MacRumors

The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) that as of June 1st, AT&T will nearly double the early termination fee for customers on smartphone contracts such as for the iPhone, going from $175 to $325. The change, which would apply only to new contracts, appears set to come just prior to the launch of a new iPhone.

The iPhone is AT&T's biggest wireless growth driver; however, the company's contract as Apple's sole U.S. partner is expected to end over the next year. The loss of exclusivity could enable iPhone customers--particularly those frustrated by the carrier's network issues--to go to rivals, specifically Verizon Wireless, although high early termination fees could serve as a deterrent.

An AT&T spokesman, however, said the timing of the move wasn't related to any device.

Verizon similarly doubled its early termination fee for "advanced" devices such as smartphones and netbooks to $350 last November. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has taken an interest in the fee policies of Verizon and other carriers, and is seeking to understand how these policies affect consumers.

Earlier this week, AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega noted that his company does not expect many iPhone customers to jump ship to rival carriers once AT&T loses its exclusivity in the United States. He pointed to data showing that 80% of customers are on family talk or corporate discount plans that serve as a significant barrier to switching. A significantly increased early termination fee would obviously also be a deterrent to switching for those customers signed up to a multi-year contract.

iPhone repair site uBreakiFix earlier this week claimed to have received next-generation iPhone front panels in both white and black. The parts appear similar if not identical to the ones that surfaced at about the same time on a Chinese e-commerce site.

Interestingly, the white front panels from both sources show a physical feature located above the earpiece. uBreakiFix suggests that the feature is the iPhone's proximity sensor, although current iPhone models' proximity sensors are hidden under the glass and nearly invisible unless viewed under bright light. More curiously, neither the black front panel parts from these sources or the prototype next-generation iPhones that surfaced over the past month or so seem to share this physical feature.

Black front panel parts obtained by iPhone repair site iResQ in early February do, however, show a similar physical feature in that location, further muddling the situation.

Meanwhile, with this week's appearance of white front panels, observers have been interested in seeing what such a next-generation iPhone would look like fully assembled. While Apple has offered white versions of certain iPhone models since the introduction of the iPhone 3G in 2008, the color has been limited to the back side of the device's body.

One set of renderings has been gaining publicity over the past couple of days in light of the possibility of an all-white model. The renderings were first posted as part of a set from user "Seraphan" at Italian site iSpazio. Notably, the renderings were published on April 23rd, well before claims of an all-white iPhone surfaced, but they are based on the next-generation iPhone protoype design that surfaced just days prior to their publication.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today announced that it has closed its investigation of the proposed acquisition of mobile advertising firm AdMob by Google. The FTC had been seen as likely to oppose the move over antitrust issues, but cited Apple's recent announcement of its own iAd mobile ad service as a significant factor in the decision to not take action against the Google-AdMob proposal.

In a statement issued today, the Commission said that although the combination of the two leading mobile advertising networks raised serious antitrust issues, the agency's concerns ultimately were overshadowed by recent developments in the market, most notably a move by Apple Computer Inc. - the maker of the iPhone - to launch its own, competing mobile ad network. In addition, a number of firms appear to be developing or acquiring smartphone platforms to better compete against Apple's iPhone and Google's Android, and these firms would have a strong incentive to facilitate competition among mobile advertising networks.

"As a result of Apple's entry (into the market), AdMob's success to date on the iPhone platform is unlikely to be an accurate predictor of AdMob's competitive significance going forward, whether AdMob is owned by Google or not," the Commission's statement explains.

Apple had reportedly been considering its own acquisition of AdMob before Google swooped in to snap up the leading ad company. Apple in turn acquired Quattro Wireless to assist in developing its iAd platform. Google's poaching of AdMob from under Apple's nose has also reportedly led Apple to become more serious about its corporate acquisition strategies in recent months.

Full details of the FTC decision on the Google-AdMob situation can be found in a set of PDF documents on the commission's site:

- Statement of the Commission
- Closing Letter to Google
- Closing Letter to AdMob

Two weeks ago, several reports indicated a complete lack of availability of 3G-capable iPad models in partial surveys of Apple retail stores in the United States, with Wi-Fi models also seeing significant supply constraints.

