MacRumors

Earlier this month, we noted that Apple had filed a complaint under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) in an attempt to gain control of several iPhone-related domain names that had been registered by another party and set to forward to a porn site. Most notable among these domain names was iPhone4S.com, the highest-profile domain associated with Apple's new iPhone hardware.

Domain Name Wire now reports that Apple has won control over the domain names in question, as the UDRP case has been terminated following the defendant's agreement to turn the domains over to Apple.

Apple terminated the case after the owner of the domains agreed to turn the domain names over. The whois record for the domains changed to brand protection company MarkMonitor today.

MarkMonitor is the brand protection agency used by Apple and a number of other large companies to anonymously manage such holdings as domain names. As a word of warning to our readers, the domain names in question continue to forward to the porn site at this time, as the site continues to point to the previous owner's DNS server settings and only the various contact information fields for the site are appearing under MarkMonitor at this time.

Of the seven domain names, Apple is only expected to utilize iPhone4S.com, which it will presumably redirect to the company's main iPhone page at some point in the relatively near future. Apple will likely simply shut down the other six domain names while preventing others from using them.

Following conflicting rumors about whether the iPhone 4S would include near field communication (NFC) technology (rumors that were eventually decided in the negative), Digitimes reports that Apple is indeed one of the vendors still expected to introduce NFC-enabled operating system software (and thus hardware) in 2012. Apple's inclusion of NFC in next year's iPhone would appear to come as part of a tipping point for the technology, with the technology's prevalence in the smartphone industry set to increase from about 10% to over 50% in the span of two to three years.

As Android, Symbian, BlackBerry and Bada have supported NFC (near field communication) functions and Microsoft and Apple plan to make Windows Phone and iOS support NFC in 2012, the proportion of NFC-enabled smartphones will quickly increase from less than 10% currently to over 50% in two to three years, according to Taiwan-based smartphone makers.

NFC standardization issues have been one problem slowing adoption of the technology, but with 45 wireless carriers including AT&T and Verizon now signed on to a SIM-based standard, those issues may be reaching a resolution.

Back-and-forth rumors about whether NFC would appear in the 2011 version of the iPhone led to considerable uncertainty about where Apple stood on the technology, with The New York Times noting in March that NFC would be a part of a "coming iteration" of the iPhone without specifying a product generation. By mid-May, Bernstein analysts correctly predicted not only that NFC would not be included in Apple's forthcoming iPhone hardware but that the new iPhone would be an iPhone 4S and not a radically redesigned iPhone 5.

iPad 3 rumors seem to be ramping up. DisplaySearch analyst Richard Shim now tells CNet that Apple has started production of a 2048x1536 resolution iPad 3 display.

"It's happening--QXGA, 2048x1536. Panel production has started [for the next-generation iPad]. There's three suppliers," Richard Shim, an analyst at DisplaySearch, said in an interview today. Shim confirmed other reports that cite three companies, Samsung, Sharp, and LGD.

DisplaySearch is research firm focused specifically on the display supply chain market and related industries. The same claims have been previously made by Digitimes who also cited the same three suppliers.

We've already seen evidence from Apple that they've been working on resolutions of that size in versions of their iOS applications. Most recently, background images of exactly 2048x1536 were found in early builds of iOS 5. In comparison, the current iPad carries a resolution of 1024x768. The iPad 3 is expected to be released sometime in the first half of 2012.

Digitimes has been the source of many supplier rumors for Apple's upcoming products, though their accuracy is always up for some debate. Based on our own record keeping at this time, Digitimes has had about a 55% accuracy on rumors that could later be validated.

A new codename finding by 9to5Mac in the latest iOS 5 betas seems to confirm that Digitimes has been accurate about some of their reporting on the upcoming iPad 3.

The "J2" model listed above corresponds to recent report in which Digitimes discusses two prototype models codenamed J1 and J2 that Apple has been working on.

Apple is currently giving two tablet PC projects codenamed J1 and J2 to its upstream partners for development. The sources revealed that the major differences of the new tablet PCs compared to the previous model are their size, specifications and technologies.

Since the new tablet PCs have a higher resolution, Apple has demanded the design of the light source to be changed from a single LED light bar to two LED light bars on the left and right sides of the machine, but since the method of adopting two LED light bars has created difficulty in shrinking the machine's thickness, some vendors have come out with designs that only adopt one light bar, but are packing two LED chips into one package.

