MacRumors

CNET yesterday reported that Verizon has announced a "hard requirement" that all future smartphones released on the carrier support 4G LTE technology for faster data speeds. That requirement has naturally led to speculation that the carrier has all but confirmed that the iPhone 5 will support LTE, which had already been widely assumed and rumored.

Verizon's statement does, however, come with a minor catch, as there will reportedly be occasional exceptions to the LTE requirement, although those exceptions seem to be planned for the carrier's push-to-talk business.

From now on, nearly every smartphone, wireless hot spot, tablet, and Netbook that Verizon offers will come with LTE guns a-blazing. Yes, Virginia, that includes Windows Phone and BlackBerry devices, too.

There will be the occasional exception, however. For instance, phones on Verizon's push-to-talk network are 3G-only for now, and will remain that way until further notice.

Verizon's clear, unyielding stance on 4G--"a hard requirement," according to Verizon--may partially explain why it has picked up only one Windows Phone so far.

The report notes that Verizon currently leads the pack among U.S. carriers when it comes to LTE deployment, already covering 200 million people in 190 markets with plans to complete the buildout by the end of next year. Unsurprisingly, Verizon is seeking to use its lead in LTE to its advantage by pushing its users onto devices offering the faster speeds.

Patently Apple reports on a newly-published patent application from Apple describing the use of motion sensors to create a virtual three-dimensional interface for iOS devices. Utilizing concepts similar those found in a number of existing augmented reality apps, the general device interface could appear as a virtual room that could be navigated by changing the orientation of the device.

The invention covers a 3D display environment for mobile device that uses orientation data from one or more onboard sensors to automatically determine and display a perspective projection of the 3D display environment based on the orientation data without the user physically interacting with (e.g., touching) the display.

Apple describes the use of gyroscope sensors that would allow the "camera view" of the virtual room to rotate as the user rotates their device. Apple also mentions that sensors could be used to detect gestures above the surface of the device's display in order to allow for natural 3D manipulation of the user interface environment.

Finally, Apple's patent application discusses a "snap to" feature that would allow users to easily transition between various "walls" within the virtual room.

In another patent application filed in mid-2007, Apple discussed a similar notion of multi-dimensional desktops in Mac OS X, showing a virtual room with various groups of icons on the different walls of the room. Apple followed that up with another patent application looking at hyper-reality displays that would allow for orientation- and motion-based manipulation of 3D objects.

Reuters reports that Target has confirmed its plans to launch "store-within-a-store" concepts for Apple products in 25 of its stores around the United States. The announcement comes alongside a broader effort called "the Shops at Target" that will offer special focuses on certain products and brands.

Target Corp (TGT.N), known to many U.S. shoppers as the place to go for trendy, low-priced merchandise, will soon have shops within its discount stores selling everything from dog treats to high-end home accessories.

Target also confirmed during a presentation on Thursday that it will have 25 stores featuring special displays of Apple Inc (AAPL.O) merchandise, a move that had been speculated about last week.

Word of Target's plans first surfaced late last week, with Apple and Target reportedly teaming up to place the locations in areas without sufficient customer base to support full Apple retail stores.

Neither Apple nor Target has provided details on just what the store-within-a-store concepts will entail, although some are looking to perhaps a scaled-down version of the "Apple Shop" model used in many Best Buy stores as a possibility.

Even as some sources are claiming that iPad 3 production is underway with Sharp providing the displays for the device, Korea's Electronic Times reports (via Patently Apple) that Sharp has failed to meet Apple's requirements and is out as a display supplier. According to the report, Samsung and LG will be providing the displays for the iPad 3.

An industry source said on January 9, “LCD manufacturers started mass production and supply of LCD panels for the iPad3 late last year. Samsung Electronics’ LCD business unit was the first to start mass production, and LG Display has participated in mass production with full capacity, beginning this year.” [...]

Sharp has competed with Samsung Electronics and LG Display over the development of display panels for the iPad3, but reportedly failed to pass Apple’s approval process for mass production.

Apple is said to be requiring at least 65 million iPad 3 display panels for 2012, with an initial batch of 5 million being produced for launch.

A decision by Apple not to go with Sharp for the iPad 3 display could have consequences for the device's design, as the two companies have been reported by several sources to be working together on Sharp's indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) technology to achieve thinner, lower power displays.

If Apple does utilize more traditional low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) displays from Toshiba and LG, that decision could require a dual light bar system to support the higher resolution of the iPad 3, thus necessitating the slightly thicker profile that has been rumored for the device.

With close to twelve hours still to go until opening time, Tech in Asia reports that Apple's five retail stores in China are seeing huge lines for the iPhone 4S, with stores said to already be seeing hundreds of people in line.

At the two stores in Beijing, and the three in Shanghai, there are clearly lines stretching hundreds of meters, with reports of hundreds of queuers at each, snaking around city blocks (see more photos below). Most stores have a ticketing system to deter queue-jumpers, but that won’t stop the ‘scalpers’ who buy the phones to resell later at a profit.

