MacRumors

Research firm DisplaySearch today announced the results of its latest quarterly estimates for shipments of "mobile PCs", which include notebooks, netbooks, and tablets. The estimates for the third quarter of 2010 highlight the "iPad Effect" that has seen Apple leap to third place worldwide and first place in North America.

Capturing a 12.4% share of global mobile PC shipments in Q3'10, Apple is benefiting from the iPad Effect, which continues to shake up the mobile PC market. According to preliminary results from the DisplaySearch Quarterly Mobile PC Shipment and Forecast Report, Apple took the #3 position worldwide, and ranks #1 in North America as a result of the continued success of the iPad. The iPad accounts for an 8% share of global shipments of all mobile PCs. 95% of iPad shipments were to developed regions, primarily North America.

While Apple grabbed 12.4% of the worldwide mobile PC market with the iPad included, it would have placed eighth with 4.8% of the market had the iPad not been considered a mobile PC.

The report notes that iPad acceptance has been weak in Japan amid customer concerns regarding a lack of content tailored to the local language and interests. Adoption is also slow in developing countries, due in part to the iPad's partial reliance on a PC for content syncing.

The report echoes similar data released in August by Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore which likewise saw Apple jumping to third place among global notebook PC manufacturers for the second quarter of 2010 when the iPad was included in Apple's sales totals.

Apple's MobileMe service has been a bit of a mixed bag with consumers, with some seeing value in the service's email, photo/file hosting, and syncing capabilities while others feel that the $99 annual list price for the service is too high. The latter sentiment is becoming especially prevalent now that the "Find My iPhone" service that had previously required a MobileMe subscription is free for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch users running iOS 4.2.

Some MobileMe customers have also experienced performance and access issues dating all the way back to the service's debut in mid-2008 as Apple transitioned from the former .Mac service. Aside from occasional downtime, users have also reported issues with syncing data among devices and integrating that data from the various devices into combined databases for syncing.

One MacRumors reader frustrated by his experiences with MobileMe emailed Apple CEO Steve Jobs to share his dissatisfaction and to inquire whether improvements might be coming to the service. Jobs reportedly replied, claiming that MobileMe will "get a lot better in 2011".

Q: I love my iPad and iPhone4 and am a huge fan of yours and all that Apple does. I desperately want to stay inside of Apple'e ecosystem as much as possible.

However, MobileMe is making it very difficult for me to do so. Unreliable/unpredictable syncing, creating duplicate entries (sometimes scores of them), etc. It's almost unusable.

And I know from forums (including Apple's own support boards) that I am not the only one experiencing these very real and frustrating problems.

Please tell me it will get better, and soon?

A: Yes, it will get a lot better in 2011.

Sent from my iPhone

With Jobs offering only a brief and vague response as typical in his emails, it is unclear whether Apple is planning significant feature enhancements for MobileMe or if he is merely referring to performance improvements for its existing capabilities. Jobs' statement should offer some reassurance, however, that Apple apparently has plans for significant improvements to the service that will hopefully result in more customers finding its offering to be worth MobileMe's annual fee in a market where a growing variety of cheap and free applications and services are providing increasing features and capabilities.

9 to 5 Mac reports that it has received word that Apple appears to be sending out emails to select customers offering them free iTunes movie rentals.

iTunes has more than 8,500 movies, including new releases, to rent without late fees, envelopes, or queues. Try one today on us.

Redeem your free movie rental below, and start watching one of your favorite movies on iTunes. Watch what you want, when you want. Enjoy movie rentals on your iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, the all-new Apple TV, or on your computer. You have 30 days from the moment you rent a movie to start watching, and 24 hours to finish it.

The free rentals appear to be limited to the United States, and it is unclear how Apple is selecting users to receive the offers.

Apple launched iTunes movie rentals in January 2008, but has been pushing the rental model in recent months with the introduction of the new streaming-only Apple TV and TV show rentals in September.

Digitimes reports that Foxconn Electronics factories have recently been notified that they will ship Apple's next generation iPad within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400,000-600,000 units.

