MacRumors

A new study from market research firm Gartner pegs Apple's share of the personal computer market in the UK at 5.0% for the third quarter of 2009, ranking the company fifth among all vendors. The company's unit shipments increased 26.6% to move up considerably from a market share of 3.8% in the year-ago quarter.

Gartner's UK PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 3Q09 (Thousands of Units)

Most of the vendors are facing a difficult time. "Interestingly, two vendors at either end of the price spectrum are winning the battle. At one end, Acer continued to provide price-conscious products through multiple channels to attract a wider buying audience. At the other end, Apple leveraged the "halo" effect of the Apple brand created by the iPods and iPhones into the PC arena, dominating the mid to higher price brackets."

The report notes that Apple only barely claimed the fifth position in the rankings, as Samsung generated outstanding growth of over 200% year-over-year to leap to 4.8% market share.

Gartner's data also covered individual statistics for France and Germany, as well as broader numbers for all of Western Europe, but Apple was unable to break into the top five vendors in any of those surveys.

Apple has traditionally performed much better in its home market of the United States than it has in international markets, with the company claiming 8.8% of the US market during the same quarter. The new UK results, however, demonstrate even stronger growth there than in the US over the past year, suggesting that Apple's continued success has spilled over to its international markets significantly enough to begin ranking with the market leaders there.

Security firm Intego reports that it has spotted new malware, termed iPhone/Privacy.A, that is capable of allowing hackers to access personal information stored on certain jailbroken iPhones and iPod touches. Non-jailbroken iPhones are not vulnerable to the malware.

While full details of the tool are not disclosed, it is reported to utilize the same method as the "Rickrolling" worm deployed in Australia late last week, suggesting that the new malware would only affect jailbroken iPhones and iPod touches whose users have installed SSH for remote access capabilities and failed to change the default password. It is unclear the extent to which the tool has been seen in the wild, although Intego currently categorizes the risk of the malware as "low".

When connecting to a jailbroken iPhone, this tool allows a hacker to silently copy a treasure trove of user data from a compromised iPhone: e-mail, contacts, SMSs, calendars, photos, music files, videos, as well as any data recorded by any iPhone app. Unlike the ikee worm, which signals its presence by changing the iPhone's wallpaper, this hacker tool gives no indication that it has invaded an iPhone.

Intego notes that the tool works by being installed onto a computer and then scanning the computer's network to find vulnerable iPhones.

This hacker tool could easily be installed, for example, on a computer on display in a retail store, which could then scan all iPhones that pass within the reach of its network. Or, a hacker could sit in an Internet caf and let his computer scan all iPhones that come within the range of the wifi network in search of data. Hackers could even install this tool on their own iPhones, and use it to scan for jailbroken phones as they go about their daily business.

While antivirus software can protect computers from serving as hosts for the malicious software, Intego also notes that because no software is installed on the iPhone or iPod touch during the process, no external protection for users who are vulnerable to the malware can be deployed. Vulnerable users must change their default SSH passwords in order to thwart access attempts.

Earlier this week, we noted that customers were receiving notifications that their quad-core Core i5-based 27" iMac orders had begun shipping. At the time, we had not received word about the status of order for machines carrying Intel's Core i7 processor, a $200 upgrade over the Core i5 models.

A number of readers have now reported, however, that their Core i7-based iMac orders have been shipped, with the majority of customers reporting delivery scheduled for next week.

Apple's new 16:9 widescreen iMacs in 21.5" and 27" sizes were released last month, with all 21.5" models and Intel Core 2 Duo-based 27" models shipping immediately upon launch. High-end 27" models carrying the desktop-class Core i5 and Core i7 processors, however, were announced as not shipping until November.

New orders for all 27" models are showing some delays in shipping, with Core 2 Duo models currently showing shipment in 7-10 business days and Core i5 and i7 models still simply listing a "November" shipping date, but customers who placed early orders for the machines should expect to receive them in fairly short order.

MacMall is offering MacRumors readers an exclusive 3% off iMac purchases on top of existing rebates. 3% additional discount applied at checkout.

Telephony Online reports on data from research firm Strategy Analytics that places Apple as the most profitable mobile phone manufacturer in the world for the third quarter of 2009. Apple's estimated $1.6 billion profit easily topped Nokia's $1.1 billion take for the quarter.

The firm estimates that Apple's iPhone operating profit came in at $1.6 billion in Q3, while Nokia recorded only $1.1 billion in operating profit. "With strong volumes, high wholesale prices and tight cost controls, the PC vendor has successfully broken into the mobile phone market in just two years," said analyst Alex Spektor in the research note.

