MacRumors

Bloomberg reports that Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs has acknowledged that the company is in talks to bring its chips to the iPhone.

"We continue to discuss it, but haven't made it yet," Jacobs said in a Bloomberg Television interview in Hong Kong today. "Hopefully, in the future, we will have the opportunity."

The vaguely worded statement makes it unclear whether Qualcomm is making a specific push for the iPhone or if Jacobs is simply acknowledging that the company is always looking for new opportunities for its products, wherever they may be.

Qualcomm is the company behind the CDMA2000 3G technology used by Verizon and Sprint for their wireless networks, lending hope to U.S. users hoping for an iPhone capable of being deployed on those companies' networks. It appears doubtful, however, that a CDMA2000-based iPhone would be able to make an appearance before the technology begins to be phased out in favor of the LTE 4G technology that vendors worldwide are coalescing around.

TechCrunch reports that Google is preparing to launch its own Android-based phone in the very near future, likely bringing yet another device designed to compete head-to-head with Apple's iPhone.

Most of our sources have unconfirmed information, which we describe below. But there are a few things we have absolutely confirmed: Google is building their own branded phone that they'll sell directly and through retailers. They were long planning to have the phone be available by the holidays, but it has now slipped to early 2010. The phone will be produced by a major phone manufacturer but will only have Google branding (Microsoft did the same thing with their first Zunes, which were built by Toshiba).

While Google reportedly played a major role in the design of the Motorola Droid that has gained significant publicity over the past month, the company's own phone would obviously provide it with even greater control over the final product.

There won't be any negotiation or compromise over the phone's design of features - Google is dictating every last piece of it. No splintering of the Android OS that makes some applications unusable. Like the iPhone for Apple, this phone will be Google's pure vision of what a phone should be.

Other information about the new device remains unknown, although TechCrunch is betting based on what it has been able to piece together that the device will be manufactured by a Korean partner, most likely LG.

Rumors of a Google phone have been circulating since at least early 2007, but in response to a question raised about whether a "Gphone" was in the works at the launch of the Android platform later that year, Google CEO Eric Schmidt offered only that if there were to be one, it would run Android.

Update: In a follow-up article, TechCrunch notes that it has now heard that the Google phone may lack traditional voice services, instead using only data services paired with VoIP for calling purposes.

Users could still make calls just like a normal phone, of course. The calls would just be over the data service instead. In fact, this is the exact vision Google proposed back in 2007 when they were bidding on the FCC auctions for the 700MHz spectrum.

Google can even issue phone numbers to users via Google Voice. In fact, I've already ported my mobile number to Google Voice, and Google has plans to roll out that feature more broadly. Google Voice can also handle the VoIP function for the phone.

The report notes that AT&T has been rumored to be the primary candidate bidding for the service, and may be willing to offer $20/month standalone data plans to Google phone users under certain conditions.

Less than three months after the launch of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, evidence has surfaced that Apple is already working on the next version of OS X, presumably to be designated Mac OS X 10.7. The information comes from an entry posted earlier today in a database of changes to the open source "launchd" framework, which oversees booting of Mac OS X and administers processes running on the system. In particular, today's entry cites an error message containing the text string "11A47", a reference to the Mac OS X build number being used.

< rdar://problem/7386864> 11A47: SecurityAgent no longer visible via Accessibility

Apple's build numbering scheme utilizes a numerical prefix indicating the major release version, followed by a letter code indicating the minor release version and a numerical suffix indicating iterations of that version throughout its development. For example, the initial shipping version of Mac OS X Snow Leopard was termed Build 10A432 while the 10.6.1 update carried a designation of Build 10B504 and the 10.6.2 update released last week was termed Build 10C540. Meanwhile, Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) carried a build number of 9A571 when it first launched.

Based on this numbering scheme, the "11A47" entry cited in the launchd change database would refer to the initial version of Mac OS X 10.7, with the "47" suffix indicating that, while still early in the development process, Apple has been working on builds of the next major operating system revision for at least the last month or two.

Of course, news that Apple appears to be working on Mac OS X 10.7 is certainly not surprising given the long development time required to refine and polish Apple's major operating system releases. While 10.6 incorporated many "under the hood" changes, however, some have speculated that we may see more radical end-user changes in 10.7.

The Wall Street Journal reports on progress for Apple's App Store in China, noting the challenges faced by the company due to a lack of Wi-Fi on official iPhones, a large installed base of unlocked and jailbroken iPhones, and high levels of piracy. But despite reportedly slow launch sales of the officially-sanctioned iPhone, the Chinese App Store is still managing to quickly expand its small market.

The market for legitimate Chinese iPhone apps is small but surging. Mr. Shi's company estimates about $1 million worth of legitimate iPhone apps have been sold so far this year, though the market could reach $6 million by next year. By comparison, mobile advertising firm AdMob says about $200 million in apps are sold overall through Apple's store each month.

