MacRumors

Building on comments reportedly made by Apple CEO Steve Jobs at a town hall meeting for company employees last month, Valleywag claims that Jobs focused a significant amount of effort during his recent visit to The Wall Street Journal on selling newspaper executives on the need to move away from Adobe Flash for digital content.

Jobs was brazen in his dismissal of Flash, people familiar with the meeting tell us. He repeated what he said at an Apple Town Hall recently, that Flash crashes Macs and is buggy.

But he also called Flash a "CPU hog," a source of "security holes" and, in perhaps the most grevious insult an famous innovator can utter, a dying technology. Jobs said of Flash, "We don't spend a lot of energy on old technology."

According to the report, Jobs then shared a list of technologies such as floppy drives, data port standards, and CCFL-backlit LCDs that Apple had helped computer users abandon in favor of newer technologies.

In his arguments against Flash, Jobs reportedly claimed that including Flash support would have decimated the iPad's battery life, bringing it down from its claimed 10 hours to the neighborhood of 1.5 hours. Jobs also claimed that abandoning Flash in favor of other tools would be "trivial" for The Wall Street Journal, suggesting that they embrace H.264-encoded video has one means toward that end. He apparently did not address, however, the steps that would be required for the paper to entirely redo its entire Web-based content in iPad-friendly technologies such as JavaScript.

Just yesterday, Adobe Chief Technical Officer Kevin Lynch defended Flash's reputation on the Mac and noted that increasing numbers of smartphone operating are supporting the standard. Based on his comments, Lynch appears to remain hopeful that the adoption of Flash for mobile platforms will convince holdouts like Apple that it can be supported.

MacRumors has received reports from several readers noting that the download cap for iPhone applications installed via 3G has been increased to 20 MB, a change that also appears to apply to iTunes Store content. Previously, users attempting to download content over 10 MB in size were prompted to connect to a Wi-Fi network or use a computer to obtain the applications. With the ceiling now increased to 20 MB, developers trying to stay under the cap limits in order to avoid frustrating users unable to install their applications while on the go should have significantly more flexibility for their applications.

The change is particularly significant given the impending launch of Apple's iPad tablet device, with 3G-capable models due to be released in April. The increased screen size and capabilities of the iPad will allow developers to create more sophisticated applications that will tend to be larger in size than iPhone applications.

A pair of Apple patent applications published today have been generating a bit of attention for their disclosure of Apple's behind-the-scenes work on its products. The first application covers methods for addressing variations in individual digital camera lenses by capturing images of known color and calibrating the software driving the lens to compensate for any non-uniformity in the lens with respect to a reference standard. While the technology could certainly be useful for ensuring consistent camera lens performance across devices in spite of manufacturing variations, AppleInsider noticed that images accompanying the patent application depict a front-facing camera on the handheld devices.

This is not the first time that Apple has included product images in its patent filings showing front-facing cameras, despite that fact that none of its handheld products have yet to be released offering such a feature. Conflicting reports prior to the iPad's introduction disagreed over whether the device would contain a front-facing camera, and one was not included in the official introduction. An inspection of claimed iPad parts, however, reveals an empty space in the bezel that appears to exactly match that used to house iSight cameras in Apple's notebook computers.

A second patent application, detailed by Patently Apple, describes a mouse input device with a convex bottom and gyroscopic sensors that would allow users to control their computers by rocking or turning the mouse. Such actions could be used for horizontal or vertical scrolling or for rotating items on a computer screen.

The patent application appears somewhat similar in at least general line-of-thinking to one published last month that describes the use of force and velocity sensors to allow for gesture-based input on mice.

Several MacRumors readers have reported that Apple's shipping lead times for its 27-inch iMac models in its online stores have improved today, with the U.S. and Canada now seeing lead times of 5-7 business days instead of 2 weeks and European stores seeing improvement to 2 weeks from earlier 3-week estimates.

