MacRumors

Apple is planning to reset all iCloud backup data on September 22nd, 2011. As noted by 9to5Mac, the announcement was posted to Apple's developer site for both iOS and Mac developers:

On Thursday, September 22, the iCloud Backup data will be reset. Backing up to iCloud or restoring from an iCloud backup will be unavailable from 9 AM PDT – 5 PM PDT. If you attempt a backup or restore during this time, you will receive an alert that the backup or restore was not successful. After this reset, you will be unable to restore from any backup created prior to September 22. A full backup will happen automatically the next time your device backs up to iCloud.

Apple's iOS 5 has been undergoing developer testing since its announcement back in June. Developers have been able to test iCloud for backups and storage during the developer betas.

Apple has provided 7 betas to developers thus far, and had been previously rumored to be offering the Golden Master (final version before release) on September 23rd. That same rumor had also incorrectly pinpointed a Beta 8 release a few days ago, but the 23rd date seems to line up nicely with this iCloud backup reset.

Apple had said that iOS 5 would launch "this fall" which technically begins on September 23rd.

Apple is picking up the pace of OS X 10.7.2 developer seeds as it moves toward a public launch of iCloud and iOS 5, today pushing out Build 11C57 to developers for testing.

As with the previous seed, which came just five days ago, the iCloud components have been rolled into OS X 10.7.2. iCloud has previously been a separate download for beta testers.

Apple continues to list no known issues with the latest build, and has made no changes to its list of focus areas for testing, which include AddressBook, GraphicsDrivers, iCal, iChat, iCloud, Mac App Store, Mail, MobileMe, Safari, Spotlight, and Time Machine.

Macworld reports that Apple has made a change to its Mac App Store providing warnings to users attempting to purchase apps that are already installed on their computers but purchased from outside the Mac App Store. The warning says:

[App name] is already installed and was not purchased from the Mac App Store

Do you want to buy [app name] again?

The report notes that while Apple has yet to provide a way for users to bring their existing non-Mac App Store apps into the Mac App Store ecosystem, the step does help prevent accidental double purchases of apps in cases where users fail to realize that they have an application already installed.

As noted by The Next Web, however, the existing app and the Mac App Store must be the exact same version in order for the warning to be triggered. Consequently, users will still need to be careful to pay attention to their existing installed apps when browsing the Mac App Store.

With the new 27" Apple Thunderbolt Display now shipping to customers, Apple has posted a new support document outlining what can and can not be accomplished with multiple monitors on Thunderbolt-enabled Mac systems.

As far as compatibility, Apple notes that all Thunderbolt-enabled systems with the exception of the MacBook Air can handle two Thunderbolt displays, with a caveat for the 13-inch MacBook Pro being that the computer's internal display will not function if two Thunderbolt displays are connected. The high-end $799 Mac mini with discrete AMD graphics is also capable of running a third display via HDMI.

- MacBook Air (Mid 2011): One Thunderbolt display.

- MacBook Pro (Early 2011): Two Thunderbolt displays. Connecting a second Apple Thunderbolt Display (27-inch) to a 13-inch MacBook Pro will make the screen on the MacBook Pro turn black. This is expected behavior.

- iMac (Mid 2011 and Late 2011): Two Thunderbolt displays. iMac (27-inch, Mid 2011) with two Thunderbolt ports supports a total of two Thunderbolt displays regardless of which Thunderbolt port each display is connected to.

- Mac mini (Mid 2011): Two Thunderbolt displays. Mac mini with AMD graphics can support a HDMI compatible device on its HDMI port when using two Thunderbolt displays.

One other note of interest that will be a disappointment for some users is the disclosure that users will not be able to daisy chain a Mini DisplayPort display off an Apple Thunderbolt Display.

Mini DisplayPort displays will not light up if connected to the Thunderbolt port on an Apple Thunderbolt Display (27-inch).

The revelation is a bit of a surprise, as Mini DisplayPort displays can currently be daisy chained off other Thunderbolt peripherals. Some users had been hoping to reuse their existing Mini DisplayPort displays as part of multiple-monitor setups using the new Thunderbolt display, but will apparently be unable to do so.

Finally, Apple recommends that users daisy chaining the Apple Thunderbolt Display with Thunderbolt storage devices connect the display directly to the computer's Thunderbolt port, with other peripherals daisy chaining off of the display.

Update: Macworld appears to have demonstrated that you can indeed daisy chain a Mini DisplayPort monitor as long as it is connected to some other device than the Thunderbolt display. In Macworld's apparent setup, a Pegasus RAID storage device is placed between the Thunderbolt display and an older Mini DisplayPort display from Apple and all displays work properly.

It is unclear why simply inserting another Thunderbolt device into the middle of the chain allows the Mini DisplayPort display to function, but at least one MacRumors forum member has confirmed that he is unable to daisy chain his Mini DisplayPort-enabled Apple Cinema Display directly off of the new Thunderbolt display.