Digital Daily today reports on a new research note from Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster indicating that the shortages are continuing, with none of the 50 stores surveyed this week having stock of 3G-capable iPad models and only about a quarter of stores even having stock of Wi-Fi-only models.

"74 percent of the stores we checked were completely sold out of all iPad models," Munster said in a note to clients. "26 percent had some WiFi models in stock, and no stores had any 3G models available. We note that the stores have implemented a reservation system, by which customers can request to be placed on a waitlist for future iPad shipments, notified upon arrival, and given 24 hours to pick up the iPad. One Apple store representative indicated that the in-store reservation system typically takes 4-7 days."

Munster suggests that Apple's supply constraints could take months to resolve, with a supply-demand balance perhaps not likely to be achieved until late fall.

Just yesterday, RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky increased his 2010 iPad sales prediction from 5 million to 8 million, although it is unclear to what degree Apple's continued shortages are due to unexpected demand that could continue to drive up observers' sales predictions or to supply issues that could hamper the company's ability to reach the sales numbers expected by analysts. In either case, Apple continues to struggle meeting the demand of its customers.

The U.S. shortages continue even as Apple prepares to launch the device in nine new countries one week from now. Several customers with pre-orders in those countries have indicated that their order statuses are now showing as "Shipped", although no delivery information has yet been posted and orders are not expected to arrive before the official launch day of May 28th.

Update: We've heard of one Apple Store location that currently has on the order of 400 requests for 3G-capable iPad models registered on its "Notify Me" waiting list. The store is reportedly receiving only 15-20 new iPad 3Gs each day, indicating that it may be quite some time before it is able to work through its backlog of demand.

With Google's announcement earlier this week that it is releasing a new open source, royalty-free video format known as "WebM" to compete with the Apple-backed H.264 standard, observers have wondered what Apple's response will be. Google's inclusion of several other prominent industry players including Mozilla and Opera has suggested that Apple may find itself under pressure to adopt the standard as it gains traction.

The Register reports that one of its readers emailed Apple CEO Steve Jobs to ask about his thoughts on Google's announcement of WebM, which utilizes the VP8 video codec acquired by Google when it purchased On2 Technologies earlier this year.

Jobs reportedly simply responded by sending a link to a lengthy and technical blog post from an independent developer working on an open source x264 project for encoding video in the H.264 format preferred by Apple. In short, developer Jason Garrett-Glaser calls VP8/WebM "a mess" and "not ready for primetime", with Google even having declared the standard "final" despite a number of flaws already discovered in it. In addition, while appearing to be a significant upgrade over the Theora format previously preferred by Mozilla and Opera, the new format on the whole does not seem to be any better than H.264.

Larger questions, however, are arising over the patent picture with respect to VP8/WebM. One of the format's main selling points for Google has been the fact that it is open source and royalty-free. This is in contrast to H.264, for which a group of patent holders (in which Apple plays a small part) oversees licensing and royalties for encoder/decoder manufacturers and content providers. While end users are currently not subject to royalty payments for the H.264 format, there is some concern that such fees could be implemented in 2016 after the current licensing agreement term expires.

Garrett-Glaser raises the issue in his piece about whether VP8/WebM can stand up to any patent tests, as it seems to carry a significant amount of similarity to H.264. Consequently, he calls into question whether Google can truly offer a royalty-free format with it. Digital Daily's John Paczkowski also dug into the issue a bit further and shares comments from Larry Horn, CEO of MPEG LA, the body that oversees the patent pools behind H.264 and other standards.

JP: Let me ask you this: Are you creating a patent pool license for VP8 and WebM? Have you been approached about creating one?

Larry Horn: Yes, in view of the marketplace uncertainties regarding patent licensing needs for such technologies, there have been expressions of interest from the market urging us to facilitate formation of licenses that would address the market's need for a convenient one-stop marketplace alternative to negotiating separate licenses with individual patent holders in accessing essential patent rights for VP8 as well as other codecs, and we are looking into the prospects of doing so.

Horn's comments suggest that VP8/WebM may become subject to similar licensing and royalty terms as H.264 once certain patent holders come together to assert ownership over aspects of the standard, negating one of the primary selling points of the standard. For its part, however, Google maintains that it has thoroughly vetted the standard and is confident in its ability to offer it as an open source and royalty-free option.

