Late last week, Netputing revealed that Mac OS X Lion Developer Previews include an option to install new text-to-speech voices. The voices were actually found to be identical to voices from a Nuance speech product, seemingly confirming that Apple will be using Nuance technology in Mac OS X Lion. The voices aren't quite yet usable in Lion, as Netputing notes that you currently get an error message in Lion when trying to install them. OSX Daily, however, points out that the voices are available online for sample:
The new voices are distinct improvements over the previous text-to-speech voices.
Rumors had pegged Apple's Nuance negotiations to be centered around iOS 5 rather than Mac OS X Lion, although there could be a broader agreement between the two companies. Apple's interest in Nuance seems primarily due to their speech recognition technology rather than text-to-speech functionality, as Siri had used Nuance to power their voice-activated search. Apple acquired Siri in April 2010 and is expected to integrate its technology into iOS.
The monthly magazines will run $1.99 per issue or $19.99 per year on the iPad, with current print subscribers receiving the iPad issues for free. Print subscriptions are available directly through the magazines' websites for the same price as the iPad versions: $19.99/year, notably keeping Conde within Apple's pricing guidelines for in-app subscriptions.
From an internal memo by Conde Nast President Bob Sauerberg:
Today's rollout follows last Monday's successful debut of iPad subscriptions for The New Yorker, which was the top-grossing app for most of the week. We're clearly tapping into the enormous appetite consumers have for our award-winning content.
Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to bring this next important step in our digital growth to market on schedule. We should all be exceedingly proud of each and every milestone.
A Conde Nast spokesperson declined to comment when asked about iPad subscription numbers for The New Yorker.
With in-app subscriptions for five Conde Nast magazines now available for the iPad, subscriptions for the publisher's remaining three iPad magazines (Wired, Self and GQ) should be rolling out by the end of the month.
MacStories reports that Apple retail stores are holding all-hands employee meetings on Sunday, May 22nd. While it's not unusual for Apple to hold such meetings, the early timing of the meeting seems strange.
Store meetings at 7AM Sunday across United States. Unusual time. Expecting some announcement. All stores, brand-wide US. Don't know about other countries.
While there had previously been some speculation about some sort of 10th anniversary Apple retail event, we'd heard that this may simply be due to training.
Boy Genius Report also details some of the seemingly extreme measures:
- There's an overnight shift planned for around 10-15 individuals at each Apple Store to work from late Saturday all the way through mid-Sunday. - During the overnight shift, it's going to be required that employees lock cell phones in the main office. They will also have to sign an NDA with Apple. - There are a wide variety of roles, we're told, for the overnight shift. This includes all visuals staff, a manager, a business team member, a few Genius team members, one back-of-house employee, and a few generic Apple specialists. - Apple stores have apparently already received hardware to install, and are expecting more hardware to come on Friday or Saturday. All materials that Apple stores have received have been instructed to be under lock and key until after close on Saturday night. - Apple employees will be putting up black curtains at all stores so that people walking outside cannot see inside. - Employees have had to download gigabytes of data from Apple corporate labeled, "training" in a password-protected zipped folder that won't accessible to managers or anyone else until Saturday afternoon. - Lastly, all Apple retail stores have mandatory meetings on Sunday, May 22nd. Most meeting are scheduled for the morning, but there are evening meetings as well.
The on-again off-again rumors around Apple including Near Field Communications (NFC) in the next iteration of the iPhone took an off-again turn this morning in a research note from Bernstein, courtesy of Business Insider. According to the report, Bernstein analysts claim that the next iPhone will not have mobile payment support via NFC. From Business Insider:
Apple's next iPhone, said to be called the 4S, will not have the mobile payment support through NFC (near field communication) says Bernstein in a note this morning.
We don't have the full note, just highlights from a Bloomberg terminal.
NFC in the iPhone would allow users to pay for things by waving their phone at the register or get airline tickets electronically and check in with a wave of the iPhone. The technology has not, however, taken off yet in the United States to the degree that it has in other areas of the world, and Apple may still see the inclusion of NFC capabilities in the iPhone as premature for either technical or logistical reasons.
Most indications suggest the next version of the iPhone, rumored to be called the iPhone 4S, won't be a sea-change device like the jump from the iPhone 3GS to the iPhone 4 was, although the inclusion of NFC could be an important enhancement should Apple choose to adopt it. Rumors of Apple including NFC in the next iPhone have been the subject of a seemingly endless back-and-forth, and while it appears that NFC will be included in some future iPhone revision, there is scant evidence that the next-generation iPhone in particular will have the technology. The New York Timesclaimed in March that Apple will include NFC in a "coming iteration" of the iPhone, but stopped short of declaring when that inclusion is scheduled to take place.
