MacRumors

Apple today announced that this year's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) will take place from June 7th through 11th at San Francisco's Moscone West convention center.

The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is the premier technical conference for developers innovating with Apple technologies. Over 1,000 Apple engineers will be at Moscone West to present advanced coding and development techniques that will show you how to enhance the capabilities of your applications with the revolutionary technologies in iPhone OS and Mac OS X.

As always, the conference will include technical sessions and hands-on labs for attendees, as well as other special events. Registration for the conference is priced at $1599, with tickets for the conference having sold out increasingly quickly over the past couple of years. Given the short lead time on ticket sales this year, developers will likely have to move quickly to secure a spot in the conference.

Apple is widely expected to introduce its new iPhone hardware during a keynote address at the event, although the device has already received considerable publicity since Gizmodo published details on one lost by an Apple employee in a California bar.

Update: A number of observers have noticed a heavy emphasis on iPhone OS in this year's conference, from the headline banner featuring App Store application icons to the elimination of Mac OS X as a category in the Apple Design Awards. As Daring Fireball's John Gruber notes, the iPhone OS emphasis strongly suggests that Mac OS X 10.7 will not be previewed at the conference.

Given the new confirmation that Apple has acquired chip design firm Intrinsity, it's interesting to hear that Apple seems to already be using their technology in the iPad under the veil of the "Apple A4" processor. It was previously believed that P.A. Semi might have had a hand in designing the Apple A4 processor that was introduced alongside the iPad, but an IEEE Spectrum article disputes that belief.

According to market analyst Will Strauss, there is no doubt "it's only the Intrinsity folks who could have taken [the iPad's ARM Cortex A8] up to a gigahertz. Period." Strauss is referring to an X-ray examination of the A4 processor which revealed it was a Samsung-manufactured single core ARM Cortex A8 processor. According to Strauss, only Intrinsity could have achieved this for Apple. Now with confirmation of an Apple acquisition of the company, it seems almost certain.

In 2009, Intrinsity had announced a 1GHz "Hummingbird" processor which likely shares the same technology. It is believed that P.A. Semi simply didn't have enough time since their original acquisition to produce the technology for Apple.

The use of Intrinsity's Hummingbird processor technology in the iPad was postulated by forum member retroneo back in March. He even pinpointed the Samsung S5PC110 as the likely design basis for the upcoming iPhone processor. The S5PC110 is a similar 1GHz Cortex A8 processor with POWERVR SGX hardware built in.

As predicted last week, Apple has seeded the first developer version of Mac OS X 10.6.4, termed Build 10F37, to developers today. iPhoneinCanada as usual is on top of the details, noting improvements to a handful of areas.

According to reports, the current build focuses on Graphics Drivers, SMB, Time Machine backups, USB, and VoiceOver. The build does not include any further updates or enhancements.

Documentation accompanying the seed reportedly notes one outstanding known issue involving iChat requesting password entry upon launch.

Mac OS X 10.6.3 was released to the public on March 29th, but Apple's variable development and seeding cycles offer little indication of when 10.6.4 might be ready for a final release.

The Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal reports that the criminal investigation of the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of a next-generation iPhone last month and subsequent purchase of the device by Gizmodo was spurred by requests from the Apple engineer who lost the iPhone and outside legal counsel for the company.

Wagstaffe said that an outside counsel for Apple, along with Apple engineer Powell, called the District Attorney's office on Wednesday or Thursday of last week to report a theft had occurred and they wanted it investigated. The District Attorney's office then referred them to the Rapid Enforcement and Allied Computer Team, or REACT, a multi-jurisdictional, high-tech crime task force that operates under the Santa Clara County District Attorney's office.

As news of the criminal investigation spread, speculation and disagreement regarding what role if any Apple played in initiating the investigation has arisen in a number of venues. While Apple would have to actively pursue any civil charges related to the incident, some observers wondered whether Apple was pressing the examination of possible criminal charges or if law enforcement was working on its own after having been notified of the loss or theft of the iPhone.

The police have identified and spoken to the person who took the iPhone from the Redwood City, California bar where it was left by the Apple engineer, although officials have refused to say whether that same unidentified person is the same individual who sold it to Gizmodo for $5000. No charges have yet been filed in the investigation, which remains on hold as questions regarding the legality of the search and seizure at Gizmodo editor Jason Chen's residence are being considered.