Last month, actor Justin Long revealed that Apple's long-running "Get a Mac" ad campaign, in which he appeared as the "Mac" character, appeared to have been discontinued. The last set of "Get a Mac" commercials had been released in October 2009.

It now appears that Apple has finally pulled the "Get a Mac" campaign from its site, redirecting the page to an expanded "Why You'll Love a Mac" page highlighting five key marketing points for Macs in comparison to PCs: Better Hardware, Better Software, Better OS, Better Support, and It's Compatible.

Apple's extensive gallery of "Get a Mac" ads has also been removed from the site, with the URL similarly redirecting to the "Why You'll Love a Mac" page.

Apple's Mac television ad plans for the future remain unknown, as the revamped features currently offer no hint of a specific TV-focused campaign. While Apple has not aired any new Mac commercials since October, the success of the award-winning "Get a Mac" campaign suggests that Apple may be interested in continuing a television presence in some manner. In the meantime, the company continues to regularly release new iPhone commercials, and has begun ramping up iPad advertising.

German site Macerkopf.de [Google translation] and Italian site iPadevice [Google translation] report that Apple's iBookstore has begun to go live in a number of international countries. The news comes after iPad versions of those and other countries' App Stores went live earlier today.

For the time being, international iBookstore offerings appear limited to free Project Gutenberg titles, although content continues to roll out on an almost minute-by-minute basis. Customers will likely be more interested to see Apple's distribution and pricing arrangements for paid titles once those begin appearing in the international iBookstores. The iBookstore was originally announced as a U.S.-only launch, although it quickly became apparent that Apple was planning to extend it to other countries.

With announcements regarding pre-orders in nine new countries earlier this month, Apple revealed that it will also be launching the iBookstore in those countries alongside the May 28th device launches, and the company is apparently already making preparations for having those stores fully up and running at that time.

Billboard reports on data for the full-year 2009 showing Apple's iTunes Store as the largest distributor of music in the United States with 26.7% of the market, up from 21.4% in 2008 and 12.7% in 2007. Apple's lead was further extended by second-place Wal-Mart's drop from 15% to 12.5%.

Last year's share gain was helped by Apple's embrace of variable pricing on digital tracks. But it remains to be seen if iTunes can continue to expand its market share this year, given that year-to-date digital track sales in the United States are down almost 1% from the same period last year, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Last August, NPD reported Apple's share of the U.S. music market at 25% for the first half of the year, but recent comments from music industry executives suggest that iTunes' growth may be slowing.

Apple documented its climb up the U.S. music sales charts in a series of acknowledgements at keynotes and other events over the years, culminating with the company grabbing the top spot in early 2008.

As suggested in a report yesterday, Google has announced Google TV, a new offering set to roll out in the fall of this year designed to integrate the television and Web experience.

Google TV is a new experience for television that combines the TV that you already know with the freedom and power of the Internet. With Google Chrome built in, you can access all of your favorite websites and easily move between television and the web. This opens up your TV from a few hundred channels to millions of channels of entertainment across TV and the web. Your television is also no longer confined to showing just video. With the entire Internet in your living room, your TV becomes more than a TV -- it can be a photo slideshow viewer, a gaming console, a music player and much more.

Built on Chrome and Android, Google is opening up the Google TV platform to developers to allow them to create new applications. In addition, existing Android applications not requiring phone capabilities will be able to run directly on the Google TV platform.

From a hardware perspective, Google has partnered with Intel, which is providing its Atom processor to power the Google TV offerings. Google TV will initially be offered as a standalone box from Logitech, as well as integrated directly into Sony TVs and Blu-ray players. Google has also partnered with Best Buy for distribution and with DISH Network to provide one-click integration between Google TV and the satellite provider's DVR offerings.

Google TV has been seen as a significant competitor to Apple's set-top box known as Apple TV. Apple has long regarded Apple TV as a "hobby", offering a somewhat limited feature set serving as a hub for music, video, and photo content, as well as access to the company's iTunes Store.

