAd has been largely unsuccessful attracting developer interest and revenue. Apple has, however, been attempting to revive iAd with a new focus on iTunes Radio.

The in-app video ads may be a way for Apple to rekindle advertisers' interests in its fancy-but-flawed iAds. The ad product line was unveiled in 2010 with all the pomp and circumstance of a new iPhone, but they've struggled to gain traction in the market. Advertisers were initially asked to drop $1 million for the rich-media units, which more closely resemble a mobile microsite than a banner. That price tag has dropped to $100,000 over the years, even as Apple has added features like maps.

Few details are available on the video ads, including how Apple plans to sell and price the spots, but they may be positioned as a way to further entice new advertising partners to advertise via the service. The introduction of iTunes Radio, which has the potential to bring in quite a bit of revenue, already garnered Apple several major advertising partners, including McDonald’s, Nissan, Pepsi, and Procter & Gamble.

Apple's ad sales, which were at just $125 million in 2012 according to IDC, have lagged significantly behind those of other companies, including Google, but the new video ads along with revenue from iTunes Radio may shift those figures considerably in the years to come.

Cloud gaming company OnLive was revived today with the announcement of two new gaming services, including CloudLift and OnLive Go. CloudLift is a subscription service that allows users to play digital games, such as those from Steam, on any device, while OnLive Go for developers is designed to bring MMOs to mobile devices.

With CloudLift, OnLive is able to link games purchased from Steam or other services to OnLive, uploading the games and their metadata to the cloud to be played anywhere on any PC, TV, or mobile device, continuing where a save left off.

Users only need to purchase a game from a distributor once in order to play it with the OnLive service, which streams the games as a video of game imagery from the cloud to the device. Games are delivered in 720p at 60 frames per second.

At the current time, CloudLift is limited to 20 launch titles such as The LEGO Movie Videogame, Batman: Arkham Origins, Scribblenauts Unlimited, LEGO Lord of the Rings, and Saints Row IV.

OnLive Go is similar to CloudLift, but it is designed to allow massively multiplayer games such as War Thunder or Second Life to be accessible on any device without having to wait for long installs. Players can access MMOs on mobile devices and can launch cloud versions of games while waiting for downloads on Macs or PCs.

OnLive's first Game Service was introduced in 2010, but issues with Internet connections, latency, and video compression caused it to receive unfavorable reviews. In 2012, the company was forced to lay off most of its employees, later being sold to Lauder Partners for just $4.8 million.

The company has now hired former IGN Chief Mark Jung as executive chairman and hopes to make a comeback with its new services and an expanded set of data servers. In an interview with VentureBeat, Jung said the company is aiming to deliver a higher value service to users.

"In this last year, we have been repositioning the company and redesigning our services for a positive business going forward," Jung said. "We have rearchitected it to deliver a much higher value proposition for the users."

The CloudLift service is currently available on Macs, PCs, and Android devices. OnLive has plans to bring connectivity to iOS devices, but the company told Pocket-Lint that getting the technology right around Apple's limitations is a difficult task.

"iOS is a big platform. We're not sitting here ignoring it," he said. "It's the same thing with Surface. We want to be platform agnostic. We continue to grow and we'll focus on growing across all of those."

OnLive's new CloudLift service is available for $14.99 per month, while OnLive Go is variably priced with Second Life gaming available for $3 per hour. Both CloudLift and OnLive Go require a solid Internet connection of at least 2 megabits a second.

OnLive is also offering its PlayPack subscription service, which provides users with 250 games, for $9.99 per month.

Apple's new chip partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has begun production on the next-generation A8 chip destined for the iPhone 6 later this year, according to a report [Google Translate] from Taiwan's Commercial Times picked up by AFP.

The world's leading contract microchip maker last month started producing the A8 chip, which is tipped to power the expected iPhone 6, the Commercial Times reported.

The report, which cited supply chain sources, said TSMC had won most of the manufacturing orders for logic and power management integrated chips for the new handset.

The report claims that the new 20-nanometer A8 will include a quad-core 64-bit processor and quad-core graphics, and that an earlier start to chip production compared to the previous years could give Apple the flexibility to comfortably launch the new iPhone in the third quarter of this year.

Samsung has been Apple's exclusive manufacturing partner for A-series chips, but Apple has long been reported to be trying to shift orders to TSMC. After years of rumors, Apple and TSMC reportedly struck a deal in mid-2013 to begin chip production in early 2014. TSMC and Samsung were initially reported to be splitting the production load for the A8, but Samsung is now said to have dropped out due to low yields.

As Apple continues work on its much-rumored iWatch, the company is placing a significant focus on expanding Siri's ability to interface with third-party apps, according to a report from The Information summarized by TechCrunch.

With input methods for the iWatch limited due to the device's size, Siri's voice capabilities may be one of the best tools for Apple to leverage, and that means improving Siri's capabilities.

The report points out how the Siri of today can’t do things like book a car rental or make a hotel reservation, or use a messaging app other than Messages to send a text. The improvements to Siri would potentially enable those types of things, enabling third-party integrations that don’t require one-to-one business arrangement between Apple and the external company. Current integrations like those with OpenTable and Wolfram Alpha do involve those direct deals, which limits the pace at which new third-party powers can be added to Siri.

