MacRumors

As noted by CNET, Apple today updated its environmental site with updated data for 2011, revealing a few tidbits of new information about the company's work on energy usage and other topics.

Among the additions is a brief discussion of the company's massive new data center in Maiden, North Carolina, which Apple touts as being the only such facility of comparable size to earn LEED Platinum certification. The company also notes that the solar farm being built across the street from the facility will be the largest user-owned solar array in the United States, registering at 20 megawatts. Finally, Apple will also be powering the facility with a 5-megawatt fuel cell installation, the largest in the country not owned by a utility company. Additional details are available in the company's facilities report (PDF).

Our new data center in Maiden, North Carolina, demonstrates our commitment to reducing the environmental impact of our facilities through energy-efficient, green building design. The facility has earned the coveted LEED Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. We know of no other data center of comparable size that has achieved this level of LEED certification. Our goal is to run the Maiden facility with high percentage renewable energy mix, and we have major projects under way to achieve this — including building the nation’s largest end user-owned solar array and building the largest nonutility fuel cell installation in the United States.

Still, rapid growth in the company's sales have caused Apple's carbon footprint to balloon, with greenhouse gas emissions increasing by 56% from 14.8 million metric tons in 2010 to 23.1 million metric tons in 2011. The biggest swings in terms of share of Apple's carbon footprint come from product use itself, which declined from 45% of the company's use to just 30%, and manufacturing, which increased from 45% to 61% between 2010 and 2011. But even with the rapid growth in carbon footprint, Apple touts that greenhouse gas emissions per dollar of revenue have decreased by 15.4 percent since 2008.

Among other additions in Apple's 2011 environmental report, the company touts increased usage of "environmentally conscious materials" such as repolymerized plastic bottles in fan assemblies, recycled plastic in speaker assembles and internal brackets, recycled paper in packing, and renewable tapioca paper foam in iPhone packages.

Over the weekend, ABC announced that it had been granted exclusive access to Foxconn's factories in China where the company assembled products for Apple, with the segment scheduled to air on a special edition of Nightline on Tuesday night.

ABC has now posted a preview of the segment, along with a teaser video from Nightline co-anchor Bill Weir.

Apple promised complete access, no dog-and-pony, no Potemkin Village, but they denied my repeated requests to interview Apple CEO Tim Cook or the senior vice president of industrial design, Jony Ive.

In a three-golf-cart convoy, both Apple and Foxconn reps took us around to a half dozen production lines in Shenzhen and Chengdu, and there were always five to six people with us as we toured the factories and dorms. But aside from suggesting a visit to the counseling center or canteen, they never steered us to interviews and never interrupted.

The extensive preview offers comments from several Foxconn employees, as well as Louis Woo, a former Apple executive who now serves as an advisor to Foxconn CEO Terry Gou, and Fair Labor Association president Auret van Heerden.

Nightline's "iFactory: Inside Apple" segment airs tomorrow, February 21, at 11:35 PM Eastern and Pacific on ABC.

Associated Press reports that a Chinese court has ruled against Apple in its ongoing trademark dispute with Proview Technology over the rights to the "iPad" trademark in that country, deciding that distributors should halt sales of the iPad in China. The impact of the ruling is, however, unclear as the lawsuit is just one of many Proview has filed against Apple in its efforts to extract as much as $2 billion for the trademark rights.

Xie Xianghui, a lawyer for Shenzhen Proview Technology, said the Intermediate People's Court in Huizhou, a city in southern China's Guangdong province, had ruled on Friday that distributors should stop selling iPads in China.

The ruling, which was also reported widely in China's state media, may not have a far-reaching effect. In its battle with Apple, Proview is utilizing lawsuits in several places and also requesting commercial authorities in 40 cities to block iPad sales.

Apple Inc. said in a statement Monday that its case is still pending in mainland China. The company has appealed to Guangdong's High Court against an earlier ruling in Proview's favor.