Google's major announcements at its Google I/O conference continue today, with the company announcing that it has acquired Simplify Media to assist it with rolling out a new syncing service that will allows users to push apps and music directly to their Android-based mobile devices over the air.

According to TechCrunch, Google's demo of its next-generation Android operating system codenamed "Froyo" included a new section of the Android Market devoted to music, offering a possible significant competitor to Apple's iTunes.

Details are sparse at the moment, but here's how this basically works. You go to the Market on the web, find a song you like, click the download button, and just like with apps, the song starts to download on your Android devices. So it's iTunes, over the web, with auto-syncing. No word on who the partners are for this, what the prices will be, etc.

Simplify Media announced in mid-March that it was pulling its popular iPhone applications and preparing to move in a "new direction", which now appears to be related to Google's acquisition of the company and development of the auto syncing service.

Google's forthcoming desktop application based on Simplify Media's technology will reportedly allow users to make their entire non-DRM music library available for streaming directly to their Android-based devices with a single button click.

TUAW notes that Apple has added a new section to its iTunes Store pages for movies, offering ratings and reviews from popular review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

iTunes' integrated Rotten Tomatoes ratings presents the movie's prospective buyers and renters with the Tomatometer chart featuring the total count of reviews along with a fresh/rotten breakdown and the average rating. Viewers are also shown four review snippets from Top Critic reviewers, follow by a link to the movies page on RottenTomatoes.com.

The new section appears between the "Viewers Also Bought" and "Customer Reviews" portions of each film's iTunes Store page.

With all of the clamor over the Apple's favoring of Web standards such as HTML5 over Adobe's Flash, it seems notable that Adobe has stepped forward with an announcement that it has released an "HTML5 Pack" extension to its Dreamweaver CS5 website authoring application.

The Adobe HTML5 Pack is an extension to Adobe Dreamweaver CS5, the latest version of the industry-leading HTML authoring tool for website design. This extension provides more creative options to Adobe Creative Suite 5 users so they can more easily create, deliver and optimize compelling content consistently, across the widest array of screens, to maximize revenue streams and forward their businesses.

The new HTML5 Pack is available as a free download for users of Dreamweaver CS5.

Adobe's release, while certainly in the works well before Apple CEO Steve Jobs posted his Thoughts on Flash open letter, serves as something of an answer to the challenge posed by Jobs at the conclusion of that letter.

Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

In a research note released today, RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky increased his estimate of 2010 iPad sales from 5 million to 8 million, citing upcoming international launches and continued strong sales in the U.S. as evidenced by retail store shortages. For the current quarter, which runs through late June, Abramsky is predicting iPad sales in excess of 1.8 million units in the United States and an additional 600,000 in the nine new countries receiving the device on May 28th, pushing quarterly sales to 2.5 million, up from earlier estimates of 1.5 million.

Continued strong iPad sales in the U.S. are estimated in excess of 200,000 per week, nearly double that of current Mac unit sales.

Checks indicate that US iPad sales remain strong post-launch, driven by rising consumer visibility to iPad's user experience, sustained PR/word-of-mouth marketing, 3G iPad launch, and broadening iPad apps/content. We believe Apple is now selling >200k iPads/wk, greater than US Macs (est. 110k Macs/wk) and just below US iPhone 3GS first qtr (246k/wk).

RBC's data also shows a positive effect from iPad accessories, with record "attach rates" as customers purchase cases, docks, and other items to go along with their iPads. Abramsky estimates iPad accessories adding an additional 15-20% in incremental revenue for each unit sold, well above 6-10% estimates for the iPhone and iPod.

RBC continues to carry a $350 price target on Apple's stock, which is currently trading at approximately $240 per share.

As noted [Google translation] by German site Macerkopf.de and expanded upon by Engadget, Apple has begun activating international iPad App Stores ahead of the device's launch in those countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK. In fact, stores appear to be going live even in countries that are not included in this round of device launches. Engadget notes that things appear a bit unstable at the moment as Apple works to get everything up and running for the new markets, but should stabilize in time for the official iPad launch later this month.

Apple began taking pre-orders for all iPad models in the nine new countries early last week, with the device scheduled to launch in those countries on May 28th. Recent data from Yahoo showed approximately 10% of iPad users accessing its network of sites coming from outside the United States, suggesting that a significant number of devices have made their way out of the initial launch country.