The report notes that Apple's iPhone partner China Unicom will begin selling the iPhone 4S online at 12:01 AM, but that there is undoubtedly significant interest in unlocked devices sold directly from Apple. Pricing is set at the equivalent of $790/$932/$1,074 for the three capacities of unlocked iPhone 4S models.

For those customers willing to sign up for a contract with China Unicom, the carrier is offering the iPhone 4S for free under certain rate plans and contract lengths.

Research firm Gartner today released its preliminary personal computer shipment data for the fourth quarter of 2011, offering up a picture of market performance during the quarter. With year-over-year unit growth of over 20%, Apple was the only one of the top five U.S. vendors to see an increase in shipments in an overall market that shrank by nearly 6%.

Apple's share dipped from 12.9% in the third quarter, which is routinely the company's strongest quarter due to a heavy presence in education. But the performance marks a distinct improvement over Apple's 9.0% share in the year-ago quarter and continues a long-term trend of increasing market share.

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 shrank 1.4% year-over-year on a worldwide basis, with strong growth from Lenovo and Asus being offset by declines from HP and Acer.

Update: IDC has also released its numbers for the fourth quarter of 2011, yielding results similar to Gartner's. As is typical, IDC pegged Apple's market share slightly lower than in Gartner's data, with IDC showing Apple with 10.92% of the U.S. market on 18% year-over-year growth.

IDC also released numbers for full-year 2011, showing Apple in third place in the U.S. market at 10.73%, up from 8.83% in 2010. Apple's full-year growth of 16.41% easily outpaced the other top-five manufacturers in an overall U.S. market that declined by nearly 5% from 2010.

The Loop reports that Apple has sent out media invitations for an "education announcement" to be made at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City on Thursday, January 19.

Word of the event first surfaced last week, and sources have indicated that the announcement will relate to publishing, with digital textbooks perhaps playing a major role.

Update: The New York Times confirms that the event will focus on digital textbooks and that no new hardware will be introduced.

The event will showcase a new push by Apple into the digital textbook business, but will not feature any new devices, according to a person briefed on the event who did not want to be identified talking about it before it occurs.

With the launch of the iPhone 4S, T-Mobile USA is now the only one of the four major U.S. carriers to not offer the iPhone, due in large part to the carrier's use of the Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) spectrum band for its 3G network, a situation that so far would require Apple to develop specific hardware compatible with the network. Some had hoped that the situation would be rectified over time by AT&T's planned acquisition of T-Mobile, but that deal has fallen apart in the face of scrutiny from regulators.

AllThingsD now reports on comments from T-Mobile CEO Philipp Humm again acknowledging that the AWS issue is an important reason for the carrier's lack of the iPhone, but reporting that the issue will be addressed both by migration of T-Mobile's spectrum bands and by new chipsets supporting AWS.

“The key reason we didn’t have the iPhone in the past is we are on different band than globally the market was,” Humm said. “That is something which will change over time. Chipsets are also evolving to be able to allow for more bands.”

As always, though, the decision is up to Apple, Humm acknowledges.

CNET has more on the topic from T-Mobile Chief Technology Officer Neville Ray, who specifically claims that Apple's plans for the next iPhone chipset include support for AWS.

Ray, however, said T-Mobile's unique spectrum would have required extra work to ensure the iPhone ran correctly on its network. But the next chipset that Apple plans to use will be able to overcome that hurdle, he said.

"The next chipset will support AWS," he said in an interview with CNET. "The challenge that existed in the past will go away."

Ray said he has seen the roadmap of chipsets that Apple plans to use, and knows it has that capability. But he noted Apple could choose to ignore that capability and not strike a deal with T-Mobile.

New LTE networks are another factor in the discussion, with rumors suggesting that the iPhone 5 may indeed support the faster technology with greater unification of network standards across carriers. But with LTE still being built out and carriers having achieved varying stages of progress on their efforts, the iPhone and other smartphones will continue to require compatibility with 3G networks as a fallback option where LTE won't yet be available.

Update: In a clarification to 9to5Mac, T-Mobile reports that Ray said only that Apple could use an AWS-capable chipset in a future iPhone model, not that he had specific knowledge of Apple's roadmap.

Japanese blog Mac Otakara reports that Apple's manufacturing partners Foxconn and Pegatron have begun production on the next-generation iPad, with Foxconn once again bearing approximately 85% of the load. According to the report, the initial production batch is targeted for shipment in early March, in line with a number of rumors regarding the iPad 3 launch.

According to Chinese source, Foxconn Technology and Pegatron Technology started next generation of iPad assembly with Foxconn bearing 85% and Pegatron taking 15% of the production load like as iPhone 4S. Accelerated schedule is made possible by earlier Chinese New Year festival, 23rd-28th January.

This first lot production implements LCD's, which are produced by Sharp Electronics Corporation, and aims to be shipped at early March, source told.

