MacRumors

Last month, Apple and the Fair Labor Association (FLA) announced an agreement that would see the FLA monitoring workplace conditions in Apple's supply chain, providing independent oversight to ensure compliance with worker rights standards set by Apple and the FLA. Apple is the first technology company to join the FLA, a move which comes as Apple has been the subject of increasing criticism over Foxconn's treatment of its employees.

Apple today issued a press release announcing that the FLA has begun inspecting Foxconn's facilities at Apple's request, supplementing Apple's own auditing practices.

Apple today announced that the Fair Labor Association will conduct special voluntary audits of Apple’s final assembly suppliers, including Foxconn factories in Shenzhen and Chengdu, China, at Apple’s request. A team of labor rights experts led by FLA president Auret van Heerden began the first inspections Monday morning at the facility in Shenzhen known as Foxconn City.

“We believe that workers everywhere have the right to a safe and fair work environment, which is why we’ve asked the FLA to independently assess the performance of our largest suppliers,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “The inspections now underway are unprecedented in the electronics industry, both in scale and scope, and we appreciate the FLA agreeing to take the unusual step of identifying the factories in their reports.”

The release notes that the FLA will be conducting interviews of thousands of Foxconn employees as it assesses their working and living conditions. The FLA will have access to Foxconn's manufacturing areas, as well as the dormitories and other facilities where employees are housed in the massive complex.

Results of the Foxconn inspections will be posted on the FLA's site early next month, and similar inspections at Apple's other major manufacturing partners Quanta and Pegatron will follow this spring. Once inspections at the three companies' facilities are complete, the FLA will have assessed facilities where over 90% of Apple's products are assembled.

Amidst the growing chorus of rumors about an Apple branded television, The Telegraph reports that the UK TV network ITV has written a letter to Apple to warn it against using the name "iTV" for its future television product.

This is actually not the first time that Apple and ITV have been in contention over the name. When Apple first announced their set top box in 2006, they originally called the product "iTV":

Apple later changed the name to "Apple TV", but reportedly later reconsidered changing the name back to iTV. ITV executives were said to be "furious" over the possibility.

The Telegraph reports that Apple gave reassurances back in 2010 that they would not use the name, though they note that Apple is now under different leadership.

However, insiders fear that the world’s biggest company might take a different stance under Tim Cook, who replaced Steve Jobs as chief executive shortly before Mr Jobs died in August last year.

Apple is believed to be actively working on a standalone television product. A recent report claimed Canadian cable companies already had the product in their hands. That report and others have been casually referring to the upcoming product as the "Apple iTV", though Apple has yet to officially name or even acknowledge the project.

Update: In a statement to The Verge, ITV has denied that it sent any such warning to Apple.

In a statement to The Verge, ITV said that, "The Telegraph's piece is entirely speculative, and there has been no communication between ITV and Apple. ITV has no further comment on the matter."

Last week, we offered an update on the ongoing trademark dispute in China between Apple and Proview Technology, which claims to have held ownership of the "iPad" trademark there since 2000. Apple is said to be facing a potential fine of approximately $38 million from the government while Proview is seeking as much as $1.6 billion in damages.

According to new reports from DigiCha (via The Next Web) and China.com.cn [Google translation] , authorities have begun taken steps related to the trademark issue, confiscating iPads discovered in retailers' shops while other retailers move proactively to remove the devices from display in order to prevent their stocks from being seized. DigiCha reports:

Apparently as a result of the Proview iPad trademark infringement verdict, some local Administrations of Industry and Commerce (AIC) have started to confiscate Apple ($AAPL) iPads they find on sale. The article claims that many stores and resellers have taken the products off their shelves to avoid discovery by authorities, but if you ask for an iPad you can still buy one.

China.com.cn notes that as of 5:00 PM yesterday authorities had seized 45 iPad 2 units from retailers, but it remains unclear whether the actions are part of an nationwide effort or if local authorities are acting on their own initiative to address the issue.

