MacRumors

BGR reports that it has received a screenshot of an internal Apple support document outlining a change to the company's policies regarding potential liquid damage to iPods. According to the document, Apple's usage of internal Liquid Contact Indicators (LCIs) to report direct contact with liquids is now to be augmented with additional inspection by repair staff before concluding that an actual liquid damage event, which would not be covered by warranty, has occurred.

AppleCare has changed the way it screens iPods for liquid damage. When an Apple Retail Store or AppleCare Repair Center checks for liquid damage, if the Liquid Contact Indicator (LCI) inside the headphone jack has been activated, the iPod must be inspected for additional signs of liquid damage.

As before, unless a customer admits to accidentally damaging their iPod, final determination about liquid damage must be made by an Apple Retail Store or AppleCare Repair Center.

As the report notes, it is unknown whether the revised policy also applies to the iPhone, although it seems likely that the two product lines would see similar guidelines.

Apple's Liquid Contact Indicators, which change color upon exposure to liquid, have been the subject of some controversy, with some customers, especially those living in areas of high humidity, claiming that the LCIs have activated without the devices being in direct contact with liquid. Apple's revised LCI policy appears designed to address this controversy, asking support staff to look for additional signs of direct liquid contact before making a final determination about whether repair or replacement would be covered under warranty.

Back in June, we pointed to a YouTube video appearing to show a Mac version of Adobe Audition, the company's professional audio editing software. Just a few weeks later, Adobe confirmed its plans to bring Audition to Mac OS X and noted that a public beta would be released in late 2010.

Adobe has followed through on that schedule with today's release of the public beta of Audition for Mac, now available through the Adobe Labs site.

Welcome to the public beta release of Adobe Audition for Mac. Adobe Audition for Mac brings modern audio post-production to the Mac platform. Familiar tools for audio editing, multitrack mixing and recording meet improved performance, greater workflow flexibility, and new features such as native 5.1 surround support and new effects. Plus, the best-of-breed audio sweetening and restoration tools in Audition make it easy to clean up production audio. With essential tools you can rely on for quick-completion projects, Audition for the Mac brings a fresh face to audio post-production.

The free beta will be functional throughout the beta testing period and requires a multi-core Intel processor and Mac OS X 10.5.7 or later. Adobe has also posted a discussion forum for Adobe Audition for Mac to allow beta testers to discuss and provide feedback on the beta software.

Amazon yesterday announced that as of December 1st it will begin offering new revenue sharing terms for magazine and newspaper publishers seeking to bring their content to the Kindle. Under the new terms, Amazon will keep 30% of revenue while passing along the remaining 70% to publishers, with delivery costs for content moved via paid services such as the company's Whispernet cellular data package shared between publishers and Amazon at the same 70-30 level.

Amazon.com, Inc. today announced that magazine and newspaper publishers will soon be eligible to earn a larger share of revenue from each title they sell in the Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore). For each magazine or newspaper sold, publishers will be able to earn 70 percent of the retail price, net of delivery costs. These new 70-percent royalty terms will become available on December 1, 2010.

In order to be eligible for the program, publishers must comply with a set of requirements ensuring a quality customer experience, including at least a 95% match of content to that offered in the print edition and delivery of the content to Amazon at least three hours before print delivery begins.

Amazon's move to what is quickly becoming the standard revenue sharing model for digital content has been seen as a response to Apple's negotiations with publishers in which it is offering a similar split. For their part, publishers have been in large part holding out in hopes of moving their subscriptions outside of the traditional App Store or In App Purchase delivery streams for Apple's devices, looking to avoid having to give a 30% cut to Apple. With Amazon and Apple now on roughly the same page regarding delivery of magazine and newspaper content to their devices, publishers may finally be willing to come onboard with the stabilized pricing structure.

As noted by The Next Web, Verizon yesterday began airing its first television commercial for the iPad since the carrier began offering the device paired with a MiFi mobile hotspot in its retail stores late last month.

Entitled "Breakaway", the ad touts the pairing of the "magic" of the iPad with Verizon's network.

Introducing iPad on Verizon. All the magic of iPad. All the nationwide power and reliability of Verizon.