Seagate has introduced the GoFlex Satellite portable hard drive for use with iOS devices such as the iPad and iPhone. The external hard drive includes a Wi-Fi interface as well as the ability to stream photos and movies to your iOS device.
Rather than rely on a buffered stream from a distant provider, GoFlex Satellite mobile storage wirelessly serves up media content as a local attached storage for up to three devices at the same time. With a stand-by battery life of up to 25 hours, the powerful lithium polymer battery delivers up to 5 hours of continuously streaming video.
The expected use case is for you to fill up your drive with movies and media prior to travel and to use the device as a local wireless server. Movies can be streamed over any browser, but there is also an iOS-specific app that lets you interface the media. It supports streaming to up to 3 devices at once. It comes with 500GB of storage, offers USB connectivity to your Mac, and 25 hours of standby and 5 hours of battery life. It's presently available from Amazon and BestBuy.com for $199.
Last late week, we reported that patent holding firm Lodsys had apparently begun targeting small iOS developers with notices of patent infringement for providing in-app purchase and/or App Store purchase links within their apps. Lodsys was requesting that the developers obtain a license within 21 days or face the prospect of a lawsuit.
Lodsys has finally written publicly about the notices, putting together a blog offering responses to a number of questions about the company's actions. Among the interesting revelations:
- In addressing claims that the patents being used by Lodsys are overly broad and obvious and should never have been granted in the first place, Lodsys argues that with the patents dating back nearly 20 years, that much hindsight naturally makes such inventions seem obvious.
- The company also seeks to defend its business model as the most efficient way to handle intellectual property licensing for small inventors such as Dan Abelow, who filed the patents in question. While some have criticized Lodsys for pursuing licensing rights for technology it neither invented nor directly uses, the company argues that its existence creates efficiencies that improve the level of innovation, noting that Abelow was able to sell off his rights to the patents in order to focus on new inventions rather than having to focus on the task of licensing. In passing that responsibility off to another entity, each party is able to focus on what they do best and extract value from inventions.
Apple Already a Licensee?
- Lodsys is targeting developers not because it is seeking to put pressure on Apple, as Apple has already licensed the intellectual property for use in its own products and services, as have Google and Microsoft. Lodsys states that each developer should be responsible for licensing the technology in individual apps, rather than Apple being responsible for an overarching agreement, making an analogy that a hotel owner rather than the owner of the land beneath the hotel is responsible for all services provided to guests.
Licensing Terms
- Lodsys' proposed licensing terms equal 0.575% of U.S. revenue for in-app upgrades, with developers also being responsible for past usage.
In the case of an Application doing an in-application upgrade (and only this scenario), Lodsys is seeking 0.575% of US revenue over for the period of the notice letter to the expiration of the patent, plus applicable past usage. So on an application that sells US$1m worth of sales in a year, the licensee would have an economic exposure of $5,750 per year.
Death Threats "Seriously Uncool"
- Finally, Lodsys notes that it has received a significant amount of hate mail and even death threats from a number of parties, apparently even including those developers who have received notice of licensing requirements. Calling the death threats in particular "seriously uncool", Lodsys argues that such behavior doesn't help the situation and that the company, like the developers, is simply trying to sell its products and make a profit.
Janmike34 posted a nicely produced concept video for how Nuance's voice recognition could be integrated into iOS 5. In essence, text fields can become speech recognition fields by tapping and holding on text fields. This functionality can be offered to 3rd party applications as well using the standard iOS text field.
While a nicely produced video, it's not more impressive than what Google's Android has, nor is it even more impressive than the technology we've known Apple has acquired:
Apple acquired Siri in April 2010. Steve Jobs has said that Siri's acquisition was for their artificial intelligence technology. Nuance is the company that powered Siri's speech recognition, so it's no surprise that Apple is negotiating with Nuance for use of their technology in iOS 5.
While the occasional 2011 refurbished MacBook Pros have been trickling into the online Apple Store over the past couple of weeks, a couple of readers have noticed that there's been a notable increase in availability of 2011 models over the past couple of days.
Apple is presently listing the following refurbished 2011 MacBook Pros:
Refurbished MacBook Pro 2.3GHz dual-core Intel i5 Refurbished MacBook Pro 2.7GHz dual-core Intel i7 Refurbished MacBook Pro 2.7GHz dual-core Intel i7 Refurbished MacBook Pro 2.2GHz quad-core Intel i7 Refurbished MacBook Pro 2.3GHz quad-core Intel i7
Inventory of refurbished items tends to be transitory, but all models are tested by Apple and come with a 1 year warranty.
