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.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Atari founder Nolan Bushnell held an hour-long talk at the C2SV Technology Conference which MacRumors attended today in San Jose, CA, with the two speaking about a variety of topics including reminiscing about Steve Jobs and the early days of Apple.
The duo started out remembering how they first met, which was due to the influence of Jobs. Wozniak started out by remembering Jobs wanting to apply to Atari:
I'd known Steve Jobs for a long time. And I had seen Pong in a bowling alley and I had to have one. And pop in my head: I know how televisions work and I know how to design anything so I built my own Pong. And Steve came back from Oregon at the time, where he had been going to school, and I gave him my board. He wanted to run down and apply for a job at Atari.
Wozniak then mentioned how he was "so thankful" Atari hired Jobs even though Jobs wasn't an engineer, noting that he must have impressed Bushnell and Pong designer Al Alcorn with his high energy and enthusiasm. Bushnell agreed and related a story about how Jobs came in after just a couple of days on the job to tell Bushnell how no one at Atari knew how to solder.
He said: 'This stuff won't work for more than a few weeks without having failure. You've got to up your game a little bit.' And I say: well, do you know how to solder? And he says 'absolutely, this is shit'.
Prompted by that anecdote, Wozniak reminisced about how when he and Jobs were working on Breakout for Atari, Jobs avoided soldering and instead used wire wrapping.
Later in the conversation, when talking about the lack of venture capital in the early days of the Silicon Valley, the two had a lighthearted back-and-forth about Apple's early Apple I pitches to Atari and Commodore. Wozniak mentioned how Apple had to take on an investor at a certain point, prompting Bushnell to jokingly reply he wished that he had been that investor. Wozniak then countered, reminding Bushnell that he had rejected Apple's proposals:
We offered to Commodore directly making proposals and to Al Alcorn at his house making proposals, but you guys had the first Pong handle coming out and that was millions of dollars for you so your mind was so focused. You said 'we don't have time to make a computer also' and that came about later.
The two then debated what the original deal was, with Bushnell claiming the deal was $50,000 for a third of Apple while Wozniak said the deal was a few hundred thousand dollars, a position at Atari, Atari company stock, and to be in charge of the project. Eventually, Wozniak conceded, noting that he may not have known about Bushnell's claimed deal and quickly remembered how he wanted to keep quiet as he was amazed that Jobs was trying to get $300,000 from Commodore during that proposal.
Some time later, Bushnell praised Wozniak for creating the Apple II and noted that the computer's eight expansion slots turned out to be a "prescient" idea. Wozniak then admitted Apple didn't plan that and lucked into adding eight expansion slots because he insisted on them from his "geek" perspective.
The two wrapped up talking about Jobs by discussing the intensity of the young Jobs and how that is the one quality any future books or movies should hone in on. Wozniak noted that Jobs' intensity caused him to fail with some projects, like the Lisa and the early Macintosh effort, and only once Jobs learned patience to complement his intensity is when things really took off.
Apple today published a new YouTube video highlighting some of the best moments of its 2013 iTunes Festival in London, which featured 60 artists over the course of 30 days.
Artists that performed included Lady Gaga, The Lumineers, Queens of the Stone Age, Kings of Leon, Vampire Weekend, Robin Thicke, Justin Timberlake, Thirty Seconds to Mars, and Jack Johnson.
Though the festival was limited to attendees in the U.K. who won a free ticket via an iTunes lottery system, Apple also provided access through its iTunes Festival app and a dedicated channel on the Apple TV.
The festival will come to a close on September 30 with a performance from Katy Perry. Apple is expected to release a live EP from the show through the iTunes Store after the event ends, as it has done each year.
Following the culmination of a long-running class action lawsuit, AT&T and Apple are set to pay out $40 to customers who were affected when AT&T ended its unlimited data plan for the iPad 3G back in June of 2010, reports GigaOM.
In a ruling issued this week in San Jose, California, US District Judge Ronald Whyte signed off on a plan that will see Apple pay $40 to everyone in the US who bought or ordered an iPad 3G before June 7, 2010. In addition, those who did not sign up with AT&T will get a $20/month discount on the carrier’s 5GB monthly plan for up to a year.
Prior to June 2010, AT&T offered a no-contract $29.99/month unlimited data plan for iPad owners, replacing it with a 2 GB for $25/month plan. While AT&T grandfathered in users who had the unlimited plan before June of 2010, the company did began throttling its unlimited users in October of 2011.
