MacRumors

MacStories details a new feature story from Fortune about Apple's management including a number of previously unknown anecdotes about Steve Jobs. The story is presently only available as an in-app purchase in the Fortune Magazine App [iTunes], but should appear online and in print shortly.

One interesting story is about Steve Jobs' reaction to the poor MobileMe rollout in 2008 which was marred with slow services and downtime.

In Fortune's story, Lashinsky says Steve Jobs summoned the entire MobileMe team for a meeting at the company's on-campus Town Hall, accusing everyone of "tarnishing Apple's reputation." He told the members of the team they "should hate each other for having let each other down", and went on to name new executives on the spot to run the MobileMe team. A few excerpts from the article.

"Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?" Having received a satisfactory answer, he continues, "So why the f*** doesn't it do that?"

Jobs was also particularly angry about the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg not liking MobileMe:

"Mossberg, our friend, is no longer writing good things about us."

Jobs reportedly appointed a new executive on the spot to run the MobileMe team. Another particularly interesting piece was the fact that Apple is actively planning and teaching its employees for "life at Apple after Jobs.":

Steve Jobs hired dean of Yale School of Management Joel Podolny to run the Apple University, an internal group also featuring business professors and Harvard veterans that are writing a series of case studies to prepare employees for the life at Apple after Jobs. These case studies focus on Apples recent business decisions and internal culture, they are exclusive to employees and taught by top executives like Tim Cook and Ron Johnson.

MacStories also summarizes some of the other anecdotes from the feature article.

TechCrunch reports that Apple is rumored to be negotiating some sort of deal with Nuance Communications, the speech recognition company behind the Dragon NaturallySpeaking engine that powers a number of popular applications for Mac OS X, iOS, and other platforms.

Apple has been negotiating a deal with Nuance in recent months, we've heard from multiple sources. What does that mean? Well, it could mean an acquisition, but that is looking fairly unlikely at this point, we hear. More likely, it means a partnership that will be vital to both companies and could shape the future of iOS.

The report notes that Nuance's technology is already used to drive personal assistant software from Siri, a company purchased by Apple last year. Apple has also been said to be preparing to bring a substantial integration of Siri's artificial intelligence and voice control capabilities into iOS 5 presumably set for release later this year.

The other option is for Apple to build the technology themselves. And some recent job postings suggest they may be thinking about that. But to get to where Nuance is today it would take a long, long time. Perhaps more importantly, it's well known in the industry that Nuance holds key patents for their technology and is very aggressive in protecting them. Even Apple would have a hard time dancing around this if they did go it alone.

According to the new report, it is unlikely that Apple is seeking a direct acquisition of Nuance, given the company's $6 billion market capitalization and reports that the company is known for driving a hard bargain, including in negotiations with Apple to keep Siri's services alive after the acquisition, negotiations that have reportedly yet to lead to an agreement.

While an acquisition is still a possibility, a more likely scenario seems to be an expansive licensing deal that would provide Apple with the technology it needs at a substantially lower cost than an acquisition while also giving Apple time to build out its own in-house expertise to potentially replace Nuance at some point down the road.

The flood of news regarding companies rolling out support for in app subscriptions for their magazine content continues today with a report from the New York Post claiming that Conde Nast is set to launch the subscriptions for eight of its titles. The New Yorker is said to be the first to gain the feature, beginning next week.

Conde is expected to make the New Yorker available next week to capitalize on coverage of Osama bin Laden's death.

But by the end of the May, Conde will have the seven other magazines that are currently selling single-copy-only editions on the iPad available via subscriptions, including Wired, Golf Digest, Glamour, Vanity Fair, Self, Allure and GQ.

As part of the rollout, Conde Nast will drop single-issue digital prices to $1.99 from the existing $3.99 and $4.99 price points, and new annual subscriptions will be priced at $19.99. Subscribers to the print editions of the eight Conde Nast magazines available on the iPad should also receive free access to the digital editions.

News of Conde Nast's decision to join the in app subscription program comes just two weeks after reports surfaced claiming that the company was seeking to slow down its plans for iPad magazines amid weak demand. But with Time Inc. testing the waters with free access to iPad editions for existing print subscribers and Hearst Corporation going all in with full subscriptions through the in app subscription system, Conde Nast has apparently come onboard in order to remain competitive, providing Apple with significant momentum for the platform.

Earlier this week, we pointed to initial benchmarks from Macworld for the new 3.1 GHz 27-inch Mac, finding the new system to be about 16% faster than the high-end standard configuration of the previous generation overall.

