MacRumors

A recent Apple job listing that we just discovered reveals that Apple is looking for a low level iPhone programmer with detailed knowledge of the ARM processor including its NEON vector unit.

The successful candidate will have excellent understanding and knowledge of processor architecture, specifically ARM and its vector unit NEON. Additional Intel SSE or PowerPC AltiVec is also very helpful. Being able to use processor micro-architecture to write and deliver fast routines is an essential attribute.

NEON is an extended instruction set similar to Intel's SSE or PowerPC's AltiVec which can accelerate multimedia applications. What's interesting is that NEON is the marketing term for the most recent version of these extensions specifically for the ARMv7 Cortex processors. Apple presently uses the ARMv6 processor in the iPhone and iPod Touch which does not appear to offer NEON. The obvious reason for Apple to be seeking a programmer with this expertise is that they must be optimizing the iPhone OS for the new Cortex processors.

We've previously speculated that the Cortex processor would be the most likely candidate to power the next generation iPhone. The Cortex is also capable of multi-core variants though its not entirely clear how soon these will be commercially available. Palm's Pre is also based on a version of the Cortex processor. The presence of these sort of extensions could also be leveraged to provide users with faster/better multimedia functions including the rumored video recording, processing and editing capabilities.

In fact, another job listing reveals that Apple is also hiring for someone to deliver "cutting edge embedded video processing". They are specifically looking for someone with experience in real-time media and networking applications over Wi-Fi and cellular networks which would suggest an iPhone implementation. Obviously, all of these listings reflect unfilled jobs but can provide a hint into what Apple is presently working on.

AppleInsider claims that Japanese manufacturer Asahi Kasei will be providing the magnetometer (digital compass) for the upcoming next-generation iPhone. This is based on header files found in the latest iPhone 3.0 beta.

People familiar with betas of the iPhone 3.0 software developers kit recently dug up several header files attributed to the Japanese manufacturer in a directory appropriately labeled "compass." More specifically, the files identify Asahi Kasei's azimuth sensor No. AK8973, a 16-pin leadless IC package measuring 4mm square and 0.7mm thick, as the chip that will help future iPhone users determine their direction. It bundles a master clock oscillator.

Magnetometers have become more prevalent in handheld devices and one was used in a demo of Google's Map application for the Android that allows users to physically move the device around to change the street view.

A very popular Xbox video game has made its way to the Mac. Braid for Mac was released today alongside a free downloadable demo. The full version costs $14.95.

Explore the human condition and manipulate time in the lush, painterly world of Braid, a puzzle-platformer that takes you from a house in the city on a journey through a series of worlds to solve puzzles and rescue the princess.

Braid is described as a puzzle/platformer created by independent developer Jonathan Blow. The game was released to Xbox Live Arcade in August 2008 to critical praise and commercial success. The game sold over 55,000 units (~$825,000) the first week and went on to become the second-largest selling Xbox Live Arcade game in 2008.

One unique element to the game was the use of time control that could allow you to rewind your actions. The game was ported to the Mac by Hot Head Games.

Were doing our part to help Mac users experience the latest great games: Braid for Mac is now available! Braid is one of the coolest indie games to come out recently. Not only does it feature a unique and beautiful painterly art style, it also has some really innovative gameplay mechanics.

Programmer and former Apple engineer Landon Fuller has released a proof-of-concept exploit demonstrating vulnerabilities in Apple's current implementation of Java that allow arbitrary code execution in Java-enabled Web browsers. While the vulnerabilities, first discovered last August, were disclosed and patched by Sun last December, Apple has yet to roll out a fix for its own implementation of Java.

CVE-2008-5353 allows malicious code to escape the Java sandbox and run arbitrary commands with the permissions of the executing user. This may result in untrusted Java applets executing arbitrary code merely by visiting a web page hosting the applet. The issue is trivially exploitable.

