MacRumors

Yesterday, we noted that U.S. customers were beginning to report that their pre-orders of the cellular-capable fourth-generation iPad models were beginning to ship, with many seeing delivery dates of this Friday, November 16.

Beginning just a few hours ago, customers who pre-ordered cellular-capable iPad mini models also began seeing shipping notices. Customers seem to be reporting a range of delivery dates for this initial batch of devices, with the earliest ones set for this Thursday, November 15 but others not arriving until Friday or even the following Monday.

As we noted in our earlier reports, AT&T is also expected to begin offering LTE models of the iPad mini and fourth-generation iPad in its retail stores on Friday, with the carrier offering a $100 discount on any tablet for those who sign up for a two-year data plan agreement, including its $10/month Mobile Share tablet add-on package.

Apple today updated its online store with its new Holiday Gift Guide for 2012, a collection of products and accessories from Apple and other companies that could make for good holiday gifts.

Unsurprisingly, Apple is heavily promoting the iPad mini in the guide, with "iPad Gifts" being the default section for the guide and the iPad mini prominently displayed at the top of that page. Apple touts a number of other products from its main lineup, including the iPhone 5, iPod touch, iPod nano, full-size iPad, Apple TV, and MacBook Air.

Apple will also almost certainly be participating in Black Friday on November 23, offering a selection of modest deals on Apple and third-party products. Last year, Apple offered $101 off of MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and iMac models, as well as $41-$61 off of iPad models, $21-$41 off of iPod touch models, and $11 off of the iPod nano.

Apple is allowing a small group of employees to spend up to two weeks working on projects outside their standard job responsibilities. This was originally reported by the Wall Street Journal's Jessica Lessin, by way of Business Insider.

It's similar to Google's 20% time, which lets employees spend 20% of their time on side projects that could end up helping Google.

Lessin cautioned it was a "far cry" from what Google does. It's limited to a small group of employees at Apple.

We don't have too many details for how the program, reportedly nicknamed "Blue Sky", works. It may allow employees to spend time on their own projects, or if they could be temporarily assigned to other working groups within Apple.

Update: Lessin's full Wall Street Journal article is now live. Lessin focuses on how the corporate culture is changing at Apple since Tim Cook took over as CEO, noting that Cook has been more accepting of sabbaticals, has praised employees at Apple's media events, and that the company is more frequently giving counteroffers to employees considering posts at other companies.

When it comes to culture among technology companies, Apple is still an outlier. Its managers have long ignored standard Silicon Valley perks, such as free lunches, believing the opportunity to work at the company and on its popular products compelled people to stay.

Last year, in a session of Apple's internal management program Apple University, officials discussed how the company is in some ways more like the military than a traditional corporation, according to a person who was told about the presentation.

But under Chief Executive Tim Cook, who took over from co-founder Steve Jobs last year, Apple is becoming more employee-friendly.

For the first time, shipping estimates for new orders of the iPhone 5 placed through Apple's online store have improved, suggesting that Apple and Foxconn may now be getting a handle on production issues and making progress toward meeting demand for the popular device.

Shipping estimates which had been at 3-4 weeks since just a few days after pre-orders went live nearly two months ago, have now improved to 2-3 weeks. The new shipping estimates appear to be in effect for most of Apple's online stores around the world where the iPhone 5 is sold online.

In comparison, the iPhone 4S took roughly three months to begin coming down from its peak of 1-2 week shipping estimates, reaching supply-demand balance approximately three and a half months after the device launched. But with the iPhone 5 experiencing lengthier shipping estimates and Apple aggressively rolling out the device to over 100 countries by the end of the year, shortages may yet persist for some time.

Apple today released the second beta of iOS 6.1 to developers. The beta has a build number of 10B5105c, versus 10B5095f for the first beta of iOS 6.1

As with the first beta, Apple mentions a number of changes from iOS 6.0.1, including several related to how developers can integrate Apple's new mapping service in their apps, as well as an improvement to how boarding passes are handled in Passbook, and a few minor changes to Safari.

Apple also released a beta of the Apple TV software, as well as Xcode 4.6 Developer Preview 2. Registered developers can download the betas via Apple's Developer page.

Thanks Mathias!

Apple today posted a number of new job listings indicating that the company will be opening retail stores in various locations in Brazil and Turkey. The listings include full slates of retail positions in each country, including Managers, Geniuses, Creatives, Specialists, and business-focused staff.

