MacRumors

Apple yesterday lowered prices on its iPod lines in its Australian online store, dropping prices as much as 10% on some models.

The Australian dollar gained strength on the U.S. dollar in the latter half of 2010, moving from a low of 81 cents in June to near parity by October. The exchange rate for the two currencies has remained near that level since that time, with the Australian actually drifting a bit higher than the U.S. dollar over the past few days. Even with the price drops and accounting for taxes built into the Australian pricing, iPod prices remain a bit higher than they are in the United States, although that is common practice for Apple as it deals with higher distribution in many of its international markets and hedges against future currency fluctuations.

Apple is usually very slow in reacting to fluctuations in exchange rates, preferring to maintain stable price points in each country and typically only changing price points in response to currency fluctuations at the time of new product introductions. Consequently, it is unclear why Apple has decided to drop its iPod pricing, and only its iPod pricing, in Australia at this time. Apple's "Back to School" rebate program offering a free iPod touch with the purchase of a Mac did just end in Australia, but the same program also ended in New Zealand and Apple did not opt to reduce pricing in that country. New Zealand's dollar has not, however, gained as much value against the U.S. dollar over the past year as has the Australian dollar.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office yesterday published a remarkable volume of new Apple patent applications, offering another look at technologies the company has at least been thinking about, even if they may never see the light of day. Here are a couple of the interesting ones that made their appearances yesterday.

One patent application detailed by Patently Apple describes a concept for bringing a "Spaces" style workspace switcher to the iPad. While the interface is extremely similar to that found in Mac OS X and in fact uses Mac OS X running on a tablet-style device in image exhibits within the application, it does reveal that the company has considered how such a system could be implemented on a multi-touch device.

According to descriptions within the patent application, Apple envisioned invoking Spaces on an iPad-like device with either a two-finger pinching gesture in a specific location or by using a five-finger tapping or pinching gesture. Various interactions be used to either switch directly between workspaces or to display a graphical representation of all workspaces for selection or to drag windows between workspaces.

As noted by AppleInsider, a second patent application discusses the potential for including multiple cameras on the iPhone to enable users to take three-dimensional photos. In particular, Apple discusses hardware methods of employing three sensors to pick up different information about a scene, including individual sensors for luminance (brightness) and chrominance (color) with a third sensor to provide alignment information for constructing a three-dimensional image rather than relying on software extrapolation for such purposes. Apple argues that the system would produce higher-quality images and reduce processor load for creation of three-dimensional images.

Today is April 1, 2011 and represents April Fools' Day -- so readers should be wary of hoaxes and claims at both news and rumor sites today. Today also represents Apple's 35th anniversary, having been founded on this day in 1976 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

Among the popular April Fools' Day jokes making the rounds today:

- ThinkGeek is offering a Playmobil Apple Store Playset with an available "Line Pack" of extra figures to allow kids to accurately simulate the Apple retail store experience.

- Self-repair proponents iFixit have actually released an iPhone 4 Oppression Kit for those customers whose devices have standard Phillips screws and who find those screws too easy to remove. With the new iPhone 4 Oppression Kit, users can replace those screws with Apple's new pentalobular screws, making it nearly impossible to open their iPhone if they lose the compatible screwdriver included in the kit.

- Google is debuting Gmail Motion a new Gmail interface that takes advantage of the user's webcam to interpret gestures and other motions for controlling Gmail.

Google has of course rolled out a number of other April Fools' Day features from its different product teams, including a "1911" YouTube filter that turns any video into a sepia-toned silent film.

MacRumors does not participate in April Fools' Day prank news stories, although we have in the past occasionally supplemented our coverage with such special features as a Big Bunny Bundle and Page 3 rumors.

As we noted yesterday, Time Warner Cable's popular live TV application for the iPad has faced opposition from a number of content providers who believe that the implementation is a violation of their agreements with the cable company. Time Warner Cable has rolled out a dedicated site to garner support from customers and keep them informed on the situation.