In addition to accusing Apple and AT&T of baiting-and-switching customers by selling iPads that had advertised unlimited data, the lawsuits also suggested that without the prospect of an unlimited data plan, consumers had overpaid for their tablets.
The deal is subject to final approval in February, and Apple will begin sending out checks after that date. While AT&T is required to offer customers a $20 discount on the $50/month 5 GB data plan, the deal is only available to customers who do not have another data plan with AT&T due to no-class action provisions in their contracts.
On Monday, Apple began offering a Personal Pickup option for the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c via its online purchase page and through its Apple Store app, giving customers a way to check in-store availability for each phone model and place orders for in-store pickup.
The following day, Apple removed the in-store pickup option for iPhone 5s orders, leaving shoppers with the option of placing an online order for delivery in October or visiting local retail stores in person to check in-store availability. There was no explanation given for the feature's removal, though the continued constrained supply of the iPhone 5s could have contributed.
According to 9to5Mac, Apple will reinstate the in-store pickup option for both the app and its website beginning on Monday, September 30, once again allowing customers to check stock and place orders for pickup.
Apple's supplies of the iPhone 5s remain tight, with all models and capacities displaying a ship time of October. iPhone 5c supplies are plentiful, with all models and capacities shipping within 24 hours.
Earlier this week, Canadian firm Chipworks released some photos showing the interior of Apple's new A7 chip from the iPhone 5s, as well as the new M7 "motion coprocessor" and other components.
The firm has now had a chance to look at the A7's transistor die photo in detail and make a preliminary effort at identifying the various components of the chip. Chipworks stresses that the identifications are still tentative pending full circuit analysis, but that most of the identifications appear to make sense.
We publish this with the caveat that these are best guesses – we have not done any real circuit extraction to confirm them. The dual-core CPU and cache make up ~17% of the die area, and the quad-core GPU and shared logic about 22%. The CPU itself is not packed the same way as the A6 (see below), it looks much more like a conventional automated layout; although Linley Gwennap thinks that it’s still Apple designed, not the first ARM A53/57 usage.
The analysis identifies the CPU portion of the chip as being at the lower left of the image, with the quad-core graphics located at lower right. Previous work by AnandTech has identified the graphics as Imagination Technologies' PowerVR G6430 configuration, a member of the new "Rogue" series of GPUs from the company.
Also of interest is a large block of static RAM (SRAM) located along the right edge of the chip just above the graphics cores. Chipworks says that based on its size it represents approximately 3 MB of storage and that it could be the "secure enclave" used to house data associated with the Touch ID fingerprint sensor found on the iPhone 5s. No equivalent SRAM block is included on the previous-generation A6 chip from Apple.
The A7 is otherwise a fairly standard chip compared to Apple's previous designs, measuring only slightly larger than the A6 but offering significantly greater performance.
Apple today posted a new job listing seeking a Maps Web User Interface Designer to "design, develop, and maintain complex front-end code for a new secret project."
While the job listing briefly mentions Maps, it appears that the position could have a broader web development focus. According to the posting, the designer would join a small team that is working on an advanced web platform that will be the backbone of many future Apple services.
Qualifications for the position include a minimum of three years of experience building both applications and web services, along with understanding of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, DOM, XML, JSON and various Javascript testing frameworks.
Design, develop, and maintain complex front-end code for a new secret project
Document and build unit tests for your code.
Work with operations, QA, and product management to maximize product effectiveness
Though it is unclear what the secret project alludes to, it is possible that Apple is working on building up a more prominent web presence, developing a series of web-based apps that would extend the Apple experience outside of Apple products.
For example, the company could build a web-based Maps app, similar to Google Maps, which could possibly be incorporated into iCloud or other Apple products in the future. At the present time, Apple still uses Google Maps for Find My iPhone in iCloud, and a new web-based Maps app could present a unified Apple mapping solution for the company.
It is also possible, however, that this position involves the building of internal web tools to manage Apple services that would not be public facing.
Apple has been working on expanding the reach of its products in recent months, introducing iBooks and Maps apps for the Mac with Mavericks and debuting iWork for iCloud, which allows Apple's iWork apps to be accessed anywhere.
A German court has invalidated an Apple patent on a specific "rubber-banding" feature in iOS because it was demonstrated in Steve Jobs' iPhone introduction keynote in 2007, reports FOSS Patents.
In the United States, inventors are allowed a twelve-month grace period between any public demonstrations of a new technology and the filing of a patent. However, Europe has no such grace period and public demonstrations prior to the filing of a patent -- even by the inventor of the technology being patented -- can be used as prior art to invalidate a patent. A subtle demonstration of the rubber-banding technology is barely noticeable at 33:40 in this video.