Apple believed that it had acquired the rights to the iPad trademark in China in an earlier $55,000 deal with Proview's parent company that also included European rights. But Proview's Chinese arm has argued that the Chinese rights could not have been part of the deal because those rights were not controlled by the parent company.

Apple lost a lawsuit challenging Proview's claim on the trademark late last year, and Proview is continuing to press its infringement case against Apple.

Apple is expected to reveal the new iPad at a media event in the first week of March. The new iPad is widely believed to carry a ultra-high resolution 2048x1536 display that exceeds the resolution of 1080p content. Apple, however, presently only offers a maximum of 720p HD content on their iTunes Store. 720p also happens to be the maximum resolution that the current generation Apple TV supports.

We've already seen evidence that Apple has been working on a next generation Apple TV. Back in October, references to an unreleased "AppleTV3,1" model were found in the latest versions of iOS 5. Meanwhile, Apple has reportedly asked movie studios to start submitting 1080p content to the iTunes Store late last year.

A Retina Display iPad would represent an opportunity for Apple to launch a 1080p iTunes Store. It would also make sense for it to correspond to an Apple TV update. 9to5Mac now notes that stock of the current generation Apple TV is running low amongst retailers such as BestBuy, Target and Amazon. The timing suggests that the Apple TV could be getting a refresh around the same timeframe as the iPad.

The Apple TV is a product that we haven't tracked in our Buyer's Guide. The reason is that the Apple TV is unique in that it is more of a living room appliance whose primary purpose is to play iTunes content on your television. As a result, as long as the Apple TV can play all current iTunes content, there's been no compelling reason for Apple to offer a major hardware upgrade. In October, we wrote:

So, we can't be certain when Apple might be launching a new Apple TV, but believe it would be tied to other offerings, either 1080p HD iTunes content or another television initiative altogether.

If Apple does see the iPad 3 as an a opportunity to launch the rumored 1080p iTunes Store, then it seems likely the Apple TV will follow.

Back in December, The Recording Academy announced that it would be honoring Steve Jobs with a Special Merit Grammy Award. The Trustees Award for Jobs was made in recognition of his contributions to the field of music with the iPod and iTunes Music Store.

The Grammy ceremony for the Special Merit Awards was held yesterday, and Apple senior vice president of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue was on hand to accept the award.

On behalf of Steve's wife, Laurene, his children, and everyone at Apple, I'd like to thank you for honoring Steve with the Trustees Grammy Award. Steve was a visionary, a mentor, and a very close friend. I had the incredible honor of working with him for the last fifteen years.

Accepting this award means so much to me because music meant so much to him. He told us that music shaped his life...it made him who he was. Everyone that knows Steve knows the profound impact that artists like Bob Dylan and The Beatles had on him.

Steve was focused on bringing music to everyone in innovative ways. We talked about it every single day. When he introduced the iPod in 2001, people asked "Why is Apple making a music player?" His answer was simple: "We love music, and it's always good to do something you love."

His family and I know that this Grammy would have been very special to him, so I thank you for honoring him today.

The Recording Academy has also published a brief tribute to Jobs by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, a 16-time Grammy winner and personal friend of Jobs.

Jobs' Grammy marks the second time he and Apple have been honored by The Recording Academy. Apple itself won a Technical Grammy Award in 2002.

Clkoerner (via OSXDaily) put together this graphic showing the relative number of pixels offered by various devices, including the rumored iPad 3. Also for reference, he includes a 1920x1080 Full HD screen to show that the new iPad's screen may dwarf them all.

That is, assuming that the iPad 3 does come with the long rumored "Retina Display". The most recent evidence suggesting that it is the case was a New York Times report last week in which an anonymous Apple employee said the new iPad would have a "truly amazing screen". Other evidence has leaked out over the past year with Apple including double-resolution iPad artwork in their applications, and numerous supply chain reports.

The graphic shows all screen resolutions relative to each other assuming that they all had the same DPI (dots per inch). The iPad 3 screen is actually believed to be the same physical size as the iPad 2, but carry twice the density of pixels. This should result in a much sharper images on the iPad 3 as compared to the previous models. 3rd party applications will have to be updated to support the higher resolution display and Apple is reportedly lining up demos for the March launch.