Meanwhile, IDG News reports that Apple sent a letter to Proview today threatening a lawsuit over defamation charges. Apple had previously won a case over the trademark rights in a Hong Kong court, and Apple's threats claim that Proview has issued false public statements regarding the dispute.

On Monday, Apple sent a letter to Chinese display vendor Proview, demanding its founder Yang Rongshan cease releasing what it said was false information to the media. Apple then warned it would sue for damages caused by "defamatory statements."

"It is inappropriate to release information contrary to the facts to the media, especially when such disclosures have the effect of wrongfully causing damage to Apple's reputation," said the letter, which was provided by a person familiar with the matter.

Apple claims that a shell company it set up for the purpose of anonymously acquiring intellectual property rights purchased the iPad trademark rights in China and a number of other countries from Proview in 2009 for $55,000. But Proview later reported that the subsidiary making the deal did not hold the Chinese rights and demanded that Apple pay $10 million before a different subsidiary would transfer the rights.

The Hong Kong court ruled last year that the various Proview subsidiaries colluded in an effort to extort millions of dollar out of Apple, a figure that has now risen to $1-2 billion as Proview has continued to press its case. Chinese courts have so far sided with Proview, however, with Apple continuing to appeal there using the Hong Kong ruling to demonstrate the strength of its case.

Update: Financial Times clarifies that the court ruling today specifically related to a single retailer, Sundan. While the impact of the decision is limited due to its effect on a single retailer in a single city and the fact that it can still be appealed by Sundan, it may provide Proview with leverage as it pursues other lawsuits against resellers to try to halt the flow of iPads and force a settlement from Apple.

Last week, a Digitimes report claimed that Intel was going to delay mass availability of its new Ivy Bridge processors until after June. Ivy Bridge represents the next generation processors from Intel and are expected to power any new Macs in the coming few months. The original target date for Ivy Bridge shipments was in April.

VR-Zone now reports that the report wasn't entirely correct and that Intel will only be delaying the release specifically of mobile Dual-Core Ivy Bridge processors.

Remember that article from the other day that made some people panic as Intel might've delayed Ivy Bridge to June? Well, there's no need to be worried if you're planning on getting a new desktop system, as none of the desktop parts that were originally meant to launch have been delayed and on the mobile side, only the dual core models have been pushed back.

According to the site, the reason for the delay of those specific processors is due to an overstock of the previous generation chips.

What that means is that it may not have an effect on Apple's release plans for updated MacBook Pros and iMacs. Apple currently offers Quad-Core processors in their iMac, so that product line should see no added delays. The iMac was last updated in May, 2011 and is getting due for a refresh. Meanwhile, in the MacBook Pro line, the 13" model is the only MacBook Pro that currently uses a Dual-Core processor.

As it turns out, we previously reported that Intel's new Quad-Core Ivy Bridge processor will be heat efficient enough to fit in Apple's 13" MacBook chassis for the first time. The limiting factor for a Quad-Core 13" MacBook Pro had previously been the heat output of the processor. If Apple chooses to go this route, they could eliminate Dual-Core processors entirely from their MacBook Pro line, side stepping any delays.

However, this line of reasoning assumes that Apple will not be making any dramatic changes to the MacBook Pro enclosure. Persistent rumors have suggested that Apple may be considering more MacBook Air-like designs for at least some of the new MacBook Pro models. Such a drastic change would change Apple's choice of processors considerably.

It's also worth noting that Apple isn't a typical Intel customer and has, in the past, been able to secure chips earlier than the rest of the industry.

A forum post at Chinese site WeiPhone offers a photo of what is claimed to be the iPad 3's logic board showing an "A5X" system-on-a-chip.

Apple is expected to introduce an upgraded processor and graphics package for the iPad 3, with the assumption being that it would be called the A6 after the A4 initially appeared in the original iPad and iPhone 4 and was succeeded by the A5 in the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S. But if this photo is to be believed, that assumption appears to have been incorrect, with Apple instead having branded the upgraded package with the A5X name.

