Apps Store Online

Newly appointed Apple board member and Disney president and CEO Bob Iger purchased 2,670 shares of Apple stock on the open market, according to a filing with the SEC. The average purchase price of the shares was roughly $375, valuing the purchase at $1,001,250.

The large open-market purchase shows Iger’s faith in the future of Apple. When he was appointed director, Iger was awarded 142 restricted stock units, or RSU’s, which vest into AAPL shares in February of 2012. His wife holds 75 shares of Apple from before he was appointed director.

Non-employee Apple board members are typically paid $50,000 per year in compensation for their time, plus an annual stock award in the form of RSU’s.

While a nice perk, Iger’s pay as an Apple director is small change. His compensation package from Disney totaled more than $29.5 million dollars in 2010.

Recent Mac and iOS Blog Stories
• Hungarian Postal Service Issues Steve Jobs Commemorations
• Siri0us Voice Dictation Hack Removed From Cydia Over Licensing Issues
• iFixit Offers Transparent Replacement Glass Back for iPhone 4S
• RIM Branches Out with Enterprise Management Tools for iOS and Android Devices
• Glass Multitouch Keyboard and Mouse Seeking Kickstarter Investment

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has long been one of the strongest advocates for an Apple-branded television set, and with increasing claims of just such a product pointing to a launch as soon as the second half of next year, it seems that his persistent confidence in the idea may be panning out.

Keeping in mind that Munster does not have specific knowledge of Apple’s ultimate plans for its television sets, he does have ideas about what he thinks Apple will do with the product. Business Insider reports that he shared some of those ideas at a conference this morning, going as far as to recommend that anyone thinking of buying a TV wait until Apple shows its hand. Among Munster’s predictions:

- Full-fledged television set. Given that Apple seeks to streamline the user experience and its recognition that users don’t really want yet another set-top box, Apple will almost certainly be going for an all-in-one solution. But given that Apple does not currently offer a full suite of television content offerings, most users will likely not be able to cut ties to their cable or satellite providers. Apple’s TV will instead serve as an advanced interface that still draws upon the standard signal coming in from a cable box.

- Range of sizes and twice current pricing. Munster believes that Apple will introduce its television in a range of sizes, recognizing that customers have different needs. He also believes that Apple will price its television at approximately twice the prevailing market price of similarly-sized televisions. The price premium would cover the additional hardware and software necessary for integration with the Apple ecosystem while also preserving Apple’s high profit margins in a competitive market.

- Simplicity and Apple’s ecosystem. Aside from the rumored Siri voice-powered interface, Munster predicts that the Apple television will integrate with iOS devices and Apple’s content ecosystem for video, games, and apps, serving as another hub for digital entertainment tied into Apple. The interface will likely include a traditional remote control, but also iPad and iPhone apps for controlling the set’s features, as well as Siri voice control that seeks to remove much of the complexity of interacting with television sets. Users will simply be able to input or say “ESPN” to be taken to the sports channel rather than having to look up or remember the channel number.

In line with some of the other predictions and rumors, Munster sees the Apple television set making an introduction late next year, in time for the 2012 holiday shopping season.

Recent Mac and iOS Blog Stories
• Siri0us Voice Dictation Hack Removed From Cydia Over Licensing Issues
• iFixit Offers Transparent Replacement Glass Back for iPhone 4S
• RIM Branches Out with Enterprise Management Tools for iOS and Android Devices
• Glass Multitouch Keyboard and Mouse Seeking Kickstarter Investment
• Next Generation Apple TV Identified as Codename J33

Siri0us, a package for jailbroken iPhones that brings Siri-like dictation to previous generation iPhones, has been removed from the Cydia store. The developer was forced to remove the package after Nuance, the company that makes the voice recognition technology in Siri0us, refused to sell a license to use its offerings in the program.

iDownloadBlog reports that Eric Day, the man behind Siri0us, is looking into free alternatives to Nuance. In the meantime, there’s no indication how long Siri0us will continue to work for those that already have it installed.

Nikkei Business reports [Google translation] that Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo has reached an agreement with Apple that will see an LTE-enabled version of the iPad launch next summer, with an LTE iPhone to follow in the fall. The agreement is said to have been hammered out in discussions that saw NTT DoCoMo senior executives travel to Cupertino earlier this month to meet with Apple CEO Tim Cook.

The two companies reportedly reached a basic agreement on bringing the next-generation iPad and iPhone to the carrier, with more specific negotiations now focusing on details such as guaranteed sales volumes. Earlier this month it was reported that Apple and NTT DoCoMo were in discussions about the iPhone but that DoCoMo was hesitant to agree to Apple’s demands on unit volume and its refusal to allow the carrier to add its own applications to the device.

