MacRumors

As noted by Mac4Ever [Google translation], legendary French designer Philippe Starck revealed on a radio show today that he has been working with Apple on a "revolutionary" new product, with the product set to launch within the next eight months.

French newspaper Le Figaro has more on Starck's comments [Google translation], noting that he met with Steve Jobs monthly for seven years to talk. Starck also notes that he will be heading to Cupertino to talk with Jobs' widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, suggesting that he is indeed a relatively close friend of the family.

As for the identity of the product in question, speculation naturally turns to an Apple television set, which has been rumored for a launch late this year or early next year. On the electronics side, Starck has experience in speaker and headphone design, with his Parrot Zikmu wireless speaker with iPhone/iPod dock being sold through Apple's online store in some countries. Starck's Parrot Zik headphones are also due for release later this year. Consequently, it is unclear from his brief comments whether he is working on an actual Apple product or something else for which he is coordinating with Apple.

An Apple spokeswoman has officially responded to the lawsuit filed yesterday by the U.S. Department of Justice over the Apple-backed agency model of e-book pricing.

In a statement to All Things D, Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr:

The DOJ’s accusation of collusion against Apple is simply not true. The launch of the iBookstore in 2010 fostered innovation and competition, breaking Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. Since then customers have benefited from eBooks that are more interactive and engaging. Just as we’ve allowed developers to set prices on the App Store, publishers set prices on the iBookstore.

Legal experts commenting on the case said the Justice Department has a steep hill to climb to catch Apple on antitrust charges. Some experts suggest that even amid claims that the publishers met to discuss a shift to an agency model being championed by Apple, the publishers may not be found guilty of antitrust violations.

As reported by Liliputing (via Electronista), Intel is envisioning the high-resolution "Retina" displays pushed by Apple in its iOS devices as the future of PCs, with comments at its Intel Developer Forum in Beijing noting that the company is supporting those plans with its chips.

Specifically, Intel sees handheld and tablet devices targeting resolutions in the range of 300 pixels per inch (ppi), while notebook computers target roughly 250 ppi and all-in-one desktop computers register around 220 ppi.

So here’s what Intel sees happening in the computer space over the next few years:

- Phones and media players with 5 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel displays (this is already happening)
- Tablets with 10 inch, 2560 x 1440 pixel displays
- Ultrabooks with 11 inch, 2560 x 1440 pixel displays
- Ultrabooks with 13 inch, 2800 x 1800 pixel displays
- Laptops with 15 inch, 3840 x 2160 pixel displays
- All-in-one desktops with 3840 x 2160 pixel displays

As noted by 9to5Mac, Intel executive Kirk Skaugen specifically referred to these displays by the "Retina" term coined by Apple at the introduction of the iPhone 4 back in 2010. In his presentation, Skaugen mentioned that Intel's third-generation Core i-Series processors (also known as Ivy Bridge) will support Retina displays if manufacturers choose to offer them. This support is not new, however, as he also noted that the current second-generation Core i-Series chips (Sandy Bridge) also support Retina displays, although Ivy Bridge will mark a significant leap forward in graphics support.

Apple is of course rumored to be working toward releasing Retina-capable Macs, as evidenced by support for the "HiDPI" mode showing up in OS X Lion and Mountain Lion. Rumors have suggested that an updated 15-inch MacBook Pro set to appear in the near future could indeed carry a 2880x1800 screen capable of utilizing HiDPI mode to display sharper content.

Last year, patent holding firm Lodsys took on app developers using Apple's In App Purchase system for iOS, suing a number of large and small developers over their implementation of the feature in their apps. Apple stepped forward to assist its developers by claiming that its existing licensing arrangement with Lodsys protected developers, but Lodsys has persisted in its efforts to require licensing by the developers as well.

In mid-June, Apple filed a motion to intervene in Lodsys' lawsuits against the developers, seeking to officially represent itself as both a defendant in the case and a plaintiff asserting counterclaims against Lodsys. Lodsys opposed the motion, and there has been little news on the progress of the lawsuits over the past nine months.

