MacRumors

Yesterday, Apple released Snow Leopard Graphics Update, designed to address issues being experienced with high-performance games on Mac OS X 10.6.4. The issue was brought to light by Valve Software, which had recommended that Mac gamers not update to Mac OS X 10.6.4 until the issue was addressed.

Valve, which has been working closely with Apple and graphics card companies to improve gaming performance on the Mac platform, has now posted a technical explanation of the steps it has been able to take to improve performance as facilitated by the new software update. While the details are certainly interesting, the bottom line is that frame rates have been increased by 15% to 120% on some newer Mac hardware.

We are seeing dramatic performance improvements on iMac (Late 2009 and Mid 2010), Mac mini (Early 2009 and Mid 2010), Mac Pro (Early 2009), MacBook (Early 2009 and Mid 2010) and MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010) and MacBook Pro (17-inch, Mid 2010) models. Depending on the game, video settings and the hardware, we have measured frame rate improvements from 15% to 120% on these systems. On older systems, we are generally already operating at the limits of the hardware, so it is not obvious that any significant performance improvements can be achieved in the future.

Valve has made a significant investment into the Mac OS X platform, working to bring its entire library of high-profile games to the Mac while also opening up its Steam game distribution platform to allow other developers to easily offer Mac versions of their titles.

HTML5, the Web standard promoted by Apple in favor of Flash as the future of media delivery on the Internet, is continuing to gain support among popular Web sites and services. In particular, announcements from Yahoo! and Vimeo yesterday demonstrate the increasing adoption of the standard.

Yahoo! yesterday announced the launch of an HTML5-based Web mail interface newly customized for the iPad, bringing a number of enhancements.

If you've used our recently launched HTML5 mobile Web mail for iPhone you'll feel right at home. We've kept all the things users love about our new mobile Web mail experience, while also optimizing for the gorgeous large screen of the iPad.

Among the new features are local caching for offline access, improvements to searching and organization, enhanced attachment handling, and a dual pane view similar to that employed by the native iPad email application. Google launched a similar HTML5-based interface for Gmail on the iPad in April.

Video sharing site Vimeo also announced yesterday the launch of a new "Universal Player" to allow users of Apple's iOS devices to view embedded video content from Vimeo.

Since we rolled out the HTML5 player in January people have been clamoring for an embeddable version, especially for iPhones and iPads. Today we're taking a big leap forward for compatibility and updating our embed code. We call it the Universal Player.

The Universal Player is as easy to use as the old embed code, just a lot more compatible. Instead of being a direct link to a Flash player the new Universal Player can automatically detect what kind of device is viewing the video and choose the optimum player based on the device's capabilities. For example, it will serve mobile video to iPhones and Androids and HD to iPads and Desktops.

Vimeo launched support for HTML5-based video on its own site earlier this year, but the extension of HTML5 compatibility to embedded videos will significantly broaden users' ability to experience the site's content across the Internet.

Apple yesterday released a new iPad commercial, airing it on primetime television and posting it to the company's iPad site and YouTube page.

The ad features a series of quick shots showing off various capabilities of the device paired with related adjectives shown in text to go along with the "iPad is..." theme: delicious, current, learning, playful, literary, artful, friendly, productive, scientific, and (of course) magical.

In May, Apple debuted an iPad ad that harkened back to a nearly 20-year-old campaign for the company's Newton personal digital assistant device. We wondered whether Apple would continue with the Newton-styled iPad ads, the company has moved away from that theme with its new ad.

Bloomberg reports on the HBO's reluctance to license their shows to Netflix for online streaming, but reveals that iPad owners will still be able to access HBO content in the near future.

Time Warner Inc.'s pay-television channel, home to shows including the "The Sopranos" and "True Blood," holds cable and Internet rights to films from Warner Bros., Twentieth Century Fox and Universal Pictures and is unlikely to make a deal with Netflix, HBO Co-President Eric Kessler said.