Apple has yet to add LTE technology, which will enable faster data speeds, to its mobile devices over battery life concerns and a simple lack of chips appropriate for Apple’s needs. But with carriers such as Verizon reaching a significant buildout of LTE and other major carriers also in the early stages of rolling out the faster network technology to their customers, Apple may be looking to take advantage of forthcoming LTE chips from Qualcomm to begin supporting the technology in 2012.

Recent Mac and iOS Blog Stories
• iFixit Offers Transparent Replacement Glass Back for iPhone 4S
• RIM Branches Out with Enterprise Management Tools for iOS and Android Devices
• Glass Multitouch Keyboard and Mouse Seeking Kickstarter Investment
• Next Generation Apple TV Identified as Codename J33
• Kickstarter Project Aims To Make MacBook Air Dock

At Apple’s “Let’s Talk iPhone” event in October, Epic Games showed off some visuals from Infinity Blade II, the sequel to the company’s ground-breaking and profitable title launched nearly a year ago. Infinity Blade, utilizing Epic’s Unreal Engine 3, has been highly-regarded for its rich visual textures and gesture-based input in fighting scenes.

As an encore performance, Infinity Blade II is making its way into the App Store today, with our sister site TouchArcade calling it “an iOS masterpiece”.

Infinity Blade 2 is a step a step or two beyond what was accomplished in the original, adding in layers and layers of next-level environmental and character texture detail on top of a ton of fantastic ambient touches — sharper shadows, stronger lighting, and a glut of atmospheric effects bolster what’s already a visual delight, especially on iPad 2 and iPhone 4S.

…

It’s a consistently well put together visual feast that shows off what Unreal 3, and now your new devices, can do.

Beyond the enhanced visuals, Infinity Blade 2 also advances the storyline of the original game and expands the combat experience to include more options and less predictable enemies.

Infinity Blade II has already appeared in Apple’s Asia-Pacific App Stores such as in New Zealand [App Store], and should be hitting the U.S. store priced at $6.99 at 11:00 PM Eastern Time tonight.

Update: Infinity Blade II is now available in the U.S. App Store.

Recent Mac and iOS Blog Stories
• iFixit Offers Transparent Replacement Glass Back for iPhone 4S
• RIM Branches Out with Enterprise Management Tools for iOS and Android Devices
• Glass Multitouch Keyboard and Mouse Seeking Kickstarter Investment
• Next Generation Apple TV Identified as Codename J33
• Kickstarter Project Aims To Make MacBook Air Dock

The New York Post reports on some of the details of Apple’s contract with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) for its Grand Central Terminal retail store, noting that Apple received an extremely favorable deal for the space compared to other tenants at the terminal. Among the most significant concessions made by the MTA was a lack of any revenue sharing from what has been estimated to be a potential $100 million per year sales location.

But while real estate insiders estimate the shop will rake in $100 million a year in sales, Apple won’t be sharing a nickel with Grand Central’s operator, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The tech giant is the only retailer in the fast-growing retail transit hub to have such a sweet lease.

Critics likewise note that Apple’s $60-a-square-foot lease is well below what many other tenants are paying — including a future Shake Shack burger joint that will be shelling out more than $200 a square foot, according to the leases, copies of which have been obtained by The Post.

All other tenants at the terminal with the exception of a Chase ATM branch pay a percentage of their sales to the MTA once an agreed-upon threshold has been reached. The MTA has apparently been willing to sacrifice such an arrangement in order to land Apple as a tenant, projecting that the company’s presence will drive increased sales at many of the over 100 other retail stores at the terminal.

Apple’s Grand Central Terminal retail store (Thanks, Tom!)

Apple has posted digital signage advertising the forthcoming store, with The New York Post having indicated that it will be opening on December 9th.

Recent Mac and iOS Blog Stories
• iFixit Offers Transparent Replacement Glass Back for iPhone 4S
• RIM Branches Out with Enterprise Management Tools for iOS and Android Devices
• Glass Multitouch Keyboard and Mouse Seeking Kickstarter Investment
• Next Generation Apple TV Identified as Codename J33
• Kickstarter Project Aims To Make MacBook Air Dock

Following the release of Final Cut Pro X back in June, Apple received a significant amount of criticism from users unhappy with the direction the company had taken with the professional-level video editing software and the many features that had gone missing in the revamp. The outcry resulted in Apple posting an FAQ on the situation and promising that updates to increase the software’s functionality would be coming.

fcp.co now points (via Cult of Mac) to a recent interview with RHED Pixel founder Richard Harrington in which he claims that Apple had completed work on a new 64-bit Final Cut Pro 8 product before scrapping the software to build the revamped Final Cut Pro X. According to Harrington:

There was a Final Cut 8 and it was 64bit and it was done and they looked at it and said ‘This is not what we want to do, this is evolutionary, this is not revolutionary’ and they killed it.

Curiously, the video of Harrington’s interview was removed from public view after his comment was publicized by fcp.co.

