MacRumors

According to TmoNews, T-Mobile is gearing up to introduce significant changes to its service in March, eliminating both contracts and early termination fees, along with implementing installment payments for its equipment. T-Mobile's move to end subsidies was confirmed by the company in late December.

-For starters, kiss contracts goodbye as T-Mobile moves to a no-contract world. Existing customers will finish out their current contract or upgrade to a new device without a new contract, whichever comes first. New customers won't have to suffer with any long-term commitments. Contract wise that is.

-Early termination fees will be a thing of the past as well, which makes complete sense when announced with the removal of contracts.

-Expect the introduction of a new equipment installment plan tier, likely in the $25 – 30 dollar range as T-Mobile moves to make all its smartphones $99 or less as down payments. A $30 tier makes sense if you consider the retail value of the device is $699 = $30 x 20 monthly payments.

Along with the service updates, T-Mobile is also expected to refine its brand image, with a focus on its "Dual 4G" HSPA+ and LTE networks and the retirement of its former "Stick Together" tagline.

The news of T-Mobile's upcoming revamp comes just after AT&T posted full page ads in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today lambasting the carrier for dropped calls and slow download speeds.

The attack is a response to T-Mobile CEO John Legere, who called the AT&T network "crap" back in January. The animosity between the two companies began after AT&T failed to purchase T-Mobile following objections from the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice.

T-Mobile is the fourth largest carrier in the United States, behind AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. Though T-Mobile does not currently offer Apple products, Apple has confirmed that it plans to offer its products via T-Mobile in 2013.

FOSS Patents reports that judge Lucy Koh has struck nearly half of the $1 billion in damages awarded to Apple in its patent lawsuit against Samsung last August, calling for a new trial to set revised damage amounts for the affected portions of the judgment.

The $450 million amount [struck from the damage award] corresponds to 14 Samsung products, with respect to which a new damages trial must be held because the court cannot make the adjustments it deems necessary for legal reasons: the jury set only one damages figure per product, but half a dozen different intellectual property rights were found infringed, resulting in a lack of clarity as to what portion of a per-product damages figure is attributable to a given intellectual property right.

Judge Koh agreed with Samsung's lawyers that the jury had erred in some of its damage calculations for the 14 affected Samsung products, meaning that a new trial must be held to determine what the damages should be for those devices.

FOSS Patents notes that Apple remains entitled to nearly $600 million in damages from the original judgement, as well as whatever a new jury decides the damages should be for the 14 devices included in the retrial, and interest. Apple is also seeking supplemental damages that have yet to be determined.

The new trial covering the 14 Samsung devices will likely not be heard until appeals of the original ruling have played out, meaning that is likely to be some time before any revised damages are decided.

As noted by Jim Dalrymple of The Loop, Apple today updated its malware definition file "Xprotect.plist" to block older versions of Adobe Flash Player in Safari. Versions of Flash that come before the latest 11.6.602.171 update will be automatically blacklisted.

To help protect users from a recent vulnerability, Apple has updated the web plug-in-blocking mechanism to disable older versions of the web plug-in: Adobe Flash Player

The ban comes after a security bulletin issued by Adobe earlier this week, covering three different vulnerabilities and recommending an update to the newest version of Flash.

In recent weeks, Apple has aggressively used its anti-malware tools to enforce minimum plug-in versions in light of security issues affecting the software. Recent blocks have included a previous Flash Player update enforcement in early February, and several blocks of Oracle's Java 7 Web plug-in earlier this year.

Cell phone unlocking in the United States became illegal in late January for new devices, prompting a White House petition urging the government to look into the issue.

The petition on the WeThePeople platform successfully garnered the 100,000 signatures necessary for an official White House response, and the backlash over the ban also caught the attention of the Federal Communications Commission.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski told TechCrunch that the FCC will investigate to determine whether or not the ban results in harmful effects for consumers. The “ban raises competition concerns; it raises innovation concerns,” he said.

Genachowski isn't sure what authority he has, but if he finds any, given the tone of the conversation, it's likely he will exert his influence to reverse the decision. "It's something that we will look at at the FCC to see if we can and should enable consumers to use unlocked phones."

At this time it is illegal to unlock newly purchased cellular phones in the United States without express carrier permission. Devices purchased prior to January 26, 2013 may be unlocked and unlocked devices can be purchased at unsubsidized prices from cell phone carriers.

The incredibly popular multiplayer game League of Legends has arrived on the Mac. Existing players can download the game directly, while new users will need to create an account.

The free-to-play League of Legends was originally released in 2009 for the PC. Inspired by the Warcraft III map Defense of the Ancients, players compete in 5v5 (or 3v3) battles controlling a single character. Each week there's a rotation of available characters to play as, and the game is monetized by allowing players to pay to permanently unlock these characters as well as cosmetic skins for them.

League of Legends is also one of the most popular eSports games and many events are streamed live with hundreds of thousands of viewers. Prizes for the highest level leagues can run into the millions of dollars and each team has their own personalities and fan followings.

Going native on Mac has been a big goal for us, and we’re really excited to offer the same experience across both platforms. And just in case you’re still skeptical, we managed to wrangle an endorsement from this business-savvy professional. We’re confident you all know that this man games as he pleases!

The Mac client does everything that the PC client does, meaning you’ll get all future features, bug fixes and new content on the same schedule as PC players, but on your native OS. The Cross-Platform team will also continue working diligently to smash any Mac bugs that surface during the open beta.

League of Legends had a private Mac beta client that was scrapped a few years ago, and rumblings of the game returning to OS X have been all over the internet for months now. League of Legends' payment model is designed to be very different from the timer-based freemium games like Real Racing 3. Users can play as much as they want without paying, but they are limited to the characters available that week. Alternatively, gamers can pay between $5 and $10 to permanently unlock a playable character or players can earn in-game currency through gameplay.

