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Autodesk was at Macworld showing off a new product for the Mac called Autodesk Inventor Fusion. Autodesk Inventor Fusion is an existing 3D mechanical design software on Windows, but will soon become available for the Mac for the first time.

Autodesk made headlines back in 2010 when they returned to the Mac platform after a two decade hiatus. Due to the success they’ve seen with their existing Mac products, the company will be bringing Inventor Fusion to the Mac.

In the next few weeks, Autodesk will be releasing a free Technology Preview for the program which will allow Mac users to download an early version and provide feedback. The final release will come at some point later. Inventor Fusion is meant to be an easier to use tool focused on mechanical design which incorporates physical properties of objects.

Autodesk® Inventor® Fusion is 3D modeling software that showcases intuitive direct manipulation capabilities for unrivaled ease of use. By uniting direct modeling and parametric workflows, Inventor Fusion offers the best of both worlds. Designers can freely explore complex shapes and forms while maintaining the underlying parametric history. Inventor Fusion makes it easy to open and edit 3D models from almost any source and incorporate them into your design, enabling rapid design changes without limitations.

The software will include seamless cloud access for storage, collaboration and web viewing. Autodesk has a Facebook page set up for Inventor Fusion and will be announcing the Mac download in the near future.





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U.S. carrier T-Mobile has decided to offer “additional support” to customers using the iPhone on its network, reports TmoNews. While T-Mobile doesn’t sell the iPhone, it reports that more than 1 million unlocked iPhones are used on its network and the additional support will be useful to T-Mobile’s less tech-savvy iPhone users.

T-Mobile will support users who have questions about “common procedures, information about feature and specifications and other basic device questions.” Most T-Mobile iPhone users are limited to T-Mobile’s slower EDGE network due to the iPhone’s incompatibility with the 1700/2100 MHz bands used by the carrier for its faster data networks. Late last year, though, some of T-Mobile’s towers were adjusted for its faster HSPA+ network, moving them to the iPhone-accessible 1900MHz band in some “pockets” of the country.

Earlier this month, T-Mobile claimed the next iPhone chipset could be capable of supporting the carrier’s Advanced Wireless Spectrum, but noted that it didn’t have any specific knowledge of Apple’s future products.

A U.S. District Judge has ruled that an anti-trust case filed against a number of tech companies can continue, saying “they still have an antitrust claim” according to Bloomberg.

[Judge] Koh didn’t take issue with the allegations about the agreements between individual companies, Joseph Saveri, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in an interview after the hearing. Instead, Koh has questions about “how it ties together,” or claims of an over-arching conspiracy between all the companies, he said.

The case goes back more than 5 years, according to the lawsuit, which alleges that “no solicitation” agreements appeared in 2005 between Apple, Adobe, Google, Intel, Intuit, Lucasfilm, and Pixar. The agreements prevented companies from contacting employees at other companies who were party to the agreement, though employees were free to apply for jobs at other institutions.

The agreements were investigated in 2010 by the Justice Department. The claims were eventually settled, with the companies agreeing not to form no-solicitation agreements for five years.

The current lawsuit is a class-action civil suit brought by employees who said they were harmed by the anti-competitive actions of the defendant companies.





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In the wake of yesterday’s report regarding treatment of workers at the facilities of Apple’s suppliers, Apple CEO Tim Cook has sent an email to company employees addressing the situation. As published by 9to5Mac, the email highlights Apple’s efforts to oversee compliance with company standards for workers’ rights and the transparency with which it has shared that information. From Cook’s opening statement:

As a company and as individuals, we are defined by our values. Unfortunately some people are questioning Apple’s values today, and I’d like to address this with you directly. We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain. Any accident is deeply troubling, and any issue with working conditions is cause for concern. Any suggestion that we don’t care is patently false and offensive to us. As you know better than anyone, accusations like these are contrary to our values. It’s not who we are.

Cook thanks those Apple employees who are focused on these issues and notes that the company will continue to increase its efforts.

We will continue to dig deeper, and we will undoubtedly find more issues. What we will not do — and never have done — is stand still or turn a blind eye to problems in our supply chain. On this you have my word.

The New York Times has also highlighted responses from a number of Chinese readers, many of whom note that the issue is certainly not exclusive to Apple and should also be being addressed by government regulations designed to protect workers. Many readers note that China’s cheap labor force has enabled the country’s rapid economic expansion over the last several decades and the culture is so ingrained across all industries that it will be difficult to change.





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Research firm Strategy Analytics today announced its estimates of the global smartphone market for the fourth quarter of 2011, finding that Apple narrowly squeezed by Samsung to retake the title of world’s largest smartphone vendor as measured by unit shipments. According to Strategy Analytics’ numbers, Apple’s 37 million iPhones narrowly eclipsed Samsung’s quarterly smartphone shipments of 36.5 million units.

Neil Mawston, Executive Director at Strategy Analytics, added, “While Apple took the top spot in smartphones on a quarterly basis, Samsung became the market leader in annual terms for the first time with 20 percent global share during 2011. With global smartphone shipments nearing half a billion units in 2011, Samsung is now well positioned alongside Apple in a two-horse race at the forefront of one of the world’s largest and most valuable consumer electronics markets.”