The report is quite vague but does touch on an issue that has appeared from other sources as well.

The issue of the the higher resolution screen of the iPad 3 requiring a second light bar for the iPad 3 was also reported by Digitimes. iLounge later reported that the new iPad 3 would end up being 0.7mm thicker than the iPad 2 due to this need to incorporate a dual light bar system to support the higher-resolution display.

Apple is widely believed to be working on an iPad 3 with a "Retina" display that may double the iPad's screen resolution. Persistent rumors have suggested that Apple's partners have had difficulties in mass producing such screens.

Apple's newly launched iPhone 4S has quickly shot up to become the second most popular Cameraphone on Flickr.com. Flickr's Camera Finder page shows graphs of the popularity of both smartphones and Point and Shoot cameras.

The iPhone 4S has beaten out the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, and HTC EVO 4G, but still lags behind the original iPhone 4. The iPhone made headlines in 2009 when it became the most popular camera on Flickr, even beating out all dedicated non-smartphone cameras. The iPhone 4S still has a ways to go before dethroning the iPhone 4, which remains the most popular overall camera on Flickr.

The iPhone 4S introduced a number of significant improvements to its camera, drawing praise from many. Arstechnica recently posted a comparison pitting the iPhone 4S camera against several others, and found the 4S with competitive image quality and the advantage of convenience.

Thanks @rogerdodgerTM

As noted by MacStories, Apple has started posting teaser announcements about their Black Friday holiday sale for Friday, November 25th. The teaser first appeared on their Australian online store and will likely be propagating around the world.

The special one-day Apple shopping event. This Friday, November 25.

Mark your calendar now, and come back to the Apple Online Store for the special one-day event. You'll discover amazing iPad, iPod and Mac gifts for everyone on your list.

Apple's discounts are typically relatively small compared to other retailers. Last year, Apple offered $101 discounts on their iMac, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air lines, with $11-$41 discounts on the iPods and iPads.

Online and retail stores are already starting to promote their upcoming "Black Friday" sales. Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving in the United States and marks the traditional start to the holiday shopping season. The day brings early store openings and deep discounts from many retailers, and ranks as one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

BestBuy has posted a preview their Thanksgiving/Black Friday sales advertisement already showing the following discounts on Apple products:

- $45 off an iPad 2
- $150 off $1199 MacBook Pro
- $150 off $1199 iMac
- $10 off $99 Apple TV
- $100 iTunes Card for $80

Apple also typically participates in Black Friday sales with more moderate discounts. Last year, Apple offered $101 discounts on their iMac, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air lines, with $11-$41 discounts on the iPods and iPads.

Online retailers MacMall and MacConnection also offer similar online sales, typically offering the deepest available discounts. We'll provide more coverage on specific discounts as Black Friday approaches.

SemiAccurate reports that Apple will be transitioning back to NVIDIA from AMD as its graphics chip supplier for the next-generation MacBook Pro models offering discrete graphics. The move comes after Apple just recently completed a multi-year effort to switch its entire Mac lineup from NVIDIA to AMD.

Yes, your read that right, Nvidia has won the next round of Macs, likely starting with the Ivy Bridge models next spring. About three years after the decision to boot Nvidia out of the company was made, and two years after the first ATI/AMD Macs in recent memory hit the shelves, you will see Nvidia macs reappearing. I guess ‘never’ at Apple means single digit years.

The report notes that discrete graphics for notebooks are a shrinking market as notebooks become smaller and thinner and integrated graphics solutions from the likes of Intel and AMD continue to improve.

Graphics performance has indeed been an issue for Apple's smallest machines over the past several years as it has sought to balance both CPU and GPU performance. Licensing restrictions from Intel prevented third-party graphics manufacturers such as NVIDIA from building integrated graphics solutions for Intel's most recent processors, forcing Apple to choose between subpar integrated graphics from Intel and older Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs that could still be paired with third-party integrated graphics.

With Intel's integrated graphics improving significantly over the past year, Apple has finally been able to transition its small notebooks to all-Intel solutions, while its larger notebooks continue to offer switchable graphics using the integrated Intel and discrete AMD options. It now appears, however, that Apple will be moving back to NVIDIA for those discrete options.

