MacRumors

Close on the heels of claims of revamped notifications and widgets in iOS 5, 9to5Google now reports that Apple will continue relying on Google's mapping service for iOS 5, noting that any efforts to sever geolocation ties with Google by moving things entirely in-house have not yet resulted in a finished product.

Now, sources have told 9to5Google that although Apple is working to improve the iOS Maps application, iOS 5 will not bring an Apple developed maps service and Google Maps is still in. Besides Apple's purchase of both Placebase and Poly9, some speculated that Apple is building their own maps service to either compete with Google or step away from their input into iOS.

Apple has given several indications that it is looking to make major improvements to the Maps application included in iOS and also revealed that it is building a crowd-sourced traffic database from iOS devices with an eye to rolling out a traffic service presumably linked to a turn-by-turn GPS mapping offering.

TechCrunch reports on some of the discussion surrounding Apple's apparent efforts to encourage members of the international press to attend its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) early next month, disagreeing with the assessment that such encouragements suggest that an iPhone launch may indeed occur and instead arguing that iOS 5 and Mac OS X Lion alone will be a big deal. To that end, the company is seeking to make sure that media members do not skip the event simply because it seems that the next-generation iPhone will not make its debut there.

In addition, the report shares several tidbits that have been surfacing about iOS 5, most notably brief word that Apple is indeed planning to roll out a "completely revamped" notifications system and "widgets" that would presumably provide quick access to information without the need for launching dedicated apps, much the same as Dashboard widgets in Mac OS X.

The other big news for iOS5 - and yes, I've completely buried the lede here, thanks for reading! - two things: completely revamped notifications and widgets.

The iOS notification system has been one of the more highly criticized aspects of the platform, although optimism regarding a potential revamp rose earlier this year amid claims that Apple had acquired an unnamed development firm specifically to assist with the revamp.

As an example of how widgets might be employed, designer Jan-Michael Cart earlier this month released a concept video demonstrating his vision of widgets on iOS.

One other item of interest included in TechCrunch's report today is the claim that the Nuance technology rumored to be deeply integrated into iOS 5 will surprisingly not make its way into the Voice Control component of the platform, although things could change between now and the final release of iOS 5 later this year.

As we reported yesterday, Apple earlier this week filed a lawsuit against teenager Fei Lam and his parents over Lam's sale of unauthorized white iPhone 4 parts, alleging trademark infringement and dilution. At the time, we noted that Apple had simultaneously filed a voluntary dismissal of the case, suggesting that a settlement may have already been reached.

But in an interview with Fast Company, Lam reveals that he knows essentially nothing about the lawsuit, having learned about it only as reports spread through the media yesterday. Lam notes that a settlement has not been reached, but it will obviously be a topic of discussions apparently set to be held between Lam and Apple's lawyers "within the next month".

Q: When did you first find out about the lawsuit? Did Apple call or send a letter?
A: I came back from school today and saw your email. Lol.

Q: So have your parents mostly been handling the case then?
A: I told Apple's lawyer that I'm sick and to meet when I get better. That was last week. I'm [sic] been handling the whole thing

Q: So you have not settled?
A: I think that will be decided in the meeting.

According to Lam, he no longer has a lawyer representing him in the case, as he is unable to afford one. Consequently, he says that he will be meeting alone with Apple's lawyers at their offices in New York City.

Lam notes that he did not make $130,000 in profits as some reports have claimed, although he declined to specify exactly how much he made from the venture or where those profits have gone. The initial report on his business noted that he had sold $130,000 worth of the parts, but it is unknown how much he had to pay his Chinese supplier for them.

Last week, a report surfaced claiming that Apple could launch its annual back-to-school promotion in the United States as early as this week, offering educational customers free or discounted iPod hardware with the purchase of a qualifying Mac product. With it now appearing that the offer will not debut this week, BGR is reporting that Apple may wait until next month's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) to announce the promotion.

