MacRumors

Research firm IDC today released results for global mobile phone sales for the second quarter of 2011, showing strong growth for Apple as it sits firmly in fourth place and closes quickly on LG in the race for third place among global phone vendors.

Apple maintained its number four position overall but closed the gap on Top 5 competitors thanks to another record unit shipment quarter. The company easily posted the highest growth rate of the worldwide leaders despite the fact that its flagship iPhone 4 is now more than a year old. The triple-digit shipment volume growth allowed Apple to more than double its share when compared to the same quarter last year. Apple’s ability to bring its smartphone momentum to developing economies, where it’s less successful, will help dictate the company’s smartphone fortunes in future.

Apple's share of the global market grew to 5.6% after hitting the 5% milestone last quarter, and grew up over 140% year-over-year against the backdrop of a market that grew by only 11.3% overall.

IDC within the next few days should be breaking down the data to reveal results for smartphones specifically, and while Apple has been reported to have passed Nokia to become the world's largest smartphone vendor, some analysts have suggested that Samsung may have ridden Android's popularity to even stronger growth that may have allowed it to surpass Apple last quarter.

Apple may be looking at an acquisition of bookseller Barnes & Noble, according to an "unproven source" at BGR:

We received a tip from an unproven source claiming to have knowledge of discussions within Apple to possibly purchase Barnes & Noble...

This unproven source also said that iTunes 11 would be released in September along with iOS 5 and iCloud, and will support reading iBooks on computers as well as textbook purchases and rentals.

It's unclear what Apple would gain from such a purchase. B&N has more than 700 stores plus another 600 college bookstores, as well as decent digital penetration with its own eBookstore and Nook e-reader.

Barnes & Noble is currently trading with a market cap just above $1b, which would be a very small dent in Apple's $76 billion cash pile, though the price would obviously be higher as a takeover premium.

We're a little skeptical about the whole thing and mention it primarily to encourage conversation. If Apple really wanted to purchase a bookseller, it could have bought Borders at fire sale prices. Wall Street seems unimpressed by the rumor: Barnes & Noble's stock price is flat on the day.

(Image via Flickr/cjc4454)

As noted by This is my next..., Logitech today revealed that its Google-TV based "Revue" set-top box has been a complete flop, actually recording negative sales numbers last quarter as returns exceeded new sales. In response, Logitech has announced that it will be slashing the Revue's price from $249 to a below-cost $99 and taking a $34 million charge to cover the loss.

Google TV had been seen as a major push into combining television viewing with Internet content, but got off to a rough start as Google asked manufacturers to hold off on introducing Google TV hardware as it sought to refine the software. But the Logitech Revue had already hit the market as a launch product for the concept, and has been unable to find a footing in the consumer market.

Apple has long been treading carefully in the television market with the Apple TV, and Steve Jobs noted in an interview at the D8 conference in June 2010 that the subsidized set-top boxes used by cable companies have squashed innovation in the television market.

On the future of television: "Subsidized set-top boxes have squashed innovation because no one wants to pay for separate boxes...ask TiVo, Roku, us, Google in a few months. The set-top box needs to be torn up and redesigned to get people things they way they want them. And there's no go-to-market strategy for that. With the iPhone, and now the iPad, we could partner with carriers, but television is very balkanized...everything is local.

Apple made its next attempt at the television market a few months later with the second-generation Apple TV, but even still that is primarily a hub for iTunes content with a few third-party streaming services like Netflix, MLB.tv, and NBA League Pass also being supported. Apple has repeatedly referred to the Apple TV as a "hobby", noting that the company feels that "there is something there" but that television presents a very difficult challenge for developing a go-to-market strategy.

For several years, analysts and other sources have been claiming that Apple is trying to develop its own Apple-branded television set integrating iTunes Store connectivity. The company's only public statements on the matter have, however, expressed strong disinterest in such a move given the competitive environment and low margins in the industry, but Apple has certainly been known to publicly dismiss certain ideas even as it has been working on implementing them.