As noted on that site and in an email to customers, Time Warner Cable has at least temporarily pulled a number of channels from application as it seeks to focus on content providers actually interested in embracing the new technology while also pursing a resolution to the disputes using any means necessary.

And, while most TV network owners agree with us that this is a great convenience for our customers and their viewers, a few networks disagree. As a result, for the time being, we have decided to focus our iPad efforts on other enlightened programmers who understand the benefit and importance of allowing our subscribers - and their viewers - to watch their programming on any screen in their homes.

Unfortunately, that means that channels from network groups Discovery Communications, Fox Cable, and Viacom will be removed from your iPad lineup, effective immediately.

- Discovery channels: Animal Planet, Discovery, TLC
- Fox channels: FX, National Geographic
- Viacom channels: BET, CMT, Comedy, MTV, Nickelodeon, Spike, VH1

In the email sent last night, Time Warner promised that it would be adding new channels as early as that evening to compensate for the removals, and the company appears to have done so today. Unfortunately, however, the list of new channels appearing on our device is generally of lower quality than those channels that have been removed.

New channels: CNBC World, C-SPAN, C-SPAN 2, C-SPAN 3, Chiller, Disney XD, G4, Home Shopping Network, Jewelry Television, QVC, Sleuth, Soap Net, Style, Golf Channel, and WE tv.

Time Warner has promised to continue working to expand the list of channels available through its iPad application.

Update: Time Warner has now also added ESPNews and the Independent Film Channel, along with a trio of Time Warner local news channels available to subscribers in the New York City (NY1 and NY Noticias) and Austin, Texas (YNN Austin) markets.

One of the major talking points long used by Google in support of its Android smartphone operating system over iOS is its "open" nature that has allowed handset manufacturers and others to tweak and customize the software for their needs. Apple CEO Steve Jobs has argued that the "open" nature would more accurately be described as "fragmented" in justifying why he believes that Apple's "closed" or "integrated" iOS is a better platform for consumers.

Google executive Andy Rubin responded to Jobs' comments last October by using his first ever Tweet to define "open" as the code needed to get the Android source code installed and ready for use by anyone interested in it.

But as Android's popularity has taken off and the number of manufacturers and devices utilizing it has exploded, Google has begun tightening its control over the operating system, perhaps recognizing that a purely open system might in fact not be best for consumers and looking to exert its influence over how Android is presented to and behaves for users.

Last week, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that Google has decided to hold back from releasing the source code for its new "Honeycomb" version of Android to the public, claiming that the code is not yet ready for public tweaking given corners that needed to be cut to bring it to market to compete with the iPad.

"To make our schedule to ship the tablet, we made some design tradeoffs," says Andy Rubin, vice-president for engineering at Google and head of its Android group. "We didn't want to think about what it would take for the same software to run on phones. It would have required a lot of additional resources and extended our schedule beyond what we thought was reasonable. So we took a shortcut."

Rubin says that if Google were to open-source the Honeycomb code now, as it has with other versions of Android at similar periods in their development, it couldn't prevent developers from putting the software on phones "and creating a really bad user experience. We have no idea if it will even work on phones."

Still, Rubin argued that Google has not changed its philosophy about Android being an open source project.

Bloomberg Businessweek continued digging into the situation, however, and yesterday published a report outlining how Google has in fact been taking new steps to crack down on how Android is being deployed, moves that have angered some hardware manufacturers.

Playtime is over in Android Land. Over the last couple of months Google (GOOG) has reached out to the major carriers and device makers backing its mobile operating system with a message: There will be no more willy-nilly tweaks to the software. No more partnerships formed outside of Google's purview. From now on, companies hoping to receive early access to Google's most up-to-date software will need approval of their plans. And they will seek that approval from Andy Rubin, the head of Google's Android group.

According to the report, Google has been increasing enforcement of "non-fragmentation clauses" in recent months, requiring partners to submit their plans to Google for final say on their implementation. The policies have ruffled some feathers in the industry, including at Facebook and Verizon, where tweaked versions of Android have been under development. Google's actions have sparked a few complaints to the U.S. Department of Justice, although it is unclear whether there is any momentum for a coordinated push back from manufacturers or regulators.

