MacRumors

According to The Loop, Apple is apparently planning to open the Mac App Store at noon Eastern Time tomorrow, bringing a variation of the company's integrated application purchasing system for iOS to the Mac OS X platform.

The Mac App Store will officially launch on January 6, but nobody has been able to nail down a time when the service will be publicly available.

According to my sources, the Mac App Store will be available at 12:00 pm (noon) ET on Thursday. That puts it at about 9:00 am PT where Apple is headquartered in Cupertino, Calif.

The Loop's Jim Dalrymple is a veteran Apple-focused journalist who early last month accurately claimed that the Mac App Store would launch in January, despite several rumors circulating at the time claiming that Apple would open the store before the holidays.

Just yesterday, we noted that several high-profile iOS developers are bringing Mac versions of their applications to the Mac App Store in the initial wave, generally opting to price their offering inline with the corresponding iOS versions.

One of the major questions about future iPhones has been at what point Apple will choose to offer "4G" LTE compatibility. With Verizon only just beginning to roll out its own 4G network, rumors have indicated that the CDMA-based iPhone 4 widely rumored for a launch early this year will not support 4G. The bigger question has been whether Apple will support 4G in the fifth-generation iPhone presumably set to debut sometime in the middle of the year, with several reports indicating that Apple will skip 4G compatibility at that point as well.

In covering a CES keynote address by AT&T's Ralph de la Vega, Boy Genius Report notes that de la Vega's comments suggest that a 4G LTE iPhone is in fact not coming until 2012.

De la Vega included Apple in his list of manufacturers set to launch LTE devices in 2012, implying that AT&T will launch a 4G LTE-compatible Apple iPhone next year

De la Vega reportedly also confirmed AT&T's plans for an accelerated timetable for deployment of its LTE network, looking to launch sometime this year with completion set for 2013. He also noted that the HSPA+ improvements that have already spread to much of the company's network already come relatively close to 4G speeds.

While many observers have been hoping that Apple will be an early adopter of LTE technology to support the ever-increasing data demands of iPhone users, past history has suggested that Apple will sit on the sidelines until the LTE service becomes more widespread and has had time to mature. Despite the fact that AT&T offered a 3G data network at the time of the iPhone's initial launch in 2007, the first-generation device did not support the technology and operated only on the carrier's slower-but-more-widely-available EDGE network.

Update: Boy Genius Report has updated its article to note that AT&T has officially denied that de la Vega confirmed an LTE iPhone for 2012. It appears that the confusion has stemmed from AT&T's decision to call both its existing HSPA+ network and its forthcoming LTE network "4G" for marketing purposes.

Well, AT&T's ridiculous decision to call both HSPA+ and LTE "4G" is already causing problems -- AT&T contacted us to let us know that no iPhone-related LTE announcements were made. Apparently the "4G" mentioned alongside de la Vega's mention of Apple did not refer to LTE "4G".

Earlier this week, Intel officially unveiled its next-generation "Sandy Bridge" processor architecture, marking a significant performance improvement, especially for notebook computers. Apple is expected to utilize Sandy Bridge in upcoming revisions of a number of its Mac computers.

Unwilling to wait for Apple to make the move to Sandy Bridge, Hackintosh fans have already managed to successfully install Mac OS X Snow Leopard on systems with Sandy Bridge hardware. By using a patched Darwin kernel, users are able to bring Mac OS X to Sandy Bridge, although the technique is obviously officially unsupported and may result in system instability.

The good news is, we've already successfully installed Mac OS X Snow Leopard!

The bad news is, until Apple uses these CPUs, it's a bit of a science experiment, as you'll need to use a "patched" non-standard Darwin kernel in order to boot the system.

A report from early last month indicated that Apple is preparing to initially make the leap to Sandy Bridge on some of its smaller notebook computers, opting to use the all-in-one platform with much-improved graphics performance compared to the company earlier offerings. Unsatisfied with Intel's earlier offerings, Apple has continued to use older Core 2 Duo chips paired with custom NVIDIA integrated graphics in its smaller form factors where discrete graphics have not been an option due to space constraints.