The report also claims that Apple is working on technology to dynamically adjust what content is being shown on a device's display, offering the example of a running app automatically being shown when the user begins jogging. The technology would obviously be useful for a device such as the iWatch with very limited display size and input capabilities.

Apple has been rumored for several years to be working on a smart watch project, with the company reportedly placing a strong focus on biometrics to include health-related data tracking for the iOS ecosystem.

Corning Glass senior vice president Tony Tripeny spoke critically of sapphire as a material for displays during a question and answer session at the recent Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference (Via Seeking Alpha and CNET). His responses reiterate the company's earlier opposition to sapphire crystal.

When we look at it, we see a lot of disadvantages of Sapphire versus Gorilla Glass. It's about 10 times more expensive. It's about 1.6 times heavier. It's environmentally unfriendly. It takes about 100 times more energy to generate a Sapphire crystal than it does glass. It transmits less light which it means either dimmer devices or shorter battery life. It continues to break. I think while it's scratch resistant product it still breaks and our testing says that Gorilla Glass, about 2.5 times more pressure that it can take than Sapphire on. So when we look at it, we think from an overall industry and trend that is not attractive in consumer electronics.

Fawcett continued to query Tripeny on the material with the Corning executive hinting that Apple is looking at sapphire for its marketing appeal as the material "has got a very sexy name." Tripeny also mentions the extra cost and lower manufacturing yield of sapphire crystal when compared to Gorilla Glass.

The formation takes about 4,000 times longer than Gorilla Glass at a significantly higher melting temperature. Its hardness makes machining more difficult and costly. Then the cost per unit increases exponentially because when you have defects in boundaries in the crystal growth process, you essentially cut them out and so unlike glass where we have developed technologies so that we can have very large pristine pieces of glass, when you have that on crystals, what you end up doing is always having a yield issue. So it is really those items that make things more expensive.

Corning now is manufacturing Gorilla Glass 3 for use in smartphones and tablets. Announced at CES 2013, the material is three times more damage resistant than its predecessor Gorilla Glass 2. The company earlier this year also announced a new shaped Gorilla Glass product for devices that require a curved display and a version of its Gorilla Glass with antimicrobial properties.

Last October, Apple filed a motion seeking sanctions against Samsung and its outside lawyers, accusing both of unlawfully sharing sensitive data about Apple's 2011 patent license agreement with Nokia. Specifically, the motion stated that a Samsung executive informed Nokia that the terms of the patent settlement were "known to him", and used that information to negotiate other patent agreements in Samsung’s favor. The license terms between Apple and Nokia were marked "Highly Confidential - Attorneys' Eyes Only", but were shared with other Samsung employees.

In January, Judge Paul S. Grewal ruled against imposing sanctions on Samsung, instead choosing to solely penalize the company's law firm, Quinn Emanuel. Now however, FOSS Patents is reporting that Apple released its confidential license terms with Nokia and the NEC while seeking sanctions against Samsung for its role in the leaks.

The license terms were viewable in a publicly accessible court proceedings document on the Internet for four months before they were removed, as Samsung has filed a new motion asking the court to reduce the penalties against its law firm:

Apple's and Nokia's scorched-earth approach to Samsung's inadvertent disclosure, and the amount of the concomitant fees Apple and Nokia incurred in pursuing those efforts, must be juxtaposed against the fact that Apple had simultaneously posted (and Nokia neglected to notice) this information on the Internet for all the world to see. The fee award should be reduced accordingly.

Samsung also added in its filing that Apple should now be required to provide information as to what happened based on "transparency and evenhandedness." A hearing on Samsung's new motion against Apple is scheduled to take place on April 8, as the company also states it may seek further sanctions against Apple after reviewing other information about the situation.

The new motion comes before a second patent infringement lawsuit between Apple and Samsung is set to begin on March 31, 2014. Samsung will only have four patents claims to bring to the upcoming trial, as Judge Koh invalidated two of its patent claims in January.

Apple will cease production of the 13-inch non-Retina MacBook Pro later this year in favor of its thinner Retina notebooks, according to a new report from DigiTimes. The 13-inch non-Retina MacBook Pro, which last saw an update in June 2012, has remained as Apple's only MacBook Pro without a high-resolution screen after the 15-inch non-Retina MacBook Pro was discontinued last year.

Apple has been expected to discontinue its standard MacBook Pros for quite some time in favor of an all Retina lineup. After Apple announced and subsequently released updated Retina MacBook Pros last October, the company cut the price of the entry level 13-inch Retina model to $1,299 - just $100 more than the non-Retina version.

The company is also expected to update its 13-inch and 15-inch Retina MacBook Pros in the future with Intel's forthcoming Broadwell chips, however the exact timing of those updates remains uncertain and differs for both models. While chips for the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro are not expected to launch until the first quarter of 2015, chips for the 15-inch models are expected to be released at certain points throughout 2014. Rumors have also suggested that Apple is working on a 12-inch Retina notebook for the middle of this year.