At today's media event, Apple announced an update to its iBooks app for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The updated iBooks app will feature a new continuous scrolling option, support for more than 40 languages including Korean and Japanese, and the ability to share passages from books via Facebook and Twitter.
The new version of iBooks will be available later today as a free download through the App Store. [Direct Link]
Apple is holding a media event today at the California Theatre in San Jose, California, where it is expected to introduce the iPad mini, a 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, a tweaked full-size iPad with Lightning connector, and updated Mac mini models. A release of the company's revamped iTunes software also likely and iMac updates are a possibility. The event is scheduled to kick off at 10:00 AM Pacific Time / 1:00 PM Eastern Time.
Live Video Stream of Apple's iPad Mini Media Event
In addition to Apple's video stream, we will be updating this article with coverage and issuing Twitter updates through our @MacRumorsLive account as the media event unfolds. Separate news stories regarding the event announcements will go out through our @MacRumors account.
Apple's online stores around the world are currently down in advance of the event.
Recent News and Rumors
- 'iPad Mini' Name Confirmed by Smart Cover Part Descriptions
- 13-Inch Retina MacBook Pro Starts at 128 GB Flash Storage, Mac Mini Goes Quad-Core
- Four New Lightning Adapters, Higher-Power iPad Power Adapter Coming Today
- New Full-Sized iPad to Have Upgraded FaceTime Camera?
Live Transcript
9to5Mac reports that it has received confirmation of a new set of Smart Covers launching today for Apple's "iPad mini". The accessories are described as "iPad Mini Smart Covers", all but confirming that Apple will use the "mini" designation as part of the device's official name.
The new iPad Mini Smart Covers are said to be available in red, dark gray, light gray, pink, green, and blue.
9to5Mac reports that it has received information on three models of the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro launching today. According to sources, the machines appear to use the same 2.5 GHz and 2.9 GHz processors found in the non-Retina models, and like the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro all of the 13-inch Retina models start at 8 GB of RAM.
Unlike the 15-inch lineup, however, the entry-level 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro will come with 128 GB of flash storage, with higher-end standard models moving up to 256 GB and 512 GB of storage. The 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro starts at 256 GB of storage.
- 2.5 GHz, 128GB of Flash storage, 8GB of RAM
- 2.5 GHz, 256 GB of Flash storage, 8GB of RAM
- 2.9 GHz, 512GB of Flash storage, 8GB of RAM
Pricing on the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro is said to start at approximately $1699, a $500 premium over the non-Retina model. For that premium, users will receive a Retina display, 128 GB of flash storage instead of a 500 GB traditional hard drive, and a bump from 4 GB of RAM to 8 GB. The Retina version of course also comes in a thinner form factor that omits the optical drive and Ethernet and FireWire ports.
The site has also received details on the new Mac mini models coming out today, with the high-end models now moving to quad-core processors. As with the existing lineup, there are two standard configurations and a server configuration.
- 2.5 GHz dual-core, 4GB RAM, 500GB Hard drive
- 2.3 GHz quad-core, 4GB RAM, 1TB Hard drive
- Server: 2.3 GHz quad-core 4GB of RAM, 2TB Hard drive
The new Mac mini models should retain the current pricing and gain build-to-order RAM options of up to 16 GB.
The Korea Times reports that Apple has fired the head of its Korean unit, Dominique Oh, with sources indicating that the move was related to sluggish sales in the country.
"Apple terminated the contract with Oh last week," Apple spokesman Steve Park said by telephone, late Tuesday.
"We acknowledge that there are many speculations surrounding Oh's contract termination. But we can't do more, it's just a simple fact," Park said.
Oh joined Apple just 17 months ago, coming from LG where he oversaw the company's Android and Windows Phone 7 efforts.
Korea is an interesting market for Apple given its rivalry with Seoul-based Samsung, and Oh's removal is said to be a curious one given than the iPhone 5 launch in the country is said to be just days or weeks away.
Earlier today, a new "Apple Events" channel appeared on the Apple TV revealing that the company will be offering live video streaming of today's media event. At the time, it was unclear whether Apple would also be offering a stream through its website, but the company has now updated its site to promote a live stream available online.
The video stream requires Safari 4 or later on a minimum of Mac OS X Snow Leopard, or iOS 4.2 or later for those accessing the stream from a mobile device. Streaming via Apple TV requires second- or third-generation Apple TV with a minimum of software version 5.0.2.
