MacRumors

Earlier today, we pointed to some grainy photos of an early iPad prototype dating back to the 2002-2004 timeframe, revealing a much bulkier but otherwise fairly similar design to that seen in the device that was ultimately launched in 2010.

BuzzFeed has now posted new photos showing the prototype in full color next to an iPad 2, a comparison which shows the prototype to carry a much larger screen than seen on the iPad to date. Measuring pixel counts against the ruler shown in several of the photos reveals that the prototype device had a display measuring almost exactly 12 inches diagonally.

Compared to the eventually-released iPad's 9.7-inch screen, the prototype device would have had roughly 40% more screen real estate, although it is unknown at what resolution the early device was projected to run.

The prototype otherwise bears a distinct similarity to Apple's iBook of the time, carrying a white plastic shell with rounded corners and a 4:3 aspect ratio for the display. The prototype iPad measures in at just under 1-inch thick, compared to 1.35 inches for the white iBook models and the 0.34-0.50 inch range of the iPad models released to the public so far.

After having an online presence in the United Kingdom for more than 15 years, Apple has finally acquired the Apple.co.uk domain name. Dating back to at least 2003, Apple.co.uk has been owned by Apple Illustration, an illustration agency based in the UK. That company is now located at AppleAgency.co.uk.

.co.uk is the primary commercial second-level domain under the United Kingdom's domain hierarchy with many major companies using it as a base of their UK online operations.

Domain name:
apple.co.uk

Registrant:
Apple Inc.

Registrant type:
Non-UK Corporation

Registrant's address:
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino
CA
95014
United States

Registrar:
Corporation Service Company (UK) Limited [Tag = CSC-CORP-DOMAINS]
URL: http://www.cscprotectsbrands.com

Relevant dates:
Registered on: before Aug-1996
Expiry date: 13-Jan-2014
Last updated: 06-Jul-2012

The transfer in ownership happened early this month, with the website beginning to redirect to Apple in the past few days. We've contacted both Apple and Apple Illustration for comment on how the transfer came about, but have yet to hear back from either company.

Following last week's launch of a hack that allowed users to obtain In App Purchase content free of charge by routing their purchase requests through a server run by a Russian hacker, Apple began taking steps to thwart the method. The hacker has, however, continued to develop his method to skirt around Apple's roadblocks.

One of the suggestions for a method by which Apple could improve the security of In App Purchasing was to include a unique identifier in validation receipts, and we've received word that developers are now seeing something along those lines coming from receipts issued by Apple since late yesterday. The receipts carry a new field called "unique_identifer" that appears to include the Unique Device Identifier (UDID) for the device making the In App Purchase.

As one developer noted to us, apps are no longer supposed to be collecting the UDID and thus it is unclear whether Apple's use of the identifier for this purpose is simply a first step toward a broader implementation of unique receipt identifiers for increased security or if Apple is attempting to identify those users and devices who are sharing their receipts with the Russian hacker to allow the method to function.

Business Insider points to a Bloomberg bulletin indicating that a UK judge has ruled Apple must display on its UK website and in British newspapers a notice acknowledging that Samsung did not copy the design of the iPad with its Galaxy Tab 10.1. The UK court had previously ruled that the Galaxy Tab did not infringe upon Apple's design, with the judge observing that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is simply "not as cool" as the iPad.

According to the news flash, Apple will need to post the notice on its UK website for six months. Apple can presumably still appeal the ruling, although that information has not yet been disclosed.

We'll update this article once the full Bloomberg report is available.

Update: Bloomberg's article has gone live with additional details on the situation.

The notice should outline the July 9 London court decision that Samsung’s Galaxy tablets don’t infringe Apple’s registered designs, Judge Colin Birss said. It should be posted on Apple’s U.K. website for six months and published in several newspapers and magazines to correct the damaging impression the South Korea-based company was copying Apple’s product, Birss said.