The report reiterates several of the details found in iLounge's reports on the device, including descriptions of a form factor that looks approximately the same as the iPad 2 but which is slightly thicker. Mac Otakara notes that tight-fitting iPad 2 cases will apparently not fit the new model but that the Smart Cover will be compatible with the new model despite an adjustment in the location of the device's magnets.

Mac Otakara has at times offered accurate information, but has had a few missteps including claims of a late 2011 launch for the iPad 3, new flash memory for MacBook Air solid state drive, and a SIM-less iPhone 4S.

Bloomberg reports that Apple has confirmed last month's news from Israel that the company had acquired flash memory firm Anobit. The confirmation came in the form of Apple's standard boilerplate statement used in addressing acquisitions, and did not include details on the purchase or Apple's plans for the company.

Steve Dowling, a spokesman for Cupertino, California-based Apple, said today that the purchase had been made, while declining to elaborate. The statement confirmed a December report from in the Israeli newspaper Cacalist.

“Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans,” Dowling said in a telephone interview.

Apple reportedly paid $400-500 million for Anobit, but neither Apple nor Anobit has confirmed the purchase price.

The report notes that Anobit is currently responsible for a key flash memory controller for the iPad and iPhone, and Apple likely opted to bring the company's expertise in house in order to draw more heavily on the Anobit's expertise, increase efficiencies, and exert greater control over a component important to the functionality of iOS devices.

Update: Bloomberg reports that Apple paid about $390 million for Anobit in a deal that was not finalized until January 6.

Apple Inc. (AAPL) acquired Anobit Technologies Ltd. for about $390 million, paying below the price sought by the Israeli maker of a flash-memory drive part for the iPhone, people familiar with the purchase said.

Negotiations continued for more than two weeks after Israel’s Calcalist newspaper reported Dec. 20 that Apple bought Herzliya-based Anobit for as much as $500 million. Apple finally signed the agreement Jan. 6 to buy the Israeli company, according to two Anobit shareholders, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Apple didn’t want details disclosed.

Following in the footsteps of yesterday's release of iOS 5.1 Beta 3, Apple today seeded a new version of OS X 10.7.3 to registered Mac developers. The new version, termed Build 11D42, comes three weeks after the previous build, but the development team's work was undoubtedly slowed due to the holidays.

According to those familiar with the update, Apple is asking developers to focus their testing on the following areas: Address Book, iCal, Mail, Spotlight, and Safari. The delta version of the new build for updating from OS X 10.7.2 weighs in at 989.75 MB, while a combo version good for updating from any previous version of OS X Lion weighs in at 1.26 GB.

OS X 10.7.3 will be Apple's next free maintenance update for OS X Lion users. The current version, OS X 10.7.2, was released in mid-October and brought support for Apple's new iCloud services. OS X 10.7.3 developer builds have so far released a few hints of Apple's work, including drivers for new graphics cards that could appear in an updated Mac Pro and active efforts on HiDPI display modes that could come to fruition in a "Retina" MacBook Pro rumored for release early this year.

Update: We're hearing that the new Build 11D42 is likely to be either the golden master version of OS X 10.7.3 that will be released to the public or very close to it. Consequently, a public release could come in the relatively near future.

Update 2: Build 11D42 contains what is likely to be the final release description for OS X 10.7.3:

The 10.7.3 update is recommended for all OS X Lion users and includes general operating system fixes that improve the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac including fixes that:

- Add Catalan, Croatian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Slovak, Thai, and Ukrainian language support
- Address issues when using smart cards to log into OS X
- Resolve issues authenticating with directory services
- Address compatibility issues with Windows file sharing

While Apple doesn't participate at CES and has ended its involvement in trade shows in general, the company naturally continues to keep tabs on what its competition is up to and CES is a prime event for new product introductions. paidContent has in fact proven Apple's interest in CES by chance, running into iOS device marketing chief Greg Joswiak on the floor at the expo.

While wandering around the Central Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center Tuesday, I bumped into Greg Joswiak, head of iOS product marketing for Apple, just outside of Sony’s booth. Joz, as he’s known within the Apple community, grinned sheepishly upon being recognized by a reporter and stopped to chat for a few minutes.

Joswiak said he was interested in how other companies present their products at events such as CES, from things like booth layout and aesthetics to which products are highlighted within a company’s booth.

Joswiak declined to enter a more in-depth discussion of his interests at the show, with paidContent noting only that he "seemed less than impressed" with Sony's booth on the expo floor.

Apple is of course interested in what its competitors are doing, but is likely also interested in following what companies are coming up with in terms of accessories for Apple's own products. Despite Apple's lack of official presence at the show, it remains a popular venue for announcements for products of all types, including those within the Mac- and iOS-related markets.

Joswiak has appeared at several Apple keynote and media events, and has frequently played featured roles in Apple's promotional videos for the company's various iOS devices.

Update: A source has informed Reuters that Apple has over 250 employees registered for CES.

Apple Inc, famous for giving CES the cold shoulder year after year, will field a larger presence at the world's largest trade show than many observers imagine.

More than 250 employees are registered to attend the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, according to a person familiar with Apple's plans.