Apple's event kicks off at 10:00 AM Pacific / 1:00 PM Eastern, and MacRumors will have full coverage of the event's announcements.
9to5Mac has received part numbers, descriptions, and pricing on six new accessories coming later today. The group includes four new Lightning adapters: the previously promised HDMI and VGA adapters as well as Lightning versions of the SD card and USB camera adapters.
Also included in the list is a new 12-watt USB power adapter, which appears to be a higher-power version of the 10-watt adapter sold separately for charging iPads. The higher wattage is likely being rolled out to help speed up charging times that have increased significantly with the massive 42.5 watt-hour battery in the third-generation iPad.
Finally, Apple will be launching a new 60-watt MagSafe 2 power adapter, which is undoubtedly for the new 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro. The 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro and the latest MacBook Air were the first machines to move to the thinner MagSafe 2 design earlier this year, but they use 85-watt and 45-watt adapters respectively. The 13-inch non-Retina MacBook Pro uses a 60-watt adapter with the original MagSafe connector, so this new adapter will add a MagSafe 2 compatible adapter at that wattage to the lineup.
FOSS Patents reports on a new court filing from Samsung revealing that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a preliminary decision ruling that Apple's "rubber banding" patent that was a key part of the $1 billion lawsuit against Samsung has been invalidated. While numerous other reviews and appeals will undoubtedly take place in the coming months, the preliminary ruling is certainly a blow to Apple's cases against Samsung and others.
In a non-final Office action the USPTO has declared all 20 claims of Apple's rubber-banding patent (U.S. Patent No, 7,469,381 invalid, including claim 19, which Apple successfully asserted against Samsung in the summer trial in California. In fact, claim 19 is one of several claims to be deemed invalid for two reasons, either one of which would be sufficient on its own.
The report notes that the rejection could influence Judge Lucy Koh to at least partially rule in favor of Samsung's requests that the jury's verdict be overturned by the court as having been improperly issued.
The patent rejection comes after an anonymous third party challenged the validity of the patent earlier this year, requesting a reexamination by the patent office. The rubber banding patent covers the ability for iOS content to "bounce back" when a user has scrolled to the top or bottom of a given page. The feature provides an aesthetically pleasing means of alerting the user that they have reached the end of the content rather than simply stopping abruptly, but the USPTO has now ruled that the feature does not qualify as novel in light of prior art on the matter. That prior art includes not only a European patent from AOL but also a previous Apple patent.
Several MacRumors readers have noted that Apple has added a new "Apple Events" icon to the Apple TV, with the company revealing that it will be streaming today's media event live.
It is unclear if the video stream will be available through other means such as on apple.com, but Apple will presumably be updating its site with more details if the stream will be available through multiple channels.
The new channel also offers users the ability to watch several previous Apple events dating back to June 2011.
Apple has offered live video streams of its events several times in the past, but has not done so in several years until today. The most recent event for which Apple provided a live video stream prior to today was its "Back to the Mac" event in October 2010.
Update 6:22 AM: Apple will also be streaming the media event through its website.
For those individuals, we've posted this news story, which will be updated with the link to the presentation once it becomes available from Apple. No other news stories or announcements will be displayed alongside this story.
Users waiting for the video to be posted are welcome to gather in the thread associated with this news story, and we ask that those who follow the events refrain from making any posts in the thread about tomorrow's announcements.
Update: A live stream is available for the event. We will also post the archived stream here after the event is over.
Update: The 72-minute media event has been posted.
BGR posts what it claims to be photos from a new iPad's display assembly. BGR refers to the part as an "iPad 4" part but is somewhat uncertain about exactly what the part could represent.
Apple is believed to be working on a revised full-size iPad (in addition to the iPad mini) that could also be launched on Tuesday as part of their media event. The new iPad would have a lightning connector and expanded LTE support. And, according to BGR, could have an improved FaceTime camera:
They point to an enlarged front-camera opening as evidence that Apple could be upgrading the front-camera on this new iPad.
The most noticeable changes we can see are the fact that the front-facing camera cutout is larger than the previous model, allowing Apple to include a bigger sensor.
A larger sensor could allow for a higher quality camera. At the moment, the iPad's front camera offers "VGA-quality" photos. Notably, the iPhone 5's front-facing camera was upgraded to 720p video and 1.2MP photos, suggesting this is a direction they could also take the iPad.
BGR acknowledges that the part, however, could be for a future iPad update.
Apple's media event kicks off on 10 AM Pacific / 1 PM Eastern on Tuesday, October 23rd.