As integrated graphics continues to improve, they may also eat into the discrete GPU market in larger machines. Apple is also said to be preparing to launch a thinner 15" notebook, although it is unclear at this time whether it will be positioned as a MacBook Pro revamp or a new MacBook Air size. There is no word yet on Apple's plans for the new machine's capabilities, but it seems reasonable that Apple may at some point begin transitioning larger machines in the thinner form factors that have proven very popular with consumers to integrated graphics alone.

The report from SemiAccurate does not address Apple's GPU plans for its desktop models, which also currently utilize AMD for their discrete graphics after also having been included in the recent transition from NVIDIA to AMD.

9to5Mac reports that Apple is set to announce tomorrow its plans for opening the company's new retail store in the historic Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan. Apple had been said to be trying to get the store open by mid-November for the holiday shopping season, but it still appears to be unclear whether it will have the store open in time for Black Friday later this week.

From what we have now heard, Apple will be filling the store with stock and applying the finishing touches this week putting the the actual opening of the store on Black Friday or shortly thereafter. The goal all along has been to get the store open for the holiday shopping and to make a big splash with Apple’s new crown jewel of retail.

The store's 300 staff members have been in training for some time now, and are currently dispersed to other New York City stores for final training ahead of the store opening.

techfootnote grabbed some photos of the black screening surrounding the under-construction store, which reveal some large panels on the front of the barrier that are said to potentially be hiding large video display boards to highlight the store's opening.

Sprint has released a new television commercial for the iPhone, pushing its unlimited data plan as an advantage over its rivals.

There are over half a million apps and counting on the iPhone. Apps that can take you anywhere, do anything. You might say there's no limit to what this amazing device can do. So the question to ask is, "Why would anyone want to limit the iPhone?" We don't.

Truly unlimited data for you iPhone...only from Sprint.

The ad does not specifically promote the iPhone 4S, with the carrier instead opting to focus on the generic iPhone line given that it offers both the iPhone 4S and the new 8 GB iPhone 4 that serves as a low-end option priced at $99 on contract.

Both AT&T and Verizon initially offered unlimited data plans for the iPhone but have since transitioned to tiered plans, although customers on those carriers who had previously signed up for unlimited plans have been allowed to keep them.

Research firm Canalys today noted that Apple appears set to become the world's largest PC manufacturer by volume if the iPad and other tablets are included in the figures. The company already ranks second behind HP by that measure, but Canalys is unsure whether Apple will take the lead in the fourth quarter of this year or if it will require a boost from the iPad 3 launch early next year in order to surpass HP.

“Apple has seen its PC market share expand from 9% to 15% in just four quarters, though iPad shipments in its core market – the United States – are likely to come under pressure in Q4 due to the launch of the Fire and Nook at extremely competitive price points,” said Canalys Analyst Tim Coulling. “HP and Apple will fight for top position in Q4, but Apple may have to wait for the release of iPad 3 before it passes HP.”

Apple already ranks as the #1 mobile PC vendor when the iPad is included, but HP's lead over Apple in desktop sales has been enough to hold off Apple in the overall market.

Apple's iPad actually carries a higher average selling price than Windows PCs, resulting in some comparisons between the two in consumers' minds when making purchasing decisions. Apple has acknowledged that the iPad is cannibalizing Mac sales to some extent, but notes that it is happy to make that tradeoff given that PC users in general are undoubtedly making similar decisions to opt for the iPad. Consequently, Apple's relatively small share of the PC market indicates that significantly more Windows PCs than Macs are being left on the shelves in favor of iPads.

With the release of OS X Lion, Apple updated their licensing agreement to allow the virtualization of Mac OS X under programs such as VMWare Fusion and Parallels. This functionality allows you to deploy different sandboxed installations of OS X on a single machine. The change, however, appeared to only apply to OS X Lion and not to previous non-server versions of Mac OS X such as Leopard and Snow Leopard.

So, when the Lion optimized version of VMWare Fusion was released, it allowed users to run additional virtualized copies of OS X Lion, but continued to prohibit running older versions of Mac OS X under Lion.

Those rules seem to have changed a bit in the latest version of VMWare 4.1 which was released on Friday. As first noted by Macworld, VMWare's Fusion no longer strictly prohibits the virtualization of client editions of Mac OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard.