Verizon offers only the Wi-Fi models of the iPad, pairing them with the carrier's MiFi 2200 mobile hotspot device to provide service on the go. The bundles are priced at essentially the same price points as the corresponding 3G-capable iPads available for AT&T's network ($629.99/$729.99/$829.99). MiFi data plans for iPad users begin at $20/month for 1 GB of data. The carrier also offers unbundled Wi-Fi iPads at the traditional prices of $499.99/$599.99/$699.99.

9 to 5 Mac reports that Apple appears to have acquired Wi-Gear, a small San Francisco-based company that offered highly-touted Bluetooth headphones for the iPhone and iPod known as iMuffs.

Apple plans to build its own stereo Bluetooth headphones for future iOS devices and MacBooks with technology and expertise from Wi-Gear. As you'll recall, Apple didn't have a great amount of success with its own Bluetooth headset and instead of building in-house for their new product, decided to pick up the small Wi-Gear outfit.

Wi-Gear offered its iMuffs headphones as a standalone product offering basic integrated music controls, as well as a dock connector adapter to provide full control via Bluetooth and compatibility for iPhones and iPods without built-in Bluetooth support.

In support of the acquisition claim, the report notes that the company's co-founder now lists his occupation as "iOS Bluetooth Engineer at Apple Inc." on his LinkedIn profile.

Update: The claim has been refuted by Wi-Gear's CEO.

Apple continues to work on Mac OS X 10.6.5, issuing a new version known as Build 10H574 to developers today. Just this past Friday, Apple pushed out Build 10H571, with the build of increment of three since that time suggesting that Apple's engineers have likely been working through the weekend to prepare for a public release. No details on changes included in the latest build have yet been revealed.

The public release of Mac OS X 10.6.5 is expected to come nearly simultaneously with a release of iOS 4.2, as Mac OS X 10.6.5 is required to support certain aspects of the AirPrint functionality coming in iOS 4.2. The golden master of iOS 4.2 was issued to developers one week ago and is likely simply awaiting finalization of Mac OS X 10.6.5 before release.

Notably, Apple has already seeded its first developer build of Mac OS X 10.6.6 with hints that that version will be required for support of Apple's forthcoming Mac App Store. The early developer seed of Mac OS X 10.6.6 and the small file size (3.7 MB) suggest it will see only minor changes and may follow closely on the heels of Mac OS X 10.6.5.

AppleInsider reports that the next version of Apple's productivity suite, iWork '11, is ready for launch but will likely debut alongside the company's Mac App Store very early in 2011.

People familiar with the matter say development of iWork '11 wrapped up this fall and the software was initially slated for an introduction alongside iLife '11 last month, but was held back at the last minute for undisclosed reasons.

Apple's revised plans currently call for the company to launch the new productivity suite alongside the forthcoming Mac App Store, these same people say. The applications included in the bundle -- Pages, Numbers and Keynote -- will be available for purchase individually when the Mac App Store debuts.

According to the report, Apple is still deciding whether to offer a retail box version of iWork '11 or if it will be available exclusively through the Mac App Store.

Promotional materials for the Mac App Store have shown the three iWork applications, Pages, Keynote, and Numbers, available on an individual basis for $19.99 each, below Apple's current $79 price for the complete retail box suite.

Apple announced at its "Back to the Mac" media event on October 20th that the Mac App Store would launch within 90 days, meaning that the store would have to debut by January 18th, 2011 in order to reach Apple's stated timetable. The company last week began accepting submissions from developers seeking to have their applications included in the Mac App Store.

The Associated Press reports that toy company Hasbro is set to unveil a new device called "My3D" that will allow iPhone and iPod touch users to view 3-D content on their devices.

It promises three-dimensional content that offers a 360-degree experience in gaming, virtual travel experiences and entertainment content. It's aimed at both children and adults.

The device, which resembles a pair of binoculars with a slot in which users insert their iPod or iPhone, will be priced at $30. It will be available starting next spring at stores where Apple's iPhones and iPod Touches are available.

According to the report, Apple assisted Hasbro with development of the My3D accessory, which will require specialized apps to support display of the 3-D content. Hasbro has teamed with Dreamworks Animation, as well as a forthcoming 3-D TV network backed by Discovery, Sony, and IMAX, to produce content for the device.

In its review of the new 11-inch MacBook Air published last week, Ars Technica noted that the battery life of the machine takes a substantial hit when browsing sites with Adobe's Flash Player enabled, pointing to the prevalence of CPU-heavy Flash ads in use on the Internet.

