MacRumors

Contrary to previous statements, SFWeekly reports that the San Francisco Police Department now admits to assisting Apple investigators with the search of a lost iPhone 5. An earlier report suggested that Apple had acted on its own without the participation of the police department.

Contradicting past statements that no records exist of police involvement in the search for the lost prototype, San Francisco Police Department spokesman Lt. Troy Dangerfield now tells SF Weekly that "three or four" SFPD officers accompanied two Apple security officials in an unusual search of a Bernal Heights man's home.

The four plainclothes San Francisco Department Police officers accompanied two Apple investigators to the home of Sergio Calderón. According to the most recent report, only the two Apple employees entered the home and searched while the four police officers remained outside.

SFWeekly suggests that there are some questions now why this incident was not recorded as per standard procedure. San Francisco Police Department spokesman Lt. Troy Dangerfield now says "Apple came to us saying that they were looking for a lost item, and some plainclothes officers responded out to the house with them. My understanding is that they stood outside. They just assisted Apple to the address."

The previous report had suggested that Apple investigators may have impersonated the police which is a criminal offense. It seems now that this was not the case.

An Apple employee reportedly lost this iPhone prototype in a restaurant/bar in late July. It seems, so far, that CNet's original account of the tale was accurate.

FOSS Patents reports on an interesting twist in Apple's case against HTC currently underway with the U.S. International Trade Commission. According to a recently-filed brief, Apple claims that a key patent for a "real-time signal processing" API which HTC is accused of infringing in its Android devices was developed by a team of Apple engineers, of which Android co-founder and current Google executive Andy Rubin was a member.

While the revelation is not directly relevant to Apple's case against HTC , the claim is provided primarily to bolster Apple's case that HTC has not been entirely truthful in presenting its case by omitting discussion of Rubin's time at Apple. According to Apple, Rubin was a "low-level engineer" at Apple reporting directly to the inventors of the patent in question at the time the invention. Apple suggests that Android's alleged infringing framework was the result of "Mr. Rubin's inspiration" from that work at Apple. From the legal brief:

Android and Mr. Rubin's relevant background does not start, as HTC would like the Commission to believe, with his work at General Magic or Danger in the mid-1990s. In reality, as the evidence revealed at the hearing, Mr. Rubin began his career at Apple in the early 1990s and worked as a low-level engineer specifically reporting to the inventors of the '263 [realtime API] patent at the exact time their invention was being conceived and developed. [...] It is thus no wonder that the infringing Android platform used the claimed subsystem approach of the '263 patent that allows for flexibility of design and enables the platform to be "highly customizable and expandable" as HTC touts. [...] While Mr. Rubin's inspiration for the Android framework may not be directly relevant to the pending petitions for review, that HTC felt compelled to distort this history is illustrative of the liberties it takes in attacking the ALJ's [initial determination] and the substantial evidence supporting the ALJ's findings.

Apple is of course not claiming that the entire basis of Android was actually developed at Apple, but its assertion that Rubin may have utilized some of Apple's work within Android could be problematic for Google should Apple decide to press a case directly against Google.

Rubin's behavior has already been called into question in a separate case brought by Oracle over the use of Java in Android. In that case, evidence in the form of an email written by Rubin in which he suggested that Google could use Java within Android without permission from Sun (now a part Oracle) has been introduced, leading to accusations of "willful infringement" against Rubin and Google. It seems that Apple may be at least planting the seed that Rubin could have engaged in similar activity dating back to his time at Apple twenty years ago.

Earlier this week, it was revealed that Apple in late July had once again lost an iPhone prototype in a bar, mirroring an event that took place in 2010 ahead of the iPhone 4 launch. According to the report, Apple and San Francisco police tracked the device to a home in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco and conducted a search, but were unable to find the device.

That account was quickly called into question yesterday after the San Francisco Police Department reported that it had no records of such an investigation. SF Weekly follows up with a new report today interviewing the man whose home was searched and suggesting that Apple security personnel may have posed as police officers during the search, a criminal offense. Alternatively, police officers may have improperly assisted in the investigation without properly documenting their work.