The sources pointed out that the iPad 2 will ship as soon as the end of February in 2011. Apple originally planned to start mass production in January, but because the device's firmware is currently still in testing, Apple has been postponing the schedule. Since Foxconn's new plants in Chengdu are still in pilot production, iPad 2 will be mainly supplied by its Shenzhen plants, while the company's upstream component partners have all been notified of the shipments schedule.

A February launch would be consistent with rumors pegging the iPad revision in the first part of 2011. Other rumored features include a FaceTime camera, gyroscope, thinner form factor, better display and a USB connector.

Popular ratings and reviews magazine Consumer Reports today announced the release of its latest report on cellular service providers in the United States, unsurprisingly demonstrating wide customer dissatisfaction with AT&T, the exclusive carrier for Apple's iPhone.

Of all the carriers rated, AT&T was the only one to drop significantly in overall satisfaction.

Over half of the survey respondents who used AT&T as a carrier owned some version of the iPhone, the Apple smart phone that is exclusive to AT&T, at least for now. Consumer Reports data, reflecting all versions of the phone, found that iPhone owners were much less satisfied with their carrier and rated data service (Web and e-mail) lower than owners of smart phones on other carriers that, like the iPhone, have a host of apps to encourage heavy data use.

The Houston Chronicle has published the key ratings chart for contract cellular providers at the national level, showing AT&T ranking dead last with the magazine's lowest "worse" rating in eight of nine areas and only one step above the lowest for the company's texting service.

In the 2009 survey, AT&T was at the bottom of the list locally, but came in next-to-last nationally. This time, it brings up the rear nationwide, and in every city in which Consumer Reports surveyed its readership. The magazine even calls out AT&T's shortcomings on its cover with a snarky blurb:

Plus
Best & worst providers
(Sorry, AT&T)

In contrast, Verizon Wireless, the country's largest carrier and widely rumored to be gaining iPhone distribution rights early next year, placed second among the five carriers included in the survey and garnered middle-of-the-road ratings in eight areas and even rated one step higher for voice service. Regional carrier U.S. Cellular topped the charts in the survey.

Among handsets, the iPhone 4 tied with the Samsung Captivate as the highest-rated handset on AT&T's network. Consumer Reports has notably refused to recommend the iPhone 4 due to antenna issues that received considerable publicity in the weeks after the device's launch.

Late last month, it was revealed that Apple had purchased HP's 98-acre campus in Cupertino, California, located across the street from a 50-acre parcel Apple had purchased in 2006 and just a few blocks from its main campus on Infinite Loop. As picked up by MacStories, Spanish business newspaper El Economista is now reporting [Google translation] that acclaimed British architect Norman Foster has been selected to design the new campus.

According to the report, environmental issues are being included as a key aspect of the campus design, with all roads reportedly being placed underground to allow for a maximum amount of open green space on the campus. The design will reportedly also incorporate the latest in building materials and renewable energy capabilities.

In designing Apple's campus, Foster is reportedly drawing on his experience with Masdar City, a new sustainable community under development in Abu Dhabi designed to house up to 50,000 people in a car-free, zero-carbon environment powered entirely by renewable energy sources.

Foster, working with his firm Foster + Partners, is among the most highly-recognized architects in the world, having been awarded the premiere Pritzker Prize for architecture in 1999 and twice won Britain's Stirling Prize. Among Foster's most well-known works are the Millennium Bridge and 30 St Mary Axe ("The Gherkin") in London, Hearst Tower in New York City, and his reconstruction of the Reichstag in Berlin, including the addition of a glass dome offering a panoramic view of the city.

AppleInsider reports on a new research note from Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu claiming that Verizon has stepped up in its negotiations with Apple for the iPhone, reportedly paying a premium to ensure that the handset remains exclusive to current carrier AT&T and Verizon, which has been widely rumored to be launching the iPhone in the U.S. early next year. According to the report, Verizon is seeking to prevent iPhone distribution from also being extended to T-Mobile and Sprint, the country's other two major carriers.