Apple also faces challenges in its payments systems, with consumers required to hold a credit card issued by a Chinese bank, a relatively uncommon notion there, in order to purchase App Store content.

The report focuses on a number of applications that have become successful in China, from locally-produced content such as news and blogging applications from news portal Sina.com to versions of common Western applications such as Quickoffice and EA's Command & Conquer.

"Localization is most important. Products should be as much in line with Chinese lifestyles as possible," says Mr. Shi, who noted Texas Hold 'Em games likely wouldn't go over well.

A slideshow of ten popular apps is also presented, ranging from games such as Need for Speed Undercover and Gold Miner 2 to more Chinese-specific applications like Autonavi (the only Chinese navigation application, and the store's top revenue producer) and Powerword 2.0 (a Chinese-English translation app).

Adobe today launched a prerelease version of Flash Player 10.1 for Windows, Mac, and Linux, an early step in the company's effort to bring an integrated media experience to a wide variety of devices and platforms from desktops to smartphones.

Among the improvements available in the prerelease version are support for multi-touch and gestures, as well as local microphone access. Unfortunately, one of the most significant improvements of Flash Player 10.1, hardware-accelerated decoding of H.264 video, is presently only available in the Windows version. According to the release notes for Flash Player 10.1, the feature is unavailable on Mac OS X due to a lack of access to the programming interfaces needed to deploy it.

In Flash Player 10.1, H.264 hardware acceleration is not supported under Linux and Mac OS. Linux currently lacks a developed standard API that supports H.264 hardware video decoding, and Mac OS X does not expose access to the required APIs. We will continue to evaluate adding the feature to Linux and Mac OS in future releases.

In an early review of Flash Player 10.1, however, Anandtech still found significant improvements in CPU utilization under Mac OS X, dropping from 450% CPU load to 190% in viewing full-screen Hulu content on the Mac Pro used for testing.

Going from roughly 450% down to 190% (or a bit over 10% of total CPU utilization across 16 threads) made full-screen Hulu playable on my machine. In the past I always had to run it in a smaller window, but thanks to Flash 10.1 I don't have to any longer.

With actual GPU-accelerated H.264 decoding I'm guessing those CPU utilization numbers could drop to a remotely reasonable value. But it's up to Apple to expose the appropriate hooks to allow Adobe to (eventually) enable that functionality.

Until then, even OS X users have something to look forward to with the Flash 10.1 upgrade.

Additional information on the features of Flash Player 10.1, including several video demos and interviews, can be found on Adobe's site.

Earlier this month, AT&T filed suit against rival Verizon over a series of Verizon commercials attacking AT&T's wireless network, claiming that the ads were "blatantly false and misleading".

Late yesterday, Engadget reported that Verizon had filed a 53-page legal response to the lawsuit, and taken the opportunity to focus the case on what it claims is AT&T's failure to commit the resources to build out its network appropriately. The tone of Verizon's response is set from the very first sentence of its response's introduction:

AT&T did not file this lawsuit because Verizon's "There's A Map For That" advertisements are untrue; AT&T sued because Verizon's ads are true and the truth hurts.

Six pages later, Verizon concludes its introduction with a similar take:

In the final analysis, AT&T seeks emergency relief because Verizon's side-by-side, apples-to-apples comparison of its own 3G coverage with AT&T's confirms what the marketplace has been saying for months: AT&T failed to invest adequately in the necessary infrastructure to expand its 3G coverage to support its growth in smartphone business, and the usefulness of its service to smartphone users has suffered accordingly. AT&T may not like the message that the ads send, but this Court should reject its efforts to silence the messenger.

The remainder of the document consists of Verizon's argument that its commercials touting five times more 3G coverage than AT&T are truthful, a fact that AT&T has at its most basic level admitted. Verizon parries AT&T's complaint that blank areas on the AT&T coverage maps used in Verizon ads are misleading consumers into thinking that no coverage is available when in fact non-3G coverage is offered in those areas by noting that it has held itself to the same standard as AT&T, showing as blank on its own coverage map depictions any areas not covered by its 3G network.

Verizon also takes issue with the procedural details of AT&T's lawsuit, claiming that the company has neither shown that irreparable damage to AT&T from Verizon's ads is likely nor demonstrated why infringement of Verizon's First Amendment freedom of speech should be permitted. Finally, Verizon points to the "free flow of commercial information" as being crucial to consumers, noting that comparative advertising is a common and effective means of assisting customers with purchasing decisions while also driving pricing competition and innovation.

Late last week, Palm announced the release of webOS 1.3.1 in its blog, and Boy Genius Report noted over the weekend that iTunes media synchronization is missing in this latest update.

Palm and Apple have played a cat-and-mouse game over the ability of Palm's webOS to sync media through iTunes since the release of the Palm Pre earlier this year. Prior to the Pre's release, Jon Johansen explained that the Pre was most likely presenting itself as an iPod in order to trick iTunes into recognizing it as a valid device with which to sync, a theory that turned out to be correct once the Pre was released.