According to a new research note from J.P. Morgan's Mark Moskowitz summarized by AppleInsider, Apple is unsurprisingly working on prototypes for the iPad 3, but should be in "no rush" to release the device as competitors have yet to put forward compelling alternative devices.

Analyst Mark Moskowitz with J.P. Morgan revealed on Friday that his conversations with industry insiders have revealed that Apple's next iPad will not be available until sometime in 2012, even as prototypes for the device begin to circle in the supply chain.

"In our view, Apple should be in no rush," he said. "The other tablet entrants have stumbled so far, and that trend-line could persist deep into 2012."

Moskowitz's report comes as yet another competing tablet exhibits poor marketplace performance, with Research in Motion reporting (PDF) yesterday that it shipped only 200,000 PlayBook tablets during its second fiscal quarter of 2012 that ended on August 27th. It is unknown how many of those shipments translated into sales to end users. In contrast, Apple shipped 9.25 million iPads during its most recently completed quarter.

Apple had been rumored to be trying to launch the iPad 3 sometime near the end of this year, but has now reportedly settled on an early 2012 debut. Some reports have claimed that technological difficulties with building a Retina display for the iPad 3 forced Apple to cancel any plans of a 2011 release for the device.

Continued word of a 2012 release for the iPad 3 comes as TiPb notes that Target is listing at least some of the current iPad 2 models as "discontinued" in its internal store inventory systems. Such stock systems can be unreliable indicators, however, and thus it is not believed to be suggestive of an imminent iPad 3 launch. The reason for the change in status does, however, remain unknown.

9to5Mac claims that there are indeed two new iPhone models: the "low-end" iPhone 4-look alike that we've seen parts for already, and the teardrop shaped iPhone 5 (artist rendition below).

But they also claim that this new iPhone 5 design is seeing design and production delays so there may be shortages into 2012:

It appears that the tear-drop shaped iPhone 5 with larger screen and thinner, rounder body is seeing continued design and production delays, at least on one assembly line (Apple has multiple production sources – Pegatron, Foxconn, etc). We therefore think that iPhone 5 will be delayed slightly at the very least and may see shortages all the way into 2012.

Apple is expected to hold a media event announcing the iPhone 5 later this month, but has been known to pre-announce products that won't be available for some period of time. Most recently, Apple's Thunderbolt Display was announced to be delivered "within 60 days". With the iPhone, Apple will certainly try to minimize that delay in order to avoid suppressing sales during the holiday quarter. To be clear, the iPhone 5 announcement may still be "weeks away", but availability and stock of the iPhone 5 may be limited to start, if this rumor is to be believed.

Apple's annual iPhone announcement is already much later in the year than usual. In the past 4 years, Apple has launched a new iPhone in the summer, while this year's launch has still not been officially confirmed.

Meanwhile, MacRumors has also heard through a supplier that the case manufacturers are very confident that the leaked case designs are representative of the iPhone 5. There's been some speculation about how certain the case manufacturers need to be to start mass producing these early case designs. At least according to one of our contacts, they seem very certain.

As noted by CNet, one of the areas of focus in Intel's next generation Ivy Bridge processors is the graphics processing unit (GPU). Anandtech reports that Intel expects there to be a 60% improvement in graphics benchmarks over Sandy Bridge's integrated graphics. Sandy Bridge is the current generation Intel CPU that ships in Apple's computers.

During this week's developer's conference, CNet relays that Intel also confirmed that Ivy Bridge's integrated GPU will offer OpenCL support for the first time. OpenCL is an Apple-backed framework that makes it easier for developers to offload general non-graphical work to GPUs. It was first introduced in Apple's Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and was described by Apple:

Snow Leopard further extends support for modern hardware with Open Computing Language (OpenCL), which lets any application tap into the vast gigaflops of GPU computing power previously available only to graphics applications. OpenCL is based on the C programming language and has been proposed as an open standard.

Apple has continued support for OpenCL in OS X Lion and presently presently lists these graphics cards or processors as providing support for OpenCL:

- NVIDIA GeForce 320M, GeForce GT 330M, GeForce 9400M, GeForce 9600M GT, GeForce 8600M GT, GeForce GT 120, GeForce GT 130, GeForce GTX 285, GeForce 8800 GT, GeForce 8800 GS, Quadro FX 4800, Quadro FX5600
- ATI Radeon HD 4670, ATI Radeon HD 4850, Radeon HD 4870, ATI Radeon HD 5670, ATI Radeon HD 5750, ATI Radeon HD 5770, ATI Radeon HD 5870
- AMD Radeon HD 6750M, AMD Radeon HD 6770M, AMD Radeon HD 6970M

If your machine does not have any of these graphics processors listed, you can't take full advantage of OpenCL enabled applications. Notably absent from the list are the Intel integrated graphics systems that presently power the MacBook Airs and 13" MacBook Pros.