Apple has been pursuing an aggressive expansion of its international retail store footprint, with 75% of the planned 30-35 new stores for fiscal 2013 being located outside of the United States. Sweden was the most recent country to gain its first Apple retail store with the mid-September opening of a Stockholm-area store, making Sweden the 14th country or region to host at least one Apple retail store.

(Thanks, Alberto!)

Following a series of events in a UK court case between Apple and Samsung that resulted in Apple having to publish a revised notice acknowledging that Samsung's Galaxy Tab devices had not infringed upon the registered design related to the iPad, the court has now ruled that Apple must pay all of Samsung's legal fees. The order was made after the court decided that Apple's behavior in the matter had been inappropriate and showed a "lack of integrity".

As to the costs (lawyers' fees) to be awarded against Apple, we concluded that they should be on an indemnity basis. Such a basis (which is higher than the normal, "standard" basis) can be awarded as a mark of the court's disapproval of a party's conduct, particularly in relation to its respect for an order of the court. Apple's conduct warranted such an order.

The order also highlights the court's issues with Apple's original statement, which contained improperly inserted text within the notice that was required by the court. The court's order specifically permitted Apple to comment on or publish its own information relating to the case, but the company was judged to have purposely circumvented the intent of the order by inserting information judged to be false within the ordered text.

I do not think the order as made precluded any addition to the required notice if that addition had been true and did not undermine the effect of the required notice. But I do consider that adding false and misleading material was illegitimate. For by adding such material the context of the required notice is altered so that it will be understood differently. [...]

The reality is that wherever Apple has sued on this registered design or its counterpart, it has ultimately failed. It may or may not have other intellectual property rights which are infringed. Indeed the same may be true the other way round for in some countries Samsung are suing Apple. But none of that has got anything to do with the registered design asserted by Apple in Europe. Apple's additions to the ordered notice clearly muddied the water and the message obviously intended to be conveyed by it.

Beyond the inclusion of false and misleading text within the required notice, the court also took exception to Apple's claim that it would take 14 days to modify the notice posted on its website. The court ultimately gave Apple 48 hours to make the changes, and the company complied with that demand.

In line with reports from last week, Apple has begun shipping pre-orders of cellular-capable fourth-generation iPad models to U.S. customers. MacRumors has received word from over half a dozen readers indicating that their orders are now en route via FedEx with delivery scheduled for this Friday, November 16.

We had previously reported that some customers who were initially seeing delivery estimates of next week were receiving free upgrades to November 16 delivery upon request, and it now appears that most early pre-order customers will be seeing delivery this Friday even without special requests.

We had also received a report indicating that AT&T would begin selling the cellular-capable models of the iPad mini and fourth-generation iPad on November 16, with the carrier offering a $100 discount to those signing for a two-year data contract for the device. All iPad models including the iPad mini are eligible for the promotion.

We've yet to see word of any cellular-capable iPad mini pre-orders heading out for shipment, so it remains to be seen whether they too will make the same delivery window of this Friday.

MarketWatch reports on an article from Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo claiming that Samsung has hit Apple with a 20% price increase on the A-series chips used to power Apple's iOS devices.

"Samsung Electronics recently asked Apple for a significant price raise in (the mobile processor known as) application processor," the person was quoted as saying in the report. "Apple first disapproved it, but finding no replacement supplier, it accepted the (increase.)"

The two firms have started to reflect the new supply price recently, the report added, citing the same person.

While Apple's latest A6 and A6X chips are custom designs from the company's in-house chip team, Samsung continues to serve as the foundry for manufacturing the chips used throughout Apple's iOS device lineup.

A bill of materials estimate for the iPhone 5 pegged the cost of the A6 chip at approximately $17.50, meaning that a 20% increase in price would translate to roughly $3.50 in increased costs per unit for Apple.

Apple has been reported several times in recent years to be attempting to move chip production to TSMC, but so far the company has been unwilling or unable to make the switch. TSMC's upcoming 20-nanometer process targeted for mass production in late 2013 could, however, serve as a catalyst for a move.

DigiTimes relays a report coming from a Chinese-language Commercial Times report. In it, the Commercial Times claims that Apple will begin trial production of the iPhone 5S as early as December.

Facing low yield rates in the production of iPhone 5, Apple has accelerated the certification processes for related parts and components for the iPhone 5S, the paper revealed.

The paper then claims the iPhone 5S could enter volume production in the 1st quarter of 2013. If that were truly the case, the iPhone 5S could be be set to launch earlier than most have expected.

