MacRumors

With Apple having pushed out a new update to the Mac OS X Lion developer preview program, those with access to the new build have been looking for changes in an attempt to see what Apple has been working on over the past few weeks.

One minor point that caught our eye is a change in the user interface elements for selecting subpanes within System Preferences. In this latest build, the active subpane is denoted by a sunken, darker button that appears as if it has been pushed, as shown in the Expos & Spaces preference pane.

Current "button" style subpane selector with Expos active

Earlier "slider" style subpane selector with Spaces active

A similar change has been made in iCal, where an earlier slider-style navigator was rolled out to select among day/week/month/year views but has now been replaced by more traditional button-style selectors.

iCal selector buttons in latest Mac OS X Lion build

The Seattle online company is now pricing select top-selling tunes for 69 cents, down from 89 cents previously. Many of the songs in Amazon's 69-cent store sell for $1.29 on iTunes, including Katy Perry's "E.T.", Jennifer Lopez's "On the Floor" and Lady Gaga's "Born This Way."

The report notes that Amazon has been stuck at about 10% of the digital music download market for several years, finding itself unable to eat further into Apple's dominant position with iTunes.

Apple initially used a standard $0.99 price point for iTunes Store music content, but shifted to a tiered pricing model in April 2009, with much of the store's content remaining at the original $0.99 price point but certain popular content bumped up to $1.29 while older back catalog material in some cases dropped to $0.69. Amazon and Wal-Mart quickly followed suit with their own tiered pricing models.

Apple's shift to tiered pricing was made at the request of major record labels seeking more control over content pricing and was part of the negotiations that led Apple to be able to offer its entire iTunes Store music catalog free of digital rights management (DRM) restrictions.

Apple will be launching Mac OS X Lion to customers this summer. We will likely hear more details about it during this year's WWDC held in June. Apple's website gives an overview of several of the publicly announced features coming to Mac OS X Lion.

Apple has begun adopting the "iCloud" name within several products currently under development, suggesting the appropriately labeled moniker is indeed the frontrunner for the company's soon-to-debut Internet cloud service, which will span beyond streaming music, AppleInsider has learned.

According to people familiar with the matter, Apple is prepping beta versions of both iOS 5.0 and Mac OS X Lion ahead of its annual developers conference that integrate with a service dubbed "iCloud," enabling users to sync and store much of the same information they currently can with the company's existing MobileMe service, such as bookmarks, email, contacts and iCal events.

And while much of the recent discussion regarding Apple's cloud-based service has revolved around its negotiations with music labels to allow users to store music content on Apple's servers, the report also indicates that the service is in fact intended to go beyond music to include a full suite of services potentially including photo and video storage.

That disclosure is certainly not new, with reports dating back over a year pointing to a potential video component, with explicit mention of a MobileMe overhaul to support cloud-based storage of various media types coming in February. It is, however, reassuring to see renewed mention of capabilities beyond the music storage function that has received so much attention in recent weeks.

Computerworld reports that U.S. senators have confirmed that representatives from Apple and Google will participate in Senate hearings on privacy spurred by questions over location databases stored by the companies' smartphone operating systems.

"I'm pleased that Apple and Google have confirmed that they'll be sending representatives to testify at my upcoming hearing on mobile technology and privacy," Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) said in a statement issued today.

Franken, who chairs a new Senate privacy panel, added that the hearing was a "first step" in Congressional inquiries whether federal laws have kept up with the surge in mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets.

Franken was the first federal legislator to lodge a formal inquiry with Apple about its practices, seeking information on what data the company is collecting and what it is doing with it.

Franken's hearing, which is set to begin at 10 a.m. ET on May 10, will also take testimony from officials with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, as well as from Justin Brookman, director of consumer privacy at the Center for Democracy & Technology.

Apple officially responded to the controversy earlier this week after it had investigated exactly what was going on and determined how best to explain the situation. Apple CEO Steve Jobs noted in an interview on Wednesday that he expected that Apple would testify for governmental representatives, calling it "great" that they were interested in the topic.

Apple maintained its number 4 spot on IDC's Top 5 list thanks to a record quarter for unit shipments. The company posted the highest growth rate of the worldwide leaders. Apple's results were buoyed by strong sales on Verizon Wireless and additional carrier deals; the company is now on 186 carriers operating in 90 countries. The iPhone once again sold particularly well in developed economic regions of the world, such as North America and Western Europe.