[Sergio] Calderón said that at about 6 p.m. six people -- four men and two women -- wearing badges of some kind showed up at his door. "They said, 'Hey, Sergio, we're from the San Francisco Police Department.'" He said they asked him whether he had been at Cava 22 over the weekend (he had) and told him that they had traced a lost iPhone to his home using GPS.

At no point, he said, did any of the visitors say they were working on behalf of Apple or say they were looking for an iPhone 5 prototype.

Calderón claims that he allowed the investigators to search his home and car and to examine a computer to determine whether the lost iPhone had been synced with it. Coming away from the search empty handed, the investigators reportedly offered Calderón $300 to return the phone and left a phone number for him to contact them if he could offer further information on the device.

As the visitors left, one of them -- a man named "Tony" -- gave Calderón his phone number and asked him to call if he had further information about the lost phone. Calderón shared the man's phone number with SF Weekly.

The phone was answered by Anthony Colon, who confirmed to us he is an employee of Apple but declined to comment further. According to a public profile on the website LinkedIn, Colon, a former San Jose Police sergeant, is employed as a "senior investigator" at Apple.

A San Francisco Police Department spokesman has expressed concern about the purported series of events, noting that the department will investigate the incident.

Anthony Colon's LinkedIn profile has been deleted but we've saved an image of it.

Update: SFWeekly now reports that the San Francisco Police did assist Apple investigators with the home search.

Apple today pushed out new test builds of OS X 10.7.2 and iCloud for OS X developers, continuing to quickly move forward with testing of iCloud. As with the previous interval, the updates come exactly one week after the previous seeds.

Unlike last week's release, there is no new beta of iPhoto 9.2 in today's set of seeds. There also appear to be no new developer releases on the iOS side, with Apple having released the seventh beta of iOS 5 just two days ago.

We've yet to hear about any specific changes in the latest seeds, but Apple has been asking developer to target AirPort, AppKit, GraphicsDrivers, iCal, iChat, Mac App Store, Mail, Spotlight, and Time Machine with the last several builds of OS X 10.7.2.

Apple has announced that it will be launching iOS 5 and iCloud this fall, and the company has been rumored to be launching new iPhone hardware in early-to-mid October, with iOS 5 and iCloud should be going live right around that same time. Apple earlier this week began developer testing on iTunes Match, a paid service that stores all of a user's music in the cloud for access from any Internet-connected iOS device or computer.

Thanks, Chanyoon!

As the puzzle of Apple's next-generation iPhone codenamed "N94" begins to come together in the form of what has been dubbed the "iPhone 4S", the latest iOS 5 Beta 7 released earlier this week provides more confirmation that Apple is unsurprisingly moving towards a release.

One of the new files we've been tipped off about included in the latest update is called RegulatoryInfo-N94AP@2x~iphone.png, showing the regulatory data for the N94 iPhone as viewed through Settings > General > About > Regulatory on the device.

According to the new file, the unreleased N94 iPhone has been assigned a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ID of BCG-E2430A. This compares to the BCG-E2380A identifier on the GSM iPhone 4 and the BCG-E2422A identifier on the CDMA iPhone 4.

The device has yet to show up in the FCC's equipment authorization database, although those entries generally do not appear until the day the products are announced. Even then, Apple typically requests that some of the more sensitive documents such as photos of device internals be considered confidential and thus kept from public view for a period of time.

We've seen parts for the N94 and other references in Apple's SDK. That information has suggested the N94 is an A5-based iPhone that looks just like the iPhone 4. The assignment of an FCC ID suggests that Apple is close to bringing the new device to market.

Earlier this week, The New York Times published a report on the "mystery" of Steve Jobs' philanthropic contributions or potential lack thereof, noting that Jobs has not been publicly linked with any charitable giving, despite his $8.3 billion fortune.

Despite accumulating an estimated $8.3 billion fortune through his holdings in Apple and a 7.4 percent stake in Disney (through the sale of Pixar), there is no public record of Mr. Jobs giving money to charity. He is not a member of the Giving Pledge, the organization founded by Warren E. Buffett and Bill Gates to persuade the nation’s wealthiest families to pledge to give away at least half their fortunes. (He declined to participate, according to people briefed on the matter.) Nor is there a hospital wing or an academic building with his name on it.