Now that the machines have been out for a couple of days, Primate Labs has put together an early report collating the results from users submitting Geekbench 2 results. While not all models of the new iMac are represented in the database yet, initial reports from Geekbench point to an approximately 25% increase in performance over the corresponding models from the previous generation and up to a 70% increase over low-end "Wolfdale" Core 2 Duo iMacs from two generations ago.

While the improvements aren't as dramatic as with the Sandy Bridge MacBook Pros, there's a consistent 25% performance improvement between Sandy Bridge and Lynnfield at both the low-end and the high-end of the iMac model range (and over a 70% improvement between Sandy Bridge and Wolfdale). While this update may not tempt Lynnfield iMac owners into upgrading, it's certainly a compelling upgrade for Wolfdale iMac users.

Geekbench 2 focuses on processor and memory performance, offering direct comparisons of raw power in each machine. Other factors such as video cards and data storage devices also affect system speed but are not addressed in Geekbench's benchmarking metrics.

As noted by All Things Digital, the U.S. Senate has posted a hearing notice for a Judiciary Committee meeting on mobile privacy scheduled for May 10th at 10:00 AM in Washington, DC. According to the witness list included in the notice, Apple's Bud Tribble will be providing testimony during the session, which is entitled "Protecting Mobile Privacy: Your Smartphones, Tablets, Cell Phones and Your Privacy".

The session will begin with a panel featuring representatives from the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice, presumably to give background and set the stage for testimony as the legislators attempt to learn more about how consumer privacy is handled with mobile devices. Tribble will be joined on a second panel by Google's public policy director, Alan Davidson, as well as several other witnesses from public interest groups and trade association/lobbying groups.

Tribble serves as vice president of software technology at Apple and has a long history with the company. He served as manager of the Macintosh development team and oversaw the development of Mac OS, and later joined Steve Jobs to found NeXT. Tribble returned to Apple in early 2002.

The Senate hearing was sparked by concerns over location tracking information publicized for being stored on users' iPhones and Android-based handsets. The hearing was initiated by Senator Al Franken, and Jobs reported soon after that Apple intended to participate in the discussions as requested. Senate officials confirmed last week that both Apple and Google would be sending representatives to the hearing.

DigiTimes reports that LG Display was one of the primary sources of iPad supply issues last quarter, experiencing problems with light leakage on displays produced by its manufacturing lines that scaled back shipments. The issue is said to have been resolved, with display shipments to Apple's assembly partners ramping up this quarter.

. . .Samsung Electronics shipped a total of four million 9.7-inch panels for iPads in the first quarter, outpacing rival LG Display (LGD) as the largest tablet PC panel supplier for Apple, the sources indicated. LGD's iPad panel shipments reached only 3.2 million units in the first quarter.

LGD was forced to reduce its shipments in the first quarter due to light leakage problem for panels produced at its 6G production lines. The company reportedly has fixed the problem and will resume shipment momentum to Apple in the second quarter, said the sources.

Apple reported surprisingly low iPad shipments of only 4.69 million units for the first quarter, and a report from research firm IHS iSuppli late last month blamed the shortages on display quality concerns and speaker production shortfalls.

Apple's supplier of audio chips for its iOS devices, Cirrus Logic, also reported last month that it had experienced manufacturing issues with components for a new product, presumed to be an Apple device and potentially the iPad 2, although the company declined to specify exactly what device was affected by its production issues.

Apple yesterday launched the iPad 2 in China, officially bringing its six Wi-Fi capable models (three black and three white) to the country for the first time. M.I.C gadget has an extensive gallery of photos from the launch at Apple's Sanlitun retail store in Beijing, where hundreds of customers waited in line for the 8:00 AM launch and supplies sold out in just four hours.

Apple also launched sales through its online store in China, debuting with shipping estimates of 1-2 weeks. But even those supplies quickly dried up and the company's online store has stopped taking orders for all six models of the device, simply noting "no supply" as a shipping estimate.

Pricing for the new Wi-Fi iPad 2 models in China is set approximately 15% higher than in the United States, with 16 GB models coming in at 3,688 yuan ($568), 32 GB models at 4,488 yuan ($691), and 64 GB models at 5,288 yuan ($814).

Apple has placed considerable focus on building out its presence in China, with the company's four retail stores in the country ranking as the highest-grossing locations in the company's chain of over 300 stores. The company publicly stated in early 2010 that it planned to open up to 25 retail stores in China over the following two years, although the company has reportedly scaled back on the planned number and slowed the development slightly as it has shifted its strategy toward larger, more iconic stores.

Last October, the company opened a Chinese version of its online store as well as a Chinese-language edition of the App Store.

SemiAccurate claims to have heard that Apple will be transitioning from Intel processors to ARM processors in the not too distant future.

The short story is that Apple is moving the laptop line, and presumably desktops too, to ARM based chips as soon as possible.