The order means Apple will have to publish “an advertisement” for Samsung, and is prejudicial to the company, Richard Hacon, a lawyer representing Cupertino, California-based Apple, told the court. “No company likes to refer to a rival on its website.”

Samsung had also requested that Apple be barred from making public statements claiming that the Galaxy Tab had infringed upon the iPad design, but Birss ruled that Apple is within its rights to make such claims in line with the company's belief that the ruling is incorrect.

Disputing a report from last weekend claiming that Apple has begun production on the next-generation iPhone, BGR now claims that the device is still in engineering testing and has yet to enter production.

Apple goes through multiple stages before a product is manufactured, and two of these include the “engineering verification test” stage and the “design verification test” phase. Apple’s sixth-generation iPhone is currently in the EVT3 stage, the third revision of the engineering test stage, and has not yet entered the DVT stage.

The report also claims to have confirmed several hardware details on the forthcoming iPhone, including the unsurprising inclusion of LTE connectivity, a bump to 1 GB of RAM from the 512 MB found in the iPhone 4S, and near field communication (NFC) technology that could significantly enhance the utility of Apple's Passbook app for iOS 6 unveiled last month.

Network World's iOnApple reports on a recently-unsealed deposition given by Apple design chief Jonathan Ive in the ongoing patent war between Apple and Samsung, a session in which Ive was shown photos of Apple's earliest iPad mockups that apparently date to some time between 2002 and 2004. From Ive's testimony:

My recollection of first seeing it is very hazy, but it was, I'm guessing, sometime between 2002 and 2004, some but it was I remember seeing this and perhaps models similar to this when we were first exploring tablet designs that ultimately became the iPad.

As the report notes, the mockup is quite similar to what was eventually released as the iPad well over five years later, although it was significantly thicker given the state of the technology at the time.

Notably, the mockup lacked a home button but in other respects from the general form factor to the presence of a dock connector certainly mirrors the final shipping product.

Additional photos are included in the original report.

Following Verizon's move to shared data plans last month, AT&T announced its own shift scheduled for late August. The new system offers a similar setup to Verizon's, with all plans including unlimited talk and text and monthly service pricing being based simply on the total data allotment and number and type of devices being used.

With AT&T Mobile Share plans, customers start by choosing how much data they want each month, then choose up to 10 devices to attach to their shared plan, one of which must be a smartphone. Each plan includes tethering and unlimited domestic calls and texts for smartphones and basic or quick messaging phones. The larger the data bucket you choose, the less you pay per gigabyte and the less you pay for each smartphone added to the shared plan

One wrinkle for AT&T's plans is a decreasing monthly smartphone device access cost as customers step up to higher data plans. While Verizon charges a flat $40 per month per smartphone, AT&T's starts at $45 for customers using just 1 GB of data but decreases to as low as $30 for accounts with 10 GB of data or more per month. Access costs for other devices are the same between AT&T and Verizon, with feature phones requiring a flat fee of $30 per month, laptop connections $20, and tablets $10.

AT&T undercuts Verizon at the simplest level with a single smartphone on a 1 GB data plan costing $85 per month ($40 data + $45 device), compared to $90 on Verizon ($50 data + $40 device), but adding additional smartphones to that 1 GB plan is more expensive on AT&T ($45 versus $40). Verizon's and AT&T's pricing are identical at the 4 GB level, while AT&T again takes the lead on higher-level plans with more data and devices. As an example, an account with four smartphones sharing 10 GB of data would cost $240 per month on AT&T ($120 data + 4 x $30 devices) versus $260 on Verizon ($100 data + 4 x $40 devices).

AT&T is launching its new plans as of "late August", and current customers will not be required to switch to shared data, although they may do so without extending the length of their contracts. New customers will have the option of selecting from the new shared data plans or the carrier's existing individual or family plans.

Cydia Blog notes the appearance of "iPhone 5" cases from TVC-Mall that correspond to circulating rumors about the next generation iPhone.

