MacRumors

Earlier today, we noted that Apple is planning a number of enhancements to its online and retail store shopping offerings, perhaps most notably allowing retail store customers purchasing shelf-stocked accessories and other items to utilize a self-checkout option through the company's Apple Store iOS application.

One other enhancement that first rolled out last week is the ability for customers to place orders through Apple's online store and have them shipped to a local Apple retail store for pickup. The new feature is convenient for those who have difficulty receiving shipments at their homes or who wish to not utilize home or office delivery for some other reason.

The in-store pickup program launched as a pilot program at the three Apple retail stores located in San Francisco, but quickly expanded to include all sixteen stores in the San Francisco Bay Area.

As noticed by AppleInsider, the program has expanded yet again, now offering support for Apple's four stores in New York City: the iconic Fifth Avenue store as well as the Upper West Side, West 14th Street, and Soho stores. The Soho store is currently undergoing renovation and expansion, and Apple is operating a temporary store a block and a half away from the permanent Soho location in the meantime.

Apple has given no indication on exactly how quickly it will expand the pickup program to all stores in the United States, and perhaps internationally. But with the program already expanding to include 20 stores in less than a week, it's clear that the company is rapidly filling out the pilot program with an eye toward offering in-store pickup at as many stores as possible heading into the holiday shopping season.

Last week, Apple released its annual 10-K report, offering a summary of the company's financial performance and other items of interest for fiscal 2011. One interesting tidbit from the report is gaining some attention for its glimpse into the future, as GigaOM reports on a new research note from UBS analyst Maynard Um addressing Apple's planned capital expenditures (CapEx) for fiscal 2012. From the 10-K report:

The Company’s capital expenditures were $4.6 billion during 2011, consisting of approximately $614 million for retail store facilities and $4.0 billion for other capital expenditures, including product tooling and manufacturing process equipment, real estate for the future development of the Company’s second corporate campus, and other corporate facilities and infrastructure.

...

The Company anticipates utilizing approximately $8.0 billion for capital expenditures during 2012, including approximately $900 million for retail store facilities and approximately $7.1 billion for product tooling and manufacturing process equipment, and corporate facilities and infrastructure, including information systems hardware, software and enhancements.

The projected 74% increase in capital expenditures is evidence of Apple's commitment to both retail stores other infrastructure needs, many of which are related to Apple's cloud-based initiatives. On the retail front, Apple has noted that it is planning to open forty new retail stores during fiscal 2012, and is also planning to expand or replace a number of its existing stores that are too small to adequately serve customer demand. Other infrastructure needs include cloud-focused facilities like the North Carolina data center where Apple is building a solar farm and the new corporate campus in Cupertino.

Horace Dediu at asymco has taken a different look at Apple's CapEx within the context of iOS device sales, noting that sales have been been closely correlated with CapEx over the past several years. Dediu's conclusion is that the significant increase in budgeted non-retail CapEx points toward Apple expecting yet another year of 100% growth in iOS device unit sales.

(via Daring Fireball)

Apple has already begun work on the next major revision to Mac OS X which is being labeled as version 10.8.

Apple only just released the final version of OS X 10.7 (Lion) to customers in July. OS X Lion was the first version of Mac OS X to be distributed through the Mac App Store and it included a number of new features for the Mac. These included an iOS-like application launch screen known as Launchpad, full-screen apps, a new combined interface for Dashboard, Expose, and Spaces known as Mission Control, enhanced Multi-Touch gestures, and improvements to a number of core applications such as Mail.

While Apple has yet to announce plans for the next major version of OS X, evidence of 10.8 first began appearing in our web logs in August, and have since accelerated. This graph shows an increasing number of web visits from Mac OS X 10.8 users over the past several months.

While it is trivial to falsify these records, the requests originated from Apple, Inc. IP addresses and surrounding areas. Also, the overall clustering is consistent with limited internal testing. We saw a very similar pattern for the early OS X 10.7 requests which began in October, 2009:

Note that the first appearance of 10.7 was almost a full year before the first developer preview, and nearly 20 months before the public release.

So far, there have been no hints as to what we might expect to see in Mac OS X 10.8. Historically, Apple's major OS X releases are released every other year: 10.3 in 2003, 10.4 in 2005, 10.5 in 2007, 10.6 in 2009, and 10.7 in 2011. Based on this pattern, we expect Apple to preview Mac OS X 10.8 sometime in 2012, with the final public release happening in 2013.