One of our Apple sources has informed us that they've been hearing Apple's yearly back-to-school special will be announced at WWDC next month. We have been told Apple will continue to offer educational discounts on computers and either a free iPod touch, or $229 towards the purchase of any other iPod.

The report also indicates that Apple may be preparing to include a $200 discount on the iPad as an option for those participating in the promotion.

Last year's promotion offered rebates of up to $199 on Apple's full line of iPod models, but did not include the iPad. Apple has also never included iPhone discounts in the promotion, which typically runs through early September, around the time the company traditionally introduces new iPods.

CNET reports that Apple is being targeted for protests by US Uncut, an organization seeking to stop companies from avoiding taxes, with the organization planning a series of protests at Apple's retail stores on June 4th. The organization is protesting Apple's participation in the "Win America Campaign" (WAC), an effort that has seen Apple banding together with other major companies to lobby for one-time tax breaks on profits currently being held overseas.

The group seeks to have Apple leave the WAC, which it claims is lobbying Congress for what would end up being a $4 billion tax cut for the company, as well as to cease other lobbying activities relating to "tax loopholes."

"Apple plays huge games with their taxes. By disguising profits in the U.S. as foreign earnings in low-tax countries, Apple dodges billions of dollars of taxes they should be paying," the group said in a statement this week.

US Uncut is also targeting Bank of America, Verizon, FedEx, GE, and BP with its June 4th "National Day of Action", although Apple appears to be the group's primary target for "dance-in" protests and other actions.

Meanwhile, setteB.IT reports that an Italian regulatory agency has taken action against Apple for its sale of AppleCare extended warranty programs that overlap with standard warranties required by European law, effectively selling customers warranty protection that they do not need.

Apple's standard warranties are good for one year, with AppleCare extended warranties pushing that coverage out to a total of two or three years depending on the product. European law requires, however, a standard two-year warranty, overlapping or entirely coinciding with Apple's separate AppleCare offerings. Complicating the issue are differing warranty requirements for manufacturers and sellers, requirements that Apple has apparently argued are being satisfactorily met but with which regulators disagree.

The actions taken by the Italian consumer agency could result in fines levied against Apple and serve as the basis for civil actions by customers.

Mac Otakara claims that Apple is presently testing an A5 powered MacBook Air.

And additionally, an anonymous source told more information, Apple already made test equipment of Thunderbolt MacBook Air driven by A5 processor.

According to this source who saw live A5 MacBook Air actually, this test machine performed better than expected.

The A5 processor is an ARM-based processor that Apple uses in the iPad 2. Mac Otakara is uncertain what operating system this experimental machine was running. They also add that Quanta Computer manufactured this test-drive machine.

This news comes weeks after another rumor claiming that Apple is planning on transitioning from Intel to ARM-based processors on their laptops in the not too distant future. Most people had dismissed that rumor due to the compatibility issues that would be introduced with such a transition. Another major issue is that while ARM processors are more power efficient, they presently offer significantly lower performance than their Intel counterparts.

The Japanese blog has had some accurate information in the past, being the first to describe some of the new physical characteristics of the iPad 2. It is certainly plausible that Apple might be testing such combinations in their labs, though its unclear if/when Apple might actually decide to introduce such a machine.

Patent holding firm Lodsys made news two weeks ago when they sent patent infringement notices to several small iOS developers over the use of In-App purchases and upgrade links in their apps. Lodsys is demanding that developers pay a licensing fee or face a potential lawsuit. While Apple has publicly backed their iOS developers against Lodsys, the legal status of the entire situation remains murky. Lodsys was still sending out legal notices to iOS developers at least up until Apple's formal response. Apple has claimed that their existing patent licenses cover their developers' usage.

Based on a Google groups discussion, it appears that Lodsys is also going after Android developers. At least one Android developer has been targeted with the same Patent infringement claims from Lodsys:

We recently implemented in-app purchases for our Android application and several weeks later we received a letter from Lodsys, claiming that we infringed on their patents.

Have any other Android developers out there been sent a letter? Has Google taken any action on this issue yet? Has Google given direction to any developers that have been hit by this? We are obviously a small shop and are not financially capable of defending ourselves over a litigation.