Over the past few weeks, a pair of announcements have seen Time Warner Cable announce a live TV app for iPad and Amazon unveil cloud-based storage for music, two areas in which Apple has been rumored to be trying to roll out its own offerings but has yet to do so.

One of the primary barriers for Apple seems to have been its preference to try to work with the content providers, companies that have traditionally been slow to adopt new technologies and distribution methods. Ever since Apple's December 2009 acquisition of Lala Media, observers have speculated that the company has been looking to deploy a cloud-based iTunes service.

In fact, sources such as CNET have kept a close eye on Apple's efforts to bring music and even video to the cloud, noting a number of times that negotiations with record labels and movie and television studios have been slow to proceed and that Apple was unlikely to roll out the services without the agreement of the content providers, as the company would be likely to find itself in court without it. Apple has also been said to have pitched TV subscription plans to TV networks in a bid to circumvent traditional cable TV service, but the company saw little success with those negotiations.

Enter Time Warner Cable (itself part of a media conglomerate generating music, TV, and movie content) and Amazon, which both appear to have taken the bull by the horns and released their new services without the blessing of content providers and are now facing backlash from those companies.

Time Warner's app, which streams live TV content to the iPad, offers 32 channels and is limited to users who subscribe to both Time Warner cable and Internet services, and is only functional through each user's own home network, in effect serving simply as another television in the household. But the arrangement has been viewed as unacceptable by a number of content providers, with Viacom vehemently objecting to the inclusion of its channels in the application and Fox and Scripps sending cease-and-desist letters to Time Warner demanding that their channels be removed.

For its part, Time Warner Cable has rolled out a dedicated site appealing to consumers and asking for their support in the increasingly bitter battle between the cable operator and the networks over iPad app access.

A similar story took place at Amazon, where the company rolled out its Cloud Player for music earlier this week without the agreement of record labels, many of whom claim that the use is not permitted under current music licensing deals. Amazon has tried to sidestep legal issues by requiring users to upload their own copies of digital music files, appearing to believe that such a "passive" setup would be allowed under law. According to The Wall Street Journal, Amazon is now going back to record labels in an effort to secure licensing deals that would allow for a more efficient system in which Amazon could house centralized libraries of music tracks with users being offered access to them on a song-by-song basis as determined by a database outlining their ownership of tracks.

It remains to be seen just which approach will prove more successful, as users rush to embrace new products and services that allow them access content on the go while content providers remain slow to respond to the rapidly-changing technological advancements. Companies like Time Warner and Amazon that are plowing ahead possess significant first-move advantage in the market, but may face hurdles of lawsuits and eroding relationships with content providers that could cause difficulties for the companies. On the other hand, Apple appears to have worked to bring all stakeholders on board before launching its offerings, but has little other than rumors and speculation to show for it so far.

All Things Digital reports that Apple vice president of worldwide marketing communications Allison Johnson is leaving the company, reportedly seeking to set up a new marketing and public relations firm. Johnson, who has held the VP position since 2005, will reportedly be officially departing Apple within the next few months.

There's no dearth of marketing and communications talent at Apple, but Johnson's exit from the company is still notable.

She's a seasoned and respected executive who came to Apple from Hewlett-Packard, where she managed public relations during the brutal proxy battle over HP's acquisition of Compaq Computer. A former co-worker there once described her as "prime minister" of HP.

At Apple, Johnson has managed global advertising for some of the company's most revolutionary products and the iconic ads for them. Those ads have been created by TBWAChiatDay, which plays a powerful role at Apple.

Prior to joining HP in 1999, Johnson served as director of media relations at Netscape and IBM.

As noted in our forums and by 9 to 5 Mac, Apple's new developer build of Mac OS X Lion offers a new look for iCal bearing a stronger resemblance to the iPad's Calendar application. The new look gives the appearance of a physical desktop calendar with leather binding along the top edge, and like the iPad application shows remnants of torn-off pages for additional realism.