"We are hearing that (Verizon) does not want iPhone, the hottest selling smartphone, available on T-Mobile USA and/or Sprint and may be willing to pay for exclusivity to itself and AT&T," Wu wrote. "For these reasons, (Verizon) could be more willing to give in to Apple's terms."

The report also claims that Google's Android operating system has begun to "lose some of its luster" at Verizon, as AT&T has continued to make gains in customer share with the iPhone despite Verizon's strong promotion of Android devices.

If true, the development would likely be a strong sign for Apple's bottom line, which some had expected might take a hit in the form of lower carrier subsidies when AT&T loses its exclusivity in the U.S. With Verizon seeking a form of exclusivity of its own to keep out T-Mobile and Sprint, Apple could see the benefit of a significant new base of potential customers while keeping the average selling price for the iPhone units at or near its current price of over $600.

It should be noted that Wu has a rather poor track record when it comes to Apple predictions, but his report today is already making waves among Apple watchers and those waiting for the iPhone to move beyond AT&T in the United States, and if true would represent a significant development for Apple and its customers in 2011.

Google today announced the launch of its previously-rumored eBookstore, bringing another significant competitor to the market targeted by major bookstore chains, Amazon's Kindle Store, and Apple's iBookstore. The new Google eBookstore currently offers over three million titles with "hundreds of thousands" of pay titles available.

We designed Google eBooks to be open. Many devices are compatible with Google eBooks - everything from laptops to netbooks to tablets to smartphones to e-readers. With the new Google eBooks Web Reader, you can buy, store and read Google eBooks in the cloud. That means you can access your ebooks like you would messages in Gmail or photos in Picasa - using a free, password-protected Google account with unlimited ebooks storage.

Google is launching an iOS application to allow iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch users to access their Google eBookstore content on their devices, although the application does not yet appear to have gone live in the App Store. With the company's Web reader, users can access their content through computers running any Javascript-enabled browser.

Notably, Google is also partnering with third-party booksellers such as Powell's and Alibris to allow customers of those business to purchase Google eBooks directly through those stores' sites. Digital right management (DRM) technology on Google eBooks is driven by Adobe's Content Server 4.

A quick glance at Google's offerings for The New York Times Best Sellers shows pricing for most titles at $12.99, equivalent to pricing for those same titles in Apple's iBookstore. A handful titles are, however, priced at $14.99 through Google while Apple offers them at $12.99.

Update: The free Google Books [App Store] application for iOS is now live in the App Store.

AppleTell claims that Apple may be targeting a launch of the Mac App Store as early as December 13th.

An inside source has just told us that Apple is targeting a Monday, December 13th launch of the Mac App Store. The company apparently told developers to have their software prepared for a launch as early as Monday the 6th of this month, but our contact would be shocked if that happened at this point. Apple has made no official announcements regarding this, and delays could always happen, but there's a push to be launched before Christmas, well ahead of the previously estimated January release.

According to their source, Steve Jobs has been pushing for an early release and Apple is reportedly ahead of schedule for the release.

While we can't verify these claims, we do know that Apple started asking developers to submit their apps to the Mac App Store back on November 3rd. Apple has also recently seeded a new version of Mac OS X 10.6.6 to Mac App developers. Mac OS X 10.6.6 will be required for end users to use the Mac App store and needs to be ready for the launch.

Such an early launch would be well ahead of schedule. Apple had announced on October 20th that the Mac App Store would open in "90 days", which gave it a target date of late January 2011.

Bloomberg reported last week that Intel and NVIDIA are in talks aimed at settling the legal dispute between the companies. The legal issues which began late last year resulted in NVIDIA exiting the chipset business pending a resolution of the disagreement.

The details of the settlement were not revealed but a resolution could be good news for Apple, as pointed out by ArsTechnica.

Apple had adopted NVIDIA's chipsets to power its MacBook and MacBook Pro line in late 2008 providing their laptop line a boost in integrated graphics performance. The licensing dispute, however, prevented NVIDIA from supplying the next generation chipsets for Intel's Nehalem processors. This restriction most likely affected Apple's decision not to use the new Nehalem/Arrandale chips in the new MacBook Airs and the 13" MacBooks.