While Apple released new MacBook Air and Mac mini models alongside OS X Lion last week, the company also updated its other Mac lines to begin shipping them with Lion. But Apple changed a bit more than just the operating system on those models, as MacTrast details with a comparison of a new MacBook Pro with Lion pre-installed to another MacBook Pro purchased just a few months ago.

The difference between the two versions is immediately obvious from the product packaging, as the artwork now shows a machine with the OS X Lion default desktop image rather than the Mac OS X Snow Leopard one. Apple has also tweaked part numbers and manuals to reflect the change to Lion.

And, as seen in Apple's standalone keyboards, the company has also quietly tweaked the MacBook Pro's keyboard to convert the F3 key's function from Exposé to Mission Control and the F4 key's function from Dashboard to Launchpad.

Finally, Apple no longer includes restore discs of any sort, a move that could cause difficulties for the occasional user who finds the need or desire to perform a clean install of Lion on a bare hard drive. Apple's new MacBook Air and Mac mini models support a Lion feature called Internet Recovery that allows the operating system to be reinstalled to a bare hard drive, but other current hardware now shipping with Lion does not support the feature.

For its part, Apple does not consider hard drives to be user-replaceable components on most machines and would expect users experiencing failures of their hard drives to go through Apple for replacement during the one-year warranty period, under which circumstances Apple would of course provide a replacement drive with Lion installed. But for other circumstances, Apple has clearly made it difficult for users to perform clean installs of OS X Lion on new hard drives on their own. The Lion USB thumb drive set to debut next month will offer one solution for the problem, but represents a separate $69 purchase for users who are already licensed to use Lion through their machine purchases.

A series of images of what are claimed to be a prototype lower-cost iPhone 4 have been posted to Vietnamese site Tinhte.vn. The images are said to come from a "very reliable source" and are said to represent a lower-cost version of the iPhone 4. Machine translation describes an iPhone 4 but using plastic instead of glass to lower costs:

Some other information that you want to transfer to you is that this machine seems to run faster than the iPhone 4, lighter weight and two glass front and back seem to have been replaced by two plastic sheets, type of sensation and cry other than the iPhone 4.

Vinhte.vn is notable for being one of the sites with early access to one of the original iPhone 4 prototypes. They've also posted photos and video from an iPod Touch prototype with camera as well as 64 GB White iPhone 4 running a special version of iOS 4 with Expose-like multitasking.

There has been speculation about the possibility of two new iPhone models this year, including a cheaper model alongside the iPhone 5. The role of the cheaper model would be to penetrate the mid range smartphone market with another device. The existing iPhone 4 may be too expensive to produce as is to fill this gap.

Update: Some have suggested that the device is simply a regular jailbroken iPhone 4 with either matte protection films on the front and back or an early conversion kit utilizing plastic parts to turn black iPhone 4 units into white ones. While either of these explanations may be true, the original poster seems to believe that the device is genuine, and his track record of having obtained access to an iPhone 4 prototype ahead of the device's introduction as well as other prototype iOS devices adds weight to his claims.

The China Times pinpoints the iPhone 5 release to the second week of September with an initial order of 4 million units. Suppliers are said to be currently preparing 400,000 trial run units. The news report also reports that the next iPad may be delayed until Thanksgiving due to component shortages.

A mid September launch lines up nicely with current expectations for the iPhone 5 release. Apple has held an iPod media event in September for the past 3 years. With no iPhone release during this year's WWDC, Apple is expected to include the iPhone launch at this September event alongside the public release of iOS 5.

There's been some debate about what features the iPhone 5 will include. Recently leaked case designs have shown some major design changes, while other sources have said the iPhone 5 will look largely like the iPhone 4.

The China Times has had a hit or miss record with Apple-related rumors, though they do seem close to Apple's suppliers in China and may certainly have knowledge of their production plans. Reuters had previously also reported the iPhone 5 would see a September release with production beginning in July.