With cases claimed to be for the next-generation iPad appearing over the past few weeks, observers have been examining the cases in detail in their attempts to get an idea of how the second generation of Apple's tablet will differ from the original version. Based on those cases, it has been noted that the next-generation iPad appears to be slightly thinner than the current model and carries tapered edges more akin to the iPod touch than the current version's flat sides and rounded back.

As noted by Engadget, however, one case manufacturer exhibiting its wares at CES has taken things one step further in aiding our visualization of the next-generation iPad by putting together a physical mockup of the device made out of machined aluminum.

It [the case] was so intriguing that we asked to put our own iPad inside, which is when we were told it wouldn't fit, since the case was designed for the next iPad. Indeed, the mockup that we found inside the case was a tad bit slimmer than the first-gen iPad, with a taper leading to the edges that reminds us of the iPod touch, and a home button positioned nearer the bottom edge. We found all the typical cutouts on the case, and their mirror on the machined mockup, including a large square for the speaker.

The rumored physical details of the next-generation iPad of course depend on the case mockups being based on accurate information, although such details have generally been fairly accurate in the past as the case manufacturers have been able to obtain advance design information through leaks in Apple's supply chain. A number of the claimed cases have been pulled since their existence was made public, possibly suggesting that Apple has been stepping in to limit access to accurate details of its future products.

The 2011 Consumer Electronics Show officially kicks off this week, and the press releases and events have started. Here are a few interesting Apple-related products that have already appeared. We'll provide limited CES coverage over the week.

iHome Airplay

iHome Audio has unleashed more information about their iW1 AirPlay wireless speaker system. The wireless speaker supports Apple's AirPlay technology to stream music throughout the house from iTunes.

Using AirPlay, users can wirelessly stream music from iTunes, iPhone, iPad or iPod touch over Wi-Fi to the iHome iW1 speaker system and enjoy music in any room of the house. AirPlay requires iTunes 10.1 or later and iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iOS 4.2 or later.

The iW1 comes with a rechargeable Lithium Ion battery, allowing you to place it anywhere in the house. Multiple speakers are supported to play music in several locations and it also doubles as an iPhone dock that allows local playback.

Eye-Fi Direct Mode

Eye-Fi announced an upcoming "Direct Mode" for their Wi-Fi enabled storage cards that will allow you to transfer photos directly from your camera to your mobile device.

With Direct Mode, photos taken with your digital camera can immediately be sent to your smartphone or tablet. They can be viewed, used with myriad apps on the device, or uploaded and shared.

Eye-Fi cards are regular SD cards that fit into your digital camera, but also incorporates Wi-Fi to transfer your photos to your computer. The Direct Mode will presumably bring this support to wirelessly send photos to your iPhone or iPad in realtime rather than to your computer.

Fling Game Controller for iPad

TenOneDesign announced their game controller accessory for the iPad that allows you to place an analog stick directly on the screen. TouchArcade took a first look at the device:

The Fling is a cleverly designed device with two suction cups on one side connected to a plastic ring. Inside of the plastic ring is a spiral that suspends an electrically conductive joystick in the center. This spiral works like a spring, always returning the joystick to the center, and providing more resistance the closer you get to the edge of the plastic ring.
....
If you're playing a game with floating virtual joysticks like most dual stick shooters, all you've got to do is position it wherever is most comfortable to you, press down both suction cups, and you're ready to roll.

Fling is expected to ship in late January and costs $24.95 for one, and $38.00 for a two-pack.

With Apple's Mac App Store set to debut in just two days, developers are beginning to set expectations for their applications, particularly in comparison to their other applications already available through the iOS App Store. On his blog The Pocket Cyclone, developer Markus Nigrin shares the results of a discussion he recently held with several other prominent iOS App Store developers moving their apps to the Mac App Store in the first wave of releases.

For the most part, Nigrin's results show that iOS developers moving their apps to the Mac App Store are looking to maintain their existing price points, which frequently fall in the $1.99-$4.99 price range.

Why does a 1:1 adoption of the price on the Mac seem so natural for iOS devs?