Unfortunately, these vulnerabilities remain in Apple's shipping JVMs, as well as Soylatte 1.0.3. As Soylatte does not provide browser plugins, the impact of the vulnerability is reduced. The recent release of OpenJDK6/Mac OS X is not affected by CVE-2008-5353.

With the recent release of OS X 10.5.7 failing to address the vulnerabilities, Fuller decided to create and release his proof-of-concept exploit in order to bring attention to the severity of the issue. The proof-of-concept exploit uses a browser-based Java applet to activate the Unix "say" command on the user's system and recite a statement regarding the exploit initiating an innocuous process.

The only recommended workaround at this time is to disable Java applets in all browsers and to disable the 'Open "safe" files after downloading' option in Safari. Disabling Java applets will cause some websites to behave incorrectly, but no other protection against exploits of the vulnerabilities is available until Apple releases a patch.

Research firm Gartner today released a report covering mobile phone sales for the first quarter of 2009. As part of the report, Gartner released sales figures and market share for the smartphone category, which includes Apple's iPhone. According to Gartner's numbers, Apple more than doubled its share of the worldwide smartphone market to 10.8%, up from 5.3% in the year-ago quarter, maintaining its third position behind Nokia and Research in Motion. The increase came in the context of a smartphone marker that grew by 12.7%, while the overall mobile market shrank by 9.4%.

While Apple's smartphone market share saw a significant increase over the year-ago quarter, it was essentially flat compared to Apple's 10.7% share in the fourth quarter of 2008. The quarter-to-quarter results do, however, indicate that iPhone sales held up relatively well as the current model progressed into what should end up being the latter half of its life cycle.

Research in Motion, which offers the BlackBerry line of smartphones, also saw strong sales, seeing its share of the worldwide smartphone market reach 19.9%, a nearly 50% increase over the year-ago quarter and up slightly over its 19.5% share in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Apple began high volume testing of the upcoming Push notification system for iPhone applications earlier this week. The system offers 3rd party applications the ability to push notifications to the user even when they are not the running application.

Each application will ask for permission to provide push notifications upon launch. Once authorized, you can customize the type of notifications you wish to receive: sounds, alerts, and/or badges. Alerts provide an SMS-like pop up dialog while badges simply add a number to the corner of the app's icon. An additional gallery of screenshots is provided by MyAppleGuide.

The Push notification system will accompany the iPhone 3.0 release which is scheduled this summer.

With Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference only a few weeks away, a larger number of rumors are starting to appear about what Apple might have in store for us. While legitimate reports do often emerge closer to the event, there also tends to be an explosion of speculative claims.

Here are a collection of recent tidbits which may or may not mean anything:

- A Telecom NZ representative claimed via Twitter that "we are in negotiations with Apple... we are very focused on the 3rd gen iPhone.. we will keep u updated". The "3rd gen iPhone", of course, would refer to an as-yet unreleased iPhone.
- Apple recruiting 450 new technical support staff this summer. While the most likely explanation for this expansion is the growing popularity of their products, some are speculating it could be related to the launch of a new product.
- Wired recaps some poorly sourced rumors that claim the next iPhone will be released on July 17th with 1.5x the battery life and an OLED screen. We aren't putting too much faith in these reports.

Phil Schiller will be giving the 2009 WWDC Keynote on June 8th at 10AM Pacific Time. Apple will be detailing iPhone 3.0 to developers and has also been rumored to be announcing details about the next generation iPhone.

Register Hardware reports on a meeting last week between Apple senior executives and analysts for investment firm Oppenheimer & Co. which provided a bit of insight into Apple's options for increasing iPhone market share. A report on the meeting issued by Oppenheimer analyst Yair Reiner mentions several obvious strategies that Apple could employ:

Yair Reiner, an analyst at Oppenheimer, recently met with several unnamed Apple executives who, he claimed, said: "[The] iPhone is still in its early days and could gain share by: providing more functionality, lowering prices, growing geographically, or segmenting the market with different models."