FOSS Patents now reports that Apple has just been granted limited permission to intervene in the case, with a judge allowing Apple to participate with regards to licensing arrangements.

In early August, Apple insisted that its motion should be granted. But for a long time, nothing happened with respect to Apple's motion. In the meantime, the judge originally presiding over the case resigned. Today, finally, Apple's motion was granted in part: "Apple is permitted to intervene in this suit, but such intervention is limited to the issues of patent exhaustion and licensing."

Judge Rodney Gilstrap concluded that Apple was entitled to intervene, and in any event, a permissive intervention (one that the court can allow in its discretion) was also an option.

While some of the defendants have already settled with Lodsys, it now appears that Apple will have an opportunity to demonstrate for the court that its licensing agreements with Lodsys preclude the patent holder from also demanding royalties from developers using the intellectual property already licensed by Apple.

Apple just released Java for OS X 2012-003, an update to the Java implementation in OS X. The update removes "the most common variants of the Flashback malware." Interestingly the update disables the automatic execution of Java applets, and, if automatic execution is re-enabled, will again disable it if no applets have been run for "an extended period of time".

It was reported earlier this week that Apple was in the process of creating software to remove Flashback. It's been claimed that the Flashback malware infected more than 600,000 Macs at its peak, though there have been a number of programs created to quickly and easily cleanse infected machines.

This Java security update removes the most common variants of the Flashback malware.

This update also configures the Java web plug-in to disable the automatic execution of Java applets. Users may re-enable automatic execution of Java applets using the Java Preferences application. If the Java web plug-in detects that no applets have been run for an extended period of time it will again disable Java applets.

This update is recommended for all Mac users with Java installed.

For details about this update see: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5242

The update can be downloaded via Software Update. A separate Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 8 is available for users on Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

In the wake of yesterday's announcement that the U.S. Department of Justice has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple and a number of book publishers over alleged price fixing, CNET notes that the government may have a hard time winning its case against Apple. The publishers may, however, find themselves on the losing end of the case should they be unwilling to settle.

"It's a harder case against Apple than the publishers," says Geoffrey Manne, who teaches antitrust law at the Lewis and Clark Law School in Oregon and runs the International Center for Law and Economics.

One reason lies in the Justice Department's 36-page complaint, which recounts how publishers met over breakfast in a London hotel and dinners at Manhattan's posh Picholine restaurant, which boasts a "Best of Award of Excellence" from Wine Spectator magazine. The key point is that Apple wasn't present.

But even the case against the publishers is not a sure thing for the Department of Justice. Some experts suggest that even amid claims that the publishers met to discuss a shift to an agency model being championed by Apple, the publishers may not be found guilty of antitrust violations.

Specifically, the Supreme Court has ruled in the past that pricing arrangements among competitors are not automatically considered to be violations of antitrust law, and that the setting of minimum retail pricing by manufacturers is a permitted policy.

Several of the publishers involved in the lawsuit have already settled, but Macmillan and Penguin are holding out along with Apple to fight the case. Almost immediately following the filing of the Department of Justice's lawsuit, a number of states filed their own claims against the companies, citing customer overcharges of over $100 million since the move to an agency model of pricing. Regulators in other countries are also reportedly looking at whether they wish to take action on the matter.

The Next Web reports that Apple has begun enhancing the security of users' Apple ID accounts, requiring those who have do not have alternate email addresses and security questions on file to add them.

In the past 24 hours, Apple appears to have started prompting iOS devices owners and those with Apple IDs within iTunes to make their accounts more secure, requiring them to pick three security questions and enter their answers when they download a new app.

The company is also asking users to enter a backup email address, in order to better protect their device but also their account (which is tied to Apple’s Retail website and all of its media services).