This news may even be somewhat reassuring to iOS developers. Like Apple, it seems unlikely that Google will let this stand. Google is also similarly believed to be a licensee of the same patent. Lodsys claims, however, that these licenses do not extend to individual developers on each platform.

iOS developer Villain CEO Dane is asking affected developers to contact him at dane@villainhq.com in an effort to pool resources in the event of a lawsuit.

Apple seems to be quietly inviting overseas journalists to the 2011 Worldwide Developer's Conference (WWDC) Keynote. With only one and a half weeks until the event, Apple isn't giving that much notice to international journalists. Earlier this week, we heard that Apple's iPhone PR team was approaching British journalists to attend WWDC in San Francisco.

Now, iTechReport.com.au has spotted a tweet from Australian technology editor Charlie Brown revealing that he had been invited to San Francisco on June 6th, the first date of WWDC.

The tweet has now been removed, but Brown said that he expected something big at the event. Apple commonly invites journalists to the WWDC, though this year Apple has been particularly quiet about the details of the keynote. By this time, Apple has usually announced the time/date of the keynote as well as the host. The WWDC keynote typically takes place at 10am Pacific on the first day of WWDC. This year that would fall on June 6th. Steve Jobs is the usual keynote speaker, but due to his medical leave of absence, it seems likely that role will be filled by someone else.

In the original WWDC announcement (see above), Apple has already revealed that they will be talking about the "future" of iOS and Mac OS X. So, we expect iOS 5 and Mac OS X Lion to be the focus of the event as well as a possible music cloud service that has been heavily rumored.

Businessweek provides an overview of how Apple's music service might compare to the recent services launched by Google and Amazon. Notably, Apple is taking the time and spending the money to reach agreements with the major music labels to support the service.

Amazon reportedly didn't even try prior to their cloud music launch, while Google's talks broke down after a year of negotiation. Both existing services are limited due to the lack of licenses. Label executives are said to have been negotiating "aggressively" to make sure they profit from the shift to the cloud.

Businessweek is able to describe what the service will look like based on those familiar with the negotiations:

Armed with licenses from the music labels and publishers, Apple will be able to scan customers' digital music libraries in iTunes and quickly mirror their collections on its own servers, say three people briefed on the talks. If the sound quality of a particular song on a user's hard drive isn't good enough, Apple will be able to replace it with a higher-quality version. Users of the service will then be able to stream, whenever they want, their songs and albums directly to PCs, iPhones, iPads, and perhaps one day even cars.

It's not clear how Apple intends to pay for and charge for the service. The licenses will reportedly cost a lot, and Apple will have to pass those charges to the customer in some form.

According to Businessweek, many are waiting to see what Apple can accomplish as labels expect that once Apple's service launches, others will soon follow with similarly licensed services.

Reuters reports that Intel executives today expressed interested in making deals to produce custom chips for customers such as Apple, signaling that the company "wouldn't blink" about basing such custom chips on Intel's own architecture but that operating as a strict contract foundry for non-Intel-based chips would be a more difficult decision for the company.

"If Apple or Sony came to us and said 'I want to do a product that involves your IA (Intel architecture) core and put some of my IP around it', I wouldn't blink. That would be fantastic business for us."

"Then you get into the middle ground of 'I don't want it to be a IA core, I want it to be my own custom-designed core,' and then you are only getting the manufacturing margin, (and) that would be a much more in-depth discussion and analysis."

Initial reports had suggested that Apple might be shifting away from Samsung for production of its custom ARM-based chips used in its iOS device, turning to foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) for production. And while Apple may still be looking to shift at least some capacity to TSMC, an early teardown of the A5 chip included in the iPad 2 confirmed that the chip was manufactured by Samsung.

As noted by The Loop, Amazon has launched a new download store for Mac OS X applications, going head-to-head against Apple's Mac App Store. While Amazon's download store does not offer the level of system integration featured by Apple's store, it does offer a few big name titles like Microsoft Office that are not available through Apple's Mac App Store.