Reuters reports that Apple has filed a lawsuit against Motorola Mobility alleging that Motorola has breached a licensing agreement with Qualcomm in its efforts to have a number of Apple's iOS devices banned from sale in Germany. Following a December victory by Motorola in a German court, Apple last week briefly pulled all 3G-enabled products with the exception of the iPhone 4S from its German online store. They were restored within a few hours after the injunction was suspended.

Today's lawsuit specifically addresses the iPhone 4S, which Motorola has also been seeking to block in Germany and other countries. The iPhone 4S utilizes Qualcomm's MDM6610 baseband chip, and Apple argues that Qualcomm's patent license with Motorola exhausts Motorola's rights to further royalties from Apple.

The suit, filed in a San Diego federal court, argues that Motorola's German lawsuit against Apple breaches terms of a patent licensing agreement between Motorola and Qualcomm. [...]

In the latest lawsuit, Apple says that as a Qualcomm customer, Apple is a third-party beneficiary of Motorola's agreement with Qualcomm. Under that agreement, Motorola's rights under certain patents are exhausted, Apple argues.

Apple has raised this issue before, perhaps most notably in defending itself against Samsung in Australia where it similarly claimed that Apple is protected from attacks based on these patents related to core cellular technologies by virtue of Qualcomm's licensing agreements. Motorola and Samsung have disagreed with Apple on that front, and Apple is now pressing the matter with a lawsuit of its own specifically addressing the issue as it relates to Motorola's efforts in Germany.

Apple has begun offering a stripped-down 13" MacBook Air to educational institutions purchasing in bulk, replacing the two-year old white plastic MacBook offering the company recently discontinued. Apple had ceased sales of the MacBook to consumer customers back in July of 2011.

The new educational-exclusive MacBook Air is a 13" model with the same specs as the entry-level consumer 11" MacBook Air: 1.6GHz i5 processor, 2GB RAM, 64GB flash storage, and the Intel HD Graphics 3000 chipset. The machine is available in a 5-pack for $4,995 or $999 per machine. The standard 13" MacBook Air starts at $1,299.

Apple has long offered prepackaged sets of laptops to educational institutions looking to equip teachers or students with MacBooks (and iBooks before that). It has also made available a Learning Lab product that includes 10 or 20 MacBooks along with a preconfigured cart to hold and charge the machines. More recently, Apple has begun offered iPad and iPod Learning Lab carts, too.

After the discontinuation of the white MacBook, Apple reworked the bulk laptop packages it offers educational institutions. As first reported by 9to5Mac, Apple is now selling 5-packs of the 11" and 13" MacBook Airs along with an existing 13" MacBook Pro offering. The MacBook Air Learning Lab packages have been updated as well, with discounted 10- and 20-packs of the stripped-down 13" MacBook Air bundled with the aforementioned charging and storage cart.

The new packages are available on Apple's educational institution online store, though Apple has yet to update its educational web page with the new information.

In two reports back in April and July of last year, we reported that Apple was working on an ultra-thin 15-inch Mac notebook, with the suggestion being that the existing MacBook Pro line would evolve to take design cues and many of the features from the popular MacBook Air. But whether the larger notebooks would be branded as MacBook Pros or MacBook Airs has been unclear.

Many had hoped that the redesigned 15-inch notebook would debut by the end of 2011, but Apple apparently elected to squeeze in one final minor spec bump as it waited for Intel's Ivy Bridge platform to launch in 2012. Reports late last year continued to suggest that Apple was finishing up work on the redesigned 15-inch MacBook Pro ahead of a 2012 debut.

AppleInsider now weighs in with its own claims essentially mirroring much of what was previously reported, but emphasizing that the shift will likely see a unification of Apple's notebook lines under the MacBook Air design aesthetic, covering the full range of 11-inch to 17-inch sizes by the end of this year.