The report notes there has been no corroborating evidence of a finished Final Cut Pro 8 product, but also that there is no reason to disbelieve Harrington and that it does not appear that the comment has been taken out of context.

Update: Harrington did note in a Tweet that the comment was misunderstood and that he had merely “heard efforts were well underway then killed”. He did also comment on the fcp.co article:

I do not have explicit knowledge of FCP8. Wasn’t saying I did. Wasn’t implying I did.

Just repeating rumors I had heard multiple times. I had been told many times that there were efforts to bring 64 bit to the type of interface used in FCP7.

Harrington’s backtracking conflicts with what fcp.co’s thought was a clear interpretation, but it does appear that “Final Cut Pro 8″ was not nearly in as finished a form as had been initially thought from his statement.

Recent Mac and iOS Blog Stories
• iFixit Offers Transparent Replacement Glass Back for iPhone 4S
• RIM Branches Out with Enterprise Management Tools for iOS and Android Devices
• Glass Multitouch Keyboard and Mouse Seeking Kickstarter Investment
• Next Generation Apple TV Identified as Codename J33
• Kickstarter Project Aims To Make MacBook Air Dock

The Next Web summarizes several reports from the Brazilian media claiming that Apple is preparing to launch its iTunes Music Store in Brazil and perhaps throughout Latin America on December 8th. While users in many of these countries currently have access to the App Store, they have been unable to purchase music through iTunes.

According to the weekly Brazilian magazine Veja, the launch of iTunes Music Store even has a date, being scheduled for December 8th. While it seems very soon, Apple has been getting ready beyond the scenes and already closed deals with Brazilian music labels, Veja said.

…

Veja followed up on its initial piece today, declaring that the Store will launch all across Latin America on the same date, except in Mexico where it is already available.

The report notes that the iTunes Music Store, like the App Store in these countries, will offer pricing in U.S. dollars rather than local currencies, requiring users to hold international credit cards for paid purchases. According to Veja, local currency pricing should arrive for Latin American countries in about six months. The situation is reminiscent of the one in China, where Apple initially required payment in U.S. currency for the App Store but recently began accepting the local renminbi currency.

Apple appears to be taking significant steps to increase its presence in Brazil and the broader Latin American market, working with manufacturing partner Foxconn to launch iPhone and iPad production in Brazil in order to avoid high import taxes that have so far hampered adoption of Apple’s products there.

Update: The Associated Press reports that Brazil’s major music publishers organization is close to a deal with Apple, setting the stage for an iTunes Store launch by the middle of December.

Executive Director Michaela Couto of the Brazilian Union of Music Publishers tells the O Globo newspaper that negotiations with Apple Inc. are at an “advanced stage” and that iTunes could be launched in Brazil by mid-December.

Recent Mac and iOS Blog Stories
• iFixit Offers Transparent Replacement Glass Back for iPhone 4S
• RIM Branches Out with Enterprise Management Tools for iOS and Android Devices
• Glass Multitouch Keyboard and Mouse Seeking Kickstarter Investment
• Next Generation Apple TV Identified as Codename J33
• Kickstarter Project Aims To Make MacBook Air Dock

Sydney Morning Herald reports that an Australian court has lifted the ban of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia, reversing a previous injunction.

The full bench of the Federal Court – Justices John Dowsett, Lindsay Foster and David Yates – today unanimously reversed a Federal Court judge’s ruling last month that Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 be banned from sale in Australia.

“Samsung will be permitted to launch the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia provided it keeps accounts of all transactions involving that device in Australia,” the judges wrote in their judgment.

Apple, however, was able to extend the ban until Friday at 4pm while it prepares for an appeal to the High Court.

For those who have been following the legal battles between the two companies, Apple has been trying to ban Samsung’s Galaxy tablet in a number of markets due to similarities to the iPad design. In this case, Apple had previously obtained an injunction preventing Samsung from selling the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia. The Galaxy Tab had also been blocked in Germany.

Recent Mac and iOS Blog Stories
• iFixit Offers Transparent Replacement Glass Back for iPhone 4S
• RIM Branches Out with Enterprise Management Tools for iOS and Android Devices
• Glass Multitouch Keyboard and Mouse Seeking Kickstarter Investment
• Next Generation Apple TV Identified as Codename J33
• Kickstarter Project Aims To Make MacBook Air Dock

iFixit has introduced a transparent glass replacement back for the iPhone 4S. The glass, which retails for $29.95, completely replaces the rear glass on the iPhone — making it useful for replacing a broken rear back or simply for a unique look.

Depending on the age of the iPhone 4, it may need iFixit’s “liberation kit” to remove the newer “pentalobe screws” from the iPhone.

The instructions for installing the rear glass are simple and straightforward for the mechanically inclined. The transparent rear panel is available for the iPhone 4 (GSM) and 4S from iFixit.