Competing directing with Apple's Mac Store, Amazon says its store has 250 of the biggest software and game titles available for Mac. In fact, they have some titles that Apple's store doesn't.

A number of popular video game publishers including EA, Aspyr, and Feral Interactive are also included on Amazon's store.

Amazon's download mechanism appears to offer a basic downloadable installer for each title, forgoing any integrated installation system. Purchases are also stored in users' digital lockers associated with their Amazon accounts, allowing unlimited downloads for personal use.

To celebrate the launch of the Mac download store, Amazon is offering a one-time use coupon good for $5 off of a purchase from the store through June 1st.

Google today unveiled its new Google Wallet initiative, a push into near field communications (NFC) that will allows users to make electronic payments with NFC-compatible hardware through the Google Wallet mobile app for Android.

Today in our New York City office, along with Citi, MasterCard, First Data and Sprint, we gave a demo of Google Wallet, an app that will make your phone your wallet. You'll be able to tap, pay and save using your phone and near field communication (NFC). We're field testing Google Wallet now and plan to release it soon.

Google Wallet will be able to store users' credit card, loyalty card, and gift card information electronically, making it easy to access the payment and discount methods at compatible points-of-sale. The app will also coordinate with Google Offers, a new program allowing merchants to offer discounts redeemable through NFC or barcode scanning.

Initial support for Google Wallet NFC payments comes from MasterCard, which will accept payment at hundreds of thousands of existing PayPass terminals. Google is also rolling out its own virtual "Google Prepaid Card", which can be funded by any major credit card. Google Prepaid Card comes with an initial $10 sign-up bonus, and there will be no fees on transactions to top up the card until at least the end of 2011.

Hardware support for Google Wallet will appear on the Nexus S 4G phone running on Sprint's network, but other compatible handsets will be added over time.

Rumors have gone back and forth over whether Apple will be adding NFC capabilities to the next-generation iPhone, with the general feeling currently being that Apple will add NFC to future iPhone models, but not necessarily for the next generation expected to be introduced later this year.

Talk of Apple turning to OLED displays for its mobile devices has arisen repeatedly for many years now, and those rumors have received another update with a claim from The Korea Herald (via Macworld UK) that Apple Chief Operating Office Tim Cook recently visited South Korea to discuss the possibility of adopting an active matrix OLED (AMOLED) display from Samsung for the next-generation iPad, a device the report claims could be released before the end of the year.

Apple Inc's chief operating officer Tim Cook discussed adopting Samsung's AMOLED display technology for tablet PCs during his recent visit to South Korea, industry sources said.

"Apple wants to tap into Samsung's AMOLED technology for an upgraded version of the iPad2, considered as many as the iPad3 that is likely to be launched toward the end of this year," a source told The Korea Herald on Wednesday (May 25) on condition of anonymity.

Samsung is already one of Apple's primary suppliers for its mobile devices, although the two companies are currently embroiled in a legal dispute begun when Apple filed suit against Samsung for allegedly copying Apple's technology and designs with its "Galaxy" line of smartphones and tablets.

But while the latest report claims that Apple is looking to Samsung for AMOLED technology, a previous report from a different Korean publication claimed that Apple was interested in the company's "Super PLS" technology for more traditional LCDs in the next iPad.

Last November, we highlighted the story of New York City teenager Fei Lam, who had managed to sell $130,000 worth of white iPhone 4 parts in just a few months to customers eager to get their hands on a white iPhone 4 has Apple continued to delay the release of the official model. Lam claimed that he had developed a secondhand relationship with someone at Apple's manufacturing partner Foxconn who had been supplying him with parts. At the time, the report noted that Lam had been contacted by a purported private investigator who claimed that Lam was trafficking in stolen goods, and Lam's site disappeared soon after.