Having Flash installed can cut battery runtime considerably - as much as 33 percent in our testing. With a handful of websites loaded in Safari, Flash-based ads kept the CPU running far more than seemed necessary, and the best time I recorded with Flash installed was just 4 hours. After deleting Flash, however, the MacBook Air ran for 6:02 - with the exact same set of websites reloaded in Safari, and with static ads replacing the CPU-sucking Flash versions.

The difference has gained much attention due to the MacBook Air's limited battery capacity, the ongoing dispute between Apple and Adobe over Flash, and Apple's decision to ship the new MacBook Air without Flash Player pre-installed, a change coming to all of the company's Mac products.

Fast Company spoke with Adobe Chief Technology Office Kevin Lynch about the MacBook Air news and the broader dispute over Flash, and Lynch argued that it makes perfect sense that displaying Flash content would utilize more battery power than not displaying it. Lynch also claimed that displaying the same content in Apple-supported HTML5 technology would use as much or more battery power than in Flash.

"It's a false argument to make, of the power usage," Lynch explains. "When you're displaying content, any technology will use more power to display, versus not displaying content. If you used HTML5, for example, to display advertisements, that would use as much or more processing power than what Flash uses."

Lynch said several studies have already confirmed Flash's higher battery life, and also argued that HTML5 had far less reliable playback.

Lynch went on to focus on the "negative campaigning" against Adobe's Flash technology, taking aim at Apple for "inciting" the movement, calling Apple's choice to cut off access to Flash content for its iOS users "hurtful" to Adobe and Flash developers and "counter to [Adobe's] values".

"I just think there's this negative campaigning going on, and, for whatever reason, Apple is really choosing to incite it, and condone it," Lynch says. "I think that's unfortunate. We don't think it's good for the web to have aspects closed off--a blockade of certain types of expression. There's a decade of content out there that you just can't view on Apple's device, and I think that's not only hurtful to Adobe, but hurtful to everyone that created that content."

For its part, Adobe is looking at how to accommodate the growing presence of HTML5 content on the Internet, recently offering a demo of a tool that would allow developers to easily port much of their Flash content to HTML5.

Patently Apple reports on a newly-published patent application from Apple coming out of the European patent office and revealing user interfaces offering scrollable menus and toolbars designed to handle the ever-increasing number of tools and options in many applications while limiting the amount of space required to access those options.

In particular, Apple's patent application describes the use of a small selection window through which a variety of options could be scrolled, rather than offering an entire toolbar with all options remaining visible at all times. The drawings accompanying the patent application depict implementations on both Mac OS X and iOS.

Apple's patent and illustrations introduce us to a new concept of scrollable menus and toolbars that may very well end up in both OS X Lion and a future iteration of iOS. The new menus and toolbars may also be integrated into future iterations of Apple applications such as Aperture and/or suite applications like Pages, Numbers and iMovie.

To begin with, Apple states that their invention provides a novel method for presenting a menu in a graphical user interface. The menu includes several selectable menu items that are assigned in a particular order for scrolling through a selection window based on user input. In some embodiments, each of the menu items is associated with a command. When a menu item is in the selection window, a user could select the menu item in order to perform the command associated with the menu item.

In addition to vertical and horizontal scrolling, Apple proposes other geometric organizations such as arcs and circles of icons that could permit a large number of icons to be displayed in a limited area and scrolled into position for selection.

TiPb posts a video demonstrating the performance of the iPhone 3G under the golden master version of iOS 4.2, revealing what appears to be an improvement over iOS 4.1. While the performance obviously does not match that of the iPhone 4, which offers significantly better hardware than the iPhone 3G, the new software version does seems to make for an improved user experience on the older device.

iPhone 3G's hardware isn't as fast and it's RAM is literally a quarter of iPhone 4's but it did a decent job typing, scrolling, pinching, and zooming its way around iOS 4.2.

Users reported significant issues with the original iOS 4 release on the iPhone 3G, primarily citing issues with performance, but also battery drains and overheating. Apple CEO Steve Jobs noted in response to a customer email on the issue that a software update was forthcoming, and an informal comparison did suggest that iOS 4.1 brought improved performance to the iPhone 3G.

