MacRumors

Mac Otakara points to a blog post [Google translation] from case design firm MGM showing off a new case intended to fit Apple's rumored lower-cost iPhone. The photos reveal a case that is largely identical to iPhone 5 cases, with the exception of being approximately 2 mm thicker.

Mac Otakara has also posted a hands-on video of the case. In the video, an iPhone 5 is placed into the case and appears to fit fairly well. It is clear, however, that the case is intended for a device with rounded edges rather than the squared edges of the iPhone 5.

Descriptions of the lower-cost iPhone having curved rear edges date back to a January report from iLounge that suggested the device would adopt curvature similar to the iPod classic, while appearing as a cross between the iPhone 5 and fifth-generation iPod touch in other respects.

Apple's lower-cost iPhone is expected to be introduced in the September timeframe and has been rumored to be including a number of color options in order to help differentiate the device from Apple's main iPhone line.

Case designs have accurately hinted at Apple's design plans a number of times in the past, although case makers have on occasion been fooled as was seen in 2011.

As the developer beta testing period for iOS 7 continues, user Hamza Sood (via 9to5Mac) has discovered hidden settings within Apple's latest iOS that include toggles for additional gesture, folder and multitasking options. It is unclear, however, how Sood came across the settings.

Image via Hamza Sood

The gesture settings include options for a new "corner swipe" gesture. In addition, there appear to be expanded options for the "press and hold" gesture, which has so far only been used to prompt "edit mode", which allows users to move and delete apps. There also appears to be a section for "edge swipe", which has become prominent in Apple's redesigned stock iOS 7 apps. 9to5Mac notes that the settings indicate that these gestures could be used for quick app switching.

Other settings include additional functionality on the home screen, such as being able to completely delete stock apps like Newsstand, which has long been a requested feature from some users. The ability to create folders within folders is also present.

The final group of settings is used to tweak the visual flow of the new operating system, with settings responsible for blur effects, coloring and animation speed.

As 9to5Mac notes, it is highly unlikely that most of these features will make their way into the final public version of iOS 7. Instead, the hidden settings are likely to be used and tested by Apple internally to not only tweak iOS performance but explore future features. Some could, however, be adopted as public options to allow for further customization of the user experience.

Back in May, Adobe announced plans to abandon its Creative Suite to focus on several new Creative Cloud apps, including Photoshop CC, InDesign CC, Illustrator CC, Dreamweaver CC, and Premiere Pro CC, among others.

As of today, those apps have been made available for users on a subscription basis. While all of Adobe's previous Creative Suite apps are available in Creative Cloud, a number of the apps have received significant upgrades.

Photoshop CC, for example, offers impressive new features like Smart Sharpen, Camera Shake Reduction, Behance integration, and more. In addition to updated apps, Creative Cloud also offers a synced, cloud-based design experience and streamlined collaboration tools.

We couldn't be more pleased to announce that our new family of Creative Cloud desktop apps, and many of the powerful publishing and collaborative features that we announced at Adobe MAX in May, are now available. These include:

- Hundreds of new features in new versions of the apps you love, including Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC, InDesign CC, Adobe Muse CC, Dreamweaver CC, Edge Animate CC, Adobe Premiere Pro CC, After Effects CC, and more. Your Creative Cloud membership includes more than 30 tools and services that enable professional-grade content creation and delivery across print, web, mobile apps, video and photography.

- The new Creative Cloud app for your desktop, which keeps your entire creative world in sync and organized. Download and manage the latest product updates, keep tabs on your work and your followers on Behance, and more – all right from your desktop.

- The ability to sync your application settings to Creative Cloud. Whether you use a Mac or PC —or both! — you can synchronize your workspace settings — including things like preferences, presets, brushes, and libraries. No more tedious fussing with your apps on a new computer. Just log in, sync, and get back to work.

Individual Adobe users will now be required to pay a $50 monthly fee to access the entire suite of apps and features, though additional pricing options are available for single app subscriptions, teams, and students. Subscribers who own CS3 or later will also receive a $10 per month discount.

While the new CC apps are cloud based, the software does not require a constant internet connection to function. Annual users are required to connect to Adobe's servers and check in after 180 days, while month-to-month subscribers will need to check in once per month.