This will include new, ultra-thin unibody enclosures that jettison yesteryear technologies like optical disk drives and traditional hard drives in favor of models with lightweight chassis that employ flash-memory based solid-state drives, instant-on capabilities, extended battery life, and rely on digital distribution for software and media.

"They're all going to look like MacBook Airs," one person familiar with the new MacBook Pro designs told AppleInsider. Meanwhile, existing MacBook Pro designs are expected to be phased out over the course of the year.

The report suggests that Apple may not shift the entire MacBook Pro line at once, instead beginning with the 15-inch model and then following with the 17-inch model "shortly thereafter". Apple followed a similar pattern with its transition to the present unibody design back in late 2008 and early 2009.

The fate of the 13-inch MacBook Pro remains murky, and may depend on just how closely the new MacBook Pro designs mirror the smaller MacBook Air and whether Apple brings the whole notebook line under a single name. With the MacBook Pro redesign and a boost to the 13-inch MacBook Air, there may simply not be enough differentiating the two 13-inch machines and Apple may opt to consolidate its notebooks down to essentially a single line in four different sizes.

Phone Arena reports that AT&T has begun supplying its retailers with LTE-compatible micro-SIM cards, requesting that existing micro-SIM stocks be scrapped in favor of the new ones supporting the latest networks offering faster data speeds. The obvious explanation for the shift is the launch of the Nokia Lumia 900 next month, but speculation naturally also turns to Apple's plans for its upcoming devices.

Phone Arena suggests that the LTE-enabled micro-SIM cards could eventually be used in the iPhone 5, but the much nearer term launch for Apple is the iPad 3, which has been rumored to offer support for LTE. So while the new micro-SIM cards may not be appearing solely for the iPad 3, it is interesting to note that they are now available on AT&T should Apple launch an iPad 3 with LTE capabilities.

Update: AT&T spokesman Seth Bloom notes that the Pantech Breeze and Element already utilize the LTE micro-SIM card on the carrier's network.

Rumors continue to swirl about the iPad 3 launch following yesterday's claims that Apple will be holding a media event during the first week of March for the introduction. The Next Web now reports that Apple is currently said to be in "crunch mode" as it works to finalize its plans for the event.

According to the report, Apple is working to pin down select third-party apps to be the featured demonstrations at the media event and in commercials for the upcoming device. Apple is said to be emphasizing apps that will show off the iPad 3's high-resolution "Retina" display.

Our sources tell us that this selection process is continuing at an increased rate as Apple looks to finalize the lineup for the iPad 3. There is also emphasis on graphics-oriented applications with high-definition assets, which appears to be in line with the new iPad featuring a ‘Retina’ display.

In addition, some apps that Apple is impressed with are being forwarded on to its long-time advertising partner TWBA/Chiat/Day for possible inclusion in the initial iPad 3 commercial spots. This process is entering its final phase as well, with the company on a tight deadline to deliver assets for playback during the presentation and later, television broadcast.

Apple has been known to bring third-party developers to Cupertino in the weeks and days leading up to a major keynote or media event in order to work through presentation plans for demos and ensure that they will run smoothly. One account from the early days of the App Store related Apple's work with a developer to spend a week's worth of 16-hour days at Apple headquarters porting an app to iOS in time for the company's September 2008 "Let's Rock" event, only to see Steve Jobs nix the demo over concerns that it wasn't "fast-paced" enough.

Apple posted two new iPhone 4S television ads to its YouTube account this evening, "Road Trip" and "Rock God". Both ads showcase the various ways to use the iPhone 4S's Siri functionality to find directions, locate a restaurant, or send text messages.

There have been several other iPhone 4S ads previously. In December, Apple released an iPhone 4S ad featuring Santa Claus using his iPhone 4S to check the weather and his "schedule" as he delivered toys around the world. In October, just after the iPhone 4S went on sale, Apple aired an ad called "Assistant" which also featured Siri extensively.

Google is developing a wireless home entertainment system designed to stream music throughout the home, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. The system would be marketed under Google's brand and would be based on Google's Android platform. Google has sold a few items under its own name, but has never designed consumer electronics hardware itself. The Google Nexus phone, for example, was made by HTC.