In this case, Steve Jobs demonstrated the rubber-banding technology at the launch of the iPhone in January of 2007 and Apple applied for the German patent on the technology after that date. As a result, Apple's patent was dismissed because of its own prior art.
The Munich-based Bundespatentgericht (Federal Patent Court of Germany) today sided with Samsung and Google's Motorola Mobility in declaring an Apple iPhone patent, EP2059868 on a "portable electronic device for photo management", invalid within the borders of Germany because a video of the original January 2007 iPhone presentation already showed the famous bounce-back effect in the photo gallery, which is what this patent is all about. The court also rejected various amended claims proposed by Apple, which were an attempt to distinguish the patent from what was shown in the video, because it found them to be, at best, obvious over the Steve Jobs video, which Google's lawyers from the Quinn Emanuel firm submitted to the court in April 2013. In other words, even an amended version of the patent would be trivial, but not over what others created before -- only over Apple's own public demo.
Apple can appeal the decision, and FOSS Patents has much more on the patent and some related lawsuits and claims.
Another rubber-banding patent was used extensively in the billion-dollar jury trial between Apple and Samsung, though that trial is still going through a lengthy appeals process.
Apple has hired former Nike design director Ben Shaffer, claims 9to5Mac, citing a source at Nike. Shaffer worked as the Studio Director of the "Innovation Kitchen", Nike’s research and development lab, which produced popular Nike products like the Nike Fuelband and the Flyknit shoe.
While it is unknown what position Shaffer will take on at Apple, it seems likely that he will be involved in the development of the iWatch, given his expertise in wearables. Apple has been aggressively hiring for its iWatch team in recent months, acquiring a number of experts in the health sensor field. The company also recently hired fitness expert and former Nike consultant Jay Blahnik.
At the D11 conference in May, Apple CEO Tim Cook called the idea of smart watches and other wearables "incredibly interesting" saying the market was "ripe for exploration." Since then, Apple has filed for "iWatch" trademarks in a number of countries across the world, including Jamaica, Russia, Japan, Taiwan, Mexico, Turkey, Colombia, Chile, and India.
The most recent rumors have suggested Apple's iWatch will not make an appearance until late 2014 due to "hard engineering problems" that have yet to be solved.
Update: According to Fast Company's Austin Carr, though Shaffer did oversee Nike's Innovation Kitchen, he was not a part of the Nike Fuelband team, making it unclear what his role at Apple will be.
Last month, we revived our Roundups feature with new pages covering the iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, iOS 7, and Apple's rumored iWatch, offering a frequently updated one-page summary of the latest news and rumors about each product.
With the new iPhones and iOS 7 now launched, we're continuing to update those articles with information to help site visitors stay on top of the latest developments, but we're also launching a number of new roundups today to address Apple's upcoming iPad and Mac product launches expected over the next several months.
As with the original set of iPhone and iOS roundups, the goal of each of the new roundups is to simply answer the question of "What are you expecting" for any given product. That opinion is certain to change over time as new rumors are revealed, and the roundups will be updated regularly to reflect that. Roundups for recently updated products will also include details on the new models to help bring visitors up to speed on what they have to offer.
Our roundup index page continues to include a full list of our available roundups ordered by most recently updated. Roundups are also accessible directly through the "Roundups" tab in the navigation bar on all MacRumors pages. We will continue to update the existing roundups and add new ones for other products over time.
Back in June soon after Apple offered a sneak peek at the new Mac Pro, a Geekbench result from the new machine appeared revealing some performance information about the machine under its internal product code name of AAPLJ90,1. That machine was running a 12-core Intel Xeon E5-2697 v2 at 2.7 GHz, representing what would be a high-end model of the machine.
Today, a new Geekbench result that appears to be a second legitimate Mac Pro has appeared, this time running a lower-end 8-core Intel Xeon E5-1680 v2 chip at 3.0 GHz. As with the previous Mac Pro seen on Geekbench, this new machine is running a custom internal build of OS X Mavericks, in this case Build 13A3010.
Exact Geekbench scores are not comparable between the two Mac Pro models, as the original one was benchmarked using Geekbench 2 and the new one was benchmarked under Geekbench 3, which uses a new baseline measure. The latest machine can, however, be compared to other Mac models tested using Geekbench 3.
On the 32-bit Multi-Core Geekbench 3 scoring, this new 8-core Mac Pro registers a score of 24429, on par with scores achieved by the higehst-end 2010 and 2012 Mac Pro models running dual 6-core processors for a total of 12 cores. The new Mac Pro also handily beats the Geekbench performance of earlier 8-core models.