The quality of Intel's integrated graphics processor performance has been long discussed over the past year. Due to the small size of the MacBook Air and 13" MacBook Pro, it's not feasible for Apple to include a discrete 3rd party graphics card to boost GPU performance. Instead, those models must rely on the graphics processor integrated into the CPU/chipset itself. In the past, Apple had used the better performing NVIDIA integrated graphics, but due to a legal dispute with Intel, NVIDIA was unable to continue manufacturing those chipsets. This year's MacBook Air finally made the transition from NVIDIA graphics to Intel graphics, though was seen as a downgrade by some.

When it's launched in 2012, Ivy Bridge should bring some welcome graphical performance improvements to Apple's MacBook Air line, which is becoming an increasingly popular choice for consumers. OpenCL support is another nice addition that should also make its way into the 2012 MacBook Airs.

MacRumors has learned that Apple is working on a process to merge multiple Apple IDs into a single login. The issue of juggling multiple Apple ID logins has been a minor inconvenience in the past, but with the early developer testing of iOS 5 and iCloud, users have found it to be a major issue.

TUAW described the problem back in July, and the answer at that time was that there was no way to consolidate Apple IDs:

Some readers have been managing two Apple IDs on purpose and are now frustrated about the fact that Apple is restricting logins for automatic downloads. Others have only just discovered that they have two IDs. Most of them have already contacted Apple, only to be given the same answer without exception: Apple will not consolidate Apple ID accounts.

MobileMe users especially have found that they now have at least two Apple IDs, their original one and their MobileMe account. Juggling multiple logins while using Apple's Automatic Downloads can be a particular chore since you can't easily switch between logins. Apple locks devices to a single Apple ID for 90 days, preventing any rapid switching between accounts.

Apple has provided no official guidance on the issue, except to state that Apple IDs can not be consolidated at this time.

MacRumors reader Robert emailed Apple CEO Tim Cook about the issue, and quickly received a phone call from an Apple executive relations employee. She had spoken to the team responsible for Apple IDs and acknowledged that they understood the issue and that more people would run into the problem with iCloud. She also repeated that there is no way yet to combine accounts but revealed they are working on it. In the meantime, she recommended picking a single account to plan on keeping indefinitely and to make all future purchases on that account.

Apple's Tim Cook has been particularly responsive to customer emails and inquiries. In a previous example, a user emailed Cook about iTunes Match availability in Canada. That user got a quick reply from Apple's Senior Vice President for Internet Software and Services, Eddy Cue. Apple has announced it will be launching iCloud and iOS 5 to users "this fall".

Update: Another user reports hearing the same information after emailing Tim Cook over the same issue.

Rumors dating back as far as March have suggested that Apple has been looking to work with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) for production of Apple's series of custom system-on-a-chip packages used in its iOS devices. Those rumors have firmed up over time, with TSMC reportedly having begun trial production of Apple's next-generation A6 chip using a new 28-nm process, down from the 40-nm process used in the current A5 chip.

Digitimes now reports that Apple's deal with TSMC may be even more extensive than first thought, extending beyond the A6 to the following generation, which would presumably be called the A7. The A7 would seem to see a further die shrink, with TSMC working toward developing a 20-nm process for the A7.

Apple has recently signed a foundry partnership agreement with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), industry sources have claimed. Under the terms of the agreement, TSMC will apply its 28nm and 20nm process technologies to produce Apple's next-generation CPUs, according to the sources.

[...]

TSMC is believed to have quietly secured Apple's contract, and even succeeded in extending the deal to cover the manufacture for the A6's successor, the sources said.

Samsung has been Apple's exclusive supplier for its custom A4 and A5 chips, but TSMC has aggressively pursued Apple's business with commitments to move the technology rapidly forward, also offering Apple the opportunity to shift production away from Samsung, which has become a fierce adversary in the smartphone and tablet market with its own Android-based products. Apple and Samsung are currently locked in a wide-ranging intellectual property dispute involving numerous lawsuits around the world.

The New York Times' Nick Bilton weighs in during the lead-up to the iPhone 5 introduction, unsurprisingly noting that an announcement is "just weeks away".

We’re just weeks away from the announcement of the new Apple iPhone 5, according to an Apple employee who asked not to be named because he was not allowed to speak publicly for the company.

The report goes on to reference the Case-Mate cases that briefly appeared today, sharing that the design is very similar to what has been described by anonymous Apple employees.

From descriptions I’ve heard of the new iPhone from Apple employees, the images seemed potentially authentic.

There has been considerable debate for months now about whether the iPhone 5 will represent a truly updated form factor, an iPhone 4-like refresh focusing on internal upgrades, or perhaps both.

Bilton echoes a number of previous claims that the next-generation iPhone will receive an upgraded 8-megapixel camera, up from 5 megapixels in the iPhone 4. Also mentioned is the possibility of near-field communication (NFC) technology for payments, a topic Bilton addressed earlier this year, but it is apparently still unclear whether NFC will arrive in the iPhone 5 or iPhone 6. More recent claims have suggested that the iPhone 5 will not offer NFC capabilities.