TechCrunch noted that Qualcomm had recently released their Augmented Reality Software Development Kit (SDK) for iOS. The SDK had originally been available for Android but Qualcomm had promised its release in July for iOS. The SDK should make it easier for developers to integrate virtual content with real content such as images captured by cameras found on many portable devices.

Augmented reality applications are nothing new for iOS, with Apple having introduced support for the technology in iPhone OS 3.1 nearly two years ago and a number of applications such as Layar Reality Browser and Word Lens having embraced it, but Qualcomm's tools will make for easier cross-platform adoption that could increase developer interest.

Qualcomm had held an Augmented Reality Application Developer Challenge last year to promote the use of their SDK. The video above shows the winners from that contest. The first version of the iOS SDK is said to support iPhone 4, iPad 2, and 4th Generation iPod Touch.

Earlier this week, a purported case design for the iPhone 5 surfaced showing tapered edges more reminiscent of pre-iPhone 4 designs along with a possible larger screen and gesture area around the home button.

That schematic is not merely a random design drawing, however, as 9 to 5 Mac has received photos of an actual case apparently manufactured based on that design, which has reportedly been shopped around to manufacturers.

The new case does appear to portend a thinner design if it is indeed for the iPhone 5, but is unable to address claims of a larger screen or gesture area due a lack of covering on the front of the device. Placement of the physical features on the purported iPhone 5 appears nearly identical to the current iPhone, with the exception of what appears to a movement of the mute switch to the opposite side. This places the switch adjacent to the device's rear camera on the right side of the device as viewed from the front, as opposed to above the volume buttons on the left side.

Accommodations for the power and volume buttons are indeed present on the purported iPhone 5 case, although difficult to see in the photos as the case utilizes only small nubs of silicone covering the buttons rather than holes allowing direct access to them. Notably, the volume controls appear more like the elongated buttons found on the current iPod touch than the round individual buttons of the iPhone 4, a change which would make sense with an iPod touch-like tapered design for the new iPhone.

This latest case design is not the first to be claimed to be for the iPhone 5, however, as cases suggesting a nearly identical design to the iPhone 4 appeared in March while others apparently showing the rear camera flash moved to the opposite side away from the camera lens itself showed up in May.

John Christman purchased OS X Lion on July 23, and paid $31.79 after sales tax. Then, his PayPal account was charged $31.79 an additional 121 times, for a total of $3,878.40.

Clearly Mr. Christman didn't need 122 copies of Lion, and something has gone awry. John got in touch with both PayPal and Apple support, but said both sides pointed fingers at each other. "Apple Blames PayPal, PayPal blames Apple. They both are claiming to investigate, but I am stuck broke for three days now."

Christman thinks it is related to the new iCloud feature that allows iTunes to automatically download previous purchases:

I fresh installed Lion, because the upgrade caused a lot of problems. My system needed as fresh start anyway.

I logged into our developer account and got the latest iTunes Beta, and installed it. iTunes has a cool new feature to download all your purchased apps for you.
I clicked download all.

As each download started it charged me $31.79. Some apps came fast, some took longer, but the timing was directly related to when a new app started to download.

He downloaded 116 apps total, but noted that several apps failed to download and needed to be restarted. 116 apps downloaded and 121 extra charges seems too close to be mere coincidence.

Christman isn't the only person to face these issues surrounding Lion and PayPal. There is a lengthy discussion on Apple's support website about the issue, and other bloggers have run into similar problems.

Even though the purchases above say "refunded", Christman says he hasn't seen a dime. "Apple claims there was only one transaction. When I told PayPal to dispute them, they closed the cases and marked the items as refunded on the 23rd. Bear in mind all this money was taken and never returned yet."

"My mortgage is due in 2 days, and thanks to them, I don't have the money."

MacRumors reached out to Apple for comment, who said they would work with John directly to try to get his issues resolved.