A date code of "1146" on the A5X indicates that it was manufactured in the 46th week of 2011, which would have corresponded to November 14-20.

An "A5X" as a step-wise upgrade to the A5 corresponds with progression of processor part numbers as revealed by BGR in February. At the time the A4 was known to be the S5L8930X, the A5 as the S5L8940X and the new iPad processor as S5L8945X.

Several other features are also visible on the logic board, including a pair of 16 GB flash memory chips from Hynix and a rectangular Apple-branded chip. That chip appears to correspond to power management chips found in previous iPad teardowns but which carries a higher part number, suggesting an upgraded part.

Apple is expected to introduce the iPad 3 at a media event on March 7, with the device also receiving an ultra high-resolution display and LTE capabilities. Other claims have suggested that it will carry a slightly more tapered case design and perhaps offer an 8-megapixel rear camera.

NextMedia / Apple Daily claims to have received the following photos and information through "special channels". The photo below shows what is claimed to be an overview shot of the new iPad 3 back enclosure (top of image) as well as a comparison shot between the original iPad, the iPad 2 and the New iPad (inset). (via Apple.pro)

The shell should look familiar as it seems to be the same part we previously published. The lighting, however, is much better in this shot, and reveals the more subtle changes. There are notably no markings on the back of the case besides the Apple logo, itself.

The iPad 3 enclosure seems to have a more gradual taper to the edges than the iPad 2. The taper is seen better on the top overview photograph. As a result of this longer taper, the iPad 3's camera rests on the taper itself. We saw this before but due to the dark lighting of that image, the taper seemed more exaggerated.

The absolute positioning of the camera doesn't seem that far off from the iPad 2, but the lens does appear larger. According to NextMedia, the new iPad 3 camera will see a significant upgrade to 8 megapixels. The current iPad 2 back camera is 1 megapixel in resolution. The site also summarizes many of the other expectations for the iPad 3, such as an improved display, quad-core CPU, and a March 7th announcement date.

We've seen a rumor from the site only once before. They predicted new MacBooks, MacBook Pros and MacBook Air models back in April 5, 2010. The MacBook Pros (alone) did launch 8 days after that report, though some of the details (hard drive sizes) didn't match up to the report. Overall, the images here seem to match up to other parts that have been floating around China. Apple Daily is described, however, as a "tabloid-style" newspaper, but the Hong Kong edition is said to be quite popular as the second best selling publication.

CNet reports that Apple has settled a class action suit over the iPhone 4's antenna.

The settlement comes from 18 separate lawsuits that were consolidated into one. All share the claim that Apple was "misrepresenting and concealing material information in the marketing, advertising, sale, and servicing of its iPhone 4--particularly as it relates to the quality of the mobile phone antenna and reception and related software."

When the iPhone 4 launched in 2010, some customers were affected by low signals and dropped calls that were believed to be related to the iPhone 4's external antenna. At the time, Apple's response was a press conference as well as a refund offer for iPhone 4 customers or free bumper cases.

Based on the preliminary approval, U.S. residents who bought the iPhone 4 will be entitled to $15 in cash or a bumper case provided by Apple. The lawyers claim that the 25 million customers may be eligible.

Update: The Loop's Jim Dalrymple has obtained a statement from Apple on the settlement:

“This settlement relates to a small number of customers who indicated that they experienced antenna or reception issues with their iPhone 4 and didn’t want to take advantage of a free case from Apple while it was being offered in 2010,” Apple spokeswoman Natalie Harrison told me on Saturday.

ABCNews reports that Apple has given Nightline anchor Bill Weir exclusive access to their suppliers' factories in China.

"For years, Apple and Foxconn have been synonymous with monster profits and total secrecy so it was fascinating to wander the iphone and iPod production lines, meet the people who build them and see how they live. Our cameras were rolling when thousands of hopeful applicants rushed the Foxconn gates and I spoke with dozens of line workers and a top executive about everything from hours and pay to the controversies over suicides at the plant and the infamous "jumper nets" that line the factories in Shenzhen. After this trip, I'll never see an Apple product the same way again" said Weir

This special edition of "Nightline" will air Tuesday, February 21st at 11:35pm ET on ABC.