For once, Apple made the code re-use for a native Mac app very straightforward. Every dev I talked to mentioned porting times of less than four weeks. Which were mostly spent on all types of adjustments, like keyboard and HD support. Also, graphical assets for mobile games are typically originated at a much higher resolution anyway, as everybody in the iOS world needs to prepare for a foreseeable future of HD displays. The point is, if you already have the assets and re-creating a native Mac app is relatively low-cost, there is no immediate pressure to go with another pricing model on this platform, if the reward could be an early (chart) success.

As far as expectations for sales units go, developers seem to be split, with several of the surveyed developers offering conservative estimates of only 10% of that seen for the corresponding iOS titles, while others have pushed their expectations to as high as double that seen on the iOS platform. Sales splits between iOS and Mac versions will obviously vary based on a wide range of criteria, including the usefulness of certain types of apps on the two platforms and the overall user experience, where some apps may see more benefit than others in either the portable multi-touch environment of iOS or the larger-screen, pointer-driven Mac environment.

Last month, we pointed to research from media firm Nielsen indicating that Apple's iPhone had finally surpassed Research in Motion's BlackBerry operating system in smartphone market share in the United States in October. In a follow-up post yesterday, Nielsen released numbers for November indicating that Apple has widened its lead over Research in Motion, which is now in danger of falling behind Google's Android operating system.

It has been a remarkable turnaround over the past six months, with Apple's share of new smartphone purchases in the U.S. holding relatively steady in the ~26% range for purchases over each preceding six-month period while Android has surged to over 40% and Research in Motion has fallen to under 20%. As recently as July, all three operating systems had been tightly clustered in the 25-28% range.

In another look at market share among the various smartphone platforms, Net Applications has released its browser usage numbers for December 2010, which examine worldwide browser usage and incorporate all iOS devices instead of just the iPhone as limited by smartphone studies.

In its study, Net Applications finds that iOS usage surged across the board between November and December as new customers came on board in the holiday season, with iOS usage share growing 24.3% month-to-month to claim 1.69% of total Internet browser usage. The iPad led Apple's charge with 33.3% share growth, with the iPod claiming 25% growth and the iPhone 20% growth. While Android experienced a slightly higher rate of share growth of 29%, its overall share of 0.40% remained far behind that of iOS, illustrating the impact of Apple's broader iOS ecosystem that extends well beyond smartphones.

Early last month, UK carriers Orange, T-Mobile, and Three debuted subsidized iPads, knocking the price of the entry-level Wi-Fi + 3G iPad model from £529 down to £199 for those customers willing to sign up for two-year data contracts in the range of £25 per month.

While the offerings obviously result in a substantial outlay for customers, it was thought that they would be enticing for customers who had planned on maintaining ongoing cellular data service for their devices instead of opting for only sporadic service on an as-needed basis.

But according to a new report from The Times as relayed by paidContent:UK, sales of the subsidized iPads are coming in far lower than had been expected, at least for Orange.

The company had expected to sell tens of thousands of iPads over the holidays, at a reduced price of £199 ($308) when the buyer took out a 24-month contract on the device. But according to industry sources, it has gotten off to a slow start: selling only 1,000 in its first week of sales.

The report notes that a recent research report suggested that 80% of UK iPad customers were opting for 3G-capable models in the lead-up to the holiday season, offering a significant pool of potential buyers for the subsidized offerings. But obviously either the prospect of a two-year contract was too daunting for customers unsure how much cellular data they would be using on their devices or Orange (and possibly the other UK carriers) failed to appropriately bring the offerings to the attention of customers who might have been interested in the packages.

Apple today took down its online store in the UK for a few hours, moving to raise prices to account for an increase in the national value-added tax (VAT) going into effect today that is seeing the rate rise from 17.5% to 20%.

The price increases have resulted in Apple straying from its usual price point targets, as an entry-level 13" MacBook Pro or 21.5" iMac that previously cost £999 with VAT now goes for £1020, while the entry-level Mac Pro price has moved from £1999 to £2041.

Popular iOS devices have also increased in price, with the 16 GB iPhone 4 rising in price from £499 to £510 and the 16 GB Wi-Fi iPad going from £429 to £439.