Another question is what Apple will call OS X 10.8. Apple has been naming their major OS X releases after feline animals such as Tiger and Leopard. "Lion" naturally seems like it may be the end of the line for those names. While Apple had previously trademarked the names "Lynx" and "Cougar", the company has since abandoned those trademarks. It should be noted that Lion hadn't been trademarked until after their first public announcement, so the choice of name could still be wide open.

AirPlay Mirroring and iMessage are reportedly coming to OS X Lion, according to 9to5Mac's sources.

AirPlay Mirroring is a feature that first made its appearance on the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S. It allows you to wirelessly stream whatever's on your iPad or iPhone display to your HDTV via Apple TV. The Mac implementation is reportedly going to be similar, allowing broadcast of your desktop to your TV.

AirPlay Mirroring for the Mac will allow a user to wirelessly mirror exactly what is shown on their Mac’s display to an Apple TV connected to a projector, television, or external monitor. AirPlay video streaming is also being integrated into QuickTime X.

Meanwhile, iMessage is again being said to be coming to the OS X Lion. We had previously reported on iChat strings that have suggested work was already underway. Though it seems the decision to make iMessage a separate app or a part of iChat has reportedly not been finalized.

iMessage is Apple's new messaging solution for the iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone found in iOS 5. It allows customers to send SMS-like messages over standard data connections rather than expensive text messaging plans. OS X Lion integration with iMessage would allow you to send iMessages to friends and family with iOS 5 devices from your Mac.

MacRumors has learned that Apple is planning to launch an update to its retail store iOS app that will allow consumers to utilize self-checkout for purchases of accessories and other shelf-stocked items at the company's retail stores. According to our source, self-checkout purchases will be charged via the Apple Store app to the customer's iTunes Store account.

It is not entirely clear what will happen once a user has checked out via the app, although store employees will of course be on the lookout for store visitors walking out with merchandise in hand, as they are already. Customers who have made a purchase through self-checkout will be able to show an emailed receipt to any employee, confirming their purchase.

High value products such as Macs, iPhones, and iPods are kept in the stockroom at Apple retail stores, meaning that customers purchasing these items will still require assistance from a store employee. We have, however, been told that customers will be able to pre-purchase these items through the app and simply pick them up with the assistance of a store employee. But for the plethora of accessories, cases, and other items stocked directly on the sales floor at Apple retail stores customers will soon be able to purchase these items without needing to catch the attention of a store employee with an EasyPay device to complete the transaction.

Heylookitseric is reporting similar information, claiming that the update to the Apple Store app enabling self-checkout is scheduled to arrive on November 3rd. The report also notes that Apple will continue to expand its program allowing customers to have their orders from the online Apple store shipped to their local Apple retail stores for pickup. That program launched at the company's three San Francisco stores last Wednesday and is now available at all sixteen stores in the Bay Area with further expansion apparently coming soon.

Finally, Apple is said to be enhancing its online store to allow a single order of multiple items to be routed to different shipping addresses. Rolling out in time for the holiday shopping period, the enhancement will be particularly useful for customers wishing to purchase all of their Apple gift items in a single transaction and have them shipped to different recipients at checkout.

Apple is starting to ramp up its iPhone 4S advertising and has posted 3 new ads to their YouTube channel. The new ads focus on specific features found on the iPhone 4S and iOS 5, including Siri, iCloud and the new Camera.

This marks the second Siri ad that Apple has aired. The first ad was more of a teaser, only revealing Siri at the very end. This new ad shows more explicit examples of what Siri can do.

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Macotakara follows up our July report of work on an ultra-thin 15" Mac Notebook with news that this new thin 15" model is getting closer:

according to asian source, Apple seems already to have finished to develop MacBook Air 15" LCD test component to add its line-up and to go product develpment of it.

Macotakara is calling the new notebook a 15" MacBook Air, but we aren't entirely sure that would be the name.

Back in April, we had heard reliable confirmation that the 2012 revision of the MacBook Pro would carry a new case design. iLounge had described it as a "milestone" release. Later, in July, we heard that Apple was already finishing up work on this ultra-thin 15" Mac Notebook.