According to reports, iChat also offers a new unified buddy list for accounts from various services, similar to how Adium supports multiple services. iChat to date has offered separate windows for AIM, Jabber, and Bonjour contacts, although add-ons such as Chax can bring unified contact lists to the current iChat.

Mac OS X Lion reportedly remains a work-in-progress, with Apple's seed notes outlining a long list of known issues and developers still reporting issues despite some progress being made in a number of areas.

As covered by Photography Bay, Adobe yesterday used its keynote address at Photoshop World 2011 to briefly show off a new concept for a Photoshop app for iPad offering support for layers, a significant leap beyond the capabilities found in the company's current Photoshop Express app.

Photography Bay has also posted a brief video of the demo showing how layers can be used on the iPad.

The functionality remains a demo concept with no word on when or if it will make it to a public launch, but Adobe has openly acknowledged that it is looking at ways to support more complex Photoshop functionalities on tablets such as the iPad, and has even shown off concepts for how some of those tools might be implemented.

A series of new reports indicate that Apple and its suppliers are working hard to ensure a steady flow of iPad 2 units to the market amid strong demand and continuing effects from the Japanese earthquake earlier this month.

According to DigiTimes, Apple has agreed to absorb additional part costs brought about by the earthquake in exchange for assurances that suppliers will continue providing "smooth shipments" of the needed components.

Although Japan's power brownout policy is seriously affecting the operations of Japan-based upstream component makers, causing related upstream components to see price rises, since Apple has agreed to absorb all the additional costs in exchange for smooth shipments, Apple's upstream component suppliers, which purchase components from Japan, are expected to see their profitability undamaged in the short term, according to sources from upstream component makers.

The move comes as Taiwan's Economic Daily News reports that Apple has signed AU Optronics as a new vendor to provide displays for the iPad 2, according to Reuters.

The Economic Daily News, citing no sources for its information, said the panels' selling price will be three to four times more than regular panels of the same size, giving a big boost to AU's profit.

AU could ship 30 million of the screens in a year, it said. The order will take up over half the capacity of its plant in Taichung, central Taiwan.

Finally, EE Times reports (via MacDailyNews) that Samsung is pushing forward on a $3.6 billion expansion of its facilities in Austin, Texas, looking to hire 300 new employees for its chip foundry primarily to support Apple's needs.

Amid a major capital spending program, South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. last year moved too expand the capacity of its 300-mm fab in Austin, Texas with a $3.6 billion investment.

At the same time, Samsung has opened an R&D center in Austin. The expanded fab will now produce logic devices for Samsung's System LSI business. Previously, the Austin plant only made NAND flash memory chips. The production of those chips will continue.

Most of the production is geared for one foundry customer-Apple Inc., sources said.

The hires are set to occur during the first half of this year, following 600 hires last year that brought Samung's semiconductor unit in Austin up to 1,700 employees.

Apple today pushed out a new developer preview version of Mac OS X Lion, offering an updated build of the company's next-generation operating system for testing purposes. The new version is Build 11A419.

Changes included in the update are currently unknown. We've also heard that Apple pushed out a minor update via Software Update to developers testing the initial Lion build, an update that will allow them to download updates through the Mac App Store.

It was reported a few days ago that Apple is already nearing the release of "golden master candidate" versions to developers, despite a distinct lack of polish and even basic functionality in the initial version issued late last month. Consequently, developers will be looking closely at the new build for signs of progress.

Apple has stated that Mac OS X Lion will be released to the public this summer, and the operating system is of course expected to be one of the major topics of discussion at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference scheduled for June 6th-10th.

Update: TechCrunch reports that this is indeed the "golden master candidate" build it discussed over the weekend, although the designation remains an internal one for the time being with Apple not expected to push out a final release candidate until around its Worldwide Developer Conference in early June.

Update 2: Mac OS X Lion Server Developer Preview 2 is also available as a standalone download. The server components had been bundled in with the regular release for the initial developer build. Apple has said that Lion Server will be a part of the basic Mac OS X Lion package, so it is unclear why the company is at least temporarily bundling it separately.

