MacRumors

Businessweek spoke to some experts about the feasibility of the rumors that Apple will be introducing a new manufacturing process and bringing notebook manufacturing in-house.

iSuppli analyst Kevin Keller believes that while short term costs would rise, there could be a savings over time:

"If you're working with one single unit of metal, you're reducing a lot of the materials costs and also a lot of labor time on assembly"

If true, the results could "be unlike anything else on the market in appearance and design" with elimination of screws and seams. Still, it's unclear if Apple could overcome the fact that such a process is quite time-intensive, and scale it enough for laptop production.

As well, the possibility of Apple investing in its own factories to assemble notebooks is seen as a very expensive and risky move and there appears to be no current evidence that Apple has embarked on such a project.

"I'd be shocked if they started doing any of their own assembly," says Andy Hargreaves of Pacific Crest Securities in Portland, Ore. "That's the kind of drastic step that would hurt profits. I'm just not sure what the advantages would be."

Meanwhile, CNet's Adam Richardson, an industrial designer, dismisses some of the rumors claiming that Apple has been using both laser and waterjet methods for quite sometime. He reports that the process described by 9to5mac as applied to a notebook-sized device would be much more expensive than traditional manufacturing and feels it's "unlikely that it will literally be a hollowed out block of aluminum".

Nick Ciarelli describes a recent shift in Apple's strategy to not suppress product leaks in an article at The Daily Beast.

But lately, there are signs that Applelong the most secretive company in the tech worldhas thrown in the towel on fighting leaks. This year, advance details about a number of Apple products spilled onto the web, including photos of the iPhone 3G and the latest lineup of iPod nanos.

Recent product photo leaks including the 4th Generation iPod Nano and iPhone 3G have been left unchallenged by Apple's legal team, whereas, historically, Apple would have issued cease and desist letters to websites hosting such images.

Ciarelli speculates that this change reflects that the fact that Apple rumors are now regularly published by mainstream sites which may not as easily cave to Apple's demands. Apple's previous legal attempts have also legitimized the Apple rumor community and have failed to produce the identities of the leakers.

Ciarelli, himself, is intimately familiar with the topic as he was the owner and editor of ThinkSecret.com, an Apple rumor site that was sued by Apple for the identity of his sources. Apple and ThinkSecret settled in December 2007 in which Ciarelli agreed to shut down the site, but did not reveal any of his sources.

Seeking Alpha summarizes findings by MacObserver forum members who have been compiling iPhone IMEI numbers into a public spreadsheet.

According to those numbers, it appears that Apple may have already reached 10 million iPhone sales for 2008. According to the sequential Type Allocation Codes (TAC), Apple has reached 9.2 million iPhone 3Gs manufactured. When combined with the sales figures 2.4 million 1st generation iPhones sold earlier this year, it brings them well above the 10 million mark even if over a million 3G iPhones remain in the sales channel.

SeekingAlpha notes there are a few assumptions that may introduce some error into these estimates:

The actual number of handsets sold versus manufactured depends on a variety of factors including the amount of inventory Apple carries in its retail chain, defects that were destroyed, defects that were sold and then exchanged, display models etc.

A goal of 10 million iPhone sales in 2008 has been Apple's stated goal when first announced the iPhone in January 2007.

It seems that Apple is taking further care in hiding new iPhone features in their beta releases. The most recent firmware beta seeded to developers listed "compatibility testing" in its release notes as the only change.

We've since heard of a couple of new features buried within the iPhone 2.2 beta. Apple has apparently made underlying changes to the iPhone's frameworks that are not yet exposed to the end user. These findings include:

- Support for Japanese emoji icons (screenshot) -- a popular feature for Japanese phones. The lack of emoji support has been blamed as part of the reason for slow iPhone adoption in Japan.
- Support for Google Street View for the Google Maps application. Street View allows users to view panoramic street level photographs in select cities within the Google Maps application. The feature was recently demoed on Google's Android phone.

Finally, Apple has also addressed one common request within the iPhone's Keyboard settings, allowing users to disable the iPhone's auto-correction.

TUAW believes that the upcoming MacBooks will indeed be powered by NVIDIA chipsets and will be delivered on October 14th.

A source tells us that Nvidia is showing off new MacBooks to their employees, and word is going around that the new versions will be released as soon as October 14th.

Apple was first rumored in July to be incorporating alternative chipsets in future laptops. While Apple would still be using Intel CPUs to power their laptops, the support chips (including graphics) were said to be supplied by a company other than Intel. NVIDIA topped some lists as the most likely supplier. A subsequent report pointed specifically to the use of the MCP7A-U chipset in future MacBooks. This NVIDIA chipset was briefly detailed by Expreview:

MCP7A-U is the top class chipset in the MCP7A family. Though it could be named as GeForce 9XXX, it will be come the first mainstream uATX mobo with DDR3-1333 support. Sources inform us the MCP7A-U will be the fastest mGPU, but who knows.