More information about Adobe Creative Cloud and its included apps and features can be found on the Creative Cloud website.

Earlier today, we noted that photos of what was claimed to be the bare logic board of the iPhone 5S had surfaced, showing some changes to the board's layout compared to the iPhone 5 and perhaps even a slight narrowing of the board itself.

Several repair firms, including iHeart Repair, have shared with MacRumors a new set of images from a supplier showing the display assembly of the iPhone 5S. While the low-resolution images do not immediately reveal any significant changes to the technology behind the device's display, there is one item of interest supporting the claim that the logic board photos from earlier today are genuine.

The iPhone 5 and 5S display assemblies each contain a pair of connectors on flex cables at the top of the part, supporting the display itself and the digitizer for registering touch input. On the iPhone 5 display assembly, both flex cable connectors are oriented horizontally and correspond to horizontal connectors on the device's logic board.

On this iPhone 5S part, one connector is oriented vertically and the other horizontally. This corresponds to the logic board seen in the photos earlier today, with a vertical connector near the top inside edge of the board and a horizontal one along the top edge.

Apple's iPhone 5S is expected to appear largely identical to the iPhone 5 from the exterior, but Apple typically makes significant internal changes in its new models even when using similar casing parts. It appears that the iPhone 5S, rumored for release around September of this year, will be no different in that regard, although many specific details on the internals of the device have yet to be revealed given that the logic board leaked earlier today does not contain any chips or other components.

Update: Fanatic Fone has posted another set of comparison photos (via ETrade Supply) showing the display assemblies in much higher quality.

During the WWDC Keynote presentation last week, Apple executive Craig Federighi showed off Mac OS X Mavericks. One of the new features is more substantial support for multiple monitors.

In Mountain Lion, there are issues with using full-screen apps on setups with multiple monitors. Putting an app into full-screen mode disables the rest of the monitors. In Mavericks, apps can be set to full screen on individual monitors and moved around as necessary.

However, as this video shows (via 9to5Mac), there are some changes in Mavericks that multiple monitor users may not like. For instance, application windows cannot be used across multiple monitors anymore -- windows can only be used on one monitor at a time. Also, spaces are only switched individually, which could affect the workflow of some users.

It appears that, in OS X Mavericks, users can switch between both the Mountain Lion multiple monitor setup and the new multiple monitor support in Mavericks as needed. As always, it's worth noting that this is a beta and things could change before the final version of OS X Mavericks is released in the Fall.

AllThingsD reports that the paperback version of Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Steve Jobs will be released on September 10, nearly two years after the book's original release. According to publisher Simon & Schuster, the paperback version will include a new afterword as well as a new cover image showing a young Steve Jobs in the same pose seen with an older Jobs on the original cover.

[N]ew art, taken by Norman Seeff in 1984, should attract a lot of attention. The original striking and simple black-and-white photo of Jobs on the hardcover jacket of “Steve Jobs” — which was taken by Albert Watson in 2006 — showed the legendary tech figure later in his life and was an image Jobs approved. The new one has Jobs in the exact same thumb-on-chin pose, with the exact same intense gaze that he was well known for.

Amazon currently has a preliminary page up for the paperback version, showing a price of $17.99 versus a list price of $20.00. The hardcover version carries a list price of $35.00, but Amazon is selling it for $17.74.

As noted by Mac Otakara, Japanese parts firm Moumantai has posted three photos of what may be the bare logic board from the iPhone 5S. Unsurprisingly, the shape of the board is nearly identical to that of the iPhone 5 logic board, although it appears to have a slightly different curve along the bottom edge where the logic board would meet the speaker enclosure.

Few details can be obtained from the part, as there are no chips or other components attached to the board, although it does contain a somewhat different placement of screw holes and a tweaked chip layout. The main A-series chip appears as if it will be slightly larger in area than the A6 seen in the iPhone 5, as it takes up a greater width of the logic board.

Apple's iPhone 5S is expected to launch later this year, perhaps around the September timeframe. Following Apple's pattern of two-year body style cycles, the iPhone 5S will reportedly appear very similar to the iPhone 5 and focus on internal improvements. One differentiating feature may, however, be a fingerprint sensor, which is rumored to be location on or near the device's home button.