It's no surprise that the vast majority of Apple product leaks come from the company's massive supply chain, but Ars Technica takes a closer look at how secrecy at the company has evolved under Tim Cook in the areas where the company can exert its greatest control. The report suggests that security has indeed been tightened somewhat, in line with Cook's claims that the company has been working to "double down on secrecy", but the supply chain involving hundreds of partner companies and hundreds of thousands of workers remains a difficult channel to secure.
According to a handful of Apple employees who spoke to us on condition of anonymity, the leaks are simply a byproduct of globalization.
The employees all told us that security at Apple remains as strict—if not slightly stricter—as ever. (Several engineers said that general security practices appear to be tighter now, a year after CEO Tim Cook took over, but "tighter" is a difficult metric to gauge at a place like Apple.) [...]
"Apple's security practices are targeted at making sure US employees don't leak stuff, but everything comes out of China now," one employee told Ars. "I think Apple's secrecy mode is really outdated."
The report details a number of examples of tightened security for Apple's own employees, including reductions in off-campus testing of prototype devices and retail store changes such as reductions in the amount of advance access store employees have to OS X and iOS system updates.
Still, Apple's supply chain obviously represents the weakest link in the chain of product secrecy, with an assortment of vendors producing parts months ahead of a product's public launch and numerous opportunities for security to be broken along the way. Ars Technica notes that product security is an ingrained part of the culture at Apple, with employees honoring that secrecy out of respect for their coworkers' efforts.
But that sense of loyalty is largely lacking in the supply chain where companies churn out millions of parts on a contract basis with relatively little investment of loyalty. Apple naturally keeps a close eye on its supply chain and its partners are undoubtedly concerned about losing Apple's business should excessive leaks be found, but it seems to be nearly impossible for Apple and its partners to keep everything under wraps.
Earlier today, a MacRumors reader noted that paid books had gone live in the iBookstore in New Zealand. While the titles are not yet accessible through the main Books section of the iTunes Store, searches for various others and titles are yielding a number of book results.
Blog do iPhone is also now reporting that paid books are going live in Brazil, and we've confirmed that paid titles are now available in 16 other Latin American countries as well.
Evidence of new markets for paid iBookstore content comes amid rumors of an iBooks 3.0 launch alongside the "iPad mini" at tomorrow's media event. Apple is expected to make education one of the key themes of the introduction, and with the smaller iPad more closely competing with smaller tablets focused on reading, an expansion of iBookstore content seems to be a logical step.
Photobook and calendaring service Mixbook has launched a new photo book product designed for the iPhone. The product, called Mosaic, takes photos from the iPhone's camera roll and turns them into a 7" square physical photo book, designed to make gifting unique photo books quick and easy.
The idea is similar, in a way, to Apple's Cards app; users take photos on the iPhone, combine them into a unique product, and then it's printed and shipped within a few days. The team behind the product believes that users will order their photo books for smaller events, instead of the more traditional weddings and births that people typically order photo books to commemorate:
People don’t want to spend 10 hours building a book about a day at the park with friends, it just doesn’t make sense. But if it only took 60 seconds, then something really great happens. It becomes a no brainer. It becomes something you do time and time again.
Mosaic is more than just an app. It is the complete experience. It’s the app, it’s the book itself, it’s the packaging, it’s everything. We are leaving no stone unturned.
BGR reports that Apple has begun carrier testing of iOS 6.0.1, the first bug fix update to iOS 6 since its release just over a month ago. According to the report, iOS 6.0.1 addresses several issues including a visual glitch most commonly seen on the iPhone keyboard when entering an account password in the App Store.
iOS 6.0.1 should fix the horizontal lines bug on the screen when the keyboard or app folder is open, and it will also fix a problem with the camera’s flash not going off.
In addition, the new software will improve Wi-Fi support, fix cellular data not working in some cases, add a consolidated cellular data switch for iTunes Match, fix a bug that allowed access to Passbook pass details from the lock screen, and also finally fix the bug that caused Exchange meetings to be unexpectedly cancelled for the entire calendar invite group.
Apple is reportedly also just beginning testing of iOS 6.1, with the timing of that testing suggesting that the update is not likely to arrive in time for any of the new hardware launches over the coming weeks. It is also unclear what changes are included in iOS 6.1.
Earlier this month, several sources indicated that Apple will focus on iBooks at its "iPad mini" media event tomorrow, with reports indicating that both personal and education consumption will be of key importance for Apple. Bloomberg Businessweek now profiles Apple's efforts to bring tablets into education, noting that education will indeed be an important theme of the iPad mini unveiling.