Apple.pro has posted photos comparing parts of the iPhone 5 camera components alongside the iPhone 4 camera components. (via 9to5mac) Notably, the iPhone 5 rear camera does not come with an integrated Flash attached to it. This would suggest that the case photo posted earlier today may be accurate, and that the next generation iPhone's camera flash will be located separately from the camera.
Apple.pro offers this photoshop mockup of the camera and flash in separate locations:
Patently Apple points to a newly published patent application which could show one possible reason Apple is so interested in Nuance's speech recognition technology. Apple is rumored to be in negotiations with Nuance for the use of their speech recognition engine in iOS 5.
The patent application offers a possible solution to two different scenarios where it would be hard for someone to answer a phone in the usual way.
Problem One: Communicating in Noisy Environments A smartphone user may sometimes have to make or answer a phone call in a noisy environment. Noise could interfere with a phone conversation to a degree that the conversation is no longer intelligible to either conversing party. A user in the noisy environment may try to scream into the phone over the noise, but the screaming and the noise may render the voice signal unintelligible at the other end. .... Problem Two: Unable to Communicate During a Meeting In another scenario, it may be inconvenient for a user to talk on a phone. For example, users may be in a meeting and don't want to draw attention to themselves by speaking into the phone. The users may try to whisper into the phone, but the whispering may render the conversation unintelligible. The users may choose to send a text message to the other party, but the other party may be on a landline where texting is unavailable, or may not have a texting plan. It could be frustrating to conduct a telephone conversation when the environment is noisy or the circumstance is inappropriate for a user to speak.
In either scenario, the user is offered the possibility of communicating with the incoming phone call using text-to-speech and speech-to-text capabilities. If receiving a phone call in a loud restaurant or quiet meeting, you might be able to choose the ability to answer using text messaging. The text would later be then turned into speech for the caller to hear, and the caller's verbal responses would likewise be converted back into text.
Now, this is a novel implementation and the likelihood of Apple's implementing it into iOS 5 is probably low. Other perhaps more likely possibilities include the use of voice for search, phone navigation, and dictation for email/sms messages.
GadgetsDNA points to a new Chinese case design found on Alibaba that claims to be for the "iPhone 5G".
1.100% brand new high quality crystal case for iphone 5g . 2. Provides a comfortable grip, added protection against accidental drops . 3. Perfectly fits the iPhone 5g, easy to insert and remove .
What's unusual about the case is that it seems to depict a very thin-bezel design as well as a distinct camera design. (It should be noted that their iPhone 4 "crystal" designs also have little in the way of bezels") The camera flash appears to be on the opposite side of the case rather than adjacent to the camera itself.
While there's been talk of these more dramatic changes, the most recent reports have claimed that the next iPhone will actually only contain minor cosmetic differences over the iPhone 4.
It's possible we could see these design elements in the future if not the next release, as the iPod Touch camera was found in case designs a full release cycle ahead of the ultimate release.
Update: It should be noted that their iPhone 4 "crystal" cases also share the same thin edge, so the camera design alone may be main difference in the new iPhone case design. This would fit with the "minor cosmetic differences" described in the previous report.
Apple's new in-browser Reading List that was hidden in previous builds of Lion is now up and running. Reading List appears as a special shelf in the browser that is called upon with the special icon:
Sites can be added to your Reading List for later reading:
Per MacStories, Apple has released a new Mac OS X Lion Developer Preview 3 to its developers this evening as well as Xcode 4.1 Developer Preview 5. Apple last updated Lion for developers in late April. That version contained several UI changes presumably based on feedback from developers.
Apple is expected to discuss lion at WWDC which takes place in early June. Apple has targeted Mac OS X Lion for a summer release. No word yet on what's new in this build of Lion. The build for this latest version is 11A459e.
Update: MacStories reports: "We’re hearing the first changes in Lion DP 3 include a new boot animation, new graphical elements in the Finder’s toolbar, new desktop wallpapers and the Reading List, now enabled in Safari."
Update: Itsalltech.com details (with screenshots) many of the new changes in Lion:
- New options in System Preferences>Mission Control - There is a new animation when logging into the computer and displaying the desktop (seems buggy at this time) - New Reminders menu in iCal - New next desktop button in Dashboard space: - New options when right-clicking (this appears to be buggy at this time): - Compatibility to external displays has been improved (especially in Mission Control) - There is now a Mission Control app - Finder’s toolbar has been slightly updated: - Desktop wallpapers have been updated (and new ones have been added); - Reading List has been enabled in Safari: - New changes in Mission Control: can add “desktops” right from Mission Control by clicking “+” button, close spaces from Mission Control, Mission Control no longer displaying text “Desktop 1″ etc., when hovering over desktop thumbnails, magnification of thumbnails are seen - Scrollbars now change color depending on the background (black background=light scrollbar and vice versa):
MacRumors has received word that Apple today seeded the first developer build of Mac OS X 10.6.8. The build, termed 10K521, comes nearly two months after the public launch of Mac OS X 10.6.7.