In seeking clarification about the market segmentation comment, Register Hardware learned from Reiner that "segmentation would focus on software." Register Hardware interprets this comment to mean that Apple is considering offering multiple models of the iPhone that would consist of essentially identical hardware, but have different software packages.

For example, Apple could market one 'YouTube' iPhone model with applications that provide video capture, editing and sharing features. Other iPhones might only offer basic video capture - or perhaps no video at all.

Selling models differentiated by hardware seems unlikely. Different iPhones with very different physical specs could have far-reaching implications for Apple's production methods, volumes and costs.

Another possibility is that market segmentation could still be offered using different hardware, but driven by differences in software, such as the rumored "iPhone nano" that could conceivably be released without a focus on the App Store found on the current iPhone. In broad terms, Apple's comments indicate that the company may be using software-based decisions to define feature sets for various iPhone hardware models.

Sprint today announced that the Palm Pre will launch on June 6th and will be priced at $199.99 with a two-year contract and mail-in rebate.

Sprint today announced pricing and nationwide availability for the highly anticipated Palm Pre phone, offered exclusively from Sprint. Palm Pre will be available nationwide on June 6 in Sprint stores, Best Buy, Radio Shack, select Wal-Mart stores and online at Sprint.com for $199.99 with a two-year service agreement and after a $100 mail-in rebate.

Announced in January, the Palm Pre has been hyped as the most significant near-term threat to the iPhone's market share due to the inclusion of a number of new features, including Palm's new "webOS" operating system, a multi-touch interface, and a faster processor than that found in the iPhone 3G.

Sprint and Palm are also promoting the Pre's ability to integrate data across applications via a feature known as "Palm Synergy":

"The Pre's dynamic 'activity cards' approach to handling and navigating multiple applications is a great advance, but the core breakthrough is the integration of information across multiple applications on and off the phone," said Andy Castonguay, director of Mobile & Access Devices Research, Yankee Group. "With social networking and messaging being so important to consumers, the device's new 'Palm Synergy' functionality -- which gives Pre the ability to automatically pull friends' contact details, messaging addresses and personal calendars from different applications online and on the phone -- will greatly simplify people's ability to communicate with their friends and colleagues the way they want."

The Palm Pre will utilize Sprint's "Everything Data" plan, which offers unlimited data and messaging, unlimited mobile-to-mobile, night and weekend calling, and a choice of either 450 or 900 anytime minutes. The plans are currently priced at $69.99 and $89.99 respectively.

Palm will also introduce its new Touchstone induction charging system on the Pre, which includes both a dock and an additional back cover for the handset to allow for wireless charging. The Touchstone system will be priced at $69.99.

In an e-mail sent to iPhone developers testing iPhone OS 3.0 betas, Apple announced the start of testing of high-volume Push Notifications using a pre-release version of the Associated Press iPhone application. The current test will run for seven days.

As a developer actively working with iPhone OS 3.0 beta, we would like your help in testing the Apple Push Notification service. We have selected a pre-release version of the Associated Press app for iPhone OS 3.0 to create a high-volume test environment for our servers.

To participate, we ask that you follow these steps:

1. Download the pre-release version of the Associated Press app for iPhone OS 3.0 from the iTunes Store via your desktop by entering this unique redemption code in the 'Redeem' section of iTunes, found under the 'Quick Links' section:

[code redacted]

This unique redemption code and the functionality of the application will expire in seven days.

2. Install the application on a development device running iPhone OS 3.0 beta 5 by synching it to iTunes. Make sure to accept notifications when prompted after installation. This application can only be installed on devices running iPhone OS 3.0 beta 5.

3. When you first run the app, choose U.S. English as your region when prompted. The U.S. English region will receive alerts, the Canadian English region will not. For purposes of the test, AP will be sending a high-volume of real news alerts.

4. If you do not receive notifications from the app within 48 hours after installation, let us know.

Apple activated Push Notifications just over one month ago, allowing developers to begin testing their applications with the service, which allows iPhone applications to receive updates while they are not actively running.