Beyond the school market of course, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook will use the device to try to widen Apple’s lead over Amazon.com Inc. and Google Inc. and fend off a more recent threat from Microsoft Corp. in the market for tablets, which NPD DisplaySearch predicts will more than double to $162 billion by 2017. Cook will unveil an iPad with a 7.85-inch screen diagonally, people familiar with its development said in August. The current iPad has a 9.7-inch screen.
Yet Apple executives plan to make a point of highlighting the iPad’s educational capabilities at tomorrow’s event, according to a person with knowledge of the planning. Little wonder. Education spending on information technology, including hardware, was about $19.7 billion in the 2010-2011 period, according to the Center for Digital Education.
The report notes that Apple has realigned its educational sales effort to focus on the iPad, recognizing that school budgets and a desire for more engaging technology are driving a shift in schools' purchasing decisions
Perhaps supporting the notion of enhanced educational offerings coming to the iPad and iPad mini this week, French site igen.fr reported [Google translation] over the weekend on an iBookstore title showing up with compatibility for an unreleased iBooks 3.0. The Digital Reader later noted that at least half a dozen titles were showing up with the new compatibility requirement, noting that one developer working to create books using Apple's latest tools found that iBooks 3.0 appears set to provide compatibility with the latest EPUB 3 standard at a minimum.
Liz Castro connected me with another ebook developer who has been making ebooks for iBooks 3.0 for the past few days. He has been tweeting his progress and one thing he’s already noticed is that iBooks 3.0 appears to offer more Epub3 support. The fixed layout spec in Epub 3 requires the latest version of iBooks, only Apple hasn’t released it yet.
iBooks 2 was launched earlier this year with a heavy focus on support for new iBooks Textbooks, interactive digital textbooks intended to revolutionize education, starting with high school textbooks. With iBooks 3, it appears that Apple may be set to take its next steps toward improving that experience even further.
The Korea Times reports that the deteriorating relationship between Apple and Samsung that has seen the two companies reducing their component supply deals is now extending to LCD panels, with Samsung reportedly ending supplies of the panels to Apple next year.
The Cupertino, California-based firm has been lowering its reliance on Samsung-manufactured displays for use in its popular i-branded devices as it is leveraging its influence to source components from Samsung’s rivals attracted by better pricing.
“We are unable to supply our flat-screens to Apple with huge price discounts. Samsung has already cut our portion of shipments to Apple and next year we will stop shipping displays,” said a senior Samsung source, asking not to be named, Monday.
The report claims that Samsung shipped approximately 15 million LCD panels to Apple in the first half of 2012, with the pace falling to 3 million panels in the third quarter and expected to drop to 1.5 million in the fourth quarter as Apple has shifted to other suppliers.
Samsung is reportedly not involved in LCD production for the "iPad mini", with LG Display and AU Optronics said to be handling component production. And with Apple reportedly cutting back on memory orders from Samsung and now designing its own A-series chips while using Samsung simply as a contract foundry, it seems clear that Apple is steadily reducing its reliance on Samsung as the two companies have continued to face off both in the marketplace and in courtrooms around the world.
Techie Buzz posts a gallery of photos from the California Theatre in San Jose where Apple will be hosting their Media Event. The choice of the California Theatre is a bit unusual for Apple. According to Mercury News, Apple last used this venue to introduce new iPod products back in 2004 and 2005.
Apple is widely expected to launch a smaller 7.85" iPad mini, as well as new iMacs, Mac minis and 13" Retina MacBook Pros. The event kicks off on Tuesday, October 23rd at 10 AM Pacific / 1 PM Eastern. MacRumors will be providing coverage here and on Twitter.
Our comprehensive guide highlighting every major new addition in iOS 26, plus how-tos that walk you through using the new features.
Playlist Playground and concerts in Apple Music, new emoji characters, video podcasts, and more.
Apple's four new iPhones feature more differences between the latest models than ever before, so which one should you buy?
Apple's annual developer conference where it will unveil iOS 27, macOS 27, and more.
Siri improvements, optimizations for future foldable iPhone, and more. June introduction at WWDC with fall release.
Smarter Siri, touch optimizations for a future MacBook Pro, stability-focused updates, and more. June introduction at WWDC with fall release.
14 hours ago by Joe Rossignol
15 hours ago by Joe Rossignol
16 hours ago by Hartley Charlton
17 hours ago by Joe Rossignol
2 days ago by Hartley Charlton