Instead, HBO plans on making its shows and movies available online through its own HBO Go service. HBO Go is presently a streaming web service that offers 800 hours of HBO TV and Movie content to current subscribers at no additional cost. HBO Go will become available in the next 6 months for the Apple iPad and other mobile devices. HBO Go was described by some as a Netflix competitor when it launched in February.

Apple has publicly released the Snow Leopard Graphics Update that was seeded to developers earlier this month. The Snow Leopard Graphics Update contains stability and performance fixes for graphics applications and games, including addressing the following issues:

- Addresses frame rate issues occurring in Portal and Team Fortress 2 by Valve, on iMac (Late 2009 and Mid 2010), Mac mini (Early 2009 and Mid 2010), Mac Pro (Early 2009), MacBook (Early 2009 and Mid 2010) and MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010) or MacBook Pro (17-inch, Mid 2010) models.
- Resolves an issue that could cause Aperture 3, or StarCraft II by Blizzard, to unexpectedly quit or become unresponsive.
- Resolves an image corruption issue that may occur when disconnecting and reconnecting external displays while the system is running.

The software appears to correct Snow Leopard performance issues brought to light by Valve.

Cult of Mac revealed yesterday that Apple had already started testing the manufacturing capabilities of Liquid Metal for one small component of the iPhone 3G -- the SIM eject tool. Atakan Peker the co-inventor of the alloy recognized the metal immediately when he saw it:

"That's my metal," he said. "I recognized it immediately. Take it from an expert, that's Liquidmetal."

Apple reportedly sourced the part from Liquidmetal Technologies as a test of the company's manufacturing capabilities. Not all the iPhone 3Gs shipped with the Liquidmetal SIM tool. European iPhone 3Gs were said to have shipped with regular steel pins.

Meanwhile, other former Liquidmetal Technology executives have speculated that Apple will be building their next iPhone out of the alloy.

"I think theyre going to make the iPhone out of it," said Dr. Jan Schroers, the former director of research at Liquidmetal Technologies, the first company to commercially develop the space-age technology. "It's quite obvious from what Liquidmetal has done in the past and what the technology is capable of."

According to Schroers, Apple could create intricate seamless enclosures by blow-molding the melted alloy like glass. The resultant structure could be thinner and stronger than existing Apple hardware enclosures.

It was revealed last week that Apple had acquired the exclusive rights to Liquidmetal for use in the consumer electronics field.

IDG News translates a new Economic Daily News report that claims a 7" iPad will indeed be launched by Christmas of this year.

The Economic Daily reports that Taiwanese companies have won a number of component contracts for the iPad 2. Chimei Innolux will supply 7-inch LCD screens, which use the same IPS (in-plane switching) technology found in the original iPad, which improves viewing angles and color on LCD screens. Touchscreen technology for the screens will come from Cando Corporation, the report says.

While talk of a 7" iPad has been circulating for some time, it has recently regained the spotlight with a report from iLounge earlier this month. iLounge offered the above mock-up and suggested the 7" iPad would launch later this year or early next. Meanwhile, Digitimes also reported on the likelihood a 7" iPad just last week.

The currently shipping 9.7" iPad has been seen as a huge success selling 3.27 million units during the first quarter of sales.

As noted by AppleInsider, Caixin Online reports that China Unicom will launch the iPhone 4 in September and has secured the rights to sell the iPad in China. The iPhone 4 will be made available in early September while no release date has been specified for the iPad.

It was reported last month that a China Unicom executive had flown to the United States to meet with Apple executives to finalize a distribution deal for the iPad and iPhone 4.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that China Unicom would begin selling iPhone 3GS models with Wi-Fi enabled just earlier this month, after months of selling the device without Wi-Fi enabled in order to adhere to government regulations.

Ars Technica highlights a new television commercial for the Sony PSP in which a character mocks the mobile gaming experience on a smartphone that looks suspiciously like an iPhone. In addition to claiming a superior experience on the PSP, Sony also touts $9.99 pricing for some of its older games, closer to the App Store typical high-end gaming price point than that of traditional PSP games.