Brazilian website MacMagazine links [Google translation] to YouTube user LeopardOctober, who has been posting video previews of new Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard features. Many of the features have already been described, but the videos provide examples of the features in use.

In HD + NEW - Snow Leopard Build 10A261: Demonstrates "Put Back" feature that restores trashed files to their original locations, Finder window slider for resizing icons, Stacks "drill down" navigation, the ability to play videos directly within their Finder icons, automatic date and time stamping of screenshots in the file name, organization of the Services menu by type, and a new preference pane within Keyboard & Mouse offering expanded keyboard shortcut configuration. Several of these features were described several months ago.

Dock and Substitutions - Snow Leopard Build 10A261: Illustrates the ability to easily assign applications to specific Spaces directly from their Dock icons, and "Substitutions", which offer several auto-correct/auto-format features and expansion of the Data Detectors feature that automatically finds text such as dates and times and automatically provides links to operations in related applications such as iCal.

Finder Preferences - Snow Leopard build 10A286: Shows Finder preference allowing default searches to cover the entire Mac, the currently open folder, or whatever the previous search scope was.

QuickTime 10 - Snow Leopard build 10A286: Runs through the menus present in the new QuickTime Player and illustrates the "Trim" feature and Save/Export options. Details on the new QuickTime have been trickling out for the past several months.

Update: Videos pulled.

BusinessWeek reports that AT&T is considering introducing a discounted limited data plan for the iPhone at $20 per month. AT&T currently offers only an unlimited data plan for $30 per month, and the data transfer cap for the rumored discounted plan remains unknown.

Analyst Richard Doherty claims that the additional data plan option is being driven by Apple, which wants to offer a lower-cost entry point for the iPhone. AT&T, which is reportedly still trying to lock up an extension to its exclusivity agreement for the iPhone, is also looking for ways to continue to increase its subscriber base.

The exclusive U.S. iPhone service provider is considering cutting the price of its monthly service package or offering a range of lower-priced plans, say people with knowledge of the company's thinking. One plan that could be introduced as early as late May would include limited data access at a $10 monthly reduction, the people say.

The possible price cut likely reflects the back-and-forth between AT&T and Apple (AAPL) as they work out whether and under what terms AT&T would remain the sole U.S. iPhone carrier. Apple may want flexibility in pricing as a condition, analysts say. "We understand it's part of the extension [of its contract] that AT&T wants to maintain," Richard Doherty, director at consultant Envisioneering Group, says of the prospect of lower data-plan prices. As Apple considers whether to widen its circle of U.S. providers, AT&T may have less ability to balk at Apple's requests.

The report also touches on rumors of a price drop for the next-generation as component prices continue to decline and AT&T considers offering the entry-level iPhone for $99 instead of the current $199. A prepaid iPhone is also reportedly under consideration.

Rumors of a discounted iPhone data plan from AT&T surfaced earlier this month, although the previous reports did not include mention of limited data transfer at the reduced rate.

Silicon Alley Insider has heard some rumors that seem to corroborate MacRumors' report from February that Apple is working on allowing limited background processes in a future version of the iPhone's operating system. Our sources had told us they would be limited to one or two additional processes, while Silicon Alley Insider suggests that it could alternatively be for specifically-approved apps.

Here's two potential scenarios we've heard. Treat these as anecdotal rumors for now, as we don't know how realistic they are.

* Apple might allow users to select two apps that can run in the background.
* Apple might selectively allow some apps to run in the background. We assume that developers could apply for permission to run in the background, and that Apple might approve or deny them based on the resources they need and how well they behave with the operating system's stability.

According to the report, it is not known whether this feature could make an appearance in iPhone OS 3.0 due this summer or if it might be under development for a later release.

In a blog post discussing Silicon Alley Insider's report, John Gruber writes that he has also heard rumblings about a similar feature:

Ordinarily I wouldn't link to something as sketchily sourced as this, but: I heard something very similar from a decent (but second-hand) source back in January during Macworld Expo. What I heard then was that Apple was working on a vastly improved dock for your most-frequently used apps, and that thered be one special icon position where you could put a third-party app to enable it to run in the background.