Hacking of iTunes Store accounts has been a long-standing complaint from a number of users, but with over 225 million user accounts, they make for a popular target for phishing, brute force hacking, and other methods. The company has occasionally taken steps to improve account security such as last August's addition of confirmation emails when content is purchased from a previously-unused device, and the company undoubtedly evaluates its security practices on an ongoing basis.

VR-Zone reports that Intel has begun shipping its second-generation Thunderbolt controller chip, known as "Cactus Ridge". As previously discussed, Cactus Ridge will arrive in both four-channel (DSL3510) and two-channel (DSL3310) versions, offering Apple a pair of options for including the new chips in its forthcoming products.

Another aspect that makes the DSL3510 interesting is that it supports multiple internal DisplayPort inputs. What this means is that it could in theory interface with a discrete graphics card as well as the integrated graphics from an Intel CPU. This is likely to be the chip used by Apple in its desktop systems, whereas the more power efficient DSL3310 will end up in notebook products.

The arrival of the new Thunderbolt chips lines up nicely with Intel's Ivy Bridge processors to set the stage for updates to a number Apple's Mac lines. Previous reports have indicated that the first batch of quad-core desktop and mobile Ivy Bridge chips appropriate for Macs should be arriving on April 29, with an announcement coming in the week prior to that date.

Digitimes now claims that the announcement will take place on April 23, with a number of PC manufacturers lined up and ready to launch systems using the new processors. The report points to PC vendors being ready to release new ultrabooks beginning in May, but previous reports had claimed that the lower-voltage chips likely to make their way into the more compact machines won't be launching until early June.

Rob Schmitz of public radio show Marketplace played a key role in debunking a number of Mike Daisey's claims about his trip to China to see working conditions at Apple's manufacturing partner Foxconn. As part of his investigation, Schmitz tracked down Daisey's translator and learned that a number of the experiences Daisey related as part of his "The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" theater monologue never happened.

Following his exposure of Daisey's fabrications, Schmitz has been given access to Foxconn's plants, and he has been filing some reports about what he has seen in those facilities. Among the most interesting contributions is a brief video posted yesterday showing for the first time several of the steps in assembling and testing an iPad.

Marketplace has aired a number of segments interviewing Schmitz about his visits to Foxconn's plants, where has described working conditions and talked with workers about their experiences. Many note that the work is boring and repetitive and that they are sometimes treated like machines, but most seem to acknowledge that Foxconn offers better opportunities than many of the other factories.

Research firm Gartner today released its preliminary personal computer shipment data for the first quarter of 2012, offering up a picture of market performance during the quarter. While Apple experienced only small year-over-year unit growth of over 3.8% and was beaten among top 5 vendors by HP's 6.6% growth, the company did once again outperform the overall industry and its 3.5% decline.

Apple's share of the U.S. market registered at 10.6% and has dipped for two straight quarters, dropping from 12.9% in the third quarter of 2011 and 11.6% in the fourth quarter. The weakness in Apple's Mac sales has primarily been attributed to a lack of hardware updates as the company awaits the launch of Intel's Ivy Bridge chips. Still, Apple's 10.6% share during the quarter topped its 9.8% share from the first quarter of 2011.

As usual, Gartner did not cover Apple's worldwide market share for the quarter, as the company does not rank among the top five vendors on a worldwide basis. PC shipments experienced slow 1.9% year-over-year on a worldwide basis, with strong growth from Lenovo and Asus keeping the industry in positive territory.

Yesterday, Apple disclosed for the first time that it is working to develop a software tool to detect and remove the Flashback malware from infected machines. We also previously profiled Flashback Checker, a simple app designed to allow users to easily see if their Macs are infected but which provides no assistance with disinfection.

While Apple works on its own official solution, other parties have continued to develop their own increasingly user-friendly tools for dealing with the threat and cleaning infected machines, with some of those tools making their way into the public's hands.

