MacRumors

In his "Thoughts on Flash" letter last week, Apple CEO Steve Jobs noted his company's frustration with Adobe's slow pace at getting Flash working well on mobile devices, citing missed timelines and a sense of relief that Apple didn't wait for Adobe to deliver the technology.

We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we're glad we didn't hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?

In answer to that question, Zedomax reports that Adobe at this week's Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco is showing off an Android-based tablet running Flash, as well as the company's AIR cross-platform runtime.

Despite the author's claim that Flash and AIR apps run "flawlessly" on the tablet, Daring Fireball's John Gruber points out that the device's browser crashes while the user is accessing YouTube in one video clip.

PC Pro reports that Intel this week is showing off a laptop running the company's "Light Peak" connectivity standard initially offering transfer speeds of up to 10 Gbps in both directions. The company previously demonstrated the technology using a prototype Mac Pro motherboard last year, but has now reduced the required hardware to fit inside a laptop enclosure.

Intel's chief technology officer, Justin Rattner, claimed that the bandwidth afforded by the optical technology is practically unlimited. "Light Peak begins at 10Gbits/sec, simultaneously in both directions," he said. "We expect to increase that speed dramatically. You'll see multiple displays being served by a single Light Peak connection. There's almost no limit to the bandwidth - fibres can carry trillions of bits per second".

Intel envisions Light Peak as being able to replace USB, Firewire, and display connectors in the future, and notes that the hardware should become available to computer manufacturers by the end of this year. Given the initial demonstration using Mac Pro hardware and rumors that Apple played a role in the development of the technology, many observers expect Light Peak to quickly make its way into Macs.

In a widely-publicized blog post today, Robert Reich, who served as U.S. Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton, offers his thoughts on the rumored antitrust inquiry being considered by federal regulators over Apple's exclusion of cross-compilers for creation of applications running on its iPhone OS devices. Reich argues that the Federal Trade Commission's efforts targeting Apple could be better spent on investigating Wall Street banks, but federal law excludes the financial industry from the FTC's purview.

Our future well being depends more on people like Steve Jobs who invent real products that can improve our lives, than it does on people like [JPMorgan Chase CEO] Jamie Dimon who invent financial products that do little other than threaten our economy.

Reich's position is that Apple's move is not anti-competitive, with many other companies rapidly innovating in the sector, and if Apple's decision results in less competition on the iPhone platform, Apple itself will be the one to suffer.

Apple's supposed sin was to tell software developers that if they want to make apps for iPhones and iPads they have to use Apple programming tools. No more outside tools (like Adobe's Flash format) that can run on rival devices like Google's Android phones and RIM's BlackBerrys.

What's wrong with that? Apple says it's necessary to maintain quality. If consumers disagree they can buy platforms elsewhere. Apple was the world's #3 smartphone supplier in 2009, with 16.2 percent of worldwide market share. RIM was #2, with 18.8 percent. Google isn't exactly a wallflower. These and other firms are innovating like mad, as are tens of thousands of independent developers. If Apple's decision reduces the number of future apps that can run on its products, Apple will suffer and presumably change its mind.

While Reich is not the first to make this argument, his public statement comes with the perspective of an academic and political insider who has spent considerable time in the upper reaches of government.

One of the many new features provided to developers in iPhone OS 4 are new APIs that give developers full access to Video capture data. This could open the door to some interesting apps including Video Capture/Editing and more robust Augmented Reality apps when iPhone OS 4 finally becomes available to the public.

The iPhone 4 Beta SDK, however, also reveals the ability to capture video at higher resolutions than the current standard 640x480 ("VGA") resolution. These preset values suggest that a future iPhone will be able to capture at 720p (1280x720) resolution:

AVCaptureSessionPreset640x480
AVCaptureSessionPreset1280x720

The next iPhone has been pegged to use a 5 Megapixel camera, though the video capabilities of the hardware are unknown. The next iPhone revision has been also rumored to be dubbed the "iPhone HD" which would fit well with this new 720p video recording capability.

Apple is expected to introduce the new iPhone at the Worldwide Developer's Conference which takes place between June 7-11th in San Francisco, CA.

