MacRumors

Activist investor Carl Icahn has just issued a Tweet sharing that he had a "cordial" dinner with Apple CEO Tim Cook last night where he pushed for an increased stock buyback of $150 billion. According to Icahn, the two will revisit the subject later this month.

The stock buyback portion of Apple's capital return program was originally set at $10 billion when it was announced in March 2012, but in April of this year the company announced a significant increase to $60 billion as Apple has sought to take advantage of a drop in the company's stock price to repurchase shares at relatively low prices. Icahn believes that Apple's stock remains undervalued, and thus is pushing Apple to increase the buyback even further.

Icahn took a "large position" in Apple, said to be in the neighborhood of $2 billion, back in August and noted shortly after that he would be having dinner with Cook to discuss the company's buyback plans. That dinner meeting was held yesterday in New York City.

Update: Carl Icahn spoke with CNBC this afternoon, giving additional details about his dinner with Tim Cook and his increased position in Apple.

Via Time reporter Sam Gustin, Icahn said he believes Tim Cook is "doing a damn fine job", management "is not an issue", and that he doesn't "micromanage". He said he is "not going away" until Apple executives "hear a lot more from me."

Icahn also revealed that he purchased several hundred million dollars worth of shares on the recent dip in Apple's stock price and he now holds $2 billion worth of stock.

After notifying former MobileMe customers of an impending iCloud storage downgrade in August, the complimentary 20 GB of iCloud storage Apple has offered to those customers for the past two years has now expired.

As noted in an Apple support document, affected members will be downgraded to the 5 GB storage plan that is offered free with iCloud. Apple also offers extra storage plans for iCloud users, with an additional 10 GB of storage for $20/year, 20 GB for $40/year, or 50 GB for $100/year.

Users who are currently over the free 5 GB limit following the expiration of the complimentary 20 GB will see such features as iCloud Backup, Documents in the Cloud, and iCloud Mail cease functioning until they bring their accounts under the lower 5 GB limit.

Apple replaced MobileMe with iCloud in 2011, giving paying MobileMe customers an extra 20 GB of iCloud storage as a complimentary gesture. The additional storage was originally set to be discontinued in September 2012, but Apple decided to extend the offer, giving MobileMe users another year of extra storage free.

Since the release of iOS 7 earlier this month, a number of users have been complaining about issues with iMessages failing to be sent or received from their iOS devices.

While Apple's iMessage service has suffered from occasional outages, including a minor one documented on the company's System Status page earlier today, some users have been complaining of multi-day outages on their devices, suggesting that something more than a simple service problem may be occurring. Anecdotal reports have indicated that the issue may have worsened with last week's release of iOS 7.0.2, but reports of problems do date further back than that.

Some users have reported that turning their iOS devices off and back on fixes the problem, while others indicate that the solution has not worked for them. In our own testing with a device experiencing difficulties, the following steps appear to have fixed the issue (Note: this will cause your device to forget previously entered Wi-fi passwords)

1. Turn off iMessage in Settings > Messages
2. Reset networking settings in Settings > General > Reset
3. Reenable iMessage in Settings > Messages

Many users are reporting that these failed iMessages are also not falling back to traditional text messages as should occur when iMessage is unavailable. Instead, the iMessages simply hang during the sending process and eventually show as undelivered.

As it is has done in past years, Apple is once again giving its corporate employees the entire week of Thanksgiving week off with pay, offering additional vacation days of Monday, November 25 through Wednesday, November 27 beyond the typical Thursday-Friday holiday period.

Retail and customer support employees will not have the week off as those divisions will need to continue operating, but they will be able to take their extra days off at staggered times. International teams will also be able to take their extra time off at times more convenient for their schedules.

The extra vacation days were announced in an email to employees from Apple CEO Tim Cook, as shared by 9to5Mac. The email praises employees for their work over the past year, from the launches of the new iPhones and iOS 7 to the unveiling of upcoming Mac hardware and software and more. Cook also highlights the company's "contribution to the society", including charitable, human rights, and environmental efforts.