The New York Times confirms that Apple has acquired Intrinsity, an Austin, Texas company that has played an integral role in speeding up ARM-based chip designs such as those used in Apple's iPhone OS devices. Speculation that Apple had purchased Intrinsity arose early this month, and MacRumors discovered evidence on professional networking site LinkedIn that seemed to confirm that a number of Intrinsity employees had transitioned to Apple.

Apple has finalized a deal to acquire a small chip company called Intrinsity, Apple confirmed. Intrinsity, of Austin, Tex., made a name for itself by creating a fast chip for mobile devices in cooperation with Samsung, both a partner and competitor to Apple.

Many experts in the chip industry have speculated that Apple relied on Intrinsity's chip as the basis for the main engine behind its new iPad.

As usual, an Apple spokesperson declined to comment further on the acquisition, acknowledging only that it occasionally purchases smaller companies and as a policy does not comment on plans for them.

Update: A revised and expanded version of the article now cites claims that Apple paid $121 million for Intrinsity.

Valleywag reports that it is hearing that Apple CEO Steve Jobs has "tentatively agreed" to appear on stage at The Wall Street Journal's D: All Things Digital conference scheduled for June 1st through 3rd. The major business and technology conference, to be held in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, brings together many of the biggest names in technology for extensive discussions about the industry.

An appearance at D would not only speak to Jobs' continuing physical vitality but also his willingness to grapple with some of the thorny new controversies surrounding his company, including its newfound power over news media publishers and rival Adobe. At an Apple event, Jobs is in control; on a stage at D, he'd be fielding questions from the likes of the Journal's Walt Mossberg and All Things D's Kara Swisher.

Jobs last appeared at D in 2007, participating in a one-on-one Q&A with Mossberg and later sharing the stage with Microsoft founder Bill Gates for a discussion of the two companies' relationship and role in the industry.

Meanwhile, many observers are still anxiously waiting for news on Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Apple has yet to announce dates for the conference, which is usually held each June and where the company has taken to introducing its new iPhone models. Daring Fireball's John Gruber has hinted that an announcement is coming either today or tomorrow, depending on whether Gruber's tweet made at 12:20 AM Eastern Time this morning is interpreted to have been posted yesterday or today.

Update: All Things D's Kara Swisher confirms that Jobs will be the opening-night speaker for this year's conference.

Mobile advertising firm AdMob today released its March 2010 Mobile Metrics Report, offering a look at trends in the devices and operating systems accessing its extensive ad network. Among the interesting observations in this month's report is evidence of continued growth and diversification of the Android platform. In fact, Android's growth in the U.S. has sent the platform's share of ad request in the U.S. past that of the iPhone by a 46%-39% margin.

On a worldwide basis, the iPhone continues to outpace Android with a 46% share of the ad request market, compared to only 25% for Android. It is also important to note that this specific metric includes only smart phones, and thus does not include ads served to the iPod touch. When looking at all devices capable of accessing AdMob's ad network, the iPhone and iPod touch together grab 38% of the ad request market, more than double that of the nearest competitor on a manufacturing basis, Motorola.

Other interesting data coming out of AdMob's report includes a survey of the various generations of iPhone OS devices accessing its network. The report notes that the iPhone 3GS holds the largest share of iPhone OS devices at 39%, followed by the second-generation iPod touch at 25%. Apple's first-generation devices continue to hang around, however, with the original iPhone and iPod touch each accounting for 2% of the 6.1 billion iPhone OS ad requests received by AdMob in March.

The Daily Telegraph reports that ARM Holdings, the design firm behind the processors used in Apple's iPhone OS devices and the subject of recent rumors that Apple might be looking at an acquisition, has announced record sales, revenue, and profits for the first quarter of 2010. In particular, chief executive Warren East cited the iPhone and its stimulation of the entire smartphone industry as key drivers for ARM's growth, and pointed to the iPad as another opportunity for the company.

"The iPhone acted as a great stimulus to encourage competitors to develop products to beat the iPhone," he said. "The iPad looks like it has set the competitive bar again, and will stimulate people to do a lot of other creative things."

The report also notes that East "dismissed" the rumors of an Apple buyout, following up on comments he made last week arguing against the need for Apple or any other company to make an acquisition.