Some observers had hoped that Apple might choose to simply absorb the tax increases by reducing their prices slightly in order to maintain the psychological price points used for many of their products, but the company obviously decided that it needed to pass along the tax increase to consumers in order to maintain its margins.

Reuters has been keeping on top of the iOS alarm clock bug that has seen users experiencing problems with alarms activating properly in the new year. Despite reassurances from Apple over the weekend that alarms would begin functioning properly today, a number of users have reportedly continued to experience problems today, the first day of work in 2011 for many people.

Some iPhone users across the globe complained of malfunctioning alarms on the first working day of 2011, even after Apple reassured users that its phones' built-in clocks will work from Monday.

Bloggers, as well as Facebook and Twitter users, complained they missed flights or were late to arrive at work as the alarm built into Apple's iPhone failed to go off for a third straight day for some users.

Apple has yet to offer an updated response to the issue today, and it is unclear why only some users are continuing to experience the bug, which affects non-recurring alarms.

The New Year's bug is not the first alarm-related issue to affect Apple's iOS devices. Last year, an issue related to Daylight Savings Time calculations affected recurring alarms beginning in Australia and New Zealand in late September and moving around the world as other countries either began or ended Daylight Savings Time. Apple addressed that specific bug with the release of iOS 4.2 in late November.

Introduced in late 2009 with iTunes 9, iTunes Extras have been billed as a way for movie studios to release additional features and functionalities with their iTunes Store video content, offering a way to compete with and even exceed bonus features found on DVD releases. But while widespread usage of iTunes Extras has yet to take off, paidContent.org notes that Sony Pictures has started to test some advanced bonus features on its iTunes releases that could begin to turn the tide.

In particular, three new iTunes Store releases from Sony, including the Will Ferrell-Mark Wahlberg film The Other Guys, Salt, and Resident Evil: Afterlife, include a trio of unadvertised features designed to enhance the viewer's experience with interactivity and further iTunes integration.

Buy the Will Ferrell comedy The Other Guys and you'll notice three extras that can't be found on DVD or any other digital platform. A search button allows you to input a word, and any mention of it in the script will be retrieved along with a link to the exact moment in the movie in which the line was uttered. A "clip & share" function lets the viewer take select scenes and post them to social networks. There's also a playlist with songs from the film, which are linked to to places on iTunes where those songs can be purchased.

The report notes that the features are available only for iTunes Store purchases, and not rentals of the titles where they are being trialled.

Despite the apparent efforts of movie studios like Sony to differentiate their iTunes Store content by offering such interactive features, Apple has yet to offer full support for iTunes Extras, with compatibility limited to viewing the additional content through iTunes on Mac or Windows or on a first-generation Apple TV. While Apple CEO Steve Jobs has promised support for iTunes Extras and the related iTunes LP format on the new Apple TV, Apple's entire line of iOS-based devices remains incompatible with the bonus features at this time. The shortcoming has been viewed as a major hindrance to the adoption of the extended features, particularly given that the iPad with its larger screen appears to be particularly enticing for such capabilities.

On the first trading day of 2011, Apple's stock has jumped to a new high and broken through yet another psychological milestone by pushing past $300 billion in market capitalization. AAPL stock currently sits at nearly $330 per share with a market cap of over $302 billion.

Apple set a series of market cap milestones last year, passing $200 billion in early March, leapfrogging Wal-Mart just a few days later, and passing Microsoft in late May to become the second largest U.S. company by market capitalization behind Exxon Mobil. Apple continues to trail Exxon Mobil, which also had a strong performance in the latter half of 2010 and currently sits at a market cap of about $368 billion.

French site Hardmac has been keeping its ear to the ground when it comes to Apple's Final Cut video processing suites, noting today that it has heard that revised versions of the company's Final Cut offerings are likely to debut in March or early April. The report reiterates previous claims that the company may not be able to deliver all of the improvements hoped for by professional-level users, although the updates are still reported to be "substantial".

AS we reported earlier, all version of Final Cut should be unveiled in March or early April. It should be a substantial update when compared to the previous version, but not sure it could bring all new features expected by all Pro users.

