MacRumors

Studies of "brand value" are always difficult to compare, as widely differing methodologies used by those measuring such data yield markedly different results. But tracking year-to-year movements using a consistent methodology can offer some interesting perspectives, and so Millward's Brown's latest BrandZ study (via The Next Web) makes for a good look at trends in marketing and branding.

In the 2012 brand rankings released today, Apple tops the list for the second year in a row, scoring a brand value of nearly $183 billion as compared to last year's $153 billion figure that saw Apple move into the top position for the first time. Apple's 19% growth was the strongest among the top ten brands.

David Roth for WPP said “Brands help businesses create competitive differentiation, command a price premium and become more resilient to crises or economic turbulence. This year, those businesses that leveraged technology, focused on the customer experience or boosted control of their brands thrived."

Apple continues to innovate and maintain its ‘luxury’ brand status, but faces future competition from Samsung. Now worth more than $14.1 billion, thanks in part to the success of its Galaxy handsets, Samsung is successfully outpacing Apple in a significant number of markets by positioning as a cool, well-priced alternative to the ubiquitous iPhone.”

Still, Samsung's brand value of $14.1 billion for a 55th place ranking paled in comparison to Apple, and the company's 16% growth in brand value was unable to match Apple's performance.

Among other top brands, IBM passed Google to take the second spot in the rankings with a brand value of nearly $116 billion as seven of the top ten spots were held by technology or communications companies. Facebook saw the largest percentage gain among top companies, with its brand value jumping by 74% to $33 billion, a leap of sixteen places to number 19 in the rankings.

In line with today's claims of taller iPhone prototypes with 3.95-inch displays, one of our sources has provided us with images of what are claimed to be new next-generation iOS device parts being carried by a supplier. The most significant of these parts is a claimed front panel from the next-generation iPod touch, with the supplier claiming that the display would be taller than the current model and that the opening in the front panel measures 4.1 inches diagonally.

Apple would undoubtedly use the same display size on the iPhone and iPod touch if it were to bring a larger screen to both of the devices, so it is not entirely clear how to mesh recent claims of a 3.95-inch display with this measurement of 4.1 inches and The Wall Street Journal's claim of "at least four inches", but all of the reports are in the same general size range. The viewable portion of the iPhone's display is slightly smaller than the opening in the front panel, so that could explain the slight discrepancy in reported sizes.

Our source's supplier has also included listings for several new parts claimed to be for the next-generation iPhone, including the home button flex cable and front and rear cameras, although the camera parts are listed as needing "verification", so the supplier may yet be confirming their authenticity. The photos are extremely small, but at a minimum the home button flex cable and front camera assembly show distinct differences from their iPhone 4S counterparts, although they may end up being functionally indistinguishable from the user's perspective. The rear camera appears very similar to modules used in the last several generations of the iPhone, although it is lacking an associated LED flash.

Better shots of the cameras have been posted at BadGizmo Repair, which appears to have received its information from the same supplier as our source.

Part leaks from Apple's supply chain have become fairly routine in the months leading up to a product launch, and these latest parts are by no means the first to appear for the upcoming hardware update. The plastic home buttons were the first to leak last month, followed by a micro-SIM tray and what claimed to be a headphone jack/earpiece assembly, although there has been some debate about exactly what the components on that part represent. The authenticity of all of the parts has yet to be confirmed, but past history suggests that these components are frequently genuine parts leaked from Apple's supply chain.

9to5Mac reports that Apple is currently testing two prototypes of the next-generation iPhone that offer a taller screen while maintaining the existing 640-pixel width. According to the report, the two prototypes carry a display with a height of 1136 pixels, up from the current 960-pixel height and leading to an increase in the diagonal size of the display from 3.5 inches to 3.95 inches.

These prototype phones are floating around Apple HQ in thick, locked shells in order to disguise the exterior design to “undisclosed” employees. We know of two next-generation iPhones in testing with a larger display: the iPhone 5,1 and iPhone 5,2. These phones are in the PreEVT stage of development and are codenamed N41AP (5,1) and N42AP (5,2). Because Apple reserves certain models for internal-only usage (such as the N96 phone we previously reported on), we’re not sure which of the two devices will make its way into the world later this year.

