MacRumors

CNBC reports that the iPad has become the most quickly adopted non-phone consumer electronics product in history, topping the DVD player, which shifted only 350,000 units in its first year on the market. Apple sold over 300,000 iPads in its first day, and took just 28 days to reach one million units sold.

iPad sold three million units in the first 80 days after its April release and its current sales rate is about 4.5 million units per quarter, according to Bernstein Research. This sales rate is blowing past the one million units the iPhone sold in its first quarter and the 350,000 units sold in the first year by the DVD player, the most quickly adopted non-phone electronic product.

While many products have quickly reached sales into the millions of units, Bernstein appears to be focusing on consumer electronics categories, where the iPad has seen unusual success as the launch product in a segment as it has been jumpstarted by its connection to the rest of Apple's iOS ecosystem.

Perhaps more interesting is Bernstein's observation that the iPad is set to become the fourth-largest consumer electronics category in 2011 with over $9 billion in sales.

At this current rate, the iPad will pass gaming hardware and the cellular phone to become the 4th biggest consumer electronics category with estimated sales of more than $9 billion in the U.S. next year, according to Bernstein. TVs, smart phones and notebook PCs are the current three largest categories.

Bernstein's Colin McGranahan also suggests that the iPad is likely to be "cannibalizing" even TVs and digital cameras, noting that customers who make $600 iPad purchases are likely to delay purchases of other electronics due to financial considerations.

In a sign that Apple's supply crunch for the iPhone 4 may be beginning to ease, shipping estimates for both the 16 GB and 32 GB models have improved to 5-7 business days on the company's U.S. online store. Shipping estimates in stores for other countries remain, however, at three weeks.

Analysts had noted as early as mid-August that Apple's ramping of iPhone 4 production should enable the company to ease shortages by the end of September, a prediction that does appear to now be beginning to come about.

DigiTimes briefly reports that an executive from Sintek Photronics has denied claims from late last week that the company has shipped samples of touchscreen panels to Apple for testing in a touch-capable iMac.

Barry Wu, VP and spokesperson of Sintek Photronics has denied reports that the company is sampling projected capacitive touch panels for Apple's iMac.

Rumors and an Apple patent application have suggested that the company is at least toying with the idea of a touch-capable iMac. While it is unclear whether Apple would attempt to create a fully touch-capable Mac OS X, it has been suggested that the company could instead offer iOS as layer on top of Mac OS X, allowing both operating systems to coexist on the same machine.

Bloomberg reports that Apple has paid a North Carolina couple $1.7 million for their modest home on one acre of land in a deal to enable the company to build its $1 billion data center in the town of Maiden. According to tax records, the house and property appear to have been assessed at a value of $181,700.

Apple Inc. needed land owned by Donnie and Kathy Fulbright for a $1 billion data center in rural North Carolina. The couple showed no interest in moving out of their home of 34 years in the town of Maiden.

The Fulbrights say they spurned one offer, then a second. Finally, they agreed to sell for $1.7 million, county records show, opting to leave the single-story house on the less than one acre of land they purchased for $6,000.

The Fulbrights have used the proceeds of the sale to purchase a 4,200-square-foot house on a 49-acre property.

Meanwhile, Apple appears to be continuing to ramp up staffing for the new data center, with nine new job postings going up earlier this week, primarily focusing on weekend shift positions. Apple made a hiring push earlier this year as it sought to line up staff in advance of the data center's opening and has continued posting occasional job listings in the intervening months, but this week's batch seems to be the largest in many months.

Apple announced during its July earnings conference call that the new data center will be operational by the end of the year. While the company has not announced what the new capacity will be used for, observers have speculated that it may be used for cloud-based storage of users' music and video content, as well as for streaming of video content such as on the new Apple TV.

As reported by Gizmodo, developer Steven Troughton-Smith has discovered that iOS applications can in fact be installed on the new Apple TV with only slight modification of the applications required to identify them as Apple TV-compatible.