Russian antivirus firm Kaspersky Lab, which has played a key role in monitoring and publicizing the threat of Flashback, yesterday announced the launch of a free web-based checker where users can simply input the hardware UUID of their Mac to see if it has registered on the firm's servers as an infected machine. The company has also released Flashfake Removal Tool, a free app that quickly and easily detects and removes the malware.

Antivirus firm F-Secure has also announced its own free Flashback Removal app. The app generates a log file detailing whether it has found Flashback on a user's system, and if so quarantines it inside an encrypted ZIP file for disposal.

F-Secure also points out that Apple has yet to offer any protection for users running systems earlier than Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Flashback uses a vulnerability in Java to install itself without user authorization, and Apple released software patches for Java on Lion and Snow Leopard last week to close that hole and prevent infection on updated systems. Machines running earlier versions of Mac OS X do, however, remain unprotected. Specifically, F-Secure notes that over 16% of Macs are still running Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, marking a substantial user base that remains vulnerable to the threat.

Update: Kaspersky Lab has informed MacRumors that the Flashfake Removal Tool has temporarily been pulled after the discovery that in some cases it could erroneously remove certain user settings. A fixed version of the tool will be posted as soon as it is available.

Update 2: The patched version of the Flashfake Removal Tool is now available through the Kaspersky Lab site.

While the new 1080p-capable Apple TV has been available for nearly a month, Chipworks has now gotten around to tearing down the device's custom A5 system-on-a-chip, discovering with some surprise that the chip is actually a new design from Apple using a die shrink from the 45-nm process used in the A5 of the iPhone 4S to a new 32-nm process. The teardown also reveals what many had suspected: that the "single-core" A5 advertised by Apple for the new Apple TV is actually a standard dual-core chip with one of its cores disabled.

The new A5 processor die is not a single core processor, but contains a dual core processor. Either Apple is only utilizing one core or they are binning parts. Parts binning is a common process in semiconductors where devices are segregated (binned) based on meeting a subset of the overall requirements, in this case they could disable the “bad” core, this increases the usable die per wafer, lowering the cost.

As for the die shrink on the Apple TV's A5, the development raises question about why Apple made the investment in such changes to the A5 for a relatively low volume device like the Apple TV. Despite the benefits of a die shrink, the cost of implementing it for the Apple TV alone would not be inconsequential.

The new A5 measures nearly 41% smaller than its predecessor, coming in at 69.6 mm². Process shrinking not only reduce costs by fitting more dies on a wafer, but it also improves performance and lowers power consumption. This is a very complex chip for a relatively low volume part (for Apple); one would think they have greater plans for this new A5 variant.

Even the A5X used in the new iPad is manufactured using 45-nm processes, making the Apple TV the company's first iOS device to move to the smaller and more efficient 32-nm process.

Update: Chipworks has now updated its report to note that the 32-nm A5 is also showing up in the latest models of the iPad 2. The observation makes it clear that Apple is using the lower-volume models as a testing ground for the more efficient 32-nm processes, with fully-functional dual-core chips landing in the iPad 2 while the Apple TV receives single-core chips with either one core intentionally disabled or one defective core.

(Thanks, @anexanhume!)

As part of today's Apple online store downtime, the company appears to have rolled out an enhancement of its sales chat support services for those looking to purchase an Apple product. While sales chat has been available for quite some time through individual product pages, the changes include a revamped chat window with a more modern appearance.

As has long been the case, sales chat support is available only during certain times of the day and dependent on availability of chat agents.

Even more interestingly, Apple appears to be using its Brazilian store as a test market for even further enhancements that allow sales specialists to share their screens with potential customers to help walk them through a product's features. MacMagazine.com.br provides an overview the process [Google translation], showing how users can participate in a virtual tour with the chat appearing along the right side of the browser window while the specialist shares his or her screen to walk through the product's features.

The report indicates that the screen sharing virtual tour feature is limited to the iPad 2 for the time being, but that the company has plans to extend it across its product lines.