The idea of a larger screen in the range of 4 inches for the iPhone has been gaining momentum in recent weeks, with some sources already having claimed that Apple will achieve that increase with a taller design.

Today's report indicates that iOS 6 will support this taller screen by displaying an extra row of home screen icons, in line with previous speculation. The new iPhone hardware also reportedly includes the rumored smaller dock connector, with the report's source pegging its size at between micro-USB and mini-USB.

As noted by Zach Kahn (via 9to5Mac), the latest developer build of OS X Mountain Lion released last week sets the stage for bringing iOS-like automatic app downloads to Mac App Store purchases.

Like on the iPhone and iPad, when you buy and install an app on one of your Macs, all of your other Macs logged into the same App Store account will automatically install the app too.

Unfortunately, the feature does not seem to be working completely. While the App Store will still offer to enable automatic downloads (as seen above), it does not actually install anything when you purchase apps from another computer.

Apple has been issuing regular updates of OS X Mountain Lion to its Mac developer community, and the company is expected to offer many more details on the next-generation operating system at next month's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. OS X Mountain Lion is currently scheduled to see a public launch in "late summer" of this year and will bring a number of enhancements including several features drawn from iOS such as Notification Center, Game Center, Messages, and Reminders.

Apple last week sent out a mailing to neighbors of its planned Apple Campus 2, a massive new facility on the site of an old HP campus in Cupertino that is set to host 13,000 workers. The mailing offers details on the project, solicits feedback, and asks whether neighbors will support the project either in person at public meetings or by writing letters of support.

In the mailing, Apple touts how the project will enhance the neighborhood around the campus, from both functional and aesthetic perspectives. Apple notes that the project will bring upgrades to streets and sidewalks in the area and add more than 2,000 trees that will replace acres of parking lots with green space. Apple also emphasizes the environmental side of its efforts, from a commitment to 100% renewable energy including a massive solar installation to water reclamation and improved drainage.

Apple does note that the campus will not be open to the public, although many of its planned improvements will impact neighbors. The plan has not been without some controversy, however, as some critics have spoken out against the project design, the closed campus, and the amount of traffic it will bring to the area.

Apple's timeline calls for the City of Cupertino to review and approve the campus plans later this year, with construction to begin immediately following approval and the first move-ins planned for 2015.

(Thanks, Hansen!)

Following last month's announcement that Apple and Samsung had agreed to high-level talks involving the two companies' CEOs in an attempt to resolve ongoing patent litigation, Reuters provides a preview of the session set to begin today in San Francisco. The talks, which will be mediated by a federal judge, are scheduled to take place over the next two days.

Commenting before his departure to the United States for the talks, Samsung mobile division chief JK Shin noted that while significant differences between Apple and Samsung still exist, a number of "negotiation options" remain on the table.

"There is still a big gap in the patent war with Apple," JK Shin said, before departing for the United States for the mediation talks. "But we still have several negotiation options."

Court documents show the two companies have had at least one mediation session, although it is not clear if Cook and Choi were involved.

Legal experts are not optimistic that the two companies will reach a settlement, but with courts increasingly pushing companies to seek alternative dispute resolution processes in hopes of staving off drawn-out court battles, Apple and Samsung have agreed to participate in the talks.

Samsung is just one of Apple's main targets in its patent battles with Android-based hardware manufacturers. In another case, Apple succeeded in slowing U.S. imports of several HTC smartphones earlier this month, forcing the company to delay the launch of the Evo 4G LTE on Sprint although HTC has indicated that some shipments of some models are being released by U.S. Customs.

But while Apple's disputes with several Android device manufacturers center on functionality of the devices, the company's dispute with Samsung extends further to claims that Samsung has "chosen to slavishly copy" the design of Apple's products with its own line of Galaxy smartphones and tablets.

China Daily reports that Apple's manufacturing partner Foxconn continues to expand its operations in support of Apple's strong growth in product sales, investing $210 million to build a new production line for unspecified components. The new production line is said to be set to come on line in October of this year and will be located in the Chinese city of Huai'an in the eastern province of Jiangsu.

The plant, covering an area of 40,000 square meters, plans to hire 35,800 employees.