Apple has continued to face lengthy shipping times for its 27-inch iMac models, with the company claiming that the delays have stemmed from high demand. The company has also been struggling, however, with several issues related to the displays on the machines, including flickering and yellow tinting. The company has issued a pair of firmware updates to address the flickering issues for existing customers, while it apparently continues to investigate the tinting issues.

The New York Times reports that recent shifts in the eBook publishing industry, spurred by Apple's entrance into the market, to allow for higher prices and greater publisher control over their content may offer more flexibility in pricing than previously thought. The "agency model" being promoted by Apple and pushed by many book publishers has been looking to break Amazon's stranglehold on the eBook market with its $9.99 pricing for best-sellers by allowing publishers to set retail prices on such releases, rumored to be targeted to sell at $12.99 to $14.99.

But according to at least three people with knowledge of the discussions, who spoke anonymously because of the confidentiality of the talks, Apple inserted provisions requiring publishers to discount e-book prices on best sellers -- so that $12.99-to-$14.99 range was merely a ceiling; prices for some titles could be lower, even as low as Amazon's $9.99. Essentially, Apple wants the flexibility to offer lower prices for the hottest books, those on one of the New York Times best-seller lists, which are heavily discounted in bookstores and on rival retail sites. So, for example, a book that started at $14.99 would drop to $12.99 or less once it hit the best-seller lists.

Moreover, for books where publishers offer comparable hardcover editions at a price below the typical $26, Apple wanted e-book prices to reflect the cheaper hardcover prices. These books might be priced much lower than $12.99, even if they did not hit the best-seller list.

The switch to an agency model is seen by publishers as a means to create a more sustainable eBook industry as a whole, countering Amazon's strategy of selling eBooks at a loss in order to build market share and spur sales of its Kindle devices. Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported on research from Credit Suisse analyst Spencer Wang, who expects that Amazon's share of the eBook market will fall from its current 90% to only 35% by 2015 as Apple and others enter the industry.

The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) on plans from other PC makers to tackle Apple's iPad head-on, and HP is looking at undercutting the iPad on pricing as a significant component to that strategy.

In the next few weeks, executives from Hewlett-Packard Co. will meet in the U.S. and Taiwan to tweak prices and features on an upcoming keyboardless computer dubbed the Slate, said two people familiar with the matter.

H-P has discussed selling a version of the Slate -- similar to the iPad in size and features, and including a cellular connection -- for a price below the $629 Apple charges for an equivalent iPad, one of these people said.

While HP's Slate was briefly demoed at CES in Las Vegas a few weeks before Apple announced the iPad, the company has refrained from offering details on the specs and pricing of the device as it waited for Apple to tip its hand so that it could make adjustments to respond competitively.

Dell, Acer, and Sony are reportedly all developing iPad competitors in one form or another, with Dell opting to pursue a smaller form factor with its initial foray into the market. Microsoft has also been rumored to be developing its own booklet device, codenamed "Courier".

There's still plenty of skepticism about whether PC companies have the right products to compete against the iPad. Many of the products risk being seen as "computers without keyboards," in part because many of them run an operating system, Microsoft's Windows 7, which is primarily aimed at traditional PC functions, said Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey. In contrast, the iPad's software, which borrows heavily from the iPhone, is more tailored for consuming media on the go, he said.

Wi-Fi-only versions of Apple's iPad are set to launch in late March beginning at $499, with 3G-capable models following in April beginning at $629.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports that the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has granted a request made by Kodak last month for an investigation of Apple and Research in Motion regarding possible infringement of Kodak patents related to digital camera technology.

The U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington said today it will consider the complaint filed last month and decide whether to ban the imports after Kodak claimed that the companies refused to pay patent royalties on digital-camera technology. Kodak also has a civil lawsuit pending.

Kodak, based in Rochester, New York, claims in the ITC case that Apple and RIM are infringing a patent related to ways to preview images. The civil suit, only against Apple, concerns that patent and additional ones for digital cameras and computer processes.