Earlier this year, data from 2008 pegged Apple at approximately 20% of the mobile phone industry's total profit despite holding only about 1% unit market share. Nokia was reported to have accounted for 55% of the industry's profit in 2008.

More recently, a separate survey covering the first half of 2009 estimated Apple's share of industry profits at 32% with $2.0 billion in operating profit in its iPhone business. Apple just edged out Nokia's $1.9 billion profit, which accounted for 30% of the total industry profit, in that survey.

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) today announced that it has officially issued specifications as part of the DisplayPort 1.1a standard for the Mini DisplayPort connector developed by Apple and implemented on its Macs since the October 2008 introduction of the 24" LED Cinema Display and refreshed MacBooks and MacBook Pros.

Apple had initially offered the standard on its own as a no-fee license in order to encourage adoption, but VESA announced early this year that it would include the Mini DisplayPort specification in its next update to the broader DisplayPort standard, opening the door for even simpler adoption by other manufacturers.

Originally developed by Apple for its new generation of portable PCs, Mini DisplayPort is much smaller than DVI (Digital Video Interface) or VGA connectors and enables full function display output on ultrathin notebooks and netbooks. Earlier this year, Apple agreed to license the mDP interface to VESA for inclusion in the DisplayPort standard.

VESA also announced that it is in the process of finalizing DisplayPort Standard 1.2, which will double the available bandwidth and open the door to a broad range of improvements in display connectivity.

VESA is finalizing DisplayPort 1.2, which incorporates mDP and doubles available bandwidth to 21.6 Gb/second. The increased bandwidth enables new capabilities such as multi-monitor support via a single output connector, higher resolutions, refresh rates and color depths, along with high performance 3D displays.

OS X Daily confirms widespread reports of the loss of support for Intel's Atom processors in the Mac OS X 10.6.2 update released yesterday, confirming on-again, off-again claims of the change in developer seeds of the update. Given that the final public release of 10.6.2 is labeled Build 10C540, the same as the most recent developer seed that reportedly lacked Atom support, it comes as no surprise that the public release carries the same change.

If you have an official Apple Mac then go right ahead and update to Mac OS X 10.6.2, but if you have a Hackintosh Mac Netbook... well you will want to hold off. It has been confirmed that the final release of 10.6.2 kills Intel Atom support officially. Hackintosh Guru StellaRolla reports:

"The netbook forums are now blowing up with problems of 10.6.2 instant rebooting their Atom based netbooks."

Intel's low-power Atom processors are widely used in netbook computers, a market segment in which Apple does not currently compete. Netbooks have been popular targets for users to modify into "Hackintoshes" to run Mac OS X, providing users with a low-cost Mac solution in a small form factor machine.

It is unclear why Apple has chosen to remove Atom support from OS X at this time, although speculation has centered around the possibility that the company is attempting to make it more difficult for users to build their own netbook Macs ahead of a launch of the company's much-rumored tablet device. Apple had been rumored to be looking to adopt the Atom platform for its tablet, but the company's April 2008 acquisition of low-power ARM chip design firm P.A. Semi signaled a shift toward a possible future in-house chip design for the device.

Apple today released Mac OS X 10.6.2, the second maintenance update for Snow Leopard, via Software Update and the company's software downloads page. The update brings several bug fixes, reportedly including one for a serious issue involving Guest accounts that has caused some users to lose all data from their primary user accounts.

The 10.6.2 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, including fixes for:

- an issue that might cause your system to logout unexpectedly
- a graphics distortion in Safari Top Sites
- Spotlight search results not showing Exchange contacts
- a problem that prevented authenticating as an administrative user
- issues when using NTFS and WebDAV file servers
- the reliability of menu extras
- an issue with the 4-finger swipe gesture
- an issue that causes Mail to quit unexpectedly when setting up an Exchange server
- Address Book becoming unresponsive when editing
- a problem adding images to contacts in Address Book
- an issue that prevented opening files downloaded from the Internet
- Safari plug-in reliability
- general reliability improvements for iWork, iLife, Aperture, Final Cut Studio, MobileMe, and iDisk
- an issue that caused data to be deleted when using a guest account

For detailed information on this update, please visit this website: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3874.
For information on the security content of this update, please visit: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222.

The most recent developer build of OS X 10.6.2, Build 10C540, was seeded last week Wednesday. Rumors have pointed to the removal of support for Intel Atom processors in 10.6.2, creating issues for netbook users who have modified their devices to run OS X and are looking to upgrade their software.