Earlier this week, the spotlight was put on Apple for its policy prohibiting customers from purchasing iPads with cash by a report from KGO-TV in San Francisco noting the case of a woman on fixed income who had saved up cash over a period of weeks to purchase an iPad as her first computer.

"It took quite a long time for me to just save up this small amount of money to go down and purchase one," she said. "I had my cash in the backpack and I went up proudly to the counter and told them, 'I would like to purchase an iPad.'"

She was at the Apple store in Palo Alto, about to pull out the big wad of cash and take home her first computer. Instead, she received a terrible blow.

"They said, 'Sorry, we don't take cash.'

With no credit or debit card in her name, she was unable to purchase her iPad, the victim of an Apple policy designed to help prevent customers from circumventing purchase limits in place to deal with tight supplies of the popular device.

Apple initially stood by its policy, but today Apple Senior Vice President for Retail Ron Johnson announced that the company has changed its policy to allow customers to purchase iPads with cash if they set up an Apple account in the store at the time of purchase.

About a month ago, we said we'd like you to use a credit card when you buy your iPad, and that was the best way we could think of to make sure that people only bought two per individual," said Johnson. "And then it came to our attention that Diane [Campbell], through your story, was very interested in buying an iPad with cash, and we made a decision today to change that."

Johnson said our story triggered a company-wide policy change. As of today, anyone can pay for an iPad with cash as long as they set up their Apple account at the store. Apple accounts are needed for the iPad anyway, so that is not putting anyone out.

As a gesture of goodwill toward Diane Campbell, the woman whose experience brought the issue considerable publicity, two employees visited her home today to offer her an iPad free of charge.

"I am just so excited," said Campbell. "Words can't explain right now."

Apple's "no cash" policy was not unique to the iPad, as the company has introduced it in October 2007 for the iPhone in order to deal with high demand.

CNET reports that Apple has issued a response to yesterday's report that the company is working to "rethink" its Final Cut Pro offerings as the balance of usage of the video production software has shifted towards "prosumers" from the high-end professionals it originally targeted.

"Final Cut Pro is the first choice for professional video editors, and we've never been more excited about its future," Apple spokesman Bill Evans told CNET. "The next version of Final Cut is going to be awesome, and our pro customers are going to love it."

Apple currently offers Final Cut Express, targeted at prosumers, which CNET notes should leave the Final Cut Pro team free to continue catering to high-end video professionals with the Final Cut Studio package.

Apple's comments don't necessarily rule out the report's claims of the company looking to bring in more "prosumer-friendly" features to the full Final Cut Studio package, but do suggest that it is not planning on forgetting its professional audience with future releases.

Gartner today published a report covering worldwide mobile phone sales to end users for the first quarter of 2010. The results show Apple placing seventh among all mobile phone manufacturers with 2.7% of the market, up from 1.5% in the year-ago quarter. The growth places Apple within striking range of Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Research in Motion as it seeks to move up the list into the top five in the future.

The first quarter of 2010 was Apple's strongest quarter yet, which placed the company in the No. 7 position with a 112.2 per cent increase in mobile devices sales. "Growth came partly from new communication service providers in established markets, such as the UK, and stronger sales in new markets such as China and South Korea," said Ms Milanesi. "The second quarter of 2010 will be a very important one for Apple. We expect that Apple will present its new iPhone in June during its Worldwide Developer Conference, which will be the first to feature the latest release of the iPhone OS that includes welcome improvements for developers and users, such as multitasking."

The report also examined the more limited smartphone market from an operating system standpoint, showing Apple's iPhone OS in third place behind Symbian and Research in Motion with 15.4% of the market, up from 10.5% year-over-year. The iPhone OS placed ahead of Google's surging Android, which held 9.6% of the market. That worldwide data contrasts with the United States, where a recent NPD study showed Android-based handsets outselling the iPhone.

Gartner's numbers are somewhat comparable to overall and smartphone numbers released by IDC in recent weeks. The data paints a slightly different picture of the earlier data, however, which saw Apple edging out Motorola in overall mobile phone sales to become the largest U.S.-based manufacturer.