Team-

It’s been an exciting summer. For the first time, we’ve launched two new iPhone product lines. iOS 7 was created from a deep collaboration between our design and engineering teams, bringing to our customers a stunning new user interface and amazing new features. We unveiled OS X Mavericks and the most powerful Mac ever. The App Store celebrated a new milestone — 50 billion downloads. And we continued to express our love for music with iTunes Radio and the iTunes Festival.

I had the opportunity to visit a few of our stores during the iPhone launch. There is no better place to see and feel why Apple is special. The best products on Earth. Energy. Enthusiasm. The best customers in the world. Passionate team members focused on enriching people’s lives. Innovative products that serve humanity’s deepest values and highest aspirations.

And I am proud to tell you that Apple is also a force for good in our world beyond our products. Whether it’s improving working conditions or the environment, standing up for human rights, helping eliminate AIDS, or reinventing education, Apple is making a substantial contribution to society.

None of this would have been possible without you. Our most important resource is not our money, our intellectual property, or any capital asset. Our most important resource — our soul — is our people.

I realize many of you worked tirelessly to bring us this far. I know it required great personal sacrifice.

In recognition of your incredible efforts and achievements, I’m happy to announce that we’re extending the Thanksgiving holiday this year. We will shut down with pay on November 25, 26, and 27 so our teams can have the whole week off. Retail, AppleCare and a few other teams will need to work that week so we can continue to serve our customers, but will receive the same number of days off at an alternate time. Please check with your manager for details. Our international teams will schedule the vacation days at a time that is best suited for their specific country.

I hope you find the extra time restful and relaxing. You deserve it. Details will be available on AppleWeb soon.

I am exceedingly proud of all of you. I am in awe of what you’ve accomplished and couldn’t be more excited about the future. Enjoy the time away!

The Thanksgiving week will be a busy time for Apple's retail team, with the traditional Black Friday kickoff for the holiday shopping season coming the day after Thanskgiving. While Apple does not traditionally offer the massive discounts seen at some other retailers, the company does offer modest sales on a number of its products.

Last Monday, Apple began offering in-store pickup for online orders of the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c, despite extreme shortages of the iPhone 5s following its launch the previous Friday. Just a day later, Apple halted the in-store pickup option for the iPhone 5s, perhaps because of the lack of supply.

But in line with a report from late last week, Apple has now resumed in-store pickup for the iPhone 5s, allowing customers to check availability at their local retail stores when placing orders.

Availability remains extremely tight, with very few stores showing any stock of most models. As has been the case since launch, silver and gold models are seeing very limited supplies, but even space gray models remain unavailable for in-store pickup at most locations.

Apple continues to quote "October" shipping estimates for all new online orders in countries where the iPhone 5s has launched, suggesting that the company is still experiencing some uncertainty about how quickly it will be able to meet demand. The first minor expansion in availability of the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c is set occur tomorrow when Virgin Mobile USA and a number of regional carriers in the U.S. and Canada are scheduled to begin offering the devices.

Back in June, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) struck a three-year deal with Apple to produce A-series chips for iOS devices beginning in 2014. The move was seen as part of Apple's strategy of moving away from rival Samsung for component supplies, although Samsung was soon after reported to have landed its own deal to once again produce chips beginning with the A9 in 2015.

According to Korean news outlet Hankyung [Google Translate] (via The Verge), Samsung will also remain involved in next year's A8 chip family, with TSMC handling 60 to 70 percent of the manufacturing load and Samsung picking up the remainder.

Today's rumor about the A8 chip still makes it unclear as to whether TSMC and Samsung will both produce A9 chips for Apple in 2015, but it seems that Apple is working hard to diversify its supplier relationships and will be drawing on both TSMC and Samsung for the foreseeable future as the two companies compete to push their technology forward.

A look into the A7 processor last week revealed that Samsung was indeed the manufacturer for the chip, with the chip produced at a smaller 28-nm node compared to the 32-nm A6. Currently, the A7 chip is used in the iPhone 5s, and an updated "A7X" version of the chip is almost certainly set to arrive in Apple’s next-generation iPad and perhaps an upcoming iPad mini with Retina display.

According to a report from identity and brand consulting company Interbrand, Apple has overtaken Coca-Cola as the new most valuable brand in the world, knocking the beverage corporation from its 13-year tenure in the annual “Best Global Brands” survey, reports The New York Times.

