MacRumors

National Geographic photographer Jim Richardson took his iPhone 5s to Scotland and, after taking 4,000 photographs, called the camera on the device "very capable" with pictures that "didn’t look like I was having to settle for second best because it was a mobile phone".

Apple's Phil Schiller tweeted a link to the article this evening, commenting "iPhoneography".

With intense use (I’ve made about 4,000 pictures in the last four days) I’ve discovered that the iPhone 5S is a very capable camera. The color and exposures are amazingly good, the HDR exposure feature does a stunningly good job in touch situations, the panorama feature is nothing short of amazing—seeing a panorama sweeping across the screen in real time is just intoxicating. Best of all it shoots square pictures natively, a real plus for me since I wanted to shoot for Instagram posting.

Once I figured out what the camera could do well I began to forget all the things it couldn’t do at all.

While the iPhone 5s still uses an 8-megapixel camera, it utilizes a sensor that has a 15 percent larger surface area, which means it will produce higher quality photos in low-light conditions. It also has a 5-element lens with an aperture of f/2.2, an improvement over the iPhone 5's f/2.4 aperture and the pixels are larger, at 1.5 microns, for better light absorption. All in all, the iPhone 5s has a 33 percent increase in light sensitivity.

Interested readers can follow Jim Richardson's Instagram page at @jimrichardsonng or #proofscotland from the Instagram iOS app. The full post from National Geographic's Proof blog has more images as well.

Following last week's news that iTunes Radio would be expanding to Canada within the next few months, Bloomberg is reporting that Apple plans expand the service to the U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand by early 2014, ahead of competitor Pandora’s own expansion. The expansion could also include Nordic countries.

Apple Inc. plans to expand iTunes Radio to English-speaking countries outside the U.S. by early 2014, beating industry leader Pandora Media Inc. to the U.K. and Canada, people with knowledge of the situation said.

ITunes Radio is also set to start early next year in Australia and New Zealand, where Pandora already operates, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public. Nordic countries are also being targeted in the same time frame, the people said.

According to Bloomberg, Apple is able to roll out its service to additional countries more quickly than Pandora because it has already signed international rights deals with Universal Music Group and other record companies. Pandora, however, relies on rights "granted by government entities" which limits its service to the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand.

First introduced alongside iOS 7 in September, iTunes Radio is currently limited to listeners in the United States, though users in other countries can skirt restrictions with a U.S. iTunes account.

Apple's senior vice president of Internet software and services Eddy Cue has said that launching iTunes Radio worldwide is a top priority for the company, with Apple ultimately aiming to have the service "in more than 100 countries."

Apple updated its investor relations page today to note that it will announce its earnings for the fourth fiscal quarter (third calendar quarter) of 2013 on Monday, October 28. The earnings release typically occurs just after 4:30 PM Eastern Time following the close of regular stock trading, and the conference call is scheduled to follow at 5:00 PM Eastern / 2:00 PM Pacific.

MacRumors will provide running coverage of the earnings release and conference call.

The release will provide an early look into iPhone 5s and 5c sales across their first weeks of availability, as well as updates on the new products announced at WWDC. Apple's stock price is down some 8.3 percent year-to-date and roughly $180/share off its highs of last year. Analysts have continuing concerns about Apple's ability to innovate without Steve Jobs, though the current price is up quite a bit from the previous earnings call.

In its third-quarter earnings call, Apple guided expected revenue of $34-37 billion and gross margin between 36 and 37 percent for the fourth quarter. If Apple makes the low revenue number, it will have generated more than $167 billion in earnings for the 2013 fiscal year, a rise of more than $10 billion from 2012.

Both LG and Samsung plan to release phones that feature curved displays in the near future, reports Reuters. Flexible curved displays, which have been utilized in television sets, are a developing technology for smartphones and other consumer electronic devices.

Curved displays are in the early stages of development and allow bendable or foldable designs that could eventually allow mobile and wearable gadgets to take new forms that could radically change the high-end smartphone market.

Apple has been rumored to be working on curved displays for several years, with rumors from 2011 suggesting the company could debut a curved glass iPhone. A patent for such a device was published in March of this year, depicting a phone with a wraparound body.

More recently, it has been suggested that the company's rumored iWatch could incorporate a curved glass display, using bendable Willow Glass. While Gorilla Glass has claimed that the technology is not yet ready for consumer devices, a plastic-based flexible display similar to the one used by LG and Samsung is readily available.

The debut of LG and Samsung's initial curved display products will provide a glimpse of what the future could hold for upcoming smartphones and other electronic devices, including the iWatch.

LG's smartphone is said to utilize a 6-inch display that curves from top to bottom, while Samsung's will curve from side to side. Both displays are built on a plastic substrate that allows them to bend and flex, and according to LG, its display will be among the world's thinnest mobile panels.

While the phones incorporate displays that bend, it is unclear whether the finished smartphones themselves will be flexible or rigid, similar to the impliable designs used in television sets from both companies.

Samsung's smartphone will launch in October, while LG's will come slightly later, in November. Apple's iWatch is not expected to debut before late 2014.

Sharp has announced that its 32" 4K touchscreen monitor will eventually have drivers for full OS X touchscreen support, reports Japanese site Mac Otakara [Google Translate] (via 9to5Mac).

The display, which is aimed at retail/commercial applications (PDF), sports a 3840x2160 IGZO LCD panel and includes a capacitative touch interface and pen support. Sharp demonstrated the display running off an Apple notebook at the CEATEC Japan trade show earlier this month.