Research firm iSuppli yesterday also released its own fact sheet on the Apple-ARM situation, outlining several reasons why an acquisition of ARM makes little strategic sense for Apple.

"Just because ARM's IP plays an important role in mobile devices, that doesn't necessarily mean ARM is of strategic value to Apple," said William Kidd, director and principal analyst, financial services for iSuppli. "iSuppli thinks ARM would represent a costly acquisition with little in the way of true strategic benefits. The acquisition would not give Apple's products a competitive edge/differentiating value. iSuppli also doesn't buy into prevailing speculation that there could be significant value in denying other competitors access to ARM's IP, since the majority of the impact would be felt by companies like Broadcom, Samsung and Texas Instruments, which are not exactly Apple's biggest rivals. In any case, there would be no visible end-market impact seen for two years at a minimum.

iSuppli also expects that other bidders would be likely to appear should Apple make a serious effort at acquiring ARM, as many chipmakers rely on ARM's technology, which would be difficult, time-consuming, and expensive to shift away from, and fear Apple's "inward-looking corporate style" could inhibit the freedom they currently have to work off of ARM's designs.

It should be obvious by now that Apple is planning on integrating a front-facing camera in its next-generation iPhone. The natural use for such a feature is video conferencing. Apple has had numerous references to the unannounced feature in its past iPhone firmware releases, and iPhone 4 SDK Beta 2 is no different.

Apple, however, is becoming less shy about the feature with a new set of status/error strings that have been found detailing various video conferencing states. Interesting to see is that it appears iPhones will have to be registered for video conferencing.

ACCOUNT_NOT_REGISTERED_MESSAGE = "This device has not been registered for video conferencing.";

The text files also contain the usual error messages involving lost calls or disconnected calls, as well as networking issues. What's interesting to note though is that at this time there are no error messages related to 3G or cellular connections, while there are several error messages related to Wi-Fi connectivity issues:

IMAVCHAT_COULD_NOT_CONNECT_NO_REMOTE_WIFI = "The video call could not connect because a remote Wi-Fi connection could not be established.";
IMAVCHAT_DISCONNECTED_NO_LOCAL_WIFI = "The video call disconnected because the local Wi-Fi connection was lost.";

We're not sure if that is significant or not, but many had hoped that video conferencing would be allowed over 3G networks.

Finally, it appears Apple will be integrating the Video Conferencing feature with its new Game Center. It appears players may be able to chat or coordinate calls with fellow Game Center participants. Several status messages relate to Apple's social gaming system:

IMAVCHAT_ERROR_NO_SUCH_PLAYER_ID = "No Such Player ID";
IMAVCHAT_ERROR_NO_SUCH_ACHIEVEMENT = "No Such Achievement";
IMAVCHAT_ERROR_UNRECOGNIZED_GAME_DESCRIPTION_HEADERS = "Unrecognised Game Descriptor Headers";
IMAVCHAT_ERROR_NO_SUCH_GAME = "No Such Game";

LaptopMag spoke with the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick who believes that the search and seizure of Jason Chen's computer equipment violated both state and federal laws. Chen's equipment was seized by law enforcement officials surrounding an investigation of the lost next generation iPhone that had been leaked.

"There are both federal and state laws here in California that protect reporters and journalists from search and seizure for their news gathering activities. The federal law is the Privacy Protection Act and the state law is a provision of the penal code and evidence code. It appears that both of those laws may be being violated by this search and seizure."

While some have suggested that this may not apply if they were investigating Gizmodo for criminal activity, the EFF says it doesn't matter and the shield laws apply anyway.

But even if they are saying it was unlawful, the statute appears to say it doesn't matter. The crime that you're investigating cannot be receipt of that information or materials.

Based on a report by TechCrunch, it appears the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office is acknowledging that the shield protection laws may still be valid. The investigation has reported to have come to a pause as they reevaluate whether or not those shield laws do apply in this situation.

Gizmodo reports that police officers entered the home of its editor Jason Chen last Friday night, seizing four computers, two servers, and other items as authorized by a search warrant related to the site's purchase of a next-generation iPhone lost by an Apple employee in a Redwood City, California bar.