While Geekbench can assess raw CPU and memory performance, Apple's new Mac Pro will also bring massive new graphics capabilities that can be leveraged for computational purposes. The new Mac Pro will come with dual AMD FirePro GPUs standard, giving users additional computational horsepower while being able to simultaneously drive up to three 4K displays.
Apple's new Mac Pro is scheduled for release this fall, but the company has yet to announced detailed specifications, pricing, or an exact release date.
Rumors of a narrower and thinner design for the fifth-generation iPad have been circulating for a number of months now, with Apple reportedly taking some design cues from the iPad mini in redesigning the full-size iPad with narrower side bezels, a thinner shell, and more rounded curves.
As long ago as last December, rumors indicated that the new iPad would shave off 4 mm in height, 17 mm in width, and 2 mm in thickness compared to the current design, and based on those rumors and leaked rear shell photos, we created renderings of what the device might look like fully assembled. A number of photo leaks of the rear shell and front panel of the device have continued to support the claims of the iPad mini-inspired redesign.
A case maker's design drawings have now been provided to AppleInsider showing the expected exact dimensions of the fifth-generation iPad. According to the drawings, the next iPad will measure 7.5 mm thick, a full 2 mm thinner than the current iPad and 0.3 mm thicker than the iPad mini.
The new iPad will only shave a little more than 1 mm off of the height of the current iPad, but the much narrower side bezels will reduce the width of the device by over 16 mm or nearly 9%.
Similar design drawings surfaced for the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c, and while they were nearly spot on in several of their measurements, it should be noted that those drawing had pegged the iPhone 5c as being 8.5 mm thick while the official thickness according to Apple is 8.97 mm, indicating that these design drawings are not always perfect.
Earlier this week, we noted that a number of regional carriers in the United States and Canada had begun announcing plans to begin selling the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c on October 1, representing a coordinated expansion of availability for the device even as iPhone 5s supplies remain extremely tight.
One notable exception to the list of carriers launching the new iPhones on that date was Virgin Mobile, but in a pair of Tweets issued today the company has announced that it too will be part of that October 1 rollout.
Virgin Mobile, a prepaid brand from Sprint, first began carrying the iPhone in June 2012 with the iPhone 4s and iPhone 4. The carrier did not begin selling the iPhone 5 until June of this year, some nine months after the handset debuted on the major U.S. carriers.
Evernote has updated its Skitch marking and annotation app for iOS, with the new version notably only compatible with devices running iOS 7. The app contains new features such the ability to send marked up snapshots via AirDrop as well as email or SMS, new gesture-based features to quickly take, mark, and send photos, additional annotation symbols with full freehand pencil annotations, and the ability to display annotations on larger screens with AirPlay.
Redesigned to take advantage of iOS 7 features.
Skitch lets you communicate important ideas in an instant. Snap a photo, mark it up, and send it on. Make your message clear with arrows, stamps, text, shapes, and more. Getting your point across has never been easier.
Acquired by Evernote in 2011, Skitch is a part of the Evernote suite of apps and also features full integration with the popular note-taking app. Skitch is a free download for the iPhone and iPad and is available on the App Store. [Direct Link]
Following the emergence last week of new photos that appeared to show the rear shell of the next-generation iPad mini in Apple's new "Space Gray" color, new photos of an alleged "gold" model with a Touch ID fingerprint sensor have surfaced on Chinese website Zol.com.cn [Google Translate] (via Nowhereelse.fr [Google Translate]).
Specifically, the first photo of the device shows the lower half of the device from front, which appears to reveal a metal ring around the home button, much like the recently released iPhone 5s. The second photo from the set shows the tablet from the rear, revealing a gold finish similar to that of the gold iPhone 5s.
We do, however, have some concerns over the legitimacy of the images, as the staged environment lacking much context could be indicative of these simply being high-quality renderings rather than actual photos. Suspicions are also raised by the fact that this device appears to be fully assembled, which is a far more advanced state than has been seen before, as until now only various part leaks have surfaced.
Apple is expected to unveil its second-generation iPad mini with Retina display and fifth-generation iPad at a media event within the next month or so, although a report from earlier yesterday indicated that the next-generation iPad mini may not ship alongside the new full-size iPad.
According to market research firm IHS iSuppli (via CNET), production levels for the expected upcoming iPad mini with Retina display indicate that the device may not ship alongside the upcoming iPad 5, which looks to be "on schedule" for an October release. Specifically, it is estimated that Apple's Asia-based supply chain of manufacturers have begun the start of Retina iPad mini display production, but have not entered a mass production stage of the upcoming tablet.