It's interesting: the PSP is basically setting itself up as an alternative to iPhone games, which is the opposite of how that argument usually plays out. Sony is also promoting inexpensive, older games as a reason to enjoy the PSP instead of looking ahead to big-name upcoming titles.

As the report notes, sagging PSP sales appear to have led Sony to take on the Apple's App Store as a source for gaming on the go. But the strategy carries some significant risk of bringing the iPhone even further into the mainstream gaming world.

The traditional gaming hardware companies have increasingly been looking to Apple as a viable competitor, with Sony planning a new lineup of mobile gaming devices and Nintendo similarly viewing Apple as the "enemy of the future".

The Wall Street Journal reports that Taiwanese manufacturer Pegatron has confirmed that its subsidiary Kaedar Electronics did pay kickbacks to an "intermediate trading company" in order to help land contracts with Apple between 2005 and 2008. It was unable, however, to confirm that Apple global supply manager Paul Devine, arrested late last week over the scheme, was the ultimate recipient of the funds.

Paul Shin Devine, a global supply manager at Apple, was arrested Friday on charges that he received some $1 million in kickbacks from six Asian suppliers. In a federal grand-jury indictment in the U.S. outlining offenses that include unlawful monetary transactions, Kaedar, along with five other companies, were said to have paid kickbacks to Mr. Devine for receiving confidential information that would let the companies negotiate favorable contracts with Apple.

In an interesting twist to the story, Pegatron has been rumored by The Wall Street Journal and other sources to be working with Apple to manufacturer a CDMA-based iPhone 4 that could operate on Verizon's network in the U.S. The alleged kickback scheme, however, occurred prior to Pegatron's acquisition of Kaedar in late 2008 and a Pegatron spokesman claims that the issue has not affected his company's relationship with Apple.

While Foxconn has served as Apple's manufacturing partner for the iPhone since its initial launch over three years ago, Apple and Pegatron do have an existing relationship for production of other devices such as the iPod shuffle. Kaedar has reportedly supplied Apple with iPod packing boxes since 2005.

Update: Reuters reports that Devine today pleaded "not guilty" to the criminal charges filed against him in relation to the scheme.

Telegraph.co.uk publishes an interview with Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen in which he discusses his company's long-running dispute with Apple over the device maker's decision not to include support for Flash in its iOS devices such as the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. In the interview, Narayan appears to note that Adobe has given up on its efforts to convince Apple to adopt Flash.

They've chosen to keep their system closed and we'd rather work with partners who are interested in working with us.

We believe in open systems. We believe in the power of the internet and in customers making choices and I think a lot of the controversy was about their decision at that point. They've made their choice. We've made ours and we've moved on.

It's a business decision. With the energy and innovation that our company has, we'd rather focus on people who want to deliver the best experience with Flash and there are so many of them.

The dispute between the two companies came to a head in late April when Apple CEO Steve Jobs posted an open letter describing his "Thoughts on Flash" and outlining the controversy from his point of view. Narayan quickly responded in his company's defense, attempting to contrast Apple's "closed" ecosystem with the multi-platform, "open" stance taken by Adobe.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the European Commission are currently pursuing an investigation of Apple over its business practices with respect to Flash technology.

As noted by 9 to 5 Mac, Apple has announced what it is calling a "major upgrade" to its support forums, bringing increased social aspects to the site. The changes, which are simply said to be going live "very soon", will see the "Apple Discussions" forums rebranded as "Apple Support Communities".

Very soon a major change will be taking place here at Apple Discussions. To help you prepare we have created some documents to give some insight and instructions on this major upgrade.

Apple has also posted a series of documents highlighted by an introduction to the new support community. While many of the items seem to describe enhanced versions of features already present in Apple Discussions and no screenshots showing how the user interface will change have been posted, a focus does seem to have been placed on socializing and customization.

While users are currently able to fill out some basic profile information, it appears that Apple will be offering additional support to help users identify themselves within the Apple Support Communities. In addition, users will be able to take advantage of more customization options such as widgets that will offer them easy access to areas of the discussion forums that interest them most.