No details on changes included in the update have yet been revealed.
Work on Mac OS X 10.6.8 comes as Apple continues to move toward a "summer" release of Mac OS X Lion, which has been in developer previews for some time now and will undoubtedly be a major focus of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference early next month. Consequently, Mac OS X 10.6.8 may be the final maintenance update for Snow Leopard, depending on how long it takes to make it through the refinement process and Apple's final timeframe for launching Lion.
Forbes reports on a new research note from Jeffries & Co. analyst Peter Misek claiming that Apple's next-generation iPhone will be a relatively minor revamp known as the "iPhone 4S" and will debut in September. Misek also claims that Apple will be expanding carrier availability in the U.S. to include Sprint and T-Mobile by the end of the year, with China Mobile also reportedly coming on board.
"According to our industry checks, the device should be called iPhone 4S and include minor cosmetic changes, better cameras, A5 dual-core processor, and HSPA+ support," he writes in a research note.
But he also says that "industry checks indicate Apple will likely announce Sprint, T-Mobile, and China Mobile as new carriers."
The "iPhone 4S" name first gained publicity last month in claims that Apple has been providing select high-level iOS developers with souped-up iPhone 4 devices, with the source citing an unofficial name of "iPhone 4S" for the device.
Misek's report goes on to note that the next-generation iPhone is not likely to bring compatibility with faster LTE 4G networks rolling out in some markets, as the required chipsets from Qualcomm are not yet available in quantity to support the inclusion of the technology.
As for LTE, he says the Qualcomm LTE chipset Apple would have used "is currently not achieving yields sufficient for inclusion in the iPhone 5." He says Apple had hoped to have the LTE chipsets ready, but was planning a version without LTE called iPhone 4S.
The claim regarding a lack of LTE compatibility in the next-generation iPhone fits with earlier reports that the required chipsets won't be available to make their way into handsets until 2012.
Bloomberg reports that Eastman Kodak has achieved a victory with an initial ruling from a U.S. International Trade Commission judge stating that the company has not infringed two Apple patents cited in a lawsuit filed last year. That lawsuit by Apple was initiated in response to a patent lawsuit by Kodak filed several months earlier.
Neither of the two patents in Apple's case before the ITC were being infringed, and one of the patents is invalid, Judge Robert Rogers in Washington said yesterday. The judge's findings are subject to review by the six-member ITC, which has the power to block imports of products that infringe U.S. patents.
A similar initial determination in Kodak's case against Apple and Research in Motion ruled against Kodak in January, but the broader ITC panel decided to reexamine the case, breathing new life into Kodak's efforts to extract as much as $1 billion in licensing fees from Apple and Research in Motion.
Just over two months ago, Adobe released a beta version of Flash Player 10.3, which notably included new privacy controls and integration within System Preferences on the Mac OS X platform. Also included was an automatic update notification system for Mac OS X.
- Media measurement (desktop only) - Measuring video usage just got easier. Using Adobe SiteCatalyst with Flash Player 10.3, developers can implement video analytics for websites with as little as two lines of code for the first time. Media Measurement for Flash Player allows companies to get real-time, aggregated reporting of how their video content is distributed, what their audience reach is, and how much video is played. Mobile support will be available in an upcoming release. - Acoustic echo cancellation (desktop only) - With Flash Player 10.3, developers can create real-time online collaboration experiences with high-quality audio for telephony, in-game voice chat, and group conferencing applications. Developers can take advantage of acoustic echo cancellation, noise suppression, voice activity detection, and automatic compensation for various microphone input levels. End users will be able to experience higher quality audio facilitating smoother conversation flow, without using a headset. - Enhanced privacy protection - Flash Player 10.3 enables local storage clearing within browsers' privacy settings and streamlines the controls of the Flash Player privacy, security and storage settings within the local control panel of desktop OSes. - Security enhancements including the support of auto-update notification for MacOS - See the Security Bulletin APSB11-12 for more details.
Flash Player 10.3 is available for Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, and Android.
MacRumors has received word that Apple today seeded the first developer build of Mac OS X 10.6.8. The build, termed 10K521, comes nearly two months after the 
Just over two months ago, Adobe 