However, the licensing dispute meant that Apple couldn't upgrade the processors in some of its most portable machines, including the 13" MacBook models and its ultraportable MacBook Air, without giving up the benefit of the graphics boost from NVIDIA's integrated graphics. This, in turn, has left Apple to continue using Core 2 Duo processors - based on a decidedly outdated architecture - paired with an updated NVIDIA 320M controller. Despite the fact the final product offers good performance, the use of the positively ancient Core 2 Duo still looks bad for a company that markets premium products and demands a premium price.

Essentially, when given the choice between a faster processor vs faster integrated graphics in its price and space constrained machines, Apple opted for faster video performance.

If Intel and NVIDIA are able to come to terms and NVIDIA is able to provide next generation chipsets, Apple may be able to offer both the latest Intel CPUs and NVIDIA integrated graphics chips across all their machines.

In a stark reversal from projections made just over two months ago, Bloomberg Businessweek reports that new predictions from research firm IDC peg Google as taking a whopping 59% share of the U.S. mobile advertising market for 2010 while Apple is expected to garner only 8.4% of the U.S. market with its own iAd program. IDC's earlier report had projected that Apple and Google would finish the year neck-and-neck, with each holding about 21% of the market.

The sudden change appears to come, however, not from Apple grossly underperforming earlier expectations but from IDC grossly underestimating the total size of the U.S. mobile advertising market and Google's share of it. The earlier report had cited a total market size of under $250 million for 2009, while the new report claims that 2009 saw a market of $368 million.

Earlier this year, IDC projected Google would lose market share this year. It revised estimates after Google's October announcement. "Google is a lot bigger than we thought," Weide says. "We rectified that, based on the numbers they provided in their last earnings call."

Those underestimations have led to a dramatic upward revision in Google's market share numbers for 2009 and 2010, with all of its competitors, including Apple, seeing corresponding significant decreases in their market share numbers. IDC's September report claimed that Google held a 27% share in 2009 when including data for AdMob, which it acquired late in the year, but the firm's new report claims that Google held 48.6% of the market on its own in 2009, with AdMob holding an additional 8.4% share for a total of 57% of the expanded market.

The revised projections for Apple show the company holding 8.4% of the market for 2010, good for second place in an industry it hadn't even entered in 2009. Quattro Wireless, which was acquired by Apple right around the beginning of 2010, held 5.4% of the market in 2009.

Apple is continuing to expand its iAd program, pushing out worldwide delivery of ads early last month and following that up with announcements that it would be adding programs for advertisers in Japan and Europe this month and early next year.

Update: A new report from Business Insider sheds some additional light on the discrepancies between the two reports. The September Bloomberg Businessweek article appears to have only been addressing mobile display ads and not the total market, which includes both display ads and search-based ads. As shown in the new Business Insider article, Google and Apple are still projected to be neck-and-neck in display ads for 2010, with Google projected to grab 19.0% of the market while Apple takes 18.8%.

The Bloomberg Businessweek report from last week encompassed the total display and search market without making a distinction from its September report, and with Google's dominance in search-based ads (91.4%), the company still holds a wide lead in the overall U.S. mobile advertising market.

All Things D reports that Apple and major magazine publishers have yet to reach agreements on plans for digital magazine subscriptions, with the two sides engaged in a stalemate over revenue sharing and subscriber information. The report reiterates earlier details of Apple's position, but notes that no major publishers have accepted the company's terms in the face of Apple's firm stand.

Publishers want the ability to sell the subscriptions themselves, or at least the opportunity to hang on to subscribers' personal data. And Steve Jobs won't let them.

Here's what Apple is offering publishers, according to publishing sources:

- The ability to sell app subscriptions through iTunes.
- 70 percent of the revenue from each sale.
- The ability to offer an opt-in form for subscribers, which would ask them for a limited amount of information: Name, address, e-mail address.