Those improvements have not, however, satisfied all iPhone 3G owners, as one filed suit against Apple late last month, seeking class action status for claims that iOS 4 essentially makes iPhone 3Gs unusable.

In her complaint, Wofford claims that Apple was aware that iOS 4 would cause degraded performance on older iPhones, and she accused Apple of purposely creating an incentive for customers to purchase newer iPhones.

"Apple has falsely, intentionally and repeatedly represented to owners and consumers of the iPhone 3G that its new operating system for the device, iOS4, was of a nature, quality, and a significant upgrade for the functionality of all iPhone devices, when in fact, the installation and use of the iOS4 on iPhone 3G resulted in the opposite - a device with little more use than that of a paperweight," the complaint read.

Apple seeded the golden master version of iOS 4.2 to developers early last week, and many observers are expecting a public release sometime this week.

French site MacGeneration reports [Google translation] that one of its readers emailed Apple CEO Steve Jobs to inquire about the reasons behind last Friday's announcement that the company will discontinue the Xserve rackmount server. Jobs reportedly responded to the email, unsurprisingly noting that poor sales were the reason for the discontinuation.

Hardly anyone was buying them.

Sent from my iPhone

While Apple has not routinely revealed sales figures for the Xserve, the report points to data from research firm Gartner published several years ago showing that Apple was selling on the order of 10,000 units per quarter, a tiny fraction of the company's overall computer sales.

With the discontinuation of the Xserve, Apple has suggested that potential customers consider either the Mac mini, which gained a server option in late 2009, or the Mac Pro, which saw Apple release a server-specific standard configuration on Friday.

Toshiba announced today the introduction of a "new form factor" in high capacity solid-state storage called the "Blade X-gale" series. MacRumors readers will recognize the small SSD sticks as the same product that is used in Apple's new MacBook Air. Toshiba supplies these parts to Apple and is now offering the product to the mass market.

Available now, the new drives are offered in capacities of 64-gigabyte (GB) (1), 128GB and 256GB, with a maximum sequential read speed of 220MB per second (MB/s) (2) and a maximum sequential write speed of 180MB/s. Ideally suited for integration into space-sensitive products, including tablet PCs, laptops, mini-mobile and netbook PCs, Toshiba's latest SSD offering helps these devices achieve a super slim profile.

Toshiba's SSDs come in the same three sizes that Apple presently offers (64GB, 128GB, and 256GB) and even shares the same part numbers indicating that these are the exact same product. This is good news for potential MacBook Air customers as it offers a potential upgrade path for the MacBook Air's SSD drive which only comes in specific combinations from Apple. For example, the 256GB SSD is not available in the 11" MacBook Air. We should note that we haven't yet been able to confirm that the 256GB part will actually fit into the 11" MacBook Air, as the 256GB part is slightly thicker than the 64GB and 128GB parts (3.7mm vs 2.2mm).

Another company has already announced their own replacement SSD part for the MacBook Air, and Toshiba's offerings should guarantee a healthy aftermarket for the part. No pricing has been announced for devices.

MacRumors has received word that Apple today seeded a new version of Mac OS X 10.6.5, termed Build 10H571, to select developers for testing. The release comes as Apple this week wrapped up work on iOS 4.2 with the golden master being seeded to iOS developers on Monday. No details on any changes in the latest build have yet been revealed.

Mac OS X 10.6.5 is required to support the AirPrint functionality being included in iOS 4.2, and thus the two releases are expected to see a public release at roughly the same time, although Apple has so far only indicated that iOS 4.2 will drop sometime in November. But with the golden master of iOS 4.2 already finished, it appears likely the public release will occur sooner rather than later, which suggests that today's Mac OS X 10.6.5 build could be one of the last testing versions or even the final build to be released to the public.

Mac OS X 10.6.5 Build 10H568 was released to developers one week ago. Curiously, Apple just yesterday seeded the first developer build of Mac OS X 10.6.6, despite the fact that 10.6.5 has yet to be released to the public. Details on Mac OS X 10.6.6 suggest that it may be a relatively minor update to support Apple's forthcoming Mac App Store.

Boy Genius Report notes that it has received a tip claiming that Sprint is set to launch the ZTE Peel on November 14th. The Peel is a 3G hotspot device designed as a wraparound case for the iPod touch, providing mobile data access for the device that is typically limited to Wi-Fi-only connections.