To mark the release of the Mac beta, League of Legends has released the iBlitzcrank skin for the character Blitzcrank as well as this promotional video that is full of inside jokes for existing fans:

Taiwan's Commercial Times reports [Google translation] on a new research note from Barclays analyst Kirk Yang claiming that Apple is indeed preparing both an iPhone 5S and a lower-cost iPhone for launch in the August/September timeframe.

Yang notes that each of the devices will be available in two models: one supporting the standard frequency-division duplexing (FDD) technology used in most of the world and one supporting the time-division duplexing (TDD) used by China Mobile, the world's largest carrier. The report claims that Pegatron has received orders for the FDD version of the lower-cost iPhone, while Foxconn will be building the remaining three models.

The report claims that Apple is still weighing production volume for the new phones, working to estimate how much the lower-cost iPhone will cut into iPhone 5S sales and still gauging appropriate volumes for an expansion to China Mobile. Regardless, Apple does expect total iPhone shipments to be higher than last year's levels.

Yang's report conflicts with a report yesterday from Mac Otakara, which claimed that Apple's lower-cost iPhone is not likely to appear until 2014. It is, however, more in line with a roadmap outlined in January by KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has a strong track record in predicting Apple's plans.

Just over a month ago, iLounge shared some details on Apple's lower-cost iPhone, noting that it appears something like a hybrid of the iPhone 5 and iPod touch, with rear edge curves reminiscent of the iPod classic. The report claimed that the device will be half a millimeter taller and wider and one millimeter thicker than the iPhone 5 in order to account for the thicker plastic casing.

A five-year-old boy in the UK accidentally made £1700 ($2550) of in-app purchases in a freemium game in just 15 minutes after asking his father to type in the password for a free download, reports the BBC (via Gizmodo).

The Zombies vs Ninja game was a free download, but with £70 ($105) in-app purchases for game keys and weapons packs. Neither the 5-year-old, Danny Kitchen, nor his parents were aware of the charges being racked up as the child played. His mother Sharon Kitchen said:

He was very upset when he realised what he had done. His brothers and sisters were telling him off, but of course he didn't know what he did - he's only five.

Apple refunded the charges, but the incident does highlight the dangers of freemium games aimed at young children. As for Danny:

I was worried and I felt sad. I’m banned from the iPad now.

The publicity comes just days after Apple settled a U.S. lawsuit over the same issue, offering affected customers iTunes credits of at least $5, with cash payments available to customers with claims over $30.

It is not entirely clear how Danny Kitchen was able to purchase in-app content if his father had only entered the account password to download an app, as Apple separated app and in-app purchases with iOS 4.3 two years ago. The Kitchen's password should have been required a second time before in-app purchase could be downloaded.

Apple also provides a variety of parental controls and restriction tools to help minimize the possibility of such issues, allowing parents to restrict what types of content may be used on the device, turn off app downloads or in-app purchases, and require the account password for every app or in-app transaction.

Apple has changed its corporate bylaws [PDF] to require executives officers to hold three times their annual base salary in stock, with Non-Employee Directors holding five times their annual retainer and Tim Cook required to hold ten times his annual base salary in stock.

The requirement for executives went into effect February 6th, while the requirement for Cook and the Directors went into effect back in November.

From The Wall Street Journal:

Calpers discussed the new executive-ownership requirement with the Apple board before the meeting, according to Anne Simpson, head of corporate governance for Calpers, who declined to elaborate. The fund has long regarded executive stock ownership "as standard good practice," she said. "It's part of our conversation with all companies we engage." Ms. Simpson said in an interview Wednesday that "there are other changes in the works related to executive pay."

Proposal No. 5, an item that was voted on at the recent Apple Shareholder's Meeting, would have required executives to hold 33 percent of their equity pay until retirement. Apple felt this requirement was too onerous and instead adopted stockholding requirements relating to base yearly salary.

The base salaries of most senior executives will be $875,000 for 2013, while Tim Cook's salary will be $1.4 million this year. Non-employee board members receive a $50,000 yearly retainer.

Japanese blog Mac Otakara reports (via AppleInsider) that Apple's plans for a lower-cost iPhone have now been pushed back to 2014, with the company reportedly planning to use a polycarbonate body similar to that seen on the discontinued white plastic MacBook. Apple is said to be targeting a price of $330 for unsubsidized models, significantly lowering the cost of entry in markets where carrier subsidies are uncommon.

The lower-cost iPhone is also said to include a 4.5-inch display, larger than the 4-inch display that debuted last September with the iPhone 5. Apple has been rumored to be developing both larger and cheaper iPhone models, although most observers have expected the lower-cost iPhone to adopt a screen size in line with either the iPhone 4S or perhaps the iPhone 5 in order to help Apple save on costs. Digitimes last month was the first source to claim that the lower-cost iPhone would carry a larger screen with a launch later this year, but it later backtracked from those claims in noting that a larger iPhone would not launch this year.

Mac Otakara suggests that the plastic iPhone will measure somewhat thicker than the iPhone 5 given the thicker material being used for the casing, but that the device will otherwise be very similar to the current design.

Finally, the report claims that the iPhone 5S to be launched later this year will adopt a dual-LED flash system for the rear camera. iLounge had previously claimed that the iPhone 5S will include an improved flash, along with an enhanced rear camera sensor and a processor bump.

Mac Otakara has offered accurate information on Apple's plans in the past, including details on the iPod nano and iPod touch redesigns launched last year, but it has had some misses including a rumor that the iPod nano would add Wi-Fi capabilities to support iTunes in the Cloud.