MacRumors

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.

Sales of the iPad mini are cannibalizing sales of the iPad, according to a report from NPD DisplaySearch. January shipments of tablet panels between 7 and 9 inches eclipsed shipments of larger panels, indicating an unexpected shift in consumer preference for a smaller form factor tablet.

Shipments of 9.7-inch panels (the iPad) fell from 7.4 million in December to 1.3 million in January, while shipments of 7.9-inch panels (the iPad mini) rose to over 5 million. Smaller tablet panels, including those used for the iPad mini, the Kindle Fire, and the Google Nexus, saw total shipments of 14 million.

In December, NPD estimated that Apple would sell 40 million iPads minis and 60 million iPads during 2013, but the January sales numbers suggest that the mini will outsell the iPad.

As we noted in December, Apple had planned to sell 40M iPad minis (7.9”) and 60M iPads (9.7”) in 2013. However, the reality seems to be the reverse, as the iPad mini has been more popular than the iPad. We now understand that Apple may be planning to sell 55M iPad minis (7.9”) and 33M iPads (9.7”) in 2013.

For much of December and January, the iPad mini was in short supply due to low yield rates of the mini's display panels, with shipping times up to a week. Apple finally reached supply-demand balance earlier this month, which will facilitate even greater sales of the smaller tablet.

During Apple's January earnings call, Apple executives addressed cannibalization fears, indicating that the company is not worried about iPad mini sales overtaking iPad sales.

Cannibilization is a huge opportunity for us. We never fear it because if we do, someone else will do it. iPhone has cannibalized iPod, that doesn't worry us. iPad has on the Mac, and that doesn't concern us.

Currently, the full-sized iPad is an attractive choice because of its Retina display, but Apple is rumored to be releasing a second generation iPad mini with Retina later this year.

While The New York Times reported earlier this month that Apple is working on a curved glass smart watch that could potentially make use of Corning's recently-announced bendable Willow Glass, Bloomberg now reports that Corning sees a wait of at least three years before devices using Willow Glass displays will be able to hit the market.

“People are not accustomed to glass you roll up,” [Corning Glass president James] Clappin said after an event marking the opening an $800 million factory for liquid-crystal-display glass. “The ability of people to take it and use it to make a product is limited.”

The Corning, New York-based company is producing the glass and making “a lot of effort” to teach “very big name” customers how to handle the spools, Clappin said, declining to elaborate. The introduction of the glass comes as companies including Google Inc. consider making wearable computing devices.

Clappin noted that Willow Glass may find its way into some simple products as soon as later this year, but that more complex applications such as flexible displays will require substantially more work before they can be brought to market. He also declined to comment on whether Corning had been in discussions with Apple about its rumored smart watch project.

Apple is already a customer of Corning, using the glassmaker's durable Gorilla Glass in its mobile devices. Corning announced its latest Gorilla Glass 3 product last month, offering three times greater scratch resistance and improved strength, and Apple is assumed to be incorporating the new glass into upcoming products.

Apple has won the number one slot in Fortune's annual "World's Most Admired Companies" list for the sixth year in a row.

The ranking is based on a large-scale poll of corporate executives, directors, and industry analysts who were asked to rank companies by nine key attributes: Innovation, People management, Use of corporate assets, Social responsibility, Quality of management, Financial soundness, Long-term investment, Quality of products/services and Global competitiveness. Apple scored #1 in all nine categories.

Apple has had a rough time lately with its stock price in a free fall and the widely publicized failure of its Maps feature. However, it remains a financial juggernaut, posting $13 billion in net income last quarter, making it the most profitable company in the world during that period. The company has its fanatical customer base, and it still refuses to compete on price, making the iconic iPhone and iPad products that are still widely seen as prestige devices. Competition may be stiff, but so far it remains behind: In Q4 2012, the iPhone 5 was the world's best selling smartphone, followed in second place by the iPhone 4S.

The announcement is a bit of an embarrassment for Brad Chase, founding partner of Capitol Media Partners, who wrote a Forbes guest post earlier this week predicting that "bumbling" Apple would lose its number one slot and arguing that Fortune would have to "defy logic" to place Apple at the top once again. Confusion between Fortune and Forbes led to Chase's opinion piece being misreported by several media outlets earlier this week as Apple having actually lost its slot in a Forbes ranking.

A UK judge who was involved in a case in which Apple was ordered to publish a notice on its website saying that Samsung's Galaxy Tab did not copy the registered design for the iPad has been hired by Samsung as a patent expert in a separate legal battle with Ericsson, reports software patent blog FOSS Patents.

Sir Robin Jacob served on a panel of appeals court judges reviewing the case after Apple complied with the initial court order but in a rather playful manner, quoting judge Colin Birss's earlier comment that the Galaxy Tab was "not as cool" as the iPad. Sir Robin was unamused, and ordered Apple to change the notice, accusing the company of acting with a "lack of integrity".

FOSS Patents' Florian Mueller discovered that Sir Robin is now acting as a patent expert for Samsung from a mention in a letter from Samsung's legal counsel concerning the ITC investigation of a patent infringement complaint filed by Ericsson against Samsung. The blog points out that there is nothing illegal in the maneuver and expresses no doubt that the judge has acted properly at all times, but notes that the impression given is not necessarily a favorable one.

I ... have no doubt that at the time of the ruling Sir Robin Jacob was not being paid, or improperly promised to be paid, by Samsung, and he won't have had any contact with Samsung or Samsung's counsel that would have been against the rules and barred him from adjudicating the Samsung v. Apple case.

Furthermore, Sir Robin Jacob is truly an expert in patent law and there is no question that Samsung will benefit from his knowledge. That said, this just doesn't feel right. It gives the impression that a judge who deals Samsung's number one rival a huge PR blow, in a way that I found very extreme and unjustified, will be generously rewarded.

Mueller himself has found himself embroiled in a somewhat similar situation, having served as consultant to Oracle (as well as Microsoft) while also writing about the patent battle between Oracle and Google.

Apple today announced that its iTunes U service has hit one billion downloads, less than six years after its official debut.

“It’s inspiring to see what educators and students of all types are doing with iTunes U,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “With the incredible content offered on iTunes U, students can learn like never before―there are now iTunes U courses with more than 250,000 students enrolled in them, which is a phenomenal shift in the way we teach and learn.”

Apple notes that over 1,200 colleges and universities and over 1,200 K-12 schools are using iTunes U, offering thousands of public and private courses through the service. Over 60% of iTunes U downloads are coming from outside of the United States.

Apple also touts the sheer size of some of iTunes U's offerings, with several universities offering courses seeing enrollments of over 100,000 and Stanford University and The Open University each having topped 60 million downloads of their content.

iTunes U debuted as a partnership with Stanford University in October 2005 before launching in an expanded form in mid-2007. A year ago, Apple launched its dedicated iTunes U app as part of an education-focused event leveraging the iPad as the learning platform for the future.

Pandora will begin limiting mobile listeners to 40 hours of free listening per month, the company revealed in a blog post today. The change was made in response to a rise in the royalty rates that the company must pay to record companies.

Users who wish to listen to more than 40 hours per month can subscribe to the Pandora One service and get unlimited listening, as well as no advertising -- or pay a one-time $0.99 fee to listen as long as they like for the rest of the month. Desktop users can continue to listen to unlimited music.

Most of you reading this will never hit the limit. In fact, it will affect less than 4% of our total monthly active listeners. For perspective, the average listener spends approximately 20 hours listening to Pandora across all devices in any given month.

That said, limiting listening is a very unusual thing to do, and very contrary to our mission so we wanted to share a quick explanation. Pandora's per-track royalty rates have increased more than 25% over the last 3 years, including 9% in 2013 alone and are scheduled to increase an additional 16% over the next two years. After a close look at our overall listening, a 40-hour-per-month mobile listening limit allows us to manage these escalating costs with minimal listener disruption.

Pandora may come under increasing pressure from competitors over the next year -- Google and Apple are both rumored to be working on subscription-based music services, and Spotify is reportedly working to bring its free product to mobile devices.

Six months after it started carrying the iPhone, U.S. regional prepaid carrier Cricket reports that it will only purchase half of its first-year commitment of iPhones by June 2013, reports BGR.

Back in June 2012, Cricket started carrying the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S after committing to buy at least $900 million worth of iPhones from Apple over the life of its deal with Apple. It got the iPhone 5 a week after it launched on the major U.S. carriers.

The carrier revealed that it is on pace to purchase only half of its first-year commitment from Apple through June 2013. The information in the filing contradicts earlier statements made by the company’s chief financial officers Jerry Elliot. The executive previously said that “sales of Apple devices were pretty good in the fourth quarter” and the carrier wasn’t concerned about meeting its commitment with Apple.

Cricket is generally considered one of roughly half a dozen "super-regional" carriers in the United States, with more than 5 million customers. The carrier offers a nationwide network through roaming agreements and its prepaid model offers simple pricing with no activation fees or overage charges.

Apple's annual shareholder's meeting took place at the company's Cupertino campus this morning. The meeting is held to allow shareholders to address corporate officers and to handle certain corporate business like reelecting the board of directors and voting on certain proposals.

According to CNBC's Jon Fortt, preliminary results show all directors reelected, Apple's accounting firm was approved, a non-binding advisory vote on executive compensation passed, a proposal to require executives to hold 33% of their stock awards until retirement was defeated, as was a proposal to create a Human Rights board committee. The full text of the proposals are available in Apple's proxy statement. Tim Cook received 99.1% investor approval.

The run up to this year's meeting was more contentious than most. A judge blocked the vote on one of Apple's proposed changes following a lawsuit by a major Apple shareholder. He ruled that three separate proposals had been bundled together, when they should be voted on individually.

During the Q&A portion, Apple CEO Tim Cook said he knows shareholders are "disappointed" by its share price, and that focus should be on the long term, with revenue and profits following. Additionally, Cook said that Apple is working on "new categories" but wouldn't comment on anything specifically.

Cook confirmed that the plans for Apple's new "spaceship" campus are slightly delayed, with a move-in date around 2016, as was previously reported. He reiterated that Apple is "seriously considering" the issue of returning more cash to shareholders.

Last year's meeting did not result in any significant changes for the company. Apple's stock price jumped yesterday on a rumor that Apple would announce a stock split today, but that did not come to fruition.