A discussion thread on the changes suggest that the new format has been in beta testing, although it is unclear just how widespread the testing has been.

Boy Genius Report claims that a source has revealed code in iOS 4 showing that new iPhone and iPad models may be set to begin field testing. The relevant code allows devices carrying the designations of iPhone3,2, iPhone3,3, and iProd2,1 to "auto-activate", a process said to allow carriers to test the devices without requiring manual activation through iTunes as is required for retail units.

Way down deep within iOS 4 is a pretty intriguing block of code. Our source says that the code queries the device, and if the device is either a CDMA iPhone or iPad 2, the device will auto-activate, thus bypassing the need for iTunes. We're told this block of code has appeared every year consecutively before a major iPhone / device release, removed right before launch.

These code names are not new, as they first appeared several months ago in iPhone OS 3.2 released for the iPad. Their presence in an "unreleased hardware" portion of code dealing with auto-activation does appear to be new, however, and the source claims that this presages field testing of the devices.

Software evidence of Apple's future devices tends to appear rather early in the development process, as evidenced by iPhone3,1 appearing in iPhone OS configuration files in March 2009. That device turned out to be the iPhone 4, released 15 months later. Evidence of field testing of the iPhone 4 appeared by late November 2009, more than six months before its public launch. Combined with claims that a CDMA-based iPhone 4 is in "engineering verification test" stage, this new evidence of software support for field usage of the new hardware continues to point to possible product releases sometime early next year.

The fact that the new iPhone models carry the iPhone3,2 and iPhone3,3 designations rather than "iPhone4,1" suggests that the hardware is a relatively minor revision to the existing iPhone 4, although it is unclear why there are two new iPhone models in testing. In addition, the assumption is that iProd2,1 is the next-generation iPad, as the current iPad began life as iProd1,1 before taking the name iPad1,1 closer to its release. An even earlier iProd0,1 is presumed to have been an iPad prototype.

A pair of surveys released last week reveal strong pent-up demand for a Verizon iPhone, which has been the subject of increasing rumors in recent weeks with claims of a release as soon as January.

Market research firm Morpace has published the results (PDF) of a survey finding 29% of surveyed consumers either very or somewhat likely to purchase an iPhone should it become available on Verizon, with existing Verizon customers showing particular interest in the handset should it come to their carrier of choice. In particular, the strong interest among current Verizon customers suggests that bringing the iPhone to the carrier could have the double effect of both opening the device up to new customers as well as drawing them away from other smartphone platform such as Android, which has proven very popular with Verizon customers.

Interestingly, the survey also shows that nearly half of AT&T iPhone customers "would consider" a Verizon iPhone, with over a third of AT&T iPhone customers actively holding off from upgrading their handsets while they wait for the iPhone to make its way to other carriers.

That last data point is echoed in a separate survey conducted by ChangeWave that found 31% of current iPhone 4 owners either very or somewhat likely to switch to Verizon should the iPhone become available there. Those users are obviously already under a new two-year contract with AT&T, however, as they have just upgraded to the iPhone 4, and so it is unknown how soon after a Verizon iPhone launch they would be willing and able to make the switch.

ChangeWave previously released data showing AT&T as the biggest drag on iPhone satisfaction ratings, with a leading 27% of iPhone 4 customers citing AT&T's exclusivity for the iPhone as a reason for disliking the device, and 24% of users specifically pointing to the performance of the carrier's 3G network as a top drawback.

Just a few days ago, we noted that early advertisers and developers participating in Apple's iAd program have generally been pleased with the results so far, with advertisers finding high levels of user engagement and increased brand awareness and developers seeing solid financial returns.

The Wall Street Journal reports, however, that not everything is running so smoothly. In particular, Apple's "tight control" over the entire process, including creation of the actual ads, has slowed the launch of offerings from a number of the program's publicized launch partners.