Google's Android unit has led a multi-year effort to develop the new entertainment device, which may possibly stream other digital media besides music and is expected to be unveiled later this year, people familiar with the matter said.

The new device, along with Google's pending purchase of device maker Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., shows how serious the Internet giant is about wanting to control both the software and hardware process, a formula used by rival Apple Inc.

The system would allow users to download music and stream it to Google-branded wireless speakers or other compatible devices. The system sounds somewhat similar to those made by Sonos, which the New York Times examined in a recent article.

The WSJ gave no indication as to a time-frame for the public announcement or on-sale date for the Google home entertainment products. Apple has a somewhat similar living room strategy, though the company no longer makes any home speaker products -- instead, Apple uses its AirPlay, Airport Express and Apple TV products as part of its push into the living room. However, in recent months the company has been rumored to be working on a full-fledged television set.

Last November, we reported on Apple's plan to require all Mac App Store apps to be sandboxed, a move that would increase security by preventing apps from overstepping their bounds should they be affected by malware but which could hamper the functionality of certain apps. The requirement had been scheduled to go into effect in November but was pushed back to a March 1 implementation date as apparently sought to give developers more time to digest and prepare for the change.

With the implementation date now just a few weeks away, The Wall Street Journal again takes a look at the impact of the changes.

Sandboxing is fairly common in the mobile world, where Apple, Google Inc.'s Android and others have long required it as a safety measure to prevent an app from compromising other parts of the system. But some developers say sandboxing could cripple desktop software, which is often more sophisticated.

Mac developer Mark Munz, of Vancouver, Wash., says to comply with Apple's new rules, he has to remove key features of his text-reformatting app TextSoap that integrate with other programs.

As a workaround, he's working on a "helper app" that Mac App Store users could download separately to restore the extra functionality. "It sort of defeats the purpose of what sandboxing is about," says Mr. Munz, who is president of Unmarked Software LLC.

The report also cites Flexibits co-founder Kent Sutherland, whose Fantastical calendaring app would be subject to sandboxing limitations on its ability to sync and import data from other applications. Apple's position that it will allow access to certain features only on a "temporary" basis leaves developers such as Sutherland uncertain about whether their apps will be able to continue to function in the future.

Apple notes that it is continuing to work with developers to increase the security of their applications under the new sandboxing requirements, with a source noting that "most" apps will not require any changes to meet the new policy. But as we noted in our earlier report, a number of high-profile apps that provide systemwide functionality may have to jump through new hoops to obtain approval for their continued functionality, and developers report that they are still finding bugs in the sandboxing procedures that leave uncertainty about just what is going to happen come March 1.

Following a report from AllThingsD earlier today claiming that Apple will introduce the iPad 3 in the first week of March, The New York Times is now weighing in with its own sources corroborating claims of a faster processor and a "truly amazing" screen in a package nearly identical in appearance to the iPad 2.

An Apple employee said that the version of the new iPad that is being tested inside the company is “essentially the same size and shape as the iPad 2,” with an improved and “truly amazing” screen. The tablet will include a faster processor, said the employee, who did not want to be identified because Apple is not fond of leaks.

The claims line up with a number of previous rumors about the iPad 3's improvements, with a high-resolution display being one of the most highly-anticipated upgrades for the new device. Earlier today, photos of a Sharp display claimed to be for the iPad 3 also surfaced, although the screen's resolution can not be verified from the photos.

Indications that the iPad 3 will be nearly identical in appearance to the iPad 2 are also supported by recent photo leaks showing the rear shell of the device inside and out.

Last week, a firestorm erupted over the publicization of AT&T policies that can result in users on grandfathered unlimited data plans seeing their data speeds throttled after burning through as little as 2 GB in a month.

Early reports on the policy, which went into effect last October as intended to affect the top 5% of users on unlimited plans, had pegged the carrier as enforcing throttling on customers using in excess of 10 GB, but the limit appears to have been coming down over time. The lower limits have left some wondering why they are continuing to pay for a $30/month "unlimited" data plan that is throttled after 2 GB while AT&T happily sells customers a 3 GB "limited" data plan for the same price.