A total of 24 items related to the investigation were seized by officers, who broke down the door to Chen's unoccupied residence to execute the search warrant. Chen, who returned home from a dinner out to find the police in his home, notes that he discussed with the officers claims made by Gaby Darbyshire, Chief Operating Officer of Gizmodo's parent company Gawker Media that such a search warrant should be considered illegal under journalist protection statutes. Officers proceeded, however, with their search and seizure.

According to Gaby Darbyshire, COO of Gawker Media LLC, the search warrant to remove these computers was invalid under section 1524(g) of the California Penal Code.

Gawker has filed its objection with the police department and requested an immediate return of the seized items.

Update: TechCrunch provides some additional color on the situation, reporting that the authorities have temporarily put the investigation on hold as they study whether they agree with Gizmodo's claims that journalist shield laws should apply to the situation. Consequently, police have not yet begun to examine the evidence seized from Chen's residence.

I just spoke to Stephen Wagstaffe, Chief Deputy at San Mateo County District Attorney's Office, who told me that nobody has yet been charged in the case, and at this point it is "just an investigation". He says the investigation is "looking at any hand that touched or had something to do with this phone" but that the investigation is not currently targeting either Gawker or the person who originally found the phone -- rather, police are collecting every fact they can to present to the DA, who will then make a decision.

Last month, Valve Software announced that its Steam game distribution platform and its own library of games would be coming to Mac OS X in April. In recent weeks, Valve has kicked off a closed beta for Steam, and an extensive thread in the Steam user forums has led to a nice summarization of where things stand.

Reports confirm previous claims that Steam and the Source gaming engine will run natively on Mac OS X using OpenGL instead of relying on a wrapper such as Cider to translate the Windows versions to Mac. That commitment and designation of Mac OS X as a "Tier-1 Platform" offer evidence that Valve is seeking to make the Mac gaming experience as equal to the Windows experience as possible.

Steam itself will also be Intel-only and require Mac OS X Leopard, although individual games may require newer versions of Mac OS X. Reports also indicate that systems using Intel's X3100 or 900-series integrated graphics will not be supported for Source-based games, although testers have been able to get the Mac version of Portal running at 10-15 frames per second on lowest settings on these systems.

Other details coming out of the beta testing are confirmation regarding Steam Play, which will allow users to purchase a game only once and play it on multiple systems, as well as corroboration that Windows and Mac users will play on the same servers with the ability to join the same lobbies.

Beta users are reportedly still limited to Portal for testing, although word is that Counter-Strike: Source and Half-Life 2 will be added shortly. Other confirmed games for Mac include the remainder of the Half-Life series, Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, and the upcoming Portal 2.

Despite a refresh of the Steam client user interface released today, Valve has yet to announce a specific release date for the Mac version of Steam, continuing to hint only "coming soon".

Engadget points to a YouTube video posted by a developer apparently showing an iPhone application called Wi-Fi Sync that will enable users to wirelessly sync their iPhones and iPod touches with their computers via a local Wi-Fi network.

As the name implies, the app promises a complete sync of your iPhone or iPod touch with iTunes without having to tether and looks pretty straightforward (and occasionally useful) based on the video demonstration found after the break.

According to comments from the developer, he believes that the application fully complies with Apple's developer rules and will be submitting it for inclusion in the App Store later this week.

The application requires a separate syncing application to be installed on the user's computer. The video shows a Mac OS X version of the application in action, and the developer promises that a Windows version is under development.

Longtime IGN columnist Matt Casamassina last week noted on his blog that he is leaving behind his role as noted Nintendo reviewer to take a position as "global editorial games manager" at Apple.

Beginning early May, I will join Apple as global editorial games manager, App Store. In a nutshell, I will be leading the charge for games on the App Store, so whether you browse through iTunes, iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, the games content you see will be handpicked and organized by me and my team. I couldn't be happier.

Casamassina was a founding member of the IGN, a popular news and reviews site for the gaming community. His early work on Nintendo 64 content was folded into IGN, where it became a mainstay for the site as Nintendo evolved with its GameCube and Wii consoles, as well as numerous portable devices, over the years.

Apple has been working hard to position the iPhone OS, and particularly the iPod touch, as a gaming platform. Recent data has shown some success for Apple, with iPhone OS devices reportedly garnering 19% of revenue for the portable gaming market in the U.S. in 2009.