Apple originally launched the iPhone in the summer of 2007 and then stayed on an annual mid-year release cycle. This schedule held true until the launch of the iPhone 4S which launched in October 2011. Apple then continued this fall-release schedule with the iPhone 5 in 2012. As a result, many have expected the iPhone 5's successor to launch in the fall of 2013.

The Commercial Times has had a spotty record, however, so its hard to gauge how much faith to put into this single report. If the iPhone 5S launch will indeed be accelerated, we are certain to hear more in the coming months.

Apple has started airing two new television ads for the iPad mini, the second and third spots released for the iPad mini. Apple previously released the 'Piano' ad that was shown during the iPad mini media event.

The first ad, 'Books', focuses on the abilities of the iPad mini as an e-reader. It shows the full-size iPad and the iPad mini side-by-side both opening and closing books in iBooks. The ad uses clever pairings of books to draw comparisons between the larger and smaller tablets: The Sun Also Rises and The Valley of the Moon; East of Eden and How the West Was Won; and, Moby Dick and Gone Fishing.

The second ad, called 'Photos', uses the same side-by-side format as the other two iPad mini ads. This time, Apple shows off iPhoto for iOS with the 60's classic song Two of a Kind by Bobby Darin and Johnny Mercer in the background.

Back in September, the Swiss Federal Railways accused Apple of copying its iconic clock design for the new Clock app for iPad included as part of iOS 6. Several weeks later, the agency announced that the dispute had been settled with Apple signing a licensing agreement for the design, although terms of the agreement were not announced.

Tages-Anzeiger now reports [Google translation] that the licensing agreement resulted in Apple making a payment of approximately 20 million Swiss francs ($21 million) to the agency. The report indicates that amount has been leaked by several sources, but the Swiss Federal Railways and Apple have refused to comment on the situation.

The report also suggests that the licensing agreement may not provide any compensation to watchmaker Mondaine, which has been the sole consumer-focused licensee of the design. Mondaine is reportedly happy that Apple has provided increased visibility for the clock design, but remains in discussions with the Swiss Federal Railways over the issue in order to ensure that it is resolved to the satisfaction of all parties involved.

Apple has posted a press release tonight, announcing that Apple and HTC have reached a global settlement on their patent dispute. The agreement has resulted in a ten-year patent licensing agreement between the companies and the dismissal of all current lawsuits. The press release includes quotes from HTC's and Apple's CEOs:

“HTC is pleased to have resolved its dispute with Apple, so HTC can focus on innovation instead of litigation,” said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC.

“We are glad to have reached a settlement with HTC,” said Tim Cook, CEO of Apple. “We will continue to stay laser focused on product innovation.”

The license extends to current and future patents held by both parties. The terms of the settlement are confidential.

Apple first filed a lawsuit against HTC in March, 2010. Apple had alleged that HTC had infringed on 20 iPhone-related patents. HTC had been a prominent player in the Android market at the time, and also represented Google's manufacturing partner for the Nexus One.

HTC had subsequently countersued Apple in 2011 and claimed that Apple had infringed on several of HTC's patents with the Mac, iPhone and iPad products.

Apple and HTC have been exchanging legal blows over the past two years with product bans and legal fees that were rumored to top $100 million. Apple recently won another high profile patent dispute in the U.S. against Samsung with a $1 billion verdict in favor of Apple.

Over the past couple of weeks, we've taken a few looks at Apple's new Fusion Drive used in the latest Mac mini and the upcoming iMac. The Fusion Drive system uses software to seamlessly integrate a 128 GB solid-state drive (SSD) with a 1 TB or 3 TB traditional hard drive to offer users the best of both worlds when it comes to speed and capacity. System files and other frequently used data are automatically moved to the SSD for maximum speed, with lower-priority data being stored on the much larger traditional hard drive.

Macworld has now conducted some benchmarks on the various Late 2012 Mac mini models, including one equipped with Fusion Drive, demonstrating how much faster the system runs with the benefit of the SSD.

[I]t was the Fusion Drive that really kicked the BTO Mac mini into overdrive. The standard configuration $799 Mac mini with its 5400-rpm hard drive took more than three times as long to complete our copy file and uncompress file tests as the Fusion Drive did in the BTO Mac mini. The BTO Mac mini’s PCMark productivity test score (using VMWare Fusion) was three times higher than the high-end standard configuration’s score. [...]