While the discovery is an important next step in developers' quest to run applications on the device, the applications are not yet usable, as the Apple TV lacks any sort of application launcher that would be required for an app to function.

According to Steven, while you can install apps after modifying its type, you just can't launch them. There's no built-in facility to do that, so someone has to do it. I bet the first ones will be the jailbreakers (hello, SNES and PlayStation 2 emulators!), but Apple will follow soon.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has hinted that Apple could launch an App Store for the Apple TV when the time is right, but many users are understandably interested in hurrying that process along, especially as Google prepares to launch its Google TV service offering several integrated applications at launch later this month and compatibility with Android Market applications by early next year.

Google today launched an extensive mini-site dedicated to the Google TV, the company's service announced earlier this year designed to integrate TV watching and the Internet.

One of our goals with Google TV is to finally open up the living room and enable new innovation from content creators, programmers, developers and advertisers. By bringing Google Chrome and access to the entire Internet, you can easily navigate to thousands of websites to watch your favorite web videos, play Flash games, view photos, read movie reviews or chat with friends - all on the big screen.

While an exact launch date and pricing for the hardware (a standalone Logitech box and Sony TVs and Blu-ray players with hardware integration are the launch products) are not yet known, Google new site provides a good look at some of the service's features, especially when considered against the new Apple TV. Hardware supporting the new service is said to launch sometime later this month.

In particular, Google is highlighting apps that will be available on Google TV, noting that it will ship with applications from the likes of Netflix, Twitter, CNBC, Pandora, Napster, NBA Game Time, and Amazon Video On Demand, with compatibility for Android Market apps set to come to Google TV early next year. The ability to run applications is seen as one of the key differences between Google TV and the new Apple TV, which is currently unable to run iOS applications, although hints have suggested that Apple may enable the functionality at some point in the future.

Google TV will also allow users with iPhones or Android phones to serve as remote controls for their Google TV, including voice search capabilities and the ability to link multiple phones with a single Google TV. The service will also incorporate a "Fling" feature similar to Apple's forthcoming AirPlay feature, allowing users watching content on their phones to send the content to their Google TVs.

Bloomberg reports that Apple is challenging a verdict issued in a patent lawsuit last Friday that has seen the company hit with a penalty of as much as $625.5 million for infringing patents with its Cover Flow, Spotlight, and Time Machine technologies. The jury verdict in favor of Mirror Worlds LLC saw Apple hit with a $208.5 million judgment for violation of each of three patents.

Apple asked U.S. District Judge Leonard Davis for an emergency stay of the Oct. 1 verdict, saying there are outstanding issues on two of the three patents. Apple said patent owner Mirror Worlds would also be "triple dipping" if it were able to collect $208.5 million on each of the patents.

The patents at the heart of the dispute are the work of Yale professor David Gerlenter, who spun off Mirror Worlds Technologies from the university in 1996 and filed the patents in 1999. The current Mirror Worlds LLC entity involved in the lawsuit is a patent holding company based in Tyler, Texas, the location where the federal lawsuit is filed

Davis also is considering Apple's request, filed before the verdict, to rule the company doesn't infringe two of the patents. The judge said that if he granted that request, he'd strike the amount of damages attributed to those two patents.

The federal judge overseeing the trial has asked lawyers for both sides to submit arguments addressing the issue of the damages awarded in the case.

As noted by 9 to 5 Mac, Apple appears to have dropped support for AirPrint in iOS 4.2 on the second-generation iPod touch. When Apple initially announced the feature on September 15th, the second-generation iPod touch was listed as a compatible device for the service, but as soon as two days later the press release had been modified to note support for only the third- and fourth-generation iPod touch.

- Original text: "AirPrint will work with iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch (second generation and later)."

- Revised text: "AirPrint will work with iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch (third generation and later)."