The annual output value of the plant is expected to reach 6 to 7 billion yuan ($949 million to $1.1 billion), and the import and export value will be $55.8 million, the office said.

Foxconn, which has come under scrutiny regarding workers rights issues and has recently been working with Apple to monitor issues and improve standards, has been aggressively expanding its facilities to support Apple's production needs. In addition to new production facilities for the iPhone and iPad in Brazil, the company has also recently adopted a strategy of decentralizing its Chinese production facilities, building some of its new plants in interior regions closer to the homes of many of the young workers seeking jobs with the company.

It is unclear what role the forthcoming Huai'an facility will play in the production of Apple devices, and while the addition of nearly 36,000 workers marks a substantial investment in new production for Apple, it will represent only a small fraction of Foxconn's overall workforce, which currently includes well over one million employees.

Russian forensics firm ElcomSoft earlier this week announced that it has discovered a way to easily access iCloud backups of iOS devices, incorporating the functionality into its Elcomsoft Phone Password Breaker software. While the Apple ID and password must be known in order to access the iCloud data, once that information has been obtained the software makes it easy for investigators to download full iCloud backups and then follow incremental backups in near real-time to track a device's use without the knowledge of the user.

ElcomSoft researchers analyzed the communication protocol connecting iPhone users with Apple iCloud, and were able to emulate the correct commands in order to retrieve the content of iOS users’ iCloud storage. It’s important to note that, unlike offline backups that may come encrypted and must be broken into (a time-consuming operation), data retrieved from iCloud is received in plain, unencrypted form . The 5GB of storage space can be retrieved in reasonable time, while receiving incremental updates is even faster.

Obtaining a user's Apple ID password may not always be trivial, but ElcomSoft tools can also be used to capture that information from offline backups stored in iTunes. And of course if the user disables iCloud syncing on its device or changes the Apple ID password, remote access is lost.

ElcomSoft has been at the forefront of development of password-cracking tools, last year incorporating a tool to bypass hardware encryption included in iOS 4. Such tools are increasingly being used by law enforcement to aid their investigations as smartphones become increasingly common and collect a growing amount of information about users and their activity.

ElcomSoft offers several levels of its software, with the most powerful versions restricted to certain governmental agencies, including law enforcement, intelligence services, and other qualified forensic organizations.

Russian newspaper Izvestia reports [Google translation] that the organizers behind the Skolkovo technology park near Moscow are currently in talks with a number of high-profile companies including Apple, Google, and Facebook about locating research and development facilities in the area. Skolkovo has already landed agreements with Microsoft, IBM, General Electric, Cisco, and others, with the project's backers envisioning the region becoming Russia's version of Silicon Valley bolstered by dozens of major corporations.

According to the report, Apple officials in Moscow declined to comment on the claims, but Skolkovo executive Roman Romanovsky indicated that the two sides have expressed interest in negotiating about possibilities. No deal appears to be imminent, although Romanovsky hopes that the talks will eventually lead to an agreement.

Apple is in the process of opening up its first major international research and development center in Israel, looking to leverage its own expertise and that of Anobit, an Israeli flash memory company acquired by Apple earlier this year, to spur new innovations.

Each July since 2007, Apple has held its iTunes Festival in London, offering a month's worth of free concerts from some of the industry's top performers. Apple is now beginning to unveil this year's plans, and the most notable change for 2012 is a move to the month of September.

For the fourth consecutive year, the iTunes Festival will be held at The Roundhouse in London, with at least 60 acts performing over the 30 nights of the festival. Five acts have been announced so far: Usher (September 1), Emeli Sandé (September 5), Jack White (September 8), Norah Jones (September 10), and One Direction (September 20).

Free tickets are available through a lottery system to residents of the UK, Ireland, France, Germany and the Netherlands, and Apple will also be streaming live video of the concerts directly through iTunes on the desktop or through a dedicated mobile app. The app appears to currently be limited to customers in the UK, and the company notes on its international site for the festival that it will announce streaming options in other countries in August.

Apple also typically releases a number of live EPs and albums from the shows, available for purchase through the iTunes Store.

Bloomberg reports that Steve Jobs was intimately involved in the design work for the next-generation iPhone scheduled for release later this year, reiterating claims that the device will be a substantial change from previous designs in part because of a larger display.