The BTO Mac mini was actually faster than the Retina MacBook Pro in a few tests, like the iPhoto, iMovie, and Aperture import tests. But file copy and file uncompress tests were a bit faster on the Retina MacBook Pro with its “pure” flash storage than on the Mac mini’s Fusion Drive.

A new video posted by TechfastLunch&Dinner also shows how keeping the system files on the fast SSD cuts boot times in half for the Fusion Drive-equipped Mac mini compared to a similar system using only a traditional hard drive.

Ars Technica has also posted a thorough examination of how the Fusion Drive works at a detailed level. The report notes that Fusion Drive is a solid consumer-focused tiering solution with some distinct differences from other caching and tiering implementations.

There are no options to configure, no pinning settings to adjust, and no user-visible method to decide what goes where. The FD volume is a single volume, and its Core Storage underpinnings direct all IO to the SSD first. New files are saved transparently to the SSD side of the Fusion Drive, as are new applications you install. Everything goes to the SSD first.

The logic behind this is clear: Fusion Drive is not meant to be a feature that appeals to the propeller-head geek. The kind of person who already has an SSD and a spinny disk in his Mac... and who symlinks his iTunes and iPhoto libraries off the HDD onto the SDD... and who enjoys meticulously balancing out which files go where will almost certainly not enjoy Fusion Drive's hands-off approach. Fusion Drive is not designed to be poked at or prodded. Rather, much in the same way that Time Machine's hands-off approach brought backup to people who otherwise wouldn't be bothering, Fusion Drive's hands-off approach brings tiering to Mac masses who otherwise can't be bothered. The presentation is very Apple-like, with no knobs to twiddle.

Ars Technica goes on to force chunks of data and whole files to be promoted up to the SSD, examines Boot Camp functionality on the Fusion Drive, and explores what happens should one of the drives fail.

Recombu follows up on a Tweet from UK developer CMA Megacorp addressing an issue with recognition of rapid diagonal swipes on the iPhone 5, posting a video comparison showing the issue on devices running both iOS 6 and iOS 6.0.1.

The glitch which as far as we’re aware hasn’t previously been spotted by anyone, manifests itself as a dropout of touch input when quickly scrolling diagonally across the screen. [...]

Using the Mail app to clearly demonstrate the quick scrolling action, we dragged our finger back and forth diagonally from bottom right to top left on each phone’s display. Sure enough, whilst both iPhone 4S’s handled the fast paced scrolling to aplomb, one iPhone 5 struggled to hold its concentration, dropping and picking back up touch input whilst the other stopped registering input altogether.

The report notes cause of the issue is unknown, but iMore has confirmed that it also affects the fifth-generation iPod touch, suggesting that it may be related to the technology behind the new 4-inch display with in-cell touch technology being used in both devices.

Given the unusual rapid diagonal swiping motion required for the issue to appear, most users will notice it rarely, if at all, although certain apps such as Fruit Ninja and Infinity Blade that rely on such swiping motions could be affected by the issue. But given that it has taken two months since the launch of the iPhone 5 to even be noticed, it seems that the glitch generally does not have a significant effect on real-world usage.

The Wall Street Journal reports that China Telecom is preparing to begin offering the iPhone 5 in late November or early December, adding to the potential for a blockbuster holiday quarter for Apple.

Government officials haven't offered guidance on when the iPhone 5 might win final approval. But China Telecom Chairman Wang Xiaochu said Friday in a brief interview on the sidelines of the Communist Party's 18th Party Congress in Beijing that the phone should be by early December if not sooner.

China Unicom Chairman Chang Xiaobing was less certain. "We hope to offer it this year, but what I say doesn't matter," he said on the sidelines of the congress, adding that his company was waiting for the government to grant the remaining licenses for the phone to be released in China.

The report notes that China was responsible for $5.7 billion in revenue for Apple last quarter, 16% of the company's total.

Apple has committed to a rapid rollout of the iPhone 5 to at least 100 countries by the end of the year, despite continuing production issues that have resulted in shortages where the device has already launched. China is typically well behind the lead pack of countries when it comes to new Apple product launches, but the compressed launch schedule for the iPhone 5 means that this gap may only be roughly two months from the first round of launches in the U.S. and other countries.

The introduction of the iPhone 5 in China is also likely to reduce the number of units being siphoned off from other countries by gray market dealers purchasing the devices elsewhere for resale in China. Despite Apple's efforts to limit their ability to soak up supplies, scalpers are still working to secure as many iPhones as possible from retail stores in Hong Kong, the U.S., and other countries to send back to China.