Citing concerns over the effect of having applications run in the background on battery life, Apple is officially planning to deploy push notifications as a substitute for backgrounding, allowing delivery of alerts for applications that are not actively running.

Update: TechCrunch chimes in with additional corroboration:

Basically, my source says that while this is in no way a done deal yet, Apple is definitely trying to come up with a way to offer background support for third-party apps. They went on to note that while Apple may have something to say about it at WWDC, it's very unlikely that any solution would be ready at that time, and could be a situation similar to how Apple announced Push Notification at WWDC last year but said it was coming in a few months (which it later was delayed until iPhone 3.0).

HardMac claims that they have heard some interesting tidbits about future iPhones and iPods from their sources.

- The future iPhone models will have exactly the same shape and size than the current iPhone 3G, despite fakes and rumors circulating.
- Apple should refresh models for the iPod nano and Touch in september. Both should now include a camera, similarly to the iPhone.

The iPhone retaining its current shape and size is perhaps consistent with the recent rumors from China, but the addition of a camera to the iPod Touch and iPod Nano is a new possibility.

A camera on the iPod Touch may make the most sense as it would bring the iPhone and iPod Touch closer together in terms of features. A camera addition to the iPod Nano, however, would be a surprise. There has been talk that Apple might be positioning video to be a killer feature in the next iPhones, and this could be an extension of that.

Meanwhile, some Best Buy inventory screenshots reveal some product placeholders for something called "Project Charlie". Some are speculating that this could be the new iPhone, but we have our doubts of the significance of this. In the past, it's been shown that Best Buy frequently adds inventory items without any insider knowledge.

Wired summarizes some surprising experiences of users who have hacked their MSI Wind netbooks to run Mac OS X. These so called "hackintoshes" when updated to Mac OS X 10.5.7 have experienced dramatic boosts in battery effeciency.

Reports from the MSI Wind forums are claiming a boost up to 33%, from 3 hr 45 min to a shade over five hours, using a six-cell 4400 mAh battery.

The writer, Dalton63841, has tested this to make sure its not just over-optimistic reporting by the OS. Another poster is also seeing a boost from three and a half to four and a half hours.

The reports suggest that Apple's Mac OS X 10.5.7 contain added optimizations for Intel's Atom processor and associated hardware. This, of course, is prompting speculation that support for such configurations may hint at new Apple notebooks based on similar netbook designs.

Apple has been rumored to be working on a netbook with a possible release this year.

In a blog post, Ivan Krstić, former director of security architecture at One Laptop per Child (OLPC), has revealed that he has taken an unspecified position related to core security at Apple. Krstić is well-known among security experts, having been named the second most influential person in security by eWeek in 2008.

As Krstić notes on his personal web site, his expertise and passion lie in making computer security easy for users:

I enjoy breaking computers. I enjoy making computers hard to break even more. Unfortunately, most people are really bad at the latter. At OLPC, I had put a lot of work into designing Bitfrost, which is a system for securing computers that's trying to be both hard to break and easy to use.

Bitfrost is a security specification that "sandboxes" applications into their own virtual operating systems, preventing viruses or other programs from damaging the operating system or accessing files. Given the focus of OLPC on children, Bitfrost is designed to be almost invisible to the end user.

We have set out to create a system that is both drastically more secure and provides drastically more usable security than any mainstream system currently on the market. One result of the dedication to usability is that there is only one protection provided by the Bitfrost platform that requires user response, and even then, it's a simple 'yes or no' question understandable even by young children. The remainder of the security is provided behind the scenes.

Bitfrost is meant to improve upon the 35-year-old UNIX permission system which persists today in Mac OS X, but Bitfrost requires that individual applications be "Bitfrost-aware", meaning that the security specification is unlikely to easily transition to mainstream operating systems. Krstić's work on Bitfrost, however, demonstrates his focus on novel security approaches that are easy to use.