Apple and Foxconn have been under fire due to working conditions in the factories that manufacture iPads and iPhones. Apple has also allowed the Fair Labor Association to start auditing their factories. FLA has reportedly uncovered "tons of issues" that will need addressing. A full report is to be coming in the next few weeks.

Over the past couple of months, several photos of displays claimed to be for the iPad 3 have surfaced from various sources. Such parts leaks are typical with the device's expected debut early next month. While reports have claimed that these displays are high-resolution "Retina" displays, there has been no definite confirmation of these claims so far.

MacRumors has now been able to obtain one of these iPad 3 displays and examine it under a microscope in an effort to determine whether it is indeed an ultra-high resolution Retina display. Physically, the purported iPad 3 display is the same size as the current iPad 1 and iPad 2 display at 9.7" in diagonal, and looks quite similar to the naked eye.

However, when comparing the iPad 3 display to one from an iPad 2 under a microscope, the difference in resolutions becomes readily apparent, with the iPad 3 display's pixels appearing to be one-quarter the size of those on the iPad 2.

Since we only had a raw iPad 3 display with no method to power it, taking high quality photos of the pixels was difficult. Still, even with the relatively poor lighting, you can easily make out the pixels on each display (made up of red, green and blue elements). We highlighted a cluster of 4 pixels (2x2) from the iPad 2 to compare it to the same area on the iPad 3. On the iPad 3, the same cluster was occupied by 16 pixels (4x4) -- exactly twice the resolution in each direction.

Extrapolating out, the iPad 3 screen should carry a full resolution of 2048x1536, exactly twice the linear resolution of the iPad 1 and iPad 2 which is 1024x768. Such a screen should be able to display much sharper images as compared to the previous generation iPads.

While these iPad 3 screens weren't directly sourced from Apple, they are labeled as OEM replacement parts for the iPad 3 and are apparently in mass production. The difficulties of any 3rd party in mass producing 2048x1536 9.7" Retina displays make us quite confident that these represent legitimate iPad 3 parts.

Apple is expected to introduce the iPad 3 with a media event on March 7, and the device is rumored to be carrying this high-resolution display, a new A6 system-on-a-chip, and LTE support for models with cellular data capabilities.

Apple has posted a new feature on its site promoting a countdown to 25 billion downloads for the App Store.

As of today, nearly 25 billion apps have been downloaded worldwide. Which is almost as amazing as the apps themselves. So we want to say thanks. Download the 25 billionth app, and you could win a US$10,000 App Store Gift Card. Just visit the App Store and download your best app yet.

Users can enter the promotion either by purchasing/downloading an app from the App Store or by filling out an entry form. The contest winner will be the individual who either downloads the 25 billionth app as determined by Apple or who submits the alternate entry form immediately after the 24,999,999,999th app download, whichever comes first.

Apple has run similar promotions in the past, with a nearly identical one for ten billion App Store downloads taking place just over a year ago and another one for ten billion iTunes Music Store downloads coming in February 2010. Earlier promotions occurred at the one billion song and app marks and at the 100 million song milestone.

Reuters reports that Apple's manufacturing partner Foxconn has announced new wage increases for entry-level workers at its facilities in China, boosting pay anywhere from 16-25 percent. The increase, which comes as Foxconn is again under increasing global pressure stemming from reports on working conditions and worker rights issues at the company, is the company's third wage hike since 2010.

In a statement on Friday, Taiwan-based Foxconn said the pay of a junior level worker in Shenzhen, southern China, had risen to 1,800 yuan ($290) per month and could be further raised above 2,200 yuan if the worker passed a technical examination.

It said that pay three years ago was 900 yuan a month.

Foxconn says that its wages are already far above minimum wage standards set by the government and that it will continue to focus on training and education for its employees. The company also provides room and board for its employees, although some have criticized the living conditions centered around cramped dormitory-style housing with various reports citing anywhere from eight up to fifteen or more beds per room.