According to today's report, Apple has separate versions of Final Cut running as betas for Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Lion, with some features claimed to be Lion-only due to changes to QuickTime in the forthcoming operating system update. Mac OS X Lion is not scheduled to launch, however, until "summer" 2011.

Last year, following concerns over rumors that Apple will be focusing the next version of Final Cut more on mainstream users than professional-level users, both Steve Jobs and Apple sought to reassure customers that the next version will be "awesome" and satisfy professional users.

Hardmac also weighs in on a couple of other topics in today's report: Xserve and Blu-ray. According to the report's sources, there continues to be substantial turmoil over the imminent discontinuation of Apple's rackmountable server line due to poor sales. A number of high-profile users, including Apple director and former Genentech chairman Art Levinson, have reportedly complained about the discontinuation, and while Hardmac indicates that "this storm is maybe not over", it is unclear if Apple is contemplating some alternative to canceling the Xserve line.

With regards to Blu-ray, sources indicate that Jobs still considers the technology to be a "bag of hurt", with DRM restrictions and licensing issues that make the format unattractive. According to the report, Jobs noted during a recent internal meeting that he is "ashamed" that Apple's name is associated with the Blu-ray format through its position as a member of the Blu-ray Disc Association's board of directors, a role it has held since 2005.

Today, Intel announced their next generation processor architecture known as "Sandy Bridge" (or 2nd Generation Core processor). The new processors are built on the 32nm process and integrate the processor, memory controller and graphics on the same die. In particular the new integrated graphics performance is significantly improved over previous Intel's previous chips.

TechReport summarizes the changes:

Sandy Bridge is, essentially, a next-generation replacement for Intel's primary CPUs for desktops and laptops .... At the heart of Sandy Bridge is an essentially new processor microarchitecture, the most sweeping architectural transition from Intel since the introduction of the star-crossed Pentium 4. Nearly everything has changed, from the branch predictors through the out-of-order execution engine and into the memory subsystem. The goal: to achieve higher performance and power efficiency, even on single-threaded tasks, where the integration of multiple CPU cores hasn't been much help.

Anandtech in particular notes that the new processor architecture is a major step forward for laptops, significantly closing the price/performance gap between desktops and laptops.

Also promising for Mac users is that they found the graphics performance generally exceeded that found in the NVIDIA 320M that is presently used in the MacBook and MacBook Airs in Low detail settings:

Again, Sandy Bridge delivers playable performance in every single title at 768p and "Low" detail settings. What's more, it actually surpasses the GeForce 320M in Apple's MacBook Pro 13 in five out of six games (the exception being STALKER).

Performance, however, did lag in Medium detail settings. Intel's previously poor integrated graphics performance was seen as one of the reasons why Apple has stuck with pairing of previous generation Intel processors and NVIDIA 320M GPUs.

Overall, Anandtech is impressed with the performance and battery life of the new chips:

Not only do we get 50 to 100% better performance than the previous generation high-end Intel mobile chips, but we also get more than double the integrated graphics performance and battery life in most situations should be similar to Arrandale, if not better. And that's looking at the quad-core offerings!

Meanwhile, dual core and low-power versions of Sandy Bridge processors are expected to arrive next month.

Macworld summarizes findings first reported by Engadget. Apparently a bug in the iPhone clock app prevents non-recurring alarms from properly triggering on New Years day.

I was able to confirm this after a couple of false starts. For the bug to show itself, your iOS device must actually tick over from 11:59 p.m. on December 31, 2010 to 12:00 a.m. on January 1, 2011.

The work around for now is to set up the alarm as a recurring event. 9to5Mac claims that the problem corrects itself after January 3rd. In the meanwhile, be aware if you use your iPhone as your alarm clock.

Update: Apple has officially acknowledged the problem:

Apple spokesperson Natalie Harrison confirmed to Macworld that Apple is aware of the problem. "We're aware of an issue related to non repeating alarms set for January 1 or 2," Harrison said. "Customers can set recurring alarms for those dates and all alarms will work properly beginning January 3."