In its complaint, Kodak contended that it had worked with Apple and Research in Motion "for years" in attempts to resolve the dispute, but had been unable to reach satisfactory agreements. Kodak also noted at the time that disruption of sales of the devices from Apple and RIM was not its "primary interest", suggesting that its complaint with the ITC requesting a ban on import of the devices into the U.S. was designed to gain leverage in its negotiations with the companies.

The ITC's decision to grant an investigation had not been unexpected, as it typically agrees to address such issues. It remains unlikely that imports of Apple's iPhone will be blocked, however, as the companies are much more likely to resolve the impasse prior to the implementation of any such measures.

Reuters today reports on the secrecy demanded by Apple of its Asian manufacturing partners, profiling a sprawling Foxconn facility in Longhua, China complete where employees live and work while producing many of Apple's devices.

Inside the walled city -- one of several compounds run by Foxconn International, a major supplier for Apple Inc -- employees are provided with most of their daily needs. There are dormitories, canteens, recreation facilities, even banks, post offices and bakeries.

The rank-and-file within the compound have little reason to venture outside. That reduces the likelihood of leaks, which in turn lessens the risk of incurring the wrath of Apple and its chief executive, Steve Jobs, whose product launches have turned into long-running, tightly controlled media spectacles.

According to the report, workers are subject to metal detectors and searches when leaving the compound, while security personnel aggressively protect the security of the facility. One Reuters reporter was reportedly physically assaulted by Foxconn security personnel while taking photos of the compound from a public road, and only the intervention of police summoned by the reporter was able to resolve the situation.

"You're free to do what you want," the policeman explained, "But this is Foxconn and they have a special status here. Please understand."

Apple's manufacturing partners are also subject to confidentiality agreements as is standard in the industry, while Apple also performs unannounced security checks at manufacturing facilities to test security. According to sources, several partners have been warned about the possibility of losing their contracts if suspected leaks continued, although none appear to have actually had their contracts terminated.

Another security measure employed by Apple is the use of custom parts with tight lead times for parts manufacturers, limiting the amount of time such companies are aware of Apple's plans. Apple also reportedly sources components from many different manufacturers, leaving each one with only very limited knowledge of Apple's forthcoming devices until manufacturing begins just weeks before product launch. Finally, the report notes that Apple has been known to test potential manufacturing partners by contracting with them for production of different parts and watching for any leaks from those sources.

Apple's obsession with secrecy has been profiled in the past, with workers on its main headquarters campus in Cupertino faced with numerous security access points and special protocols to severely limit the number of people with knowledge of products under development. According to the earlier report, Apple has also been known to seed its own employees with incorrect information in attempts to discover the sources of product information leaks in its bid for the strictest security possible.

BoomTown today sat down with Adobe Chief Technical Officer Kevin Lynch to discuss the relationship between Apple and Adobe and the deployment of Flash on Mac as well as the iPhone and iPad. Apple's decision not to include Flash Player capabilities on the iPhone and now the iPad has resulted in apparent tensions between the two companies.

Lynch's comments about Flash on the Mac indicate that the Adobe is working hard on CPU usage during video rendering, acknowledging that such tasks use more CPU cycles on the Mac than on Windows. Regarding the iPhone, Lynch defends the importance of Flash on the Web, noting that he is hopeful that the adoption of Flash capabilities on a number of smartphone platforms will help convince others such as Apple to follow suit.

Well, there's a lot of Flash content on the Web, and so, right now about 85% of the top websites have Flash on their website. So if you want to view the whole Web, not having the ability to view Flash really is kind of limiting in terms of the experience on the devices, and so we're really focused on making sure that we can bring the ability to view Flash content and interact with it across all of these devices...I'm hopeful in the smartphone space, for example, that as people start to see that you can get a great experience with Flash in the smartphone, for example on Android, and Palm, and Nokia, and RIM, and these other devices, that that will encourage others to adopt Flash as well on their devices.

In the interview, Lynch also discusses Adobe's efforts on its AIR platform, which bundles the Flash runtime into applications, allowing developers to easily port their applications to a variety of platforms, including the iPhone.