While Apple's iPad 5 looks to be on schedule for an October release, that's not the case for the Retina version of the Mini, according to Rhoda Alexander, director of Tablet and Monitor Research at IHS iSuppli.
"The Retina Mini looks less certain for that time. Manufacturing volumes on that would match better with a Q114 [first quarter 2014] launch," she told CNET.
Though she quickly qualified that saying, "But given that it's Apple, one never knows" -- meaning that Apple could announce a product but not necessarily ship it at the same time as the iPad 5.
The research firm also cites design challenges, stating that a trade-off between the integration of the Retina display and the compact size and exceptional battery life of the iPad mini has become problematic. The claim does conflict with a report from IHS iSuppli last month stating that Retina iPad mini production levels were set to match last year's levels. KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo also claimed earlier this month that the Retina iPad mini will indeed make an appearance before the end of the year.
Apple is expected to launch its redesigned iPad and a Retina iPad mini in the near future, perhaps at a media event as soon as next month. The company is also expected to make several updates to its Mac products before the end of the year, and they may make an appearance at that same event.
A week after the introduction of Apple’s new iOS 7 mobile operating system, users of iOS 6 across the internet are expressing discontent due to automatic downloads of the new software update, reports CNET.
Specifically, users who still have iOS 6 installed are experiencing self-starting over-the-air (OTA) downloads for iOS 7 to their devices when connected to AC power, averaging around 1 GB per download and occupying 3.1 GB of storage. While the update does not automatically install itself and requires user authentication, the download does not show up in the storage submenu within settings.
The issue is especially problematic for users with little space on their existing devices, as filled space can cause various problems with file management and device efficiency.
CNET confirmed the behavior on both an iPhone 4 as well as a fourth-generation iPad, both of which were running the latest version of iOS 6 before 7 arrived. For the iPad, the download began within minutes of turning on the device and plugging it into A/C power. When finished on both devices, it accounted for a little more than 3GB of space that was previously available on the device, and did not show up in the storage management settings submenu.
Last year, users reported similar behavior with the iOS 6 OTA update occurring for those on iOS 5. Earlier this week, Apple claimed that more than 200 million iOS devices are running iOS 7, making it the fastest software upgrade in history.
Major League Baseball will be using Apple's new iBeacon microlocation APIs in iOS 7 to enhance its MLB.com At the Ballpark app to create customized and interactive experiences for fans at its teams' stadiums, according to a new report by Mashable.
"We've been looking at customizing the app based on where you are within the stadium, but GPS is notorious for not working indoors, especially when you are in a building made of steel," Marc Abramson, iOS developer for MLB, told Mashable. "Instead, we are incorporating Apple's new Bluetooth and iBeacon technologies for iOS 7 and couldn't be more excited about the potential."
The app, which has reportedly been worked on by both MLB and Apple since February, would bring up a ballpark guide with information specific to the stadium you're visiting when you're near the stadium. As the user approaches the ballpark's gates, ticketing information would be pulled up by the app and instantly displayed. In addition, once a user was within the stadium the app would display directions to their seats.
Teams can also adjust the app to react to stadium-specific landmarks and points of interest. For instance, if a user were to use the app near the New York Mets' Citi Field's iconic apple statue the app would play a video detailing the history of the stadium or the apple.
User experiences won't be the same for each visit, notes Mashable. The app will include a loyalty card-like program where teams can choose to reward multiple visits with coupons for merchandise, food or beverages. It can also direct users to parts of the stadium they haven't yet activated, Abramson tells Mashable.
While the Mets are the first team on board with the new app and its technology, Abramson tells Mashable that a lot of other teams have "expressed interested". Although there is no official timetable for a launch, the report says that the program could "most likely" launch in 2014.
iBeacon was announced as one of the new 1,500 APIs in iOS 7 during Apple's WWDC keynote. They're designed to use the Bluetooth Low Energy profile for microlocation, allowing iOS devices to attain precise locations for apps in indoor environments rather than GPS.
Following the culmination of a long-running class action lawsuit, AT&T and Apple are set to pay out $40 to customers who were affected when AT&T 
Apple today 
Apple has hired former Nike design director Ben Shaffer, claims 
According to market research firm IHS iSuppli (via 
A week after the introduction of Apple’s new iOS 7 mobile operating system, users of iOS 6 across the internet are expressing discontent due to automatic downloads of the new software update, 