Apple yesterday finally filed a lawsuit against Lam and his parents, claiming infringement and dilution of its trademarks and engaging in deceptive practices through his conversion kit sales through his website at whiteiphone4now.com. Apple did, however, also file a voluntary dismissal of the lawsuit at the same time, suggesting that a settlement has may have been reached, although Apple's request for dismissal without prejudice means that the company reserves the right to refile the claim at some point in the future.

Defendent Lam willfully and without authorization has used Apple's trademarks in connection with the sale of his "White iPhone 4 Conversion Kits," which among other things included white front and back panels with Apple's logo and "iPhone" trademarks that are used in connection with the promotion and sale of Apple's well known iPhone 4 handheld mobile digital electronic devices. Defendant at all times knew that Apple never has authorized the sale of white panels for its iPhone 4 mobile devices, and that he obtained these panels from sources that were not authorized by Apple or any of its suppliers to sell them.

Lam's parents were included in the suit under claims that they aided and abetted him by allowing him to engage in the activity while he was a minor under their supervision. Apple claims that Lam's actions dilutes Apple's trademarks and compromises its relationships with customers by causing confusion about whether Apple had authorized sales of white iPhones.

Apple's filing includes quotes from instant messaging exchanges between Lam and Alan Yang, a business owner in Shenzhen, China who was obtaining the parts for Lam, quotes that make clear that Yang was occasionally having difficulties getting parts shipped out as customs agents in Hong Kong were giving in troubles over the trademark issues.

Apple requested a permanent injunction barring the Lams from any further sales, forfeiture of all profits from the sale of white iPhone 4 parts, reimbursement for expenses occurred in pursuing the case, and additional financial penalties. With the request for dismissal, however, it is unclear what Apple may have obtained from the Lams in a potential settlement.

Following up on testimony from Apple and Google representatives regarding mobile privacy, U.S. Senator Al Franken has sent out a letter (PDF) to Apple and Google requesting that the companies require developers to include "clear and understandable" privacy policies for apps available in their marketplaces.

At the hearing, I asked Dr. Tribble and Mr. Davidson whether Apple and Google would commit to requiring that all applications in the Apple App Store and Android App Market have clear and understandable privacy policies. I am writing today to renew this request, and ask if each of your companies would be willing to adopt this simple first step towards further protecting your users' privacy.

Franken notes that the action would not resolve privacy concerns related to mobile apps, but would be an easy and reasonable first step to ensure that customers have appropriate information about what information is being collected and how it is being used.

At a minimum, Franken requests that such privacy policies be required of location-aware applications, although he believes that all applications should be subject to the requirement.

Apple and Google have each said time and again that they are committed to protecting users' privacy. This is an easy opportunity for your companies to put that commitment into action.

Franken has been spearheading legislators' inquiries into mobile privacy since last month's high-profile disclosure of geolocation data being stored on users' devices and in backups on their computers. His initial letter to Apple kicked off congressional interest in the topic and led to the hearing earlier this month attended by Apple's Bud Tribble, Google's Alan Davidson, and several other experts and privacy advocates.

Antivirus firm Intego today reported that it has discovered a new variant of the "MACDefender" malware that ups the ante by not requiring an administrator password for installation. The step is accomplished by installing the application only for the current user.

Unlike the previous variants of this fake antivirus, no administrator's password is required to install this program. Since any user with an administrator's account - the default if there is just one user on a Mac - can install software in the Applications folder, a password is not needed. This package installs an application - the downloader - named avRunner, which then launches automatically. At the same time, the installation package deletes itself from the user's Mac, so no traces of the original installer are left behind.

The second part of the malware is a new version of the MacDefender application called MacGuard. This is downloaded by the avRunner application from an IP address that is hidden in an image file in the avRunner application's Resources folder.

Late yesterday, Apple issued its first public notice on the MACDefender malware, providing users with steps for avoiding or removing the software, as well as reporting that a Mac OS X software update to be released in the "coming days" will automatically find and remove MACDefender and its known variants. The update will also alert users if they are about to download one of the malware applications.

It is unknown whether protection against the new "MacGuard" variant will be included in the software update from Apple, but the company will almost certainly have to keep on its toes to address the quickly evolving threat.