At this point, it seems clear that Apple's next MacBook Pro revision will carry this new design, which many believe will take cues from the current MacBook Air designs. What's not clear is how Apple will integrate the new models with the current MacBook Air models. The MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lines seem destined to converge over time. In fact, Intel believes that Air-like "ultrabook" designs could make up to 40% of the consumer laptop market by the end of 2012. Apple just updated their MacBook Pro line with faster processors, which places their next revision sometime in the first half of 2012.

Apple's new Siri voice recognition system is only officially available to new iPhone 4S users. Predictably, over the past few weeks, there have been various attempts to port Siri to previous generation hardware. The early versions of these hacks, however, simply got the user interface working on the iPhone 4, but were unable to actually use the voice recognition due to authentication issues in connecting to Apple's servers.

Tonight, developers @stroughtonsmith and @chpwn have been able to bypass this hurdle and have been able to get Siri working on previous generation hardware. This video shows it on an iPod Touch:

The video shows just a couple of simple question/answers but seems to run at a good speed. There had been some speculation that Siri might require the A5 processor in the iPhone 4S, but based on these early findings, it seems not.

The developers have said that there will be "no public release soon" and not to ask. A public release also seems unlikely due to the legal issues in repackaging Apple's code and distributing it.

We've since spoken to @stroughtonsmith who told us that despite it working on the iPod Touch, it doesn't work entirely well due to the relatively poor performance of the microphone. "You have to be loud and close to it", he said. However, it does perform quite well on the iPhone 4 and works "just as fast as the 4S".

In August, we profiled a 3D mapping company called C3 Technologies that had been acquired by a mystery buyer. We suspected Apple was the purchaser of the company, but weren't able to prove it at the time.

Now, it seems that Apple was indeed the buyer of the company, according to 9to5Mac's sources.

Sure enough, we have now learned Apple is now the owner of C3 Technologies. Sources say that C3 Technologies CEO Mattias Astrom , C3 Technologies CFO Kjell Cederstrand, and lead C3 Technologies Product Manager Ludvig Emgard are now working within Apple’s iOS division. The leading trio, along with most of the former C3 Technologies team, is still working as a team in Sweden (interestingly, the division is now called “Sputnik”), where the C3 Technologies company was located prior to the Apple acquisition.

C3 Technologies made a big splash at CES 2011 when it began demoing its technology on both Android and iOS devices. The company uses formerly classified missile targeting technology to achieve its impressive 3D mapping effects. The company's official YouTube videos have been pulled, but some examples remain. This video shows a flythrough of Oslo, Norway (video improperly labeled):

Another example of New York City with overlays is on YouTube. And here's a demo of the technology running on an early iPad version:

The technology had also been previously licensed by Yell.com and Nokia.

Apple's interest in the technology is obvious. The company has been dependent on Google's mapping technology for their iOS devices, but has been steadily making acquisitions to replace that technology. Apple has been heavily recruiting for their Geo Team and has even revealed in iOS 5 that they are planning their own full mapping solution.

Last week, we noted that Apple is unlikely to update its Mac Pro line until early next year at the soonest, as Intel's Sandy Bridge E processors intended as the successors to the current Mac Pro chips have been delayed until the first quarter of 2012.

Newly-released pricing information from CPU World now offers a bit more data to help analyze which of the new E5-2600 and E5-1600 series Xeon processors Apple is likely to use in the next-generation Mac Pro models.

Apple's current dual-processor Mac Pro lineup utilizes Intel's "Westmere" processor family, with the E5620, X5650, and X5670 as options. Intel launched those processors last year priced at $387, $996, and $1440 respectively. With pricing for the upcoming E5-2600 series having been revealed, it certainly does appear that Apple will be able to use the $406 6-core 2.0 GHz E5-2620 in its low-end dual-processor configuration at or near the current $3499 pricing.

At the mid range, which is currently priced at $4999, the 8-core 2.0 GHz E5-2650 comes in $110 higher than the current E5650, a $220 difference when both processors are accounted for. Apple's options may be limited on this model, however, as stepping down in price would force Apple all the way down to the E5-2640 at $884, a 6-core chip running at 2.5 GHz.