MacStories reports on a new email response to a customer from Apple CEO Steve Jobs, this time promising that full support for HTML5 is coming "soon" to the company's Safari browser. HTML5 has been a popular topic recently, given Jobs' continued support of the next-generation Web standard as a key component of future technologies that he believes will leave Adobe's Flash Player in the past.

But as you probably know, Apple doesn't actually fully support HTML5 in its flagship browser, the desktop version of Safari. Indeed, Safari for Mac (and Windows) doesn't have official and full support for many HTML5 specs like Geolocation API, Drag and Drop, Form Features and Inline SVG but according to this new email from Steve we received, all this stuff is coming.

Given that Google has just introduced several of these HTML5 features in its new Google Chrome beta version, it appears that Apple will likely need to move forward relatively rapidly in order to demonstrate its commitment to deploying the tools necessary for HTML5 in Safari to reach the potential espoused by Jobs. "Full" HTML5 adoption may be a bit of a moving target for Apple, however, as the standard has not yet been officially formalized.

The third beta of iPhone OS 4, released and then pulled yesterday after an installation issue with the development tools was discovered, is now back in Apple's iPhone Dev Center. Following on yesterday's discovery of new iPod controls and a screen orientation lock available through the iPhone OS 4 multitasking interface, Boy Genius Report covered several additional new highlights for the updated operating system.

File Sharing

Currently available with iPhone OS 3.2 on the iPad, iPhone OS 4 seems set to bring this feature to the iPhone and iPod touch, allowing users to drag-and-drop files between certain applications and their computers.

Closing Applications

In earlier beta versions of iPhone OS 4, users wishing to close applications in the multitasking tray had to touch and hold each application's icon until an extra "close" icon appeared in the upper left corner of the application's icon and then touch it to close out the application. The awkward and time-consuming process when trying to close multiple applications was a complaint of some users, and Apple has addressed the issue by now allowing users to simply touch and hold one application's icon to activate the close option for all visible applications in the multitasking tray. Once activated, users can quickly close multiple applications.

9 to 5 Mac reports that the latest iPhone OS 4 beta, released earlier today, includes several new features as part of its multitasking capabilities, including quick access to iPod controls, as well as an option for locking the screen orientation in either portrait or landscape mode.

The new features are accessed via a left-swipe from the multitasking "dock" manager in much the same way that the Spotlight search screen is accessed from the first home screen in iPhone OS 3. The iPod options include the traditional iPod icon to allow quick access to the iPod player functionality, as well as play/pause and track navigation buttons.

The screen orientation lock is a much-requested feature that is particularly handy for users attempting to use their devices while lying down or reclining. The feature receives prominent attention on the iPad, with the device's originally-planned "mute" switch being replaced before launch by a dedicated hardware button to enable screen rotation lock.

Update: Users are reporting that the screen orientation lock feature can currently only lock the screen in a portrait orientation.

Google today announced the release of the official beta versions of Google Chrome 5.0 for Mac, Windows, and Linux. The release brings several new enhancements to the stable testing version of the browser, including an integrated Flash Player plug-in and speed increases.

Today's new beta release incorporates one of Chrome's most significant speed and performance increases to date, with 30% and 35% improvement on the V8 and SunSpider benchmarks over the previous beta channel release. In fact, looking back in time, Chrome's performance has improved by as much as 213% and 305% on these two benchmarks since our very first beta.

The new version also includes synchronization of Chrome preferences across computers and new HTML5 features such as geolocation support and file drag-and-drop.

Google is also taking the opportunity to show off Chrome's speed enhancements by deploying a set of "experiments" showing Chrome loading a webpage alongside other "blink-of-an-eye" events, all filmed with a high-speed camera and played back in slow motion. While the "results" of these new speed tests have not yet been released, Google has published a "making of" video showing how they were developed.

Following a trend of biweekly releases it established with earlier developer seeds of iPhone OS 3.2 for iPad, Apple has released the third beta version of iPhone OS 4 and the associated Software Development Kit (SDK). Available to registered developers via the iPhone Dev Center, the third beta is a refinement of the operating system and developer tools initially released in early April alongside a media event to introduce the next-generation software for Apple's iPhone OS devices.

No details on changes included in the new beta have yet been detailed.