That offer has been on the table for a "couple months", I'm told, and so far none of the big publishers has gone for it.

As long ago as February, publishers were expressing the same concerns over Apple's proposals: an unwillingness to send 30% of revenue to Apple and a desire to have access to subscriber information for marketing and editorial purposes. Despite the fact that Amazon last month announced similar terms to Apple's proposal for magazine and newspaper publishers, it appears that the publishers have yet to come around to Apple's offer.

Apple has been rumored to be building support for periodical subscriptions and automatic content delivery into iOS 4.3, with a new digital news magazine from News Corp known as The Daily reportedly set to debut using the model either later this month or early next year.

Last month, we noted that UK carrier Orange was preparing to roll out subsidized iPad pricing for those customers willing to sign up for data contracts for the device. paidContent:UK now reports that Orange, Three and T-Mobile have all rolled out the subsidized sales today, offering the 16 GB Wi-Fi + 3G iPad model for £199 with a two-year data contract in the range of £25 per month. Orange and Three are also offering subsidized 32 GB and 64 GB models at £249 and £349 respectively.

While the device pricing is the same across the three carriers and a significant discount from the standalone prices of £529/£599/£699, the data plans offered by the carriers do differ in their features:

- For £25/month, Three offers it bundled with 15GB of data per month. WiFi is not included.

- Orange offers 1GB of data at peak times and 1GB of "quiet time" data (between midnight and 4pm) and 3GB of WiFi usage using BT (NYSE: BT) Openzone, at a price of £25 for current customers or £27 for new customers.

- Meanwhile, T-Mobile is also offering 1GB of data at peak times and 1GB at "quiet time" (which in their case is midnight to 10am) but no WiFi hotspot usage, also for the same price as Orange. T-Mobile's overage, however, is a bit more lenient in that the operator doesn't charge you but then reserve the right to restrict your bandwidth in future.

Customers who expect to maintain cellular data access for their iPads will likely find the new deals enticing, while those who plan to utilize 3G data only occasionally will likely prefer to purchase an unsubsidized iPad and purchase one of the many contract-free data packages offered by the carriers when necessary:

Apple yesterday published a series of three updates for Mac App Store developers to its news and announcements page, offering several tips for those preparing their applications for submission to the forthcoming store.

The most important update for general users addresses demo, trial, and beta versions of software intended for distribution through the Mac App Store. Apple notes that developers should not submit these versions for inclusion in the Mac App Store and should instead distribute them through their own sites while limiting Mac App Store distribution to full retail versions of their applications.

Your website is the best place to provide demos, trial versions, or betas of your software for customers to explore. The apps you submit to be reviewed for the Mac App Store should be fully functional, retail versions of your apps.

Apple's other two updates point to sections of Apple's developer-only documentation, reminding those working on applications where to find resources for developing custom interface control elements that comply with Apple's interface guidelines and to make sure that they are properly utilizing the Mac OS X file system to store files related to their applications in appropriate locations on users' computers.

Apple announced at its October 20th media event that the Mac App Store would debut for users of Mac OS X Snow Leopard within 90 days, meaning that a launch would be expected to occur by mid-January.

The company began accepting submissions for the Mac App Store one month ago and appears to be preparing Mac OS X 10.6.6 to support the store.

Apple today seeded a new version of Mac OS X 10.6.6, known as Build 10J537, to developers. The update comes four weeks after the initial developer build was seeded to developers even before Mac OS X 10.6.5 saw its public release.

Interestingly, we've been told that the new build is being listed as a golden master version for those accessing it through the Mac App Store developer program. The designation would suggest that Apple is preparing to release this version to the public in the near future. The listing for regular Mac developers not participating in the Mac App Store aspect of the program appears, however, to not carry any mention of it being a golden master build.

Mac OS X 10.6.6 Build 10J537 offers "developer support for fetching and renewing App Store receipts" and the seed notes ask developers to focus their testing efforts on Bonjour, Dock, OpenGL, Printing and Spotlight. The build weighs in at 1000 MB as a combo update.