The second-generation iPod touch and iPhone 3G have always been on the edge of compatibility with iOS 4, with Apple making some features unavailable on one or both devices as it seeks to maintain acceptable performance within the devices' hardware limitations. This also does not mark the first time that Apple has shifted device compatibility mid-stream, as Game Center support was dropped at one point for both the iPhone 3G and second-generation iPod touch, only to be restored for the second-generation iPod touch (but not the iPhone 3G) for the public launch of iOS 4.1.

As previously announced retail store chain Target began selling all six models of Apple's iPad, prominently featuring the device on the front of its weekly advertising circular included in Sunday newspapers around the United States. With 1,743 stores around the United States, Target's new offerings significantly increase the retail store presence for Apple's tablet device.

Not only has Target begun offering the iPad, but several readers have also reported to us that Amazon has begun offering the iPad directly through its own store. Availability is limited to the 32 GB and 64 GB Wi-Fi-only models for the time being.

Amazon has for some time offered iPads on its site through third-party partners, but those offerings have typically come with inflated pricing, making true Amazon availability at standard pricing a welcome addition for many customers.

Note: Amazon purchases made through links in this article financially benefit this site.

Over the weekend, Valve announced the official launch date for Left 4 Dead 2 for Mac as well as acknowledgement of when the original in the series would be coming.

Left 4 Dead 2 will be released for the Mac on Tuesday, October 5th. Existing PC owners will be able to download it for free through Steam. The original Left 4 Dead port for Mac is still seeing some delays, but they hope for it to come by Halloween.

Sorry Left 4 Dead owners, the Mac version is coming but we are running a little late. We hope to have it out in time to celebrate Halloween on the Mac. When released, L4D1 Mac players will receive the same great treatment. All the previous released updates and DLC for free and the ability to play an extensive library of community content. More information on the release date as it nears.

The October 5th was previously teased when Valve announced that a downloadable add-on called The Sacrifice would be available for PC, XBox 360 and Mac on that date.

Left 4 Dead was a popular cooperative first person shooter that was originally released for Windows and Xbox 360.

Set during the aftermath of an apocalyptic pandemic, the game pits its four protagonists -- dubbed the "Survivors" -- against hordes of the infected. There are four game modes: a single-player mode in which allied characters are controlled by AI; a four-player, co-op campaign mode; an eight-player online versus mode; and a four-player survival mode. In all modes, an artificial intelligence (AI), dubbed the "Director", controls level pacing and item placements, in an attempt to create a dynamic experience and increase replay value.

It seems Apple's strict approval process is not limited to developer's app submissions alone. According to BusinessInsider sources, Adidas has pulled its $10 million dollar ad campaign from iAds due to repeated rejections:

Adidas supposedly pulled its $10+ million ad campaign from the iAd program because Apple CEO Steve Jobs was being too much of a control freak. According to one industry exec, Adidas decided to cancel its iAds after Apple rejected its creative concept for the third time.

BusinessInsider admits they don't know the exact reasons for the rejections ("to be sure, perhaps Adidas had really lame ideas, and Apple was right to reject them.")

Apple has been reported to be taking a much more active involvement in iAd content than most ad networks. This has slowed the uptake of iAds, though Apple is still predicted to match Google's mobile ad marketshare by year's end.

The MacRumors forums have reached half a million members, reaching a new milestone in forum participation. Tens of thousands of users joined MacRumors in recent months, fueled by speculation and discussion surrounding the release of iOS 4, the iPhone 4 launch, the controversy over the iPhone signal strength problem, and Apple's release of new iMacs, Mac Pros, and other products. Just shy of 20000 members joined in June and over 20000 in July, the highest monthly totals in MacRumors history.

MacRumors was founded in February 2000 by Arnold Kim and Blake Patterson. The forums have grown at an increasing rate each year since. Over the past 6 months forum registrations have reached about 500 per day (15000 per month).

A number of factors have contributed to the success and growth of the site, including MacRumors' reputation for careful evaluation and reporting of rumors and speculation and the expansion of our staff to cover more news. Our growth also reflects Apple's growth, with its expansion into new business areas, the rising number of Apple customers, and the attention focused on Apple by the press and the public in general, both in the U.S. and internationally.