While the article acknowledges that Jobs may in fact be donating money anonymously, perhaps most notably in an anonymous $150 million gift to the cancer center at the University of California, San Francisco that he has been rumored to be responsible for, it cites Jobs' curious position as one of only a few of America's wealthiest people to not participate in publicly-acknowledged philanthropy.

Two of his close friends, both of whom declined to be quoted by name, told me that Mr. Jobs had said to them in recent years, as his wealth ballooned, that he could do more good focusing his energy on continuing to expand Apple than on philanthropy, especially since his illness. “He has been focused on two things — building the team at Apple and his family,” another friend said. “That’s his legacy. Everything else is a distraction.”

Jobs is not without his defenders, however, as evidenced by a letter to the editor written by U2 singer Bono in response to the article. In his letter, Bono points to Apple's participation in the (Product)RED campaign against AIDS co-founded by Bono that has seen the company become the program's largest contributor with "tens of millions of dollars" in donations from the sale of RED iPods and other products.

Steve Jobs said when we first approached him about (RED), “There is nothing better than the chance to save lives.”

I’m proud to know him; he’s a poetic fellow, an artist and a businessman. Just because he’s been extremely busy, that doesn’t mean that he and his wife, Laurene, have not been thinking about these things. You don’t have to be a friend of his to know what a private person he is or that he doesn’t do things by halves.

Apple and Bono have had a close relationship for many years, with Apple offering a U2-branded iPod from 2004 until 2007 and introducing a (Product)RED iPod nano in late 2006. Apple has continued to offer (Product)RED iPods and accessories since that time, currently offering the iPod nano and an iPad 2 Smart Cover under the program.

Reuters reports that Apple's potential plans for its first retail store in London's financial district have been thrown into question as existing buildings surrounding the site may see their protected access to sunlight impinged upon by the development. Apple is said to be looking to build its store on the ground floor of a 10-story building planned for construction at 100 Cheapside in London.

The proposed 10-storey development at 100 Cheapside has planning permission for 87,000 square feet of offices and 13,000 square feet of retail.

U.S. developer Hines is in talks to buy the site for under 25 million pounds and Apple is interested in taking space there, a source close to the process told Reuters.

The property's current owner has asked the city to use its power to waive the ability for owners of neighboring properties to seek injunctions against the project. Thirteen properties are said to be affected by the development, with impact to eight of them substantial enough that their owners are likely to seek injunctions against the project.

Given that construction has yet to begin on the proposed building and the potential legal difficulties facing the project, it is unclear at this time whether Apple will seek other options for a retail store in the area.

Apple has two flagship stores within a few miles of the proposed site, with its Covent Garden store lying approximately 1.5 miles to the west and its Regent Street store about a mile further to the west.

While much of the focus of patent lawsuits involving Apple has revolved around Samsung and other major smartphone manufacturers in recent weeks, Apple this week faces two new lawsuits from smaller companies seeking to assert their intellectual property claims.

On Wednesday, mobile Internet communications technology firm Openwave Systems announced that it had filed a lawsuit and International Trade Commission (ITC) complaint against Apple and Research in Motion, alleging violation of five different patents across a broad spectrum of applications.

The complaint, filed at the International Trade Commission (ITC) in Washington, DC, requests that the ITC bar the import of smartphones and tablet computers that infringe Openwave patents, including, but not limited to, Apple’s iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod Touch, iPad and iPad 2; and RIM’s Blackberry Curve 9330 and Blackberry PlayBook. Openwave also filed a similar complaint in federal district court in Delaware.

“Openwave invented technologies that became foundational to the mobile Internet. We believe that these large companies should pay us for the use of our technologies, particularly in light of the substantial revenue these companies have earned from devices that use our intellectual property,” said Ken Denman, Chief Executive Officer of Openwave. “Before filing these complaints, we approached both of these companies numerous times in an attempt to negotiate a license of our technology with them and did not receive a substantive response.”

As noted by AllThingsD, Openwave appears to have a small yet fairly strong patent portfolio, suggesting that the company may have a decent chance of winning concessions from Apple and Research in Motion and forcing them into licensing discussions.