Of the 17 launch partners Apple named for iAd, only Unilever PLC and Nissan Co. had iAd campaigns for much of July. Of the remaining 17, Citigroup Inc., Walt Disney Co. and J.C. Penney Co. - which tied its campaign to the back-to-school-season - have since launched iAd campaigns and other companies are planning iAd efforts.

Part of the reason some marketers are experiencing delays in getting their iAds to market is that Apple has kept tight control on the creative aspects of ad-making, something advertisers aren't used to, according to several ad executives involved with creating iAds.

According to the report, the ad creation process is taking up to 8-10 weeks, with Apple spending up to two weeks longer than originally expected to build the actual ads, leading to the delays.

People familiar with the matter said Apple underestimated how tough the new business would be and is still learning the best tactics for dealing with ad agencies. At the same time, ad agencies are struggling to keep pace with new ad technologies.

With Apple handling the production of the ad unit, agencies don't necessarily know what it is capable of or how to use the technology, one ad executive said. The iAd is designed in HTML5 technology, and Apple has yet to distribute a "developer kit" to agencies so they can understand how it works.

In order to fill the void in the iAd program created by the delayed launches of the big-name advertisers, Apple has rolled out an "iAd for Developers" program that allows App Store developers to advertise their applications within other apps and provides users with the ability to download the advertised apps directly from the iAd without leaving the application that is running. Today's report claims that Apple is charging developers 25 cents every time a user taps on a banner ad for their application, a significant discount from the $2-per-tap rate charged to deep-pocketed advertisers for their more interactive ads.

While the iAd roll-out seems to have had mixed results so far with limited participation but strong results from those who have managed to make their ads available, Apple is no doubt still in the early stages of learning how to become a mobile advertising company. But with Citibank, Disney, and J.C. Penney beginning to roll out their initial ads for the program, we may soon begin to see more variety in ads and additional companies making entries into the program.

NearFieldCommunications World reports that Apple has recently hired Benjamin Vigier as its new product manager for mobile commerce. Vigier is described as an expert in near field communications (NFC) having been in the field since 2004.

Most recently Vigier was product manager for mobile wallet, payment and NFC at US mobile payments specialist mFoundry. There he conceived and managed both the PayPal Mobile service and Starbucks' barcode-based mobile payments service and was also responsible for the development of mobile wallet applications for two top US mobile network operators and an NFC wallet application for a top three US bank.

Near Field Communications is short range wireless communication technology (~4 inches) that is used in mobile phones for a variety of applications including mobile ticketing, mobile payments, interactive advertising and more. The same site had previously reported that Apple has had prototype devices already outfitted with the required radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips.

Apple has published a number of patent applications related to NFC technology. One even detailed the use of an iPhone as an electronic wallet and payment system that could be used to pay a bill at a restaurant. A host of other patent applications from Apple has demonstrated other possibilities including "Grab & go" file transfers between an iPhone and a Mac or PC. According to LinkedIn, Vigier joined Apple in July 2010.

The San Jose Mercury News reports that Paul Devine, a midlevel manager at Apple, has been arrested over his involvement in a scheme in which he provided Asian suppliers and manufacturers of iPod and iPhone accessories with confidential company information in exchange for over $1 million in kickbacks from the companies.

Paul Shin Devine, a global supply manager, and Andrew Ang, of Singapore, were named in a 23-count federal grand jury indictment for wire fraud, money laundering and kickbacks.

"Apple is committed to the highest ethical standards in the way we do business," Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said in a statement. "We have zero tolerance for dishonest behavior inside or outside the company."

The alleged scheme used an elaborate chain of U.S. and foreign bank accounts and one front company to receive payments, the indictment said, and code words like "sample" were used to refer to the payments so that Apple co-workers wouldn't become suspicious.

In addition to the criminal charges, Devine also faces a civil suit filed by Apple over the kickbacks he received from the suppliers, which have not been identified beyond their locations in various Asian countries including China, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. Devine is currently in the custody of the U.S. Marshals and is set to appear in federal court in San Jose, California on Monday.