In a follow-up article, BoomTown's Kara Swisher also posts a video of Lynch showing off a digital version of Wired magazine has developed using Adobe AIR. The working concept, which Wired expects to be able to easily port to the iPad via the AIR platform, has also been previewed by Wired.

Earlier this week, we noted that an image had been posted to our forums purportedly showing Best Buy's internal inventory system listing three unknown Apple products described only as "Dummy SKUs" and serving as placeholders for expected future products. While screenshots from Best Buy's systems have generally been unreliable, one such posting last year did turn out to presage the release of an updated MacBook, so we do tend to make note of these occurrences.

AppleInsider today publishes a detail page for one of the entries shown in our previously-published screenshot, showing an "In Stock Date" of March 14th for the unknown product. No other significant information beyond that already visible in the earlier screenshot can be seen on the new image.

For comparison purposes, last year's screenshot showed a valid UPC code and model number for the unreleased MacBook, data not included on the new screenshot and therefore resulting in significantly less confidence that Best Buy possess specific knowledge of a new Apple release. Also notable is that last year's screenshot listed an "In Stock Date" of May 31st, 2009 when the update was actually released on May 27th. Whether Best Buy had simply been guessing at a release date or if it was simply scheduled to receive its first shipments a few days after Apple's release is unknown.

Gizmodo today also publishes a screenshot from the inventory system at a Canadian Best Buy showing a slew of dummy SKUs for unidentified Apple products. The source also notes that he saw "fully-speced high end iMacs in inventory that were not in stores yet," but it is unclear exactly what the source might be referring to.

Regardless of whether the screenshots reflect actual knowledge on the part of Best Buy of Apple's product release plans, an update to Apple's MacBook Pro line is widely expected in the near future. Apple is expected to adopt Intel's new mobile processors for its next refresh, and apparent benchmarking data for one such model appeared online in recent weeks, further stoking anticipation of a revision.

As previously reported, Opera Software has been showing off the iPhone version of Opera Mini browser at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week. Opera Mini is a mobile browser that uses Opera's compression and server-side technology to quickly deliver web pages to your phone. Macworld explains how the browser works:

How this client-server system works is that when you request a Web page in Opera Mini, the app sends the URL to an Opera server, rather than to the destination Web server. The Opera server actually sends the request to the Web server, and then downloads the page's content, processes any scripts or other dynamic content, and compresses the resulting page into Opera Binary Markup Language (OBML). The Opera server then sends the resulting "page" -- which is up to 90 percent smaller than the original Web page -- to the client on your phone.

The result of this server-assisted connection is faster load times than Apple's own Safari with claims up to 6 times faster.

Opera has yet to submit the application to Apple for approval, but seems to believe that Apple will approve it. The use of this server-sided processing gets around Apple's restriction of executing 3rd party code (such as Javascript) within an iPhone app. In Opera Mini's case, all of this processing happens on Opera's servers and a static page is then passed to your iPhone. No submission date has been announced.

Silicon Alley Insider reports that a "turf war" has erupted at The New York Times, with both print and digital units within the company vying for control over iPad content distribution and pricing. According to the report, the Times' print unit sees an iPad offering as an extension of the newspaper's print distribution and is seeking subscription fees of $20-$30 per month for iPad content, while the newspaper's digital operations unit sees such pricing as unrealistic and is pushing for a lower $10 per month pricing.

The dispute has apparently escalated all the way to the top of the Times Building, and top executives -- presumably the same ones who secretly dined with Apple CEO Steve Jobs -- are now debating which way to go. Among those supporting the $20-30 per month print circulation side is, we're told, New York Times Media Group president Scott Heekin-Canedy.

The report notes that The New York Times is currently offering free access to its Web edition into 2011, making subscription costs for iPad-specific content of $20-$30 appear rather uncompetitive.