Foxconn made a significant boost to worker salaries in mid-2010 following significant scrutiny over worker suicides at the company's facilities. Initial reports had claimed that Apple was directly subsidizing those wage hikes, but Foxconn later denied those reports.

With yesterday's announcements from Apple regarding its forthcoming OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion operating system, a number of media outlets had been provided with advance briefings and early copies of the software for the purposes of having reviews prepared and ready to go. When Apple published its press release and went live with OS X Mountain Lion information at 8:30 AM Eastern yesterday, the embargo was lifted and all of the pre-briefed publications immediately posted their stories on the topic.

But one publication with a long track record of receiving favored access from Apple was missing from that group: The New York Times. An article from the Times' David Pogue was published about five hours after Apple's announcement, and it did not appear to include any specific details suggesting that he had received advance notice of the release.

As reported by The Washington Post, Apple apparently shunned The New York Times over the newspaper's "iEconomy" series of articles that has focused in large part on working conditions in Foxconn's manufacturing plants in China.

Says a source at the Times: “They are playing access journalism...I’ve heard it from people inside Apple: They said, look, you guys are going to get less access based on the iEconomy series.”

The on-the-record word from the New York Times differs only slightly from the not-for-attribution word: “We’re never happy with our access to Apple. We never have been. Apple is a difficult company to report on,” says Damon Darlin, the paper’s tech editor.

A decision by Apple to cut off access for a publication presenting the company in a less-than-favorable light should certainly be no surprise to longtime Apple watchers, and the technique is not an unusual one in business as companies constantly seek to ensure the most positive coverage possible. But as The Washington Post notes, the Times may be more than happy to lose some access to Apple in exchange for its ability to publish high-profile investigative reports such as its iEconomy series.

Update: David Pogue did report on Twitter yesterday that he had been "running Mac OS X Mountain Lion for a week", so it is unclear exactly why his report was not ready to go when the embargo lifted and why his article did not offer any mention of a pre-briefing session as a number of the articles from other publications did.

Update 2: John Gruber reports that David Pogue was indeed present for a pre-briefing with Apple.

When I left my briefing with Schiller last Wednesday in New York, waiting in the hallway for the next briefing was: David Pogue.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google and several other advertising agencies have been discovered to be circumventing privacy protections in Apple's Safari browser for iOS devices in order to track users through ads on numerous popular websites. Google implemented the technique in order to embed +1 buttons on its ads, tricking users' systems into allowing cookies by using an invisible form submission to make Google's third-party cookies, which are blocked by Safari, appear as first-party cookies that are allowed.

To get around Safari's default blocking, Google exploited a loophole in the browser's privacy settings. While Safari does block most tracking, it makes an exception for websites with which a person interacts in some way—for instance, by filling out a form. So Google added coding to some of its ads that made Safari think that a person was submitting an invisible form to Google. Safari would then let Google install a cookie on the phone or computer.

The cookie that Google installed on the computer was temporary; it expired in 12 to 24 hours. But it could sometimes result in extensive tracking of Safari users. This is because of a technical quirk in Safari that allows companies to easily add more cookies to a user's computer once the company has installed at least one cookie.

Google halted the practice once it was contacted by The Wall Street Journal about it, but has tried to downplay the impact of the issue.

In a statement, Google said: "The Journal mischaracterizes what happened and why. We used known Safari functionality to provide features that signed-in Google users had enabled. It's important to stress that these advertising cookies do not collect personal information."

In a companion blog post, The Wall Street Journal notes that the loophole that had permitted Google to bypass Safari's privacy protections has been closed in WebKit, the open source engine behind Safari, with the change having been made by two Google engineers. Consequently, Apple could and appears to be preparing to bring that fix to the public version of Safari.

An Apple spokesman said: “We are aware that some third parties are circumventing Safari’s privacy features and we are working to put a stop to it.”