Every so often, a company changes our lives, not just with its products, but also with its ethos. This is why, following Coca-Cola’s 13-year run at the top of Best Global Brands, Interbrand has a new #1—Apple. Few brands have enabled so many people to do so much so easily, which is why Apple has legions of adoring fans, as evidenced by the record-breaking launch of the iPhone 5c/5s. For revolutionizing the way we work, play, and communicate—and for mastering the ability to surprise and delight—Apple has set a high bar for aesthetics, simplicity, and ease of use that all other tech brands are now expected to match, and that Apple itself is expected to continually exceed.

From our perspective, Apple’s internal brand strength has remained steady. CEO Tim Cook has assembled a solid team that is aligned around the Apple vision, which has allowed them to deliver against the promise time and time again. There’s been a lot of change at the top in the last 12 months, but the alignment of both hardware and software design under Jonathan Ive is a major step toward maintaining focus. A shrewd move, perhaps, given the stiffer than ever competition over the last 12 months: Samsung is now the world’s most profitable smartphone manufacturer, Google has expanded Android and its maps still seem to be the “preferred” route, and Windows Phone 8 certainly raised more than a few eyebrows.

The survey, which has been done since 2000, saw Apple come in at the second most valuable brand in the world in 2011, ahead of technology companies such as IBM, Google, and Microsoft. This year, Apple bested Google who is now the current runner-up to the most valuable brand in the world, and is also ahead of rival Samsung, which moved up to #8 from #9 in last year's survey.

Apple has made significant updates to much of its product line this year, including the recently released iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c, with the company announcing that it sold a record 9 million iPhones during the products’ launch weekend. The company also claimed that 200 million iOS devices are running the new iOS 7 mobile operating system, making it the fastest software upgrade in history.

Following the ongoing legal threats to iOS developers by patent holding firm Lodsys, an East Texas judge has tossed Apple’s original legal challenge of the patent firm, ruling that Lodsys is free to settle all its cases, reports Ars Technica.

Now, after two years of litigation, it's back to square one. The East Texas judge overseeing Lodsys' systematic patent attack on app developers has refused to even consider Apple's motion. Instead, he allowed the patent-holding company to settle all its cases—and then dismissed Apple's motion as moot. By doing so, US District Judge Rodney Gilstrap—who has inherited the patent-happy East Texas court that once belonged to patent-troll favorite T. John Ward—has enabled Lodsys to threaten developers for months, and perhaps even years, to come.

The legal actions by Lodsys originally started in May 2011, where the firm threatened to sue App Store developers over In-App Purchases and upgrade links, claiming that it had a patent to the process which was originally filed in December 2003 as a part of series of continuations on earlier patent applications dating to 1992. The patent in question was credited to Dan Abelow, who sold the patent portfolio to Lodsys in 2004. The move prompted Apple to back developers against the patent threats, stating that iOS developers were “undisputedly licensed” later that month in 2011.

At that point, Lodsys also targeted Android developers with patent infringement claims, and Apple eventually filed a motion to intervene within the Lodsys lawsuits. While Apple was granted limited permission in April 2012 to intervene in the Lodsys case, this permission was overturned today.

This past April, Lodsys specifically targeted Disney’s “Where’s My Water?” title among others in a new round of lawsuits over in-app purchasing, stating that Disney had infringed its ’565 and ‘078 patents had been infringed upon by the entertainment corporation. However, Lodsys agreed last month to dismiss a patent case against developer Todd More, for a charitable donation. Overall, Apple has been the number one target for patent trolls with 171 cases in five years, with U.S. President Barack Obama targeting patent trolls such as Lodsys, announcing proposed legislative changes this past June.

Chinese parts supplier sw-box.com has posted a video and photos of the upcoming the slate-gray enclosure of the upcoming iPad 5.

iPad 5 parts have been floating around for a number of weeks with other videos also showing the new enclosure. This latest video does a good job detailing the physical differences between the iPad 4 and iPad 5.

As shown in the video, the iPad 5 will adopt a similar design to the currently shipping iPad mini. The new iPad is expected to debut in October.