But one big change with this update isn’t documented anywhere: The software has been modified so that it will run the non-server versions of Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) and Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5). Previously, VMware Fusion supported virtual Macs running Lion, Lion Server, Snow Leopard Server, and Leopard Server.

The change in support, however, is a bit subtle. Instead of prohibiting the use of non-server Snow Leopard and Leopard, VMWare prompts the user to verify that they are licensed to run such copies:

Macworld's Jason Snell confirmed that simply agreeing allowed him to to install and run non-server Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Leopard under Lion. Now, whether end users actually have such a license is less certain. When questioned by Macworld, Apple simply reiterated that virtualization is allowed for Mac OS X Lion, Snow Leopard Server and Leopard Server.

The main advantage for end users of such a configuration is the ability to run older PowerPC-based applications on demand. Apple removed Rosetta PowerPC emulation support in Mac OS X Lion, stranding some users who depend on legacy PowerPC applications. By running Snow Leopard in a virtual machine under OS X Lion, those users could continue to run their PowerPC applications on occasion while otherwise using OS X Lion.

Update: VMware has noted that the Snow Leopard and Leopard client virtualization was made possible by an omission of a server edition check from the new Fusion 4.1 software. WMware will be releasing an update to address the issue.

According to a study by Metrico Wireless, a mobile performance measurement company, AT&T has the fastest iPhone 4S data speeds for both upload and download. Sprint's data speed is roughly five times slower, echoing earlier anecdotal reports of poor Sprint data connections.

In all, Metrico performed 21,000 Web page downloads nationwide with the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 over the networks of the nation's largest three carriers. Metrico also ran more than 8,000 data download and upload tests and generated about 6,000 voice calls with recorded human voices. The tests were performed in a certified lab as well as several locations in five unnamed cities that Metrico called "representative of [network] conditions nationwide."

Metrico claims Sprint has the highest voice call quality on the uplink -- when the iPhone owner is speaking -- while AT&T had the highest quality on the downlink.

For dropped calls, something for which AT&T has been consistently criticized, Sprint comes out worst. Metrico claims Verizon experienced a 2.1% call failure rate while AT&T had 2.8% and Sprint was worst at 3.7%.

Computerworld noted that part of the intention of the nationwide study was to show "how performance problems in one city reported by the news media and bloggers shortly after a phone is launched can be less relevant over the entire network over time."

In a curious move, AT&T has raised the subsidized price of its cheapest iPhone to $0.99, up from free.

When the iPhone 4S was announced in October, Apple specifically mentioned in its press release that the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS would be available in 8GB capacities for subsidized pricing of US$99 and for free, respectively.

During AT&T's Q3 2011 earnings call with analysts on October 20th, AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega twice mentioned the iPhone 3GS's $0 price point, saying during the introductory remarks:

Our lower price plan continues to be a good entry point for many subscribers and now that we offer a free iPhone with a 2-year contract for the first time ever, the iPhone 3GS, we expect to broaden the smartphone base even more.

De la Vega again mentions the 3GS during question-and-answer portion:

I also mentioned in my notes that we have another device that I think is going to dramatically change those people that are on smartphones and quick messaging devices, the 3GS, which is free with a 2-year contract. We've seen a tremendous, tremendous demand for that device even though it's a generation old. And actually, we're getting more new subscribers coming on the 3GS on the average than other devices.

It is unclear why AT&T has elected to raise the price of the iPhone 3GS by a negligible but still notable amount a month and a half after it became free on contract, particularly given the fact that both Apple PR and AT&T Mobility's CEO had specifically touted the free nature of the device. In response to a request for comment on the price increase, AT&T declined to offer a specific reason:

iPhone 3GS is still available at an incredibly low price and we're confident consumers will agree that this remains one of the best deals for a leading smartphone.

For its part, Apple continues to offer the iPhone 3GS, subsidized on AT&T's network, for $0.00 on the Apple Online Store.

Update: MacRumors forum user Metcury46l had one possible explanation for the price change: I work at AT&T, this is being done to help prevent fraud as the 99 cents cannot be billed to your bill. It must be charged to a credit or bank issued debt card. Fraudsters are using stolen identities to steal these handsets ... been an issue since they went free.

(Image courtesy Flickr/MrVJTod)