Such a move would address user complaints about the use of Intel's slower integrated graphics chipsets in current MacBooks. The move would also prepare Apple's laptops for the release of Mac OS X Snow Leopard which will allow applications to utilize the more powerful graphics processing units.

MacRumors has also heard similar whispers which lead us to believe these reports could be true.

9to5Mac finally puts an end to 'Brick' speculation and claims that 'Brick' refers to the new manufacturing process for MacBooks.

The MacBook manufacturing process up to this point has been outsourced to Chinese or Taiwanese manufacturers like Foxconn. Now Apple is in charge. The company has spent the last few years building an entirely new manufacturing process that uses lasers (w/o sharks) and jets of water to carve the MacBooks out of a brick of aluminum.

9to5Mac speculates that this will give Apple strategic and technical advantages over other manufacturers, including improvements in complexity of case design, strength and quality. They also point out that Steve Jobs has been known to focus on the details of factory design with his NeXT startup in the 1980's.

The site also ties this back to recent comments by Peter Oppenheimer that Apple will continue to introduce state of the art products that their competitors are unable to match.

Finally, they expect that the MacBooks will indeed be released on October 14th.

Fring has released the iPhone version of their service today as a free download in the App Store.

Fring allows you to chat and interact with others on a variety of networks including Skype, MSN, GoogleTalk, AIM, Yahoo, Twitter, and ICQ. In addition, Fring offers Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) using the iPhone's Wi-Fi connection. Features listed include:

VoIP (Voice) Calls over WiFi
Instant Messaging
Integrated dynamic contact list 
with real-time contact availability
SIP integration
Multiple Connection types

Fring supports SkypeOut and SIP which allows you to make calls to landline and mobile phones. Some charges may apply depending on the type of call and plan. Fring is available as a free download in the App Store. (App Store Link)

Steve Jobs had said that VoIP calls over Wi-Fi was allowable in the App Store when the iPhone SDK was first released. Fring should also work with the new iPod touch, which supports an external microphone.

Update: Some are confused about the benefits of fring. One user details some of the features:

- Can call directly using iPhone to another person with iPhone running Fring
- Call MSN or Skype users that are using their computer
- Call using Skype account, which allows you to have your own Skype number and at a discount rate for international calls
- Receive phone calls using Skype with your own custom Skype number
- Basic chat functions with most chat platforms, such as AIM, Yahoo and ICQ

Update 2: This YouTube video demos using Fring on an iPod Touch to call a cell phone for free. This Video walks through how it is accomplished.

Last night, an individual started spreading fake rumors of Steve Jobs suffering from a heart attack. The story was posted to CNN's iReport "unedited" and "unfiltered" citizen journalism site and subsequently submitted to Digg.com.

The Digg story then gained attention on 4chan, an unmoderated discussion board, which then proceeded to promote the story as a prank. 4chan most recently gained (even further) notoriety as the discussion forum where vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's email account contents and password were posted.

Apple's stock took a brief dip this morning based on the rumors. An Apple spokesperson has confirmed that the rumor is "not true".

Update: The SEC is investigating to see if this was intentional stock manipulation.

Businessweek's Arik Hesseldahl raises some questions about what the strategic direction Apple will pursue in the next 6 to 24 months.

As obvious as the path to a tablet device seems now, I have trouble imagining the next obvious path that Apple might follow in 2009 and 2010. In fact, the company may very well be nearing a product plateau. And here's the real kicker: That may not be a bad thing.

While Hesseldahl has no hard answers, he suggests Apple might do well to further establish their existing product lines rather than trying to branch out into new territory.

Now, Apple and its customers would be well-served if the company concentrates on making everything better, faster, and cheaper. While the Mac is in the minds of many already a better personal computing platform than Microsoft's Windows, it's time to press the offensive.

The thoughts reflect some comments by our own readers who have felt that Apple has been neglecting their core business of Macs and may have spread themselves too thin with the troubled launch of MobileMe.

Apple generated some headlines on Tuesday when statements by iTunes vice president Eddie Cue suggested that Apple might shut down iTunes rather than pay increased royalty rates to music publishers.

Few took the threat seriously, but CNet reports that the Copyright Royalty Board decided to keep royalty rates at 9.1 cents. Music publishers had been pushing for an increase to 15 cents per track, while Apple was insisting that the price increase would not be tolerated by the market.

The 9.1 cents/track rate is now set for the next five years. An Apple spokesperson stated they were very pleased with the decision.

Apple has also released the Apple TV 2.2 update tonight. Apple TV owners can download the new updates from their Apple TV's by accessing the "Update Software" menu option in their Apple TV's settings.

Aside from addressing some security issues, Apple has also included support for features introduced in iTunes 8.0, including Genius playlists. Features discovered by our forum members include:

- Music Video playlists
- Genius playlists
- On-the-Go Playlists
- Standby Option
- HD TV Show Playback and Purchase