- Mac OS X v10.6.2 Update (473 MB)
- Mac OS X v10.6.2 Update (Combo) (479 MB)
- Mac OS X Server v10.6.2 Update (496 MB)
- Mac OS X Server v10.6.2 Update (Combo) (503 MB)

Apple has also released Security Update 2009-006 for users on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

- Security Update 2009-006 Client (143 MB)
- Security Update 2009-006 Server (231 MB)

Several MacRumors readers have reported that they have received notification from Apple that their Intel Core i5-based quad-core 27" iMac orders have been shipped from Shanghai. There is no word yet on whether the upgraded Intel Core i7-based version of the quad-core model has also begun shipping.

Apple released its new 21.5" and 27" iMacs late last month, but announced at the time that the quad-core 27" models would not begin shipping until sometime this month. Pricing on the 2.66 GHz Core i5-based model begins at $1,999, with a $200 upgrade to the 2.8 GHz Core i7 also available. The use of these quad-core processors in the new iMac marks the first usage of desktop-class processors in Apple's "thin" iMac designs, as the model has traditionally utilized mobile processors for their lower heat output.

Google today announced that it has agreed to acquire mobile advertising firm AdMob in a deal valued at $750 million. AdMob is currently the world's largest mobile advertising provider and is utilized by many of the top ad-supported iPhone applications.

The deal will help Google in its efforts to develop more effective tools for creating, serving and analyzing emerging mobile ads formats. As this ecosystem continues to grow, the company expects these new marketing media to offer significant benefits:

- Advertisers will be better able to engage mobile users with AdMob's ad formats
- Publishers and developers will be able to monetize their content more effectively, which has benefits for the wider mobile ecosystem
- Users will see more relevant ads and ultimately get access to more ad-supported content and applications - improving their mobile experience

In a blog post about the pending deal, Google executives Susan Wojcicki and Vic Gundotra note the attractive market presented by iPhone and Android users for mobile advertising:

We've written in the past about how mobile phones are becoming an increasingly indispensable part of our daily lives, and we continue to see how great devices with full Internet browsers and vibrant app marketplaces are driving an explosion of usage. In fact:

- iPhone and Android users browse the Internet more often than anyone else [Morgan Stanley], contributing to Google's 5x mobile search growth over the past two years
- And a quarter of these same iPhone and Android users spend nearly 90 minutes per day using applications on their devices [AdMob]

Google has also posted an information site with full details of the proposed AdMob acquisition.

Several weeks ago, word surfaced that recent developer builds of Mac OS X 10.6.2 had ceased to support Intel's Atom processors, the basis of many netbook systems popular with those who wish to modify non-Apple systems to run OS X. The news set off a tremendous amount of discussion about the change until additional news surfaced that Atom compatibility had resurfaced in a subsequent developer seed, Build 10C535, released in late October.

A new post by developer and Tumblr user stellarola who has been monitoring the situation indicates that the claim of restored Atom support in Build 10C535 had been faked. He claims to have received confirmation from multiple sources that Atom is not supported in the latest developer seed, known as Build 10C540, released last week.

I spoke to another colleague of mine and he noticed the date of the kernel. He sent me a picture of his kernel information from 10.6.1, which uses the same kernel as 10.6.0. (The name has been removed for privacy purposes)

As you can see the date is exactly the same as the old kernel. Now, let's take a look at my gf's Core2Duo system that's running 10.6.2 Build 10C535. (The name has been removed for privacy purposes)

Obviously the date is different than the previous two. Anyone can tell the first image from "MachVoluM" is a fake. My sources still tell me the Atom CPU is still unsupported even in the latest 10.6.2 build 10C540.

A video has also been posted showing an MSI Wind netbook attempting to boot on the latest 10.6.2 seed, but being unable to do so.

iPhone Background Image Used in Worm

The worm, which could have spread to other countries although we have no confirmed reports outside Australia, is capable of breaking into jailbroken iPhones if their owners have not changed the default password after installing SSH. Once in place, the worm appears to attempt to find other iPhones on the mobile phone network that are similarly vulnerable, and installs itself again.

In analyzing the worm, Sophos has found multiple variants, as well as numerous comments within the code suggesting that the worm is an experiment to draw attention to the risks faced by users who have not taken appropriate steps to secure their devices.

The source code is littered with comments from the author suggesting the worm has been written as an experiment. One of the comments berates affected users for not following instructions when installing SSH, because if they had changed the default password the worm would not have been able to infect them.

A forum poster known as ike_x on the Australian forum where the worm was first discussed has taken credit for the exploit and has been assisting affected users with removing it from their systems.