The high end of Apple's dual-processor Mac Pro is also a bit murky, with each 8-core 2.6 GHz E5-2670 processor coming in at $1552, over $110 higher than the processors used in the current $5999 Mac Pro. Consequently, Apple could elect to instead use the 8-core 2.4 GHz E5-2665 processor, which is scheduled to carry a $1440 price tag at launch, sacrificing 200 MHz of clock speed to maintain pricing.

As for the lower-end single-processor Mac Pro configurations, Apple is likely to utilize Intel's E5-1600 series processor line, also scheduled for launch in the first quarter of 2012. Pricing on those chips was revealed last month, with the forthcoming quad-core 3.6 GHz E5-1620 ($294) and 6-core 3.2 GHz E5-1650 ($583) slotting nicely into the existing low- and mid-range pricing. At the high end of the single-processor line, however, Apple may have to bump up to the E5-1660 at $1080. The E5-1660 carries the same 6-core, 3.3 GHz specs as on the current high-end single-processor model, but offers higher turbo multipliers and L3 cache.

Since the release of the iPhone 4S, some users have been complaining about poor battery life. Even with Apple having quietly reduced the standby battery life from 300 hours on the iPhone 4 to 200 hours on the iPhone 4S, active-use battery life for the iPhone 4S was supposed to remain the same or better than on the iPhone 4. But some users are indeed seeing rapid battery drains, both while in active use and in standby, suggesting that some sort of background task is sapping the device's battery under certain circumstances, according to The Guardian.

One user in particular noted a battery drain of 10% per hour even in standby mode. The user was able to replicate the issue with all features such as Siri and location services turned off, and even on a relatively clean phone with no apps installed, hinting that the battery drain was coming from a core functionality on the device. The user does report, however, that Apple has reached out in an attempt to research the issue, asking to install system monitoring software on the device to help figure out what is going wrong.

"I then got a call from a senior [Apple] engineer who said he had read my post and was 'reaching out' to users for data and admitted this was an issue (and that they aren't close to finding a fix!) and asked lots of questions about my usage and then asked if he could install the file below and that he would call back the day after to retrieve the info. I extracted the file from my Mac after a sync and emailed it to him. He was incredibly helpful and apologetic in the typical Apple way!"

Apple has yet to offer an explanation for the battery life issue, but anecdotal reports suggest that corrupted contacts may be responsible. Some users have reported that a backup and restore through iTunes can help, but until Apple offers an official solution those affected by the issue may need to experiment with various solutions.

Apple today officially launched the iPhone 4S in 22 new countries, marking the second round of launches for the device. The company began taking pre-orders last week ahead of the launch scheduled for the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

While Apple does not offer online sales in all of the new launch countries and customers looking to purchase subsidized models on contract will not be able to purchase online, Apple is currently quoting shipping estimates of 1-2 weeks for unlocked devices in nearly all of the new markets with online stores. The lone exception is Singapore, where all iPhone 4S models are listed as currently unavailable. Demand for the iPhone 4S has been high in that country, with reports indicating that carrier partner SingTel sold out of appointment slots to purchase the device within 90 minutes of opening registration earlier this week.

Back in May 2010, Google announced plans to launch "Google TV", a software offering available either in a set-top box or built into TV sets and designed to integrate television with the Web. Google TV officially launched in October of that year, but has so far failed to catch on with consumers.

Addressing the platform's shortcomings, Google today announced that early next week it will launch a major software update intended to significantly improve the functionality of the Google TV software. Among the most notable improvements are a streamlined interface with improved searching capabilities and compatibility with apps through the Android Market.

The interface is now much simpler. The new customizable home screen gets you to your favorite content quickly. And within “all apps” you can see all of your shortcuts, similar to your Android phone or tablet.

...

We are opening up the TV to the creativity of content creators large and small through Android Market. Android developers can now bring existing mobile apps or entirely new ones to TV. Initially, the number of apps won’t be large – apps requiring a touch screen, GPS, or telephony won’t show up – but 50 developers have seeded the Market with cool and useful apps for the TV. We’re excited to see the number of apps grow.

The update will be rolling out to Sony devices early next week, with Logitech's set-top boxes set to receive the update shortly after.

Google's movements in the television space have been closely watched by Apple observers, in part due to Apple's own efforts in the market with the Apple TV, which was relaunched late last year as a set-top box for streaming content. Apple has also been said to be working on its own connected television set, with the most recent report arriving yesterday and indicating that Apple is seeking to launch a Siri-enabled TV by 2013.