Update 8:32 AM: As noted in our forums by chrmjenkins, the logic board may actually be slightly narrower than on the iPhone 5, meaning that the main A-series chip may be the same size as the A6 in the iPhone 5.

I think the logic board has gotten narrower. Notice how the A6 has room for a triple row of caps to its left? The new logic board only has room for a single row (caps being placed longways, granted). Also, the back of the iPhone 5 logic board has the Hynix memory module spanning the whole board. Now since the board is thinner, it's been forced to rotate 90 degrees to fit since it's longer than it is wide.

In the wake of a public revelation of "PRISM", a top secret intelligence gathering program run by the U.S. National Security Agency in which Apple was reportedly among a number of companies providing the government with direct access to user data, Apple has now issued a "Commitment to Customer Privacy" statement addressing the issue.

According to Apple, no agency has direct access to customer data, and each request for data by law enforcement is evaluated by Apple's legal team to determine the legitimacy of the claim.

From December 1, 2012 to May 31, 2013, Apple received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests from U.S. law enforcement for customer data. Between 9,000 and 10,000 accounts or devices were specified in those requests, which came from federal, state and local authorities and included both criminal investigations and national security matters. The most common form of request comes from police investigating robberies and other crimes, searching for missing children, trying to locate a patient with Alzheimer’s disease, or hoping to prevent a suicide.

Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it.

Apple goes on to note that there are certain categories of information that it does not provide to law enforcement, either because the company never stores it in the first place or is unable to decrypt it. Specifically, Apple notes that iMessage and FaceTime conversations are unable to be decrypted by Apple and that customer location data, Maps searches, and Siri requests are not stored by Apple in any form that could be tied to a specific user.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the comment thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All MacRumors 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.

Apple has yet to release iOS 7 for the iPad and aside from a small picture on the iOS 7 site, there has been little indication of what the operating system will look like on the larger screen of the tablet.

German site Apfelpage.de [Google Translation] has posted some photos obtained via an iOS 7 iPad simulator in Xcode 5, which demonstrate how several stock apps will look on an iPad running the new OS.

Unsurprisingly, iOS 7 on the iPad looks much like it does on the iPhone. Maps has slightly more screen real estate to work with and the Control Center isn’t quite as obtrusive. As this is a simulated version of iOS 7 on the iPad, the actual version could look different.

It is unclear when Apple plans to release iOS 7 on the iPad for developers, but it will likely come within the next few weeks. The full version of the new operating system is expected to debut in the fall, and in the meantime, Apfelpage.de has several more examples of iOS 7 apps running on the iPad. Australian writer Sonny Dickson, who provided the screenshots, also has additional images that can be found on his Twitter stream.

Update: 9to5Mac has provided even more simulated iOS 7 screenshots.

After Apple debuted iOS 7 on Monday, the website for the new operating system displayed a set of icons that were different from the icons found in the current version of iOS 7.

Apple has since updated the website, but the Weather, Passport, and Reminders apps looked notably different, with the Passport and Reminders apps displaying different colors and the Weather app displaying a temperature rather than the current cloud and sun design.

While it has been suggested that the icons represent future design changes that Apple is planning for iOS 7, it is more likely that the icons are previous iOS 7 design iterations. Because the icons were present on the website when it went public on Monday, it is reasonable to assume that the icons were the result of outdated and overlooked marketing material rather than an unintentional leak of new content.

The "old" weather icon, for example, forgoes the current sun and cloud icon of iOS 7 for a simple number, "73." That is the same temperature icon that is used for the iOS 6 version of Weather, so it is probable that the text-only 73 was an older, simpler design iteration taken from the current iOS 6 icon. There is no indication that the icon represents a live temperature reading.

Passbook, too, looked notably different in the older version, with a confusing color scheme that heavily featured blues and greens. Reminders was updated as well, swapping out gray for green and yellow for orange, both of which are bolder colors. Arguably, the newer versions of the apps feature crisper designs and more prominent, easy to distinguish colors.

Though it is unlikely that the icons represent upcoming designs, it is likely that iOS 7 will see several graphical updates before it is released to the public this fall. As noted yesterday by The Next Web, the current design is a "work in progress."