Apple today released Mac OS X v10.6.7 Supplemental Update for 13" MacBook Air (Late 2010), a small software update specifically targeting Apple's new 13-inch MacBook Air and issues with the system freezing while iTunes is in use.

This update addresses an issue that makes the system unresponsive when using iTunes.

It is recommended for all 13" MacBook Air (Late 2010) users running Mac OS X v10.6.7.

The update weighs in at 461 KB and specifically requires a Late 2010 13-inch MacBook Air running the latest Mac OS X 10.6.7 Build 10J869.

The system freezing issue has been reported by a significant number of users in Apple's discussion forums and in our own forums.

As noted by ifoAppleStore, Apple is poised to end its longest drought of store openings tomorrow when the company opens the doors on its new Altmarkt-Galerie store in Dresden, Germany. The store will be company's first in the city and fifth in Germany and will be the first Apple retail store to open since the University Park Mall store in Indiana opened for business on November 13, 2010, a span of 138 days that beats the previous longest gap of 105 days.

Apple opens the majority of its stores in the pre-Thanksgiving period, with a few construction-delayed stragglers before Christmas. Last year's final grand opening was on November 13th at the University Park Mall (Ind.) and none have opened since. The previous record for no store openings was set between January 25, 2003 for the Knox Street (Tex.) store, and May 10th for the Walt Whitman (NY) store.

Despite the lack of openings over the past few months, Apple has not been entirely silent on the construction front, with a number of other locations currently under construction. The company has also been pushing forward on renovations and expansions at some of its locations, as evidenced by the Knox Street store in Dallas currently being located in temporary quarters while its permanent home is expanded and renovated and the SoHo store in Manhattan also being set for expansion.

CNET reports that Microsoft has filed yet another document (PDF) in its case opposing Apple's application for a trademark on the term "App Store", moving beyond its earlier effort involving complaining about Apple's font size to bring in a linguist to counter Apple's own expert in debating the genericness of the term.

Microsoft struck back in a separate declaration filed today by linguistic expert Ronald R. Butters that attempts to poke holes in [Apple's hired linguist Robert A.] Leonard's claims, saying "the compound noun 'app store' means simply 'store at which apps are offered for sale,' which is merely a definition of the thing itself--a generic characterization."

Butters also knocks Leonard's sourcing of online dictionaries that had spelled out Apple's ties to the App Store moniker. "The online 'dictionary' sources Leonard cites were not written by established lexicographers and are without scientific authority," Butters wrote. "Even so, he included an online source that does, in fact, define app store as a generic term."

The filing also points to Amazon's just-introduced Appstore for Android as yet another example of the term being generic. Apple noted in a prior filing that it had moved to protect its trademark by reaching out to companies it believed was using the "App Store" name improperly, but Microsoft argues that the simple fact that those companies were using the term in the first place indicates that the term is generic.

iFixit yesterday announced that it has completed teardowns of the GSM and CDMA versions of the iPad 2, joining the teardown of the Wi-Fi version performed on launch day earlier this month. Rather than posting an extensive walkthrough of each model, iFixit focused on the few areas in which the various models differ from one another, related of course to the cellular connectivity needs or lack thereof.

The most obvious physical difference between the 3G models is the micro-SIM card slot along the upper left edge of the GSM model, required for providing the device with subscriber information. The micro-SIM card slot itself is actually attached to the headphone jack cable on the GSM model, while the CDMA model lacks the slot entirely as subscriber information is instead hosted directly on the WWAN board inside the device.

Given the differences in frequencies used for the GSM and CDMA network standards, it is also unsurprising that the two 3G iPads offer slightly different antenna configurations, with the CDMA version offering one more antenna than the GSM version, similar to the iPhone 4.

And finally, the three iPad 2 variations also exhibit differences in their logic boards, with the 3G models containing WWAN board extensions housing the hardware supporting cellular connectivity. Unsurprisingly, the CDMA model contains essentially the exact same chips, including the Qualcomm MDM6600 baseband chip, as the CDMA iPhone 4. The GSM model, on the other hand, primarily relies on Infineon chips for its connectivity.