Apple's 114.9% year-over-growth easily led the major mobile phone manufacturers and enabled the company to grow its share of the market from 2.8% to 5.0%.

Apple's initial goal when it launched the iPhone in 2007 was to capture 1% of the global mobile phone market, a figure met with some skepticism by the company's competitors. Apple of course quickly reached that goal and has continued to post strong unit sales growth as consumers have increasingly turned to smartphones for their mobile device needs.

In support of IDC's numbers, Strategy Analytics released a similar report today showing Apple with 5.3% of the overall worldwide mobile phone market for the quarter. The primary difference between the two reports comes from IDC counting approximately 20 million more handsets in the "Others" category than Strategy Analytics.

A report released just yesterday by NPD showed Apple taking 14% of the total mobile market in the United States, but the company of course holds a lower share of the worldwide market due in part to the premium pricing its devices carry in many countries where consumers are more likely to purchase low-end phones on prepaid plans.

Earlier this week, a source reported to GigaOM that Apple has purchased the iCloud.com domain name for the sum of $4.5 million, presumably preparing to roll out its forthcoming cloud-based music service under that name.

All Things Digital now briefly notes that it has confirmed that Apple has in fact purchased the domain, although sources declined to confirm the purchase price.

Apple has indeed acquired the domain name iCloud.com from Sweden-based hybrid cloud computing outfit Xcerion. Sources in position to know confirm that Apple bought the domain as GigaOm first reported Thursday, though they declined to say whether its rumored $4.5 million price tag was accurate.

iCloud.com continues to redirect to the rebranded CloudMe.com service, and Whois databases continue to list Xcerion as the owner of the iCloud.com domain.

In the U.S. complaint, Samsung accuses Apple of violating patents that "relate to fundamental innovations that increase mobile device reliability, efficiency, and quality, and improve user interface in mobile handsets and other products."

The 10 patents that Samsung is alleging that Apple has infringed upon are detailed on the Foss Patents blog. Seven of the patents are related to communications standards and the others with user interface.

The Samsung counter-suit is in response to Apple's original lawsuit against Samsung over the Galaxy line of smartphones and tablets. Apple has accused Samsung of "blatant copying" of the iPhone.

Earlier today, a MacRumors reader notified us that the white iPhone 4 is ever so slightly thicker than the black iPhone 4. It's a small difference, but enough that the white iPhone 4 wouldn't fit in his Incase slider case:

Just picked up the white iPhone 4 and realized it doesn't fit into my Incase slider case. It appears that Apple has increased the size of the plastic that borders the glass on both sides by about 1mm.

A colleague of mine just picked up a 16 GB iPhone 4 in white. I was a bit surprised when I picked it up off his desk (I had my black 32 GB in my other hand at the same time) it immediately felt thicker.

Cash offers some comparison photos (one embedded above) between the white and black iPhone 4 showing the slight difference. The small difference may be enough to affect tight fitting slider cases as evidenced by our reader's experience.

Update: Tipb quantifies the difference at 0.2mm. They tested some cases which seemed fine on both, though only had one slider-design to test.

That finally changed this past quarter, with Microsoft today announcing net profit of $5.23 billion for the first calendar quarter (third fiscal quarter) of 2011. Apple last week reported profits of $5.99 billion over the same period, which corresponded to the company's second fiscal quarter of 2011.

Apple has passed its longtime rival Microsoft in a number of metrics over the past year, beginning with market capitalization back in late May 2010. Apple's market cap is now nearly $100 billion higher than Microsoft's.

The integrated application can provide a full fitness center experience by introducing potential new customer to a fitness center and then motivating them to return to the fitness center as active members. For example, the integrated application can provide functions to introduce new customers to a fitness center, can provide functions to motivate customers to join and actively visit the fitness center, can provide in-gym motivation, and can provide post-workout motivation.

Apple breaks the application down into four categories: introducing users to fitness facilities in their areas, encouraging them to join and participate, motivating them while using the facilities, and post-workout motivation to return and continue their fitness program.

The patent application was filed in October 2009 and is credited to Stan Ng, a longtime Apple product manager and marketing director, and Michael Hailey, a former Apple marketing manager who is now employed at Nike. Apple of course has a long-standing partnership with Nike dating back to pre-iOS iPods to offer Nike+ running and training integration. Apple has also previously expressed interest in developing digital fitness companion software for its portable devices, indicating that the company has been working through a number of concepts for how to potentially enter the market.