Some members register for MacRumors seeking technical help, while others want to discuss the latest news and rumors. Many stay for years, reading and writing posts about both Apple and non-Apple topics as they participate in our ever-changing and ever-growing online community. Some forum members have been along for the entire ride. Of the forum posters who joined in 2000, 43% have been active within the last 2 years. The following members, listed by user name, have been logging in or posting for over 10 years: 63dot, balloons, barefeats, bigjohn, CompUsed, curmi, dsma, Ishan, jeremycrandell, kainjow, Mark Colangelo, mdntcallr, michaelrjohnson, nodttiurp, outZider, stukick, tviolation, and vanguys. Congratulations!

We thank our regular visitors, new forum members, and long-term members for their support over the years. In an online community the users, not just the meeting place, make the site what it is.

Other past and more recent milestones of interest: 1 million posts (August 2004), 5 million posts (February 2008), 200 thousand members (July 2008), 10 million forum posts (May 2010), 1 million forum threads (August 2010)

MacRumors administrators: arn, Doctor Q, Knox, longofest, Mudbug, WildCowboy, xUKHCx
MacRumors moderators: see list

With Microsoft reportedly set to formally introduce a line of Windows Phone 7-based smartphones just ten days from now, the company has gone on the offensive by filing a lawsuit against Motorola over Android-related patents.

Microsoft filed an action today in the International Trade Commission and in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington against Motorola, Inc. for infringement of nine Microsoft patents by Motorola's Android-based smartphones. The patents at issue relate to a range of functionality embodied in Motorola's Android smartphone devices that are essential to the smartphone user experience, including synchronizing email, calendars and contacts, scheduling meetings, and notifying applications of changes in signal strength and battery power.

In a blog post discussing the lawsuit, Microsoft corporate vice president and deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez moves to justify the company's actions, in part by referring to "recent actions" taken by Apple, which filed suit against HTC earlier this year over alleged patent infringement by that company's Android handsets.

That Microsoft has important patents in this area should not surprise anyone - we've spent over 30 years developing cutting-edge computer software. As I mentioned in my blog post last March, the key value proposition of smartphones has moved from the radio stack to the software stack, as people buy smartphones because they are fully functional computers that fit in the palm of your hand. With this shift, it is imperative that companies address IP issues related to the software that makes possible this new class of devices. The rules of the road are long-established in the software industry, and fundamental to the industry's growth and economic impact is respect for others' intellectual property rights.

Our action today merely seeks to ensure respect for our intellectual property rights infringed by Android devices; and judging by the recent actions by Apple and Oracle, we are not alone in this respect.

In addition to the federal lawsuit filed against Motorola today, Microsoft also filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), the body that oversees import and export of goods and holds the power to bar the importation of products found to be in violation of patents held by others. While ITC disputes rarely progress to that stage, the body's ability wield that power frequently serves as an encouragement for the involved parties to settle their disputes in a relatively timely fashion.

Apple today updated its MobileMe Gallery application [App Store] for the iOS platform, bringing iPad compatibility as well as full support for the higher-resolution Retina displays found in the iPhone 4 and fourth-generation iPod touch. The update also brings support for multi-tasking and the ability for iPhone and iPad users who are not MobileMe members to view friends' photo galleries.

- Universal app with full iPad support
- Supports fast app switching for iOS 4 devices
- Optimized for Retina displays
- View friends' galleries without the need for a MobileMe subscription (iPhone and iPad only)

A June update to the application had delivered the ability for the iPhone 4 to download higher-resolution versions of photos, but today's update extends Retina display optimization to the entire application.

MobileMe Gallery debuted for the iPhone and iPod touch back in January.