The case design lines up with the many part leaks and schematics that have been floating around for the past several months.

The appearance of case designs shouldn't be that surprising given the numerous leaks we've already seen. The cases, however, do represent some small level of confidence by Chinese manufacturers that the next generation iPhone will match the circulating rumors. This includes a slightly taller/thinner design with a smaller bottom dock connector and a bottom-placed headphone jack.

The next generation iPhone is already said to be in production for an expected fall launch.

Following yesterday's discovery of a dialog box in the latest iOS 6 beta suggesting that AT&T users may be subject to restrictions or additional charges if they wish to use the FaceTime video calling feature over the carrier's cellular network, the company issued a brief statement simply acknowledging that it was working with Apple and that more information would be released in the future.

TechCrunch now reports that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson was specifically asked about the issue at Fortune's Brainstorm conference today, with Stephenson saying that it is simply "too early" to discuss how AT&T will handle FaceTime over cellular networks.

“I’ve heard the same rumor,” he said, insisting that for now, AT&T is focused on working with Apple to get the technology stabilized, so “it’s too early to talk about pricing.”

Stephenson's comments certainly do not rule out the idea of additional charges for the feature, and it is even unclear what the carrier's timeline is for supporting it at all. AT&T has on several occasions delayed support of similar features such as tethering and iPad personal hotspot connectivity.

In a separate report today from The Wall Street Journal, Sprint indicated that it will not be charging additional fees for cellular FaceTime usage, considering it part of the customer's existing data package. Verizon, the third major iPhone carrier in the United States, declined to comment on the issue.

Leap Motion today announced (via The Next Web) that Apple's former iAd chief Andy Miller is joining the company as President and Chief Operating Officer. Miller was the founder of mobile advertising firm Quattro Wireless, which Apple acquired in January 2010 to form the basis of its iAd platform. Miller left Apple last August to take a position in venture capital.

Leap Motion has introduced innovative new touch-free technology that will allow users to control their computers by gesturing in space above an iPod-sized USB peripheral sensing device. Leap Motion is currently taking pre-orders for the $70 device, which is compatible with OS X and Windows and is expected to begin shipping late this year or early next year

"I've been fortunate to work with some of the most influential figures and companies in the technology industry, and I'm as excited about the Leap as I've ever been about a technology," said Miller. "The potential for the Leap is limitless, as it is going to fundamentally change the way we interact with so many devices in our lives. I'm thrilled to come on board and looking forward to growing Leap Motion into the technology powerhouse it's on the road to becoming."

Last month, we highlighted a number of device restrictions regarding Apple's high-profile features for iOS 6, noting that many of them would not be compatible with the iPhone 3GS while smaller subsets would not be supported on the iPhone 4 and iPad 2.

But with yesterday's release of iOS 6 Beta 3 for developers, Apple has improved feature support for the iPhone 3GS, adding shared Photo Streams and VIP mail filtering. The change was noticed by a number of iPhone 3GS users, and Apple has confirmed the removal of those restrictions on its iOS 6 preview page.

While the iOS 6 preview page previously contained eight footnotes outlining various restrictions on features, that number has been reduced to six following the release of iOS 6 Beta 3. The two removed footnotes include:

- Shared Photo Streams requires iOS 6 on iPhone 4 or later or iPad 2 or later, or a Mac computer with OS X Mountain Lion. An up-to-date browser is required for accessing shared photo streams on the web.

- VIP list and VIP and Flagged smart mailboxes will be available on iPhone 4 or later and iPad 2 or later.

The fact that iOS 6 is compatible with the iPhone 3GS at all marks a significant step for Apple, as the device was also the minimum requirement for iOS 5 released last year. But with Apple still selling the three year-old device, the company apparently felt that it needed to bring many of the new features of iOS 6 to the iPhone 3GS and is still working to add as many as it can within the constraints of the older hardware's capabilities.