The Android OS lost ground for the first time since Q2 2009, falling to 50 percent of smartphone unit sales in Q1 2011 compared to 53 percent in the prior quarter. Apple iOS share rose 9 percentage points to comprise 28 percent of smartphone unit sales. BlackBerry OS also lost ground, falling 5 points, to 14 percent.

The iPhone surge comes even as Apple has reportedly sliced CDMA iPhone 4 production to half of its initial 2011 projections.

Looking at all mobile phones, Apple ranked third among manufacturers with 14% of the market, behind Samsung at 23% and LG at 18%. And with continued strong growth from the iPhone and Android, smartphones for the first time represented the majority of U.S. mobile phone sales at 54%.

Apple's iPhone 4 ranked as the top-selling mobile phone in the U.S. during the quarter, and perhaps most surprisingly, the iPhone 3GS took second place in the rankings. Despite essentially being a nearly two-year-old device, the iPhone 3GS almost certainly received a strong boost during the first quarter after AT&T and Apple dropped the price to $49 on a two-year contract. The iPhone 3GS is not available on Verizon.

Several online shopping retailers in China were able to sell iPad 2's protective case products before the iPad 2 was even launched, leading Foxconn to suspect that there might have been some employees leaking the design of iPad 2 which it reported to the local police.

The local police on December 26, 2010, arrested three employees that were suspected of leaking the design, and officially charged the three employees for violating the company's trade secrets on March 23, 2011, the reported added.

Cases for the second-generation iPad began appearing in early December, four months ahead of Apple's official unveiling in early March. Details on some of the physical changes in the new models, such as a larger speaker opening were detailed by late December, although not all of the features accommodated by the second-generation cases were positively identified until the device's introduction.

With the iPad being added to the mix, Canalys calculates Apple's year-over-year growth for the quarter at nearly 188%, but down 31% from the previous quarter.

Apple continued with its strategy to dominate the pad market, with the iPad or iPad 2 available in 59 markets by the end of Q1. A combination of strong Q4 sales and the announcement of the iPad 2's launch across major markets at the end of March contributed to Apple's iPad shipments being down 31% sequentially. The full impact of the iPad 2 launch will not register until subsequent quarters, as Apple gets the product into the hands of consumers. While pad sales continued to lift Apple's results, PC vendors with a focus on the consumer netbook and notebook market, such as Acer and Asus, did not fare so well.

Canalys reports that a total of 6.4 million "pad" devices were shipped during the quarter, with Apple accounting for 74% of the total.

Meanwhile, Pegatron originally expected to ship 10 million CDMA iPhone 4s in 2011, but sources from upstream component makers pointed out that Apple's orders already saw a significant reduction and the volume is estimated to drop to only five million units.

CDMA refers to the radio technology used by Verizon for their mobile phones. The CDMA iPhone (aka Verizon iPhone) was launched in February of this year and saw 2.2 million activations in the partial first quarter of its launch. Despite the years of speculation about a Verizon-compatible iPhone, its reception may have been ultimately tempered by the late introduction in the iPhone 4's lifecycle as well as many customers still being locked into existing contracts.

Apple is widely expected to introduce a new iPhone later this year. That new iPhone will likely be a global device, incorporating both CDMA and GSM technologies into a single design.

Internationally, the white iPhone 4 is available in Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Macau, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, and UK.

My source, who is familiar with the company, says that Xcerion has sold the domain to Apple for about $4.5 million. Xcerion hasn't responded to my queries as yet. At the time of writing, the Whois database showed Xcerion as the owner of iCloud.

For the time being, iCloud.com redirects visitors to CloudMe.com, but presumably Apple will take over the domain when needed if the claim is in fact true.

We had received a heads-up about the iCloud-to-CloudMe rebranding last week, but were unable to dig up any information specifically linking the change to a purchase by Apple at that time. Obviously, specific rumors of Apple acquiring the domain with a specific purchase price lend credence to the original speculation, but we'll still be watching for the domain to officially change hands, presumably to MarkMonitor, the brand management firm that handles Apple's domain registrations (along with those of many other high-profile companies).

Apple of course is said to have completed work on a new cloud-based storage system for media, and appears to be in the final stages of securing deals with record labels before launching the service.