Market research firm NPD has released the results of a new survey disputing the common assertion that Apple's iPad is 'cannibalizing' the PC notebook industry. According to the survey, only 13% of iPad customers made their purchase instead of buying a PC. A larger target for the iPad has been e-readers, with 24% of iPad purchasers reporting that they replaced a planned e-reader purchase with the iPad.

The survey also unsurprisingly revealed that iPad purchasers are more likely than the general population to own other Apple products, with 38% of iPad purchasers also owning an iPhone and 48% owning a Mac. The survey has, however, seen a slight dip in Mac ownership from the initial wave, moving from 50% in the first two months of availability to 45% in more recent months, indicating that the iPad's appeal seems to be broadening beyond the core base of Apple fans.

"Early adopters, like iPad owners, follow a traditional pattern of consumer behavior; they purchase products because they want them, not because they need them," said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD. "However, as Apple increases iPad distribution and consumer interest peaks, the profile of an iPad owner is much more likely to mirror the overall tech population. When that does happen other tech products with similar usage profiles as the iPad, such as notebooks, netbooks, and e-readers will come under increased pressure from the iPad. Until then, however, most iPad sales are likely to be incremental additional technology devices in the home, rather than a one-for-one replacement of a planned purchase."

Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn made headlines earlier this month with his ambiguous claims that the iPad was cannibalizing sales of notebook PCs by "as much as 50%". Dunn and Best Buy quickly back-pedaled, although he and Best Buy president Mike Vitelli have continued to confuse things with their follow-up comments.

NPD's Stephen Baker has also written a blog post highlighting some results from the iPad owner survey such as what users are doing with the iPad (Internet browsing, email, and games), their likes (portability, easy Wi-Fi connections, e-reading, and apps), and their dislikes (lack of USB ports, printing, and multi-tasking).

TechCrunch reports that Apple has settled a lawsuit brought by Sharing Sound, LLC over infringement of a patent essentially describing web-based distribution of digital music. The lawsuit, filed in May, targeted Apple, Microsoft, Napster, Rhapsody, and other companies, with Amazon, Netflix, and additional companies included in a similar suit filed around the same time.

The patent being contested - U.S. Patent Number 6,247,130, titled "Distribution of musical products by a website vendor over the Internet" - would essentially prevent all these companies from using any type of online store environment which allows them to provide song previews, a shopping cart or even a music player.

According to the report, most of the companies targeted in the lawsuits have already moved to settle their disputes, with Apple now joining the list as it seeks to avoid a court battle.

The application for the patent cited in the lawsuit was filed January 2000 and was based on a provisional patent application filed in January 1999. The inventor associated with the patent, Bernhard Fritsch, founded a short-lived digital music service known as MCY.com that launched in early 1999.

DigiTimes reports that Apple has received samples of large-size touch panels that would be used in a new touch-capable iMac. According to the report, Sintek Photronics is utilizing projected capacitance touch technology for the panels.

Projected capacitive touch panels are typically produced by placing touch sensors over the panel, and then a cover glass over the sensors. The conventional method is not only costly and complex, but affects display brightness.

The new iMac is rumored to have a good vertical and horizontal viewing angle, and its projected capacitive touch panel will adopt a one-glass solution, which integrates the touch sensor and cover glass, to reduce thickness and weight.

Rumors of a touchscreen iMac surfaced in January, with claims of a 22-inch model set to debut sometime during 2010. A second rumor made the rounds in June claiming that Apple would be holding a special event to introduce a touch-enabled iMac capable of running both Mac OS X and iOS within the following two months, although that event obviously failed to take place.

A recently-disclosed patent application has also fueled rumors for its discussion of how a desktop computer could use physical hinges and accelerometers to transition between a traditional mouse-driven desktop setup and a more horizontal touch-friendly orientation.

Given the report's claims that Apple is only just now receiving samples of the touch panels that would be used in such a device, it is extremely unlikely that Apple would be able to make a 2010 launch for the new iMac as had been previously rumored. It would indicate, however, that progress is being made toward a potential 2011 release.