Sharp demonstrated the panel at CES earlier this year, though it wasn't running OS X at the time:

This weekend, Samsung began running new television ads for its Galaxy Gear smart watch. The ads, which have received positive feedback from critics, pay homage to the first ads from another revolutionary device: the iPhone.

The ad from Samsung uses movie clips from "Star Trek", "Dick Tracy", "Knight Rider", and others with actors using their watches to communicate. The clip ends with a normal person using their Samsung Galaxy Gear, referencing a long-running pop culture fascination with wrist phones.

Six years ago, Apple used a similar ad to introduce the iPhone during the 2007 Academy Awards, stringing together movie clips of characters answering the phone.

Apple is rumored to have a smart watch in development that would compliment existing iOS devices with biometrics and other feature integration. It is expected to be released sometime late next year.

Following several months of investigation, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has concluded its review of Apple’s finances and opted not to take any action against the company at the current time, reports AllThingsD.

While the SEC has ultimately decided that Apple's disclosures are sufficient, it has asked Apple to improve the language of its SEC filings to make it easier for investors to understand the risks of its tax strategies. As noted by The Wall Street Journal, Apple has agreed to provide the information, detailing the names and tax rates of the countries where it maintains foreign cash.

Apple Inc. will give investors more information about its overseas cash and related tax policies, following a review by the Securities and Exchange Commission over the summer, according to correspondence released Thursday.

The SEC demanded additional disclosures about Apple’s fiscal–2012 annual report, including “a more tailored discussion” of risks associated with Apple’s tax structure.

It also asked Apple to detail the names and tax rates of the countries where Apple houses its foreign cash.

The investigative conclusion by the SEC comes after much scrutiny from the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcomittee on Investigations this past summer, which claimed Apple avoided paying $74 billion in taxes between 2009 and 2012 through the use of international subsidiaries and complicated tax strategies.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, CFO Peter Oppenheimer and Head of Tax Operations Phillipp A. Bullock all appeared in front of the subcomittee on Capitol Hill in May, with the company releasing a statement prior to the hearing about its international and financial operations. During his testimony, Cook told the senate that Apple pays all of the taxes that it owes in the country.

In April, Apple borrowed $17 billion in a bond offering, in part to return cash to shareholders without bringing a portion of its $100 billion overseas to the United States. While Apple holds approximately $145 billion in cash and investments, roughly two-thirds of that money is currently held in foreign countries and would be subject to significant taxes if it were to be returned to the United States, with the bill estimated to have been at $13 billion if it were enforced.

Apple told the SEC that it plans to use its foreign cash to invest abroad, creating additional Apple Stores overseas, expanding its iTunes Store, and boosting its international marketing.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

iTunes Radio, Apple's streaming music service that debuted alongside iOS 7, is currently limited to users in the United States. That may change in the near future, however, as Apple appears to be preparing to launch the service in Canada.

Apple recently added a new job listing (via 9to5Mac) seeking an iTunes Canada Music Programmer, who will be responsible for overseeing the programming of iTunes Radio in Canada.

The Canadian Music Programmer will be responsible for the programming of iTunes Radio and the iTunes Music store in Canada. This particular role will report directly to the Head of Music for the Canadian iTunes store, and will be responsible for working cross-functionally across a variety of teams including Editorial, Label Relations, Marketing, Sales, Production & Engineering, and more.

The Canadian Music Programmer will be an editorial voice of iTunes Radio, and will be responsible for keeping the product current. This person must have a passion for and deep knowledge of music across numerous genres and decades, and must demonstrate the ability to objectively program content relevant to iTunes customers.

Job responsibilities for the position include identifying and promoting new songs and priority releases, highlighting content, and managing the weekly scheduling and programming process.

Apple’s first music service, iTunes Match, also debuted exclusively in the United States back in November of 2011 before rolling out to international markets a month later.

Though Apple has not hinted at a timeline for the international availability of iTunes Radio, it is possible that the rollout of the service could follow a similar timeline, becoming available over the coming months as Apple negotiates licensing deals for each country.

According to Apple’s senior vice president of Internet software and services Eddy Cue, bringing iTunes Radio to the rest of the world is a top priority for the company, and it is aiming to be in "more than 100 countries."

Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller and former senior vice president of iOS software Scott Forstall may testify in the upcoming partial damages retrial between Apple and Samsung, reports PCWorld. Forstall has been largely out of the public eye since being ousted from Apple in late 2012.

Set for November 12, the trial follows judge Lucy Koh's March ruling that struck $450 million from the $1 billion in damages awarded to Apple in August 2012.

According to Koh, the jury may have miscalculated the original damages due to a misunderstanding of patent issues, resulting in a lump sum award that did not distinguish between patent violations. With a lump sum award, the court was unable to determine which part of the damages were applicable to each infringing patent.

Ahead of the retrial, both Apple and Samsung have filed a joint statement that includes a list of potential witnesses, and on Apple's side, both Forstall and Schiller are listed.

Apple's list includes Phil Schiller, the company's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, and Scott Forstall, the former senior vice president of iOS software. Forstall's departure was announced last October following the widely criticized launch of Apple Maps, which some observers said may have led to his firing. Both Schiller and Forstall also testified in the original trial.

Also on the Apple witness list is Susan Kare, who designed some of the icons for Apple's original Macintosh in the 1980s.

The new trial could result in an award that favors either Apple or Samsung, depending on whether the amount awarded is more or less than the original $450 million that was thrown out. Regardless of the outcome, Samsung remains responsible for the remaining $600 million for the original jury decision.