In other news, Canadian firm Wi-LAN today announced that it has filed suit against Apple and eight other major companies alleging infringement of two patents related to CDMA, HSPA, Wi-Fi, and LTE technologies.

Wi-LAN is generally regarded as a patent troll, having given up on product manufacturing and focused its business solely on attempts to license its intellectual property. The company has not been shy about filing lawsuits alleging infringement of its patents, and has in fact sued Apple several times in the past, most recently in a 2010 complaint targeting over two dozen companies for their implementations of Bluetooth communications technology.

VR-Zone claims to have heard that Apple is still exploring the integration of USB 3.0 into their future computers. USB 3 is the most recent major version of the USB standard. Apple presently supports USB 2 in its computers. The main improvement in USB 3 is that it can support transfer speeds up to 10x faster than USB 2. VR-Zone writes:

A lot of people have been disappointed over Apple's lack of interest in the USB 3.0 standard, but thanks to a little bird, VR-Zone has heard that the company is still looking at USB 3.0 as a potential feature to add on future products. As to when and how this might happen is not something we know, but from our understanding it'll happen before Intel integrates USB 3.0 support into its chipsets.

Apple has been believed to be holding off on USB 3.0, in part, due to a lack of Intel support in their motherboards. Steve Jobs, responding to an email back in October 2010 said the following:

We don't see USB 3 taking off at this time. No support from Intel, for example.

Intel has since announced that their 2012 platform known as 'Ivy Bridge' will support both USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt. Intel says they view the two technologies as complementary. VR-Zone, however, believes that Apple may be considering implementing USB 3.0 before Intel's adoption.

That leaves us wondering when Apple might actually get around to doing this, and for which computers. The iMac, Mac mini and MacBook Pro have all been updated to the latest Intel architecture. We don't expect them to be updated again until the first half of 2012, which is when Intel's USB 3 ready "Ivy Bridge" is also expected to be available. That just leaves the Mac Pro model which is due for upgrade.

The Mac Pro has been believed to have been a candidate for USB 3 in the past. It's overdue for an update, and is expected to see a refresh late this year. So, that's one possible candidate.

The wildcard is the new Mac Product line that was previously rumored. From VR-Zone's description of their source, it sounds like someone who works in a supplier of USB 3 controllers, so they seem to know that Apple has been looking into them, not the intended target for the parts.

It also seems an unusual move as Apple has committed to Thunderbolt in the most recent round of updates. The main disadvantage of Thunderbolt over USB 3 seems to be the cost of implementation, both in the host computer but also the 3rd party accessories which may be limited to high-end devices to start.

Apple has put the previous version of its Final Cut Studio video editing suite back on sale after a mixed reception to the new and completely redesigned Final Cut X. We received word that Apple had issued a memo this afternoon announcing re-availability of the product.

We confirmed with an Apple telesales representative at 800-MY-APPLE that Final Cut Studio, part number MB642Z/A, is again available for $999 (and $899 for educational customers). The product is only available through the 800-number and is not available in Apple Retail Stores or on the Apple Online Store.

Final Cut Studio is a comprehensive video editing package that includes Final Cut Pro 7, Motion 4, Soundtrack Pro 3, DVD Studio Pro 4, Color 1.5 and Compressor 3.5. Apple had discontinued the product at the launch of Final Cut Pro X, their next generation video editing suite. Critics of the new product had complained that the abrupt discontinuation of the previous version of the software had made the transition more difficult. Apple had promised regular updates to Final Cut Pro X.

Apple has been working for over two months to upgrade the iconic glass cube and surrounding plaza at its flagship retail store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, with the company switching to larger panes of glass for the cube to make for a cleaner appearance as the total number of panes is reduced from 90 to 15.

TUAW notes that deliveries of the new glass panes have begun at the site, with workers utilizing a large crane to work through the night unpacking the large panes for installation.

According to Justin Parmer, who shot photos and brief video of the unloading process, the glass panes are roughly two inches thick. Based on the dimensions of the original cube, the new panes should check in at about 32 feet high by a little over 10 feet wide.