The site seems to believe that the transition will take place after ARM has moved to full 64-bit cores which won't likely be until at least mid-2013.

At that point, Apple can move to ARM without worrying about obsoleting code with an [instruction set architecture] that is on the verge of changing, and no memory overhead worries either. Basically, it looks like the perfect time. Ironically, SemiAccurates moles tell us that the boys on infinite loop are planning to move laptops to ARM at about that time. Coincidence? Nope.

Apple has made a heavy investment in the ARM architecture which presently powers their iOS line of products. Apple even made the bold move to take ARM processor design in house with the acquisition P.A. Semi and Intrinsity.

Still, a transition of their Mac line over to a different processor architecture is hard to accept. While Apple did previously succeed in such a transition in the past with the PowerPC to Intel transition, it was not without an incredible amount of engineering to ease the process. Existing Mac applications would be unable to run on the new ARM processors without some sort of emulation layer. Mac applications would have to be recompiled to support the ARM processors.

While ARM is known for their low power processors, last year they announced plans to move into high-performance computing in the future, and has been rumored to moving into the 64-bit space as well.

Codenamed "Eagle," the A15 architecture is ostensibly aimed at netbooks and tablets, but a look at the spec sheet leaves no doubt that ARM is absolutely gunning for the server market that Intel and AMD currently dominate.

SemiAccurate has not been a frequent source of Apple-related rumors, but they do point out they were correct in predicting that Apple would move away from NVIDIA GPUs in their computers.

Fortune today released its annual "Fortune 500" rankings of America's largest companies by revenue, revealing that Apple leapt 21 spots this year to land at #35 with over $65 billion in revenue.

Apple climbed 21 slots into the top 50 of the Fortune 500 this year. How'd it get there? The company not only continues to expand its reach in existing markets, it also keeps creating new ones.

Take the iPad, which showed the world the power of tablet computing when it was introduced last year. iPad 2 followed, and was one of the most highly anticipated electronic products this year. CEO Steve Jobs' appearance at its debut in March reassured shareholders worried about his most recent medical leave. Regardless of who's in charge, though, investors have plenty of reason to believe Apple's magic spell on consumers can continue.

Apple's profits of $14 billion in 2010 also made it the 8th most profitable company, up from 26th place last year. In the Computer and Office Equipment category, Apple passed Dell in overall revenue to move into second place behind HP. Apple leads that category in profits by a wide margin.

Apple was also cited as one of the seven biggest hirers of 2010, adding 12,600 employees during the year to reach nearly 50,000 total employees. Apple also leads the Fortune 500 in average annual investment returns over the past decade, averaging 45.8% annual growth.

Overall, Wal-Mart repeated as the world's largest company with $421 billion in revenue, well ahead of second-place Exxon Mobil's $354 billion figure.

Research firm IDC today announced the results of its survey of smartphone shipment data for the first quarter of 2011, following up on last week's release of data on the broader mobile phone market.

According to the new smartphone data, Apple continues to hold second place among the world's top smartphone manufacturers with 18.7% market, with unit sales up 114% year-over-year and its share rising by three percentage from the year-ago quarter. That rise, combined with rapid declines in market-leader Nokia's smartphone share, has allowed Apple to move within six percentage points of the top spot.

Apple reached a new record shipment volume in a single quarter, and inched closer to market leader Nokia with fewer than six million units separating the two companies. The company posted market-beating year-over-year growth and recorded triple-digit growth in two key markets: the United States, with the release of its CDMA-enabled iPhone, and Greater China. Additionally, the company enlisted South Korean Telecom and Saudi Telecom as carrier providers of the iPhone.

Overall, worldwide smartphone sales grew by nearly 80% year-over-year, with several Android-focused manufacturers including Samsung and HTC joining Apple in leading the way while Nokia and third-place Research in Motion significantly lagged the overall market growth.

DigiTimes reports that Apple is in discussions with two Taiwan-based integrated circuit design firms, Integrated Memory Logic (iML) and Capella Microsystems, for sourcing of components for the company's iOS devices.

The more interesting of the two claims appears to be related Capella, which is said to have delivered new ambient light sensors to Apple for testing and verification. According to the report, Capella could be in a position to begin supplying Apple with such sensors for the iPhone by the end of the year and that the components would likely represent an improvement over existing sensors.

Capella, which ships over one million ambient-light sensors to HTC a month currently, has reportedly delivered its products to Apple for verification as the ambient-light sensors currently used by iPhone 4 have been criticized for some problems, said the sources, noting that Capella may received Apple's orders before the end of the year at the earliest.

iML is said to be in discussions to provide Apple with programmable gamma buffers for the iPad, components which help regulate the luminance of the LCD displays.