Silicon Alley Insider reports on new data from market research firm NPD relayed by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster showing strong Mac and iPod sales for Apple's March quarter so far, well ahead of most analysts' expectations. NPD's numbers show Mac sales currently up 36% year-over-year, double that of analysts' consensus expectations. Similarly, NPD is seeing 5% growth in iPod sales compared to the March quarter of 2009, compared to expectations of a 17% decline. According to Munster:

"While it is way too early to make a call on the quarter, we believe the Jan. NPD suggests the quarter is tracking ahead of Street consensus."

Munster's predictions for the overall quarter are slightly above consensus, seeing 2.6-2.8 million Mac sales for 18-26% year-over-year growth and 9-10 million iPod sales for a decline of between 9% and 17% over the same quarter last year.

Apple last quarter reported record revenue, profits, and Mac and iPhone sales in what is a traditionally strong holiday quarter, despite difficult economic conditions. The company reported nearly $15.7 billion in revenue for the quarter and is offering guidance of $11.0-$11.4 billion for the current quarter.

Hardmac notes that Apple has launched a MacBook Repair Extension Program for Hard Drive Issues, allowing customers of Apple's early MacBook models to receive free repairs or compensation for previously-paid repairs related to hard drive failure. Black and white MacBook models sold between May 2006 and December 2007 may be eligible for the repair program.

Symptom
A flashing question mark appears on screen when the MacBook is turned on.

Affected MacBook models
13-inch black and white MacBook models with the following processor speeds and hard drive capacities:

- Processor speed - 1.83GHz, 2GHz, or 2.16GHz
- Hard drive capacity - 60GB, 80GB, 100GB, 120GB, or 160GB

The repair program covers hard drive issues on these machines for three years from the date of purchase or until August 15, 2010, whichever offers longer coverage.

Apple's new program appears to relate to mechanical failures of the read/write head in Seagate drives used in Apple's early MacBook line reported as long as ago as November 2007. Apple acknowledged the reports and noted that it was looking into the issues soon after, but waited over two years before finally issuing an official repair extension program for the affected MacBook machines.

In a pair of reports yesterday, Reuters noted that rumors of Apple dumping Google in favor of Microsoft's Bing for the iPhone's search functionality have hung in the air at this week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. According to the first report, Google vice president Vic Gundotra called the Apple-Google relationship "stable" and noted that Google has "no reason to believe that's going to change".

"Apple is a very close and valuable partner and we're very excited about the relationship we have with them today. We have no reason to believe that's going to change," Vic Gundotra, who leads Google's mobile engineering, told journalists on Monday.

"We don't want to comment on those rumours," he said when pressed on the issue of the iPhone at a roundtable at industry trade fair Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. "We think that relationship is stable."

A second report from Reuters described Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's reaction upon being asked about the prospects of a deal to bring Bing to the iPhone.

When asked about the reports, Ballmer said "I wouldn't comment either way," but smiled, and repeated the phrase when the reporter remarked that Ballmer looked happy.

Apple's deal with Google to provide default search for the iPhone has been pegged at a value of over $100 million per year for Apple as it participates in revenue sharing with Google through the platform.

Softpedia and Computerworld have noted a significant number of complaints from users of Apple's new Aperture 3 professional-level photo editing and management application released last week. The complaints, which have been flooding Apple's discussion forums (1, 2), include crashes and hangs, as well as "out of disk space" warnings that appear to most commonly be associated with importing database files from Aperture 2. Computerworld notes:

Apple's support forums are filling up with users with similar problems: When they leave Aperture 3 to import their photo libraries, their page file balloons until they run out of disk space. The system then becomes unstable. Some users start seeing their swap disk file size balloon almost immediately after launching the app.

The issue isn't universal. A few users have chimed in to say that they've had no issues with Aperture 3. That means there might be some external issues at play here.

According to Softpedia, some speculation has centered around corruption of Aperture 2 libraries that causes issues as they are put through the upgrade process to make them compatible with Aperture 3. Regardless of whether the source of the problem is corrupted databases or issues with Aperture 3 itself, Apple has apparently yet to acknowledge the issues or offer specific suggestions or fixes.