Strategy Analytics showed Apple first taking the title in the second quarter of 2011 as it passed Nokia and held off a surging Samsung to become the world’s largest smartphone vendor. But Apple’s reign at the top was short-lived as Samsung easily topped the list in the third quarter on continued growth paired with a pause in iPhone sales ahead of the iPhone 4S launch. With the iPhone 4S launch now fueling Apple’s numbers, it was able to retake the lead from Samsung in the fourth quarter, although it was not able to top the charts for full-year 2011.

One caveat for numbers released by Strategy Analytics and other research firms comes from the fact that Samsung no longer reports mobile phone sales numbers, ending the practice in mid-2010 for competitive reasons. Consequently, observers can only estimate Samsung’s sales numbers based on the company’s financial performance and other evidence.





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Macworld | iWorld carries the usual collection of iPhone cases and accessories, not all of which are insanely great. But here are a few interesting ones that were on the show floor as I made my way through the masses.

Opena Case and Intoxicase were both showing off iPhone cases with built in bottle openers. Intoxicase’s even integrates with an app that counts the number of openings. Not sure the demand for such a thing, but here they are.

WaveCradle is simple aluminum stand that amplifies the audio coming from your iPhone. The stand simple curves the audio towards the listener and they claim an 8 decibel increase. Cradles cost from $19.85 to $28.50.

Nomad Brush sells capacitive tipped paint brushes for use on your iPad. The iPad can’t sense pressure, so the use of these special brushes is primarily for feel. Artists may be more accustomed to using a brush than their finger. Brushes cost from $18 to $39.

iLidiPhoneCase claims to be the thinnest iPhone wallet case. It’s priced at $39.95 and is shipping in a few weeks. The floor model felt a bit plastic-y, however.








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We briefly mentioned WDC’s press release that they would be showing their new MyBook Thunderbolt Duo at Macworld. Here are photos from the show floor of the unit. As expected, the new drive shares the same appearance as their previous two drive MyBook hardware.

This new model, however, incorporates two Thunderbolt ports that allows the units to be daisy chained with each other to create a single logical drive.

At the show, WDC was showing 4 devices daisy chained with Thunderbolt in a striped configuration. Each MyBook Thunderbolt Duo had two 3TB drives, giving a total capacity of 24TB that appeared on the desktop as one contiguous 24TB device.

The individual drives within each unit are user serviceable/replaceable and can be configured in either RAID 0 or RAID 1 configurations. The product will be available this quarter with pricing to be announced then.





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Valve, the company behind the popular gaming platform Steam, has released a new companion app for iPhone called Steam Mobile as a closed beta. The app allows Steam users to view their Steam friends list, see what games their friends are playing, and chat with players in-game.

Gamers can also browse — and apparently purchase, though the app descriptions are a little fuzzy on that point — the Steam library of titles from the iPhone. However, there is no purchasing of iOS games through the app, something that, aside from the fact that Steam doesn’t support any iOS games, Apple would surely frown upon.

“The Steam app comes from many direct requests from our customers,” said Gabe Newell, co-founder and president of Valve. “Seeing which of your friends are online and playing a game, sending quick messages, looking at screenshots for an upcoming game, or catching a sale – these are all features customers have requested. Mobile is changing way people interact, play games and consume media, and the Steam app is part of our commitment to meet customer demands and expand the service functionality of Steam to make it richer and more accessible for everyone.”

While it has been released as a “closed beta”, users sign up to be included via the app itself.

Steam Mobile for iPhone is available free on the App Store. [Direct Link]

Earlier this week, Apple reported its best quarterly earnings ever, taking in more than $46 billion over three months. 53% of that revenue was from the sale of 37 million iPhones, at an average selling price of nearly $660. This ASP is particularly impressive, considering this is the first quarter that Apple has sold a “free” iPhone in the U.S. — the iPhone 3GS is available for free to new two-year contract signers on AT&T.

Apple’s iPhone ASP has remained fairly consistent, hovering between $622 and $660 for most of the phone’s lifespan. With Apple offering their cheapest iPhones yet this quarter, some analysts wondered if that would have a negative effect on the iPhone’s ASP. It seems that demand for the 64GB iPhone 4S — the most expensive iPhone yet at $849 — has easily offset the cheaper iPhone 3GS and 4 models.

All Things D reports estimates from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners that claim 89% of iPhone purchases in the U.S. were for the iPhone 4S, with only 4% of buyers choosing the iPhone 3GS. More relevant for the discussion above, CIRP estimates that higher-end 4S models sold particularly well, with 21% of 4S purchasers opting for the 64GB model and 34% picking up the 32GB.





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One of Tim Cook’s first acts when he became CEO of Apple was to institute a charitable matching program for employees. Under the program, Apple would match employees’ personal contributions to 501(c)(3) charitable organizations up to $10,000 per year. However, the program initially only applied to US-based full-time employees.

Now, it seems Apple has expanded the program to include part-time US employees as well, and covering international workers soon, according to a tweet from the Apple Retail Workers Union twitter account.

As of November 2011, some two months after the program went into effect, Apple had matched $1.3 million in employee contributions, with the $2.6 million dollars donated in total.





Recent Mac and iOS Blog Stories

• When iPhone Apps Are Reduced In Price, Sales Go Up 22%

• Google Signs Off on Motorola Lawsuit Seeking Injunction Against iPhone 4S and iCloud

• Stephen Fry Narrates The World of Dinosaurs

• iPhone 4S Coming to Indonesia, Costa Rica, and France's Free Mobile on January 27

• Apple Seeds OS X 10.7.3 Build 11D50 to Developers