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, has placed orders from suppliers in Asia for screens that are bigger than the 3.5- inch size now on the smartphone, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had worked closely on the redesigned phone before his death in October, one person said. [...]

Apple has been working on the new device since before the current iPhone 4S model was introduced last October, said one person with knowledge of the project. Jobs, who had gone on medical leave from Apple starting last January, played a key role in developing the phone, this person said.

Bloomberg becomes the third major publication to offer an independent report this week regarding a larger display for the next iPhone, following The Wall Street Journal and Reuters yesterday.

Aaron Sorkin, the creative genius behind The Social Network, The West Wing, and upcoming HBO show The Newsroom was recently confirmed as the screenwriter for Sony's upcoming movie based on Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs -- though, Sorkin himself says he has a lot of work to do.

Reuters reports that Sorkin held an interview with reporters and said he was still looking for something in Jobs' life to hang the movie on.

Sorkin noted that "The Social Network" saw the Facebook story through the lens of an acrimonious lawsuit that pitted CEO Mark Zuckerberg against his Harvard friends over the creation of the social media network.

"Drama is tension versus obstacle. Someone wants something, something is standing in their way of getting it. They want the money, they want the girl, they want to get to Philadelphia - doesn't matter ... And I need to find that event and I will. I just don't know what it is," Sorkin said.

He noted that it won't be a "straight ahead biography" because a biography has a natural "cradle-to-grave structure" that is very hard to overcome.

Sorkin also disclosed that Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has been hired as a consultant by Sony Pictures to advise the filmmakers on the technical aspects of computers and about Jobs himself.

Speaking at Fast Company's Innovation Uncensored conference earlier this week, J. Crew CEO and Apple board member Mickey Drexler shared his thoughts (via Business Insider) on several topics related to Apple, including Steve Jobs' dream to build an "iCar" that would have revolutionized the automobile industry. While the idea obviously never developed very far, it is an intriguing glimpse into Jobs' interests and ambitions.

Drexler also mentioned in passing that Apple will be making a push into the living room "in the near future", fueling further interest in and speculation on an Apple television set and perhaps ultimately content deals that could remake how television content is consumed.

Look at the car business – it's a tragedy in America. Who's designing the cars? They talk about expense, they talk about this, and then you say 'Who's designing the cars?'

Steve's dream before he died was to design an iCar. It would have been probably 50% of the market. He never did design it. In the fashion business, you know, Apple has ten products and then they leave alone...the living room they're dealing with at some point in the near future.

Drexler closed with a quip about how difficult it is to take over a company that is doing well, comparing his move to take over struggling J. Crew nearly a decade ago with Tim Cook's move to the CEO position at Apple.

(Photo via Flickr/juanpol)

Verizon yesterday made headlines for comments from Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo revealing that the carrier is planning to discontinue its grandfathered unlimited data plans when the carrier rolls out new shared data plans this summer. Verizon dropped those unlimited data plans within months of introducing the iPhone early last year, but customers who had previously been on the unlimited plans have been allowed to keep them, even through handset upgrades.

Verizon issued a clarification to The New York Times today, noting that the loss of grandfathered unlimited plans will be limited to those customers purchasing new subsidized devices for use on the carrier. Users who do not upgrade their devices or who choose to upgrade at unsubsidized prices will be able to keep their unlimited data plans. Still, the change would appear to be set to affect the majority of Verizon's current unlimited data customers, as most customers are interested in regular handset upgrades at subsidized prices.

- Customers will not be automatically moved to new shared data plans. If a 3G or 4G smartphone customer is on an unlimited plan now and they do not want to change their plan, they will not have to do so.

- When we introduce our new shared data plans, Unlimited Data will no longer be available to customers when purchasing handsets at discounted pricing.

- Customers who purchase phones at full retail price and are on an unlimited smartphone data plan will be able to keep that plan.

- The same pricing and policies will be applied to all 3G and 4GLTE smartphones.

Sprint remains the only major U.S. carrier to offer unlimited data for iPhone users, and the carrier has indicated that it will continue to do so for the next-generation device, even if it supports 4G LTE networks that could lead to consumers using more data capacity.