An update to the software that underlies Safari has closed the loophole that allows cookies to be set after the automatic submission of invisible forms. Future public versions of Safari could incorporate that update. The people who handled the proposed change, according to software documents: two engineers at Google.

The issue was discovered by Stanford graduate student Jonathan Mayer, who has also published an extensive blog post offering additional technical details on how Google and other advertising companies circumvented Safari's default cookie settings.

Consomac has discovered that the OS X Lion Messages Beta that was released yesterday will not be a permanent feature for Lion users. Messages is the new iMessage-compatible version of iChat that will be included in OS X Mountain Lion. Apple also released a public beta version for OS X Lion users to try the app in the meanwhile.

Based on the text strings found in the App's resources, it has been revealed that Messages will no longer be available for Lion users once the beta expires. Instead, Apple tells users to visit the App Store to purchase OS X Mountain Lion to continue to use Messages:

Thank you for participating in the Messages Beta program. With the inclusion of Messages in OS X Mountain Lion, the Messages Beta program has ended.

To continue using Messages, please visit the Mac App Store and purchase OS X Mountain Lion.

OS X Mountain Lion will be a paid update and is expected to be released in late summer.

There has been plenty of evidence that Apple is planning for ultra high resolution Mac displays. In July 2011, we first detailed the existence of a new "HiDPI" mode in OS X Lion. This HiDPI mode was put in place in anticipation of the day that Macs would have double-resolution (4x the number of pixels) "Retina" Displays.

As on the iPhone, Apple's plan was to make it easier on developers to jump to exactly 2x the linear resolution. For example, a 1440x900 pixel screen would go straight to 2880x1800 pixels. This would allow applications to automatically scale up by a factor of two without necessarily having to include high resolution artwork. Apple already made such a transition when going from the iPhone 3GS's screen (320x480) to the iPhone 4's Retina Display (640x960).

In iOS, Developers can include high resolution versions of their artwork designated by the "@2x" suffix. From the developer documentation:

The inclusion of the @2x modifier for the high-resolution image is new and lets the system know that the image is the high-resolution variant of the standard image.

A look at some of the resources from Apple's new Messages app shows several graphics that come in multi-part TIFFs that include regular and double resolution versions. In fact, if you look at the information embedded within the images, you can see the resources were at one point named in the same "@2x" convention. So, it seems Apple's Messages App is already building in support for Retina displays on the Mac.

Rumors have even suggested that we might see our first Retina Display Macs in 2012. One early report claimed Apple was working on a 2880x1800 MacBook Pro for the middle of this year.

Earlier today, Apple announced the developer preview for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. OS X 10.8 offers a number of new features we've detailed before.

InsanelyGreatMac has put together this nice walkthrough video of OS X AirPlay mirroring. That feature allows you to transmit your OS X desktop onto your Apple TV over Wi-Fi:

Meanwhile, CultofMac does a walkthrough of 30 other features in OS X 10.8. Some previously listed, and some new:

There's more discussion on OS X Mountain Lion in our forums.

BlogdoiPhone claims to have somehow obtained a "pre-GM" version of iOS 5.1. GM refers to Golden Master version of the software which is typically the final production version.

Only two new minor findings have been discovered. One is an ever-present camera icon on the lock screen of iOS 5.1. In present versions, the camera button only appears if you double-tap the home button. In this version of iOS 5.1, the camera icon is there at all times, but instead of a button, it's a slider.

Sliding up on the camera icon seems to reveal the Camera app that allows you to take photos without fully unlocking the iPhone. Presumably, this is quicker than the existing solution which actually requires the Camera app to be launched.

The other finding is the presence of a Japanese language setting in Siri. This has been rumored to be an impending feature for Siri.

Apple has been seeding developers with versions of iOS 5.1 beta for some time, but the last release was January 9th. Apple may be waiting to release iOS 5.1 alongside the new iPad which is expected on March 7th. We're not certain about the legitimacy of BlogdoiPhone's screenshots, but carriers presumably do get early builds that may not make it into developer betas.