According to the report, service for the Peel will be priced at $29.99 per month for 1 GB of data on a no-contract plan, but the price of the Peel itself remains unknown.

We don't have any details on how much the actual device will sell for, but we do know Sprint plans on charging $29.99 per month for 1GB of data usage with no contract.

According to the Peel's user manual that leaked from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission earlier this year, the case would be able to function as a traditional mobile hotspot, providing cellular data access for up to five nearby Wi-Fi devices.

Update: BGR has now received a screenshot appearing to confirm the November 14th release and noting a retail price of $79.99 for the Peel.

For several months, Adobe has been thinking about how it can involve the iPad and other tablet devices in the workflows of Photoshop users, asking users for feedback on what sorts of capabilities they might like to see.

Building on that feedback, the company has now taken its first steps in that direction, as evidenced by a pair of brief demos at last week's Adobe MAX conference in which Adobe Chief Technology Officer Kevin Lynch showed off the company's content-aware fill tool running on a Samsung Galaxy Tab and a color-mixing paint palette application running on an iPad.

Adobe's John Nack has also noted that the company's designers have begun mocking up other tools that could allow the iPhone and iPad to serve as extensions of Photoshop running on a desktop or notebook computer.

In a nutshell, you get:

- groups of task-based tools & commands (e.g. all your photography/retouching tools & buttons on one page, or all your painting ones, 3D ones, etc.)
- interactive, task-based tutorials that drive Photoshop, helping you get things done

Among the ideas presented in a PDF summary of the team's efforts are custom toolsets accessible by tapping on a companion iPhone application, tutorials with tool accelerators to help quickly walk users through certain tasks, and companion iPad applications housing many of the commonly-used tools for easy access while also allowing for limited image editing (such as liquifying, painting, and drawing) using the multi-touch interface.

All of these latter concepts appear to simply be mockups at this point, but Adobe is clearly thinking about how best to take advantage of multi-touch functionality to enhance the Photoshop's functionality without attempting to replicate a full Photoshop experience directly on the touch device without the precision and power available on a traditional desktop or notebook.

Apple has long touted the role the iPhone can play in the business world, frequently pointing to the percentages of top companies using or piloting the device in their businesses. Bloomberg reports today that two of the biggest U.S. banks, Bank of America and Citigroup, are engaged in pilot testing that could open the door for their employees to adopt the iPhone for corporate usage as an alternative to their existing BlackBerry-dominated systems.

Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. are considering whether to let employees use the Apple Inc. phone as an alternative to Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry for corporate e-mail, said three people familiar with the plans. The banks are testing software for the iPhone that's designed to make it secure enough for company messages, said the people, who didn't want to be named because the plans aren't public.

The news marks yet more evidence of Research in Motion's weakening position in the corporate world, following strong growth by Apple in the most recent quarter which saw the iPhone surpass the BlackBerry line in sales.

Bank of America, which has about 284,000 employees, and Citigroup, with 258,000 workers, are also testing Android smartphones, one person said. The efforts are intended to widen the choice of devices employees can use, rather than replace the BlackBerry, the person said.

The trials at Bank of America and Citigroup involve more than 1,000 employees, two people said. Testing, which typically takes four to six weeks, is advanced at Bank of America and will be followed by a pilot project before potentially wider implementation, one person said.

The report points to a survey showing 83% of U.S. companies now permitting employees to use devices other than BlackBerry phones, with many companies finding that they can cut costs by allowing additional options as employees become increasingly willing to pay for iPhones out of their own pockets.

One item of interest that was overlooked in this morning's news that Apple is discontinuing the Xserve is that the company has added a new standard configuration to its Mac Pro lineup. The new "Server" configuration offers an entry-level 2.8 GHz quad-core processor with 8 GB of RAM, two 1 TB hard drives, and Mac OS X Server for $2999.

The specs on the Mac Pro Server configuration can be boosted with a full range of build-to-order options, including processor options up to dual 2.93 GHz six-core Westmere chips, up to 32 GB of RAM, additional hard drives, a second optical drive, RAID card, Fibre Channel PCI Express card, and Xsan storage area network software.

While Apple's "non-server" Mac Pro options could (and still can) be configured with Mac OS X Server, the new Server configuration offers an optimized starting point for building a machine to focus on server tasks rather than act as a workstation.