Just over a month after the release of the Pre, an update to iTunes broke the device's ability to sync media directly via iTunes. In response, Palm re-enabled iTunes media synchronization with webOS 1.1, after which another iTunes update broke it once again. The cycle repeated yet again with iTunes 9 and webOS 1.2.1 before Apple fired the most recent salvo by disabling webOS media sync via iTunes once again with the release of iTunes 9.0.2.

In between these sallies, Palm had even complained to the USB Implementers Forum, claiming that Apple was improperly using the Vendor ID number in its use of the USB standard to exclude non-Apple devices from syncing with iTunes. In the end, the USB Implementers Forum sided with Apple and turned the tables on Palm, pointing out Palm's own failure to use the single Vendor ID assigned to the company and its products appropriately.

Given Palm's apparent tenacity when it comes to webOS and iTunes synchronization over the past few months, it may be premature to suppose that the company has given up its fight to sync directly with iTunes, but the company has yet to deploy any further attempts at compatibility.

CNNMoney.com today reports on the continued hype over Apple's much-rumored tablet computer, citing the multitude of different speculative reports of the device's specs to attempt to paint a picture what users can expect when it is finally announced.

If the rumors are true, the tablet will be able to do basically everything a gadget could possibly do. It's an e-reader, a gaming device, and a music player. You can watch TV and movies on it and surf the Internet (or so we've heard). And it will have thousands of third-party apps available for it ... or maybe it will run Mac OS X. That's all still unknown.

The report reiterates a number of rumors that have been circulating in recent months, including a price point ranging from $600 to $1000, multiple models with and without 3G connectivity, and integrated webcam.

Many Apple fans are eagerly anticipating the device, wondering exactly how Apple is aiming to remake the tablet and netbook market segments in much the same way the iPod and iPhone found novel ways to bring new dimensions to the music player and smartphone device categories.

"The Tablet will be awesome, and my guess is that it will be an instant hit for people who loved Kindles and people who want netbooks," said David Wertheimer, executive director of Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center.

Wertheimer said he finds it hard to comprehend how the tablet will replace all other on-the-go tech products. "But then again, what I can't imagine, Steve Jobs often can," he added.

Others are not so sanguine about the prospects of an Apple tablet being able to serve as an all-in-one device capable of replacing users' computers, media players, and e-Book readers.

"What we've found in the past with these multi-function devices is that they're better for ad-hoc purposes, like quick and dirty tasks," said Zeus Kerravala, an analyst with Yankee Group. "They're not for any prolonged, high-performance use."

While Apple remains as tight-lipped as always about its tablet plans, consumers and industry experts alike are left speculating on just what Steve Jobs and Apple have up their collective sleeve. If rumors are to believed, however, Apple may finally be ready to show its hand early next year, and the market will then decide how well the device achieves Apple's goals and measures up to expectations.

MacRumors has heard from several sources that Apple is preparing to launch a "Concierge" iPhone application targeted at customers of its retail stores. The application will reportedly provide many of the same functions available through the company's retail store online reservations system, allowing customers to schedule Genius Bar and One to One appointments from their mobile devices. Sources have also indicated that the application will allow users to keep tabs on their premium membership subscriptions offered by the company.

There is no word yet on when the application, which will presumably be free to download, is expected to appear in the App Store.

On a separate note, MacRumors has also heard that Apple will be opening a new retail store this weekend in the Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua, New Hampshire, the company's second location in the state. Like the existing Salem, NH store, the Nashua store is located only a short drive from the Boston metropolitan area and is expected to draw heavily from cross-border shoppers looking to take advantage of New Hampshire's lack of state sales taxes.

Bloomberg reports that Apple is reported to have approached mobile advertising firm AdMob about a possible acquisition just prior Google's announcement that it had agreed to purchase the company for $750 million in stock.

AdMob Inc. was approached by Apple Inc. about an acquisition before the company agreed to a $750 million offer from Google Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.

Apple contacted AdMob a few weeks before Google made its bid, said one of the people, who declined to be identified because the negotiations weren't public.

It is unclear from the report's sources the extent of Apple's seriousness regarding the potential offer, but any interest at all on Apple's part appears to reveal that the company has considered moving beyond its traditional hardware and software offerings onto Google's turf of online and mobile application advertising.

Buying AdMob would have allowed Apple to expand into online advertising, a strategy that Nokia Oyj is pursuing, Weide said.

"If a lot of traffic goes through my devices, why can't I become the middleman that serves ads against that inventory?" Weide said. "AdMob would have allowed them to do that quickly."

Following on the heels of news that Apple is hiring iPhone game developers, Apple may be looking to move beyond simply providing the tools and infrastructure that have fed the iPhone's success and begin enhanced efforts to pursue its own App Store content and other revenue streams associated with the applications available in the store.