Apple is expected to publicly release iPhone OS 4 to iPhone and iPod touch users "this summer", although early models of those devices will not be compatible with the new OS and even some newer models will not be able to take advantage of all of the features. iPhone OS 4 will come to the iPad "in the fall".

Update: Apple has reportedly temporarily pulled the new version due to an issue with installation of the revised SDK tools.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google is planning to begin selling eBooks in late June or July of this year, creating yet another area where it will compete head-to-head with Apple, which rolled out its own iBooks application and associated iBookstore alongside the iPad in the United States last month.

Google says its new service--called Google Editions--will allow users to buy digital copies of books they discover through its book search service. It will also allow book retailers to sell Google Editions on their own sites, taking the bulk of the revenue. Google has yet to release details about pricing and which publishers are expected to participate.

Just yesterday, Apple announced as part of a press release celebrating one million iPads sold that customers have already downloaded over 1.5 million eBooks in the 28 days since launch.

Early last month, Apple also announced that iBooks and the iBookstore will coming to the iPhone and iPod touch with iPhone OS 4 later this year. And while the iBookstore is currently limited to the United States along with the iPad, the company is working to line up deals to extend the store internationally.

The Loop reports that Apple is facing a new patent lawsuit from NetAirus Technologies over the iPhone. While Apple is routinely the target of such actions, this particular lawsuit is interesting if only because it appears to be targeting the entire concept of the iPhone rather than a minor aspect of its features or technology.

Filed in the Central District of California Western Division, NetAirus claims that Apple's iPhone infringes '380 patent. The patent issued on September 5, 2006 and held by NetAirus describes a "Wireless Handset Communication System."

The suit targets all three versions of the iPhone released so far and seeks cash damages and a halt to iPhone production.

Little is known about NetAirus, although it appears that this patent's inventor, Richard J. Ditzik, holds a number of patents related to flat panel display technology. Barron's notes that he has filed patent lawsuits against several other companies over the past few years, including Panasonic and Samsung. Ditzik appears to have filed the lawsuits using different company names over the years, suggesting that he may be a one-man operation setting up a various corporate entities to pursue patent complaints against larger corporations.

In a report covering a potential antitrust inquiry for Apple regarding its exclusion of cross-platform compilers for applications submitted to the App Store, The Wall Street Journal notes that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has also been looking into iAd mobile advertising platform. The investigations come as the FTC is scrutinizing Google's attempt to acquire mobile ad firm AdMob, with rumors suggesting that the agency may formally oppose the deal.

Separate from its much-publicized change to its developer agreement regarding cross-compilers that has seen a flare-up in the Apple-Adobe relationship, Apple made another change that appears to be designed to prevent other ad agencies from gathering the analytics necessary to offer viable ad platforms on the iPhone OS.

One wireless-advertising executive said he was contacted a few weeks ago by an official from the FTC who wanted to talk about how the mobile-ad industry works, the Apple developer agreement and how it could affect the executive's business.

The FTC has also taken an interest in iAd in the context of the agency's investigation of Google Inc.'s $750 million purchase of mobile-ad company AdMob Inc. Several developers said they have been contacted by the FTC about the Google-AdMob probe, with two saying they were told that the agency was also looking into the iAd service.

For their part, Google and AdMob have been drawing attention to Apple's moves in the mobile advertising space as they work to convince regulators that the industry offers sufficient competition that should permit Google's acquisition of AdMob to proceed.

Earlier today, we noted that ABC had updated its ABC Player application for the iPad to support video streaming over 3G networks and that the new version had been submitted to Apple for review.

Apple certainly didn't take long to look it over, however, as the updated version is now live in the App Store. In addition to 3G streaming, the new version brings a number of other improvements, notably including support for landscape orientation in all screens within the application.

This update includes improvements that you have asked for including:

- 3G streaming (requires a 3G capable device)
- Landscape orientation support for all screens
- Support for the iPad's orientation lock
- Updated player controls that are more responsive
- Improved display of parental ratings
- Numerous other bug fixes and stability enhancements

In order to support 3G streaming, ABC appears to have been required to add a lower-quality video stream for the system to default to when network performance demands it. In general, iPad users are experiencing lower quality video when streaming via 3G than via Wi-Fi, with different applications offering varying amounts of visible degradation on cellular networks. YouTube in particular has been cited as offering much poorer quality streams over 3G.