AT&T does note in a support document on its website that that top 5% of data users did average approximately 2 GB per month as of last August, although that number does vary month-to-month and market-to-market.

Data consumption by all customers, including the top five percent of smartphone data customers, varies by month and by market. As of August 2011, the average data use across the country by the top five percent of AT&T smartphone customers was 2GB per month.

AT&T is not, however, automatically throttling users on unlimited data plans once they reach that "top 5% level" in the neighborhood of 2 GB, as The New York Times reports that AT&T only throttles these customers when they reside in areas with shortages of network capacity.

[AT&T spokesman Mark] Siegel said that even if you do exceed 2 gigabytes of data usage and qualify as one of the top 5 percent, that doesn’t absolutely mean you’re going to be throttled. AT&T will only reduce speeds for the top 5 percent of users in areas where network capacity or spectrum is insufficient, he said. In other words, throttling is done on a case-by-case basis, not based on a hard number, according to AT&T’s claims.

“There’s a very good chance you wouldn’t be slowed,” Mr. Siegel said. He added that in the last month, less than 1 percent of AT&T smartphone customers were affected by the policy.

Still, AT&T hasn't addressed observations that "unlimited" data users are essentially receiving less data service than 3 GB "limited" data users are for the same price. While unlimited customers can technically continue to go beyond 3 GB without incurring extra charges as a customer on a limited plan would, AT&T's throttled speeds are generally so low as to be considered nearly unusable by many.

Ultimately, many users of the users still on AT&T grandfathered data plans are viewing enforcement of throttling at 2 GB as primarily an effort to force them into giving up their plans and converting to the tiered plans AT&T rolled out in 2010.

Back in September, we covered Microsoft's announcement of Windows 8, the next step in the operating system's evolution that seeks to encompass not only traditional PCs but also mobile devices running on ARM processor architecture.

Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft's Windows division, today issued a massive blog post laying out in more detail how the company plans to tackle Windows on ARM (WOA). Sinofsky notes upfront that WOA will be a new member of the Windows family, based heavily on Windows 8 but customized for the flexibility that users will see in ARM-based systems in both traditional PC and mobile form factors.

With Windows 8, we have reimagined Windows from the chipset to the experience—and bringing this reimagined Windows to the ARM processor architecture is a significant part of this innovation. Expanding the view of the PC to cover a much wider range of form factors and designs than some think of today is an important part of these efforts. Windows on ARM enables creativity in PC design that, in combination with newly architected features of the Windows OS, will bring to customers new, no-compromise PCs.

WOA will be focused on Microsoft's "Metro" touch interface for Windows 8, but will also support a limited "desktop mode" that will more closely resemble traditional Windows and which will support versions of Microsoft's Office applications optimized for the ARM architecture to provide touch support as well as minimization of power and resource consumption.

Microsoft will also be following Apple's App Store model with Windows on ARM, with application distribution occurring solely through the Windows Store. Existing Windows apps will have to be completely rewritten to be compatible with WOA, but developers will be able to write for both WOA and the more traditional Windows 8 simultaneously if they wish.

Microsoft has been working closely with a variety of hardware and peripheral partners to ensure tight integration between hardware and software for WOA systems, and the company intends to ship WOA simultaneously with the Windows 8 launch. As Bloomberg notes, Microsoft will be helping push work on WOA forward by providing select developers with test machines running WOA on chips from Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Nvidia. That developer program is set to go live with the next round of Windows 8 beta testing at the end of the month.

The ARM architecture is of course the basis for Apple's iOS products, as well as many of the other most popular mobile devices on the market. Microsoft has lagged behind in the push for mobile as its Windows Phone operating system has failed to catch on with consumers and its tablet efforts have stalled. In recognizing that the ARM architecture will help enable the next generation of increasingly portable devices, Microsoft is hoping to tie